paperboats

2006-07-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

love to draw trees, hate to draw leaves

2006-06-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

forget about your house of cards

2006-06-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

A few more, while she has a free moment...

house of cards [live 06/04/06]: radiohead
4 minute warning [live 06/04/06]: radiohead
nude [live 06/04/06]: radiohead

used to be alright...what happened?

2006-06-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

Even though these have been posted elsewhere for download, she feels compelled to post them again. She has listened to these songs over and over and over again, never growing tired of them, ready to hear them live and in person. She bought Radiohead tickets off of a certain popular auction site after unsuccessfully trying to buy them the second they went on sale. The fact that she had to buy them at three times the face value from someone on the other side of the country made her furious, but she bought them just the same, because she cannot miss her favorite band. She has been to at least one of their shows every time they have been on the West Coast.

The songs that Thom & Co. have been debuting at concerts so far have been outstanding; she thinks these songs may be some of the finest material they've come up with since OK Computer. Don't get her wrong; she isn't one of those people who bash Kid A and Amnesiac just because they're complicated and wildly different from everything else put out these days. She loves both albums for their differentness and she thoroughly enjoyed listening repeatedly to both albums before the love developed. Hail to the Thief was also a great album, but it wasn't her favorite. These songs they've been playing live are phenomenal, and Thom, for one, seems happy and full of his frenetic energy that she loves.

Songs were performed live in Boston on June 4, 2006. All are highly recommended. Right click and save. Enjoy.

15 step [live]: radiohead (new song)
videotape [live]: radiohead (new song)
kid a [live]: radiohead

how to kill a half-hour a day

2006-06-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

throw your arms together

2006-06-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

She sat in the back of the room, watching the war of polite words and chewed tongues in silence. She does not have much of a poker face, but she fought to keep it straight during this meeting between her bosses and those that hold the purse strings. She observed some alliances between individuals that she did not previously realize, and thought about loyalty, respect, and the fact that she and a recruiter from another company had just had a 45 minute telephone interview that went very well indeed (however she struggled a bit with the questions about compensation, as she always does).

Across the aisle from her in the large meeting room with stadium-type setup sat two managers. The woman sat in the seat directly behind the man, arriving late, and the two barely looked at each other but the man did give a small wave over his shoulder. The woman began to fiddle with her day planner and pulled out a paper. She used the paper to tap lightly on the side of the man, who took it and read it, then passed it back to her along with a picture he took from his planner. She retrieved the paper and returned the picture. All the while, they did not speak nor touch nor pay much attention to what was being said in the meeting. She knows that both managers are married, though not to each other, and are living together. This isn't widely known. However, anyone who saw them together would guess. She smiled at them behind her hand.

The meeting turned uglier and she and the managers were asked to leave so it could get worse in private. She watched the two walk out together, careful not to touch, not to give anything away.

ma solituda: the catherine wheel

the subway she is a porno

2006-05-24T23:40:00.000-07:00

She believes that cars, like the saying is with dogs, age seven years for every one human year. So every morning, when she rolls her elderly car out of the driveway, it groans and creaks and is stiff when she tries to shift. She eases it out of the garage and onto the street, but after that she will gun the engine and swerve between even more elderly vehicles and their brain-dead drivers. She does not consider the "speed limit" any kind of limit, only a suggestion for what one's minimum speed should be. This is usually because she is almost always running a few minutes late in the morning and needs to hurry up and drop off the child and get to work before she really is late. Is it any surprise that she lives in a metropolitan area where cars outnumber people?

That said, she wishes there was some way she could take the subway to work. The subway pictures she has seen other bloggers take show all faces and facets of humanity, and gives a glimpse into the lives of strangers. The conversations recorded on overheard further inflame her desire to ride a train to work, to be given the opportunity to eavesdrop on other's lives and wishes and hopes and dreams. Possibly this is some sick indication of her loneliness, her feeling of isolation in a room full of people. Perhaps. But it is a desire to get on a vehicle and not have to control it, to have a moment to herself without having to do anything. She fantasizes about riding the subway, coming to the stop where the child would get off to go to school, kissing him goodbye and sending him out the door. Then she would put on her headphones and relax, lean her head against the window and watch the world go by. Or she would listen idlily to others' cell-phone or early morning conversations. On the way home from work she would have some time to chill out and debrief herself from the stress of work, instead of fighting traffic and not having any alone time. She could people watch or just enjoy the scenery. Wouldn't it be loverly?

nyc: interpol

i'm a bad decision maker

2006-05-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since she felt like putting words here in this blog. She comes here often, opens up a blank post, and sits with nothing to say (much like she's doing now). She leads a relatively uneventful and unimportant life that doesn't need reporting and few would want to read. She wakes, goes to work. She works, comes home, makes dinner, does chores, goes to bed. Then it begins anew. The things that make her laugh with her friends at work are either too hard to explain without a huge backstory (you had to be there) or are easily forgotten when she sits at the computer late at night, half drunk from several vodka shots, after the husband has passed out, drooling on his shirt and on the arm of the couch. She is rarely anything but tired and resigned these days, except when listening to music.

Enjoy.

long distance four: the constantines
karma in the life: go home productions (radiohead/beatles mashup)
test transmission: kasabian
high heels: the catherine wheel
needle in the hay: elliott smith

ten tidbits

2006-05-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

1. The library in her hometown always smelled strongly of honeysuckle, a sweet and lovely scent.

2. come on home: franz ferdinand

3. She will argue vehemently for something, for days if necessary, then once she gets what she wants, she no longer wants it.

4. non photo blue: pinback

5. She stares at other women's asses constantly. She cannot determine if it is mostly because she likes to look at them, or if she is comparing them with her own.

6. interstate 5: the wedding present

7. She knows, even though she's been visiting job websites, she's not going to be taking another job anytime soon, for the same reasons she didn't leave the one she's currently in.

8. monterey: starflyer 59

9. She knows she's writing this just for herself and the songs she uploads [for review purposes only] will never be downloaded by anyone.

10. a passing feeling: elliott smith

places she has never been...

2006-04-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

...and is unlikely to visit:

constantinople: the decemberists
via chicago [live]: wilco
brooklyn stars: matt pond PA
down under: men at work
manchuria: pinback

when you feel embarrassed then i'll be your pride

2006-03-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

She knew since Monday morning what she would do after work on Friday night. She came home, ran upstairs, and tossed her suit jacket on the bed. She slid her trousers off and tossed them in the hamper, pulling her knee-highs off in the same motion. She removed her binding, uncomfortable undergarments and slipped on her old beloved sweats, well-worn and comforting. She grabbed the husband's old tan brown sweatshirt and pulled it over her head, it's clean-smelling goodness and warmth enveloping her. She completed the look by commandeering his black slippers, big and soft and toasty for her feet, and by pulling her hair back in a sloppy ponytail.

Fridays are awesome.

passenger seat: death cab for cutie

i know how i begin and how i'll end

2006-03-24T22:47:00.000-08:00

Her final week of work began with her working on Saturday for hours, trying to finish everything she had put to the side, to be finished later, always later. She struggled to write a desk manual, not knowing how to put "does everything" in a way someone could possibly understand. She pulled papers out of the bottom of her inbox and filed them somewhere other than the bottom of her inbox. She sat at her desk and cried, silently and tearless, frustrated and so very unsure of her decision to leave.

On Monday morning, she learned of the going-away party they had planned for her, to be held on Thursday, and showed her the lovely, heartfelt invitation that would be sent out. Her boss and co-workers asked her what she wanted in a party, and she had no words. They wanted to take her out, as a department, and give her their own good luck, farewell occasion. All she could think of was how much she didn't want to leave.

On Tuesday, she thought of all the changes this new job would incur in her life, and that of her family. The commute would be bad, and would be exacerbated by the fact that she would have to drive a long way in one direction to take the child to school, and then turn around, go past her house, and go another long, traffic-clogged distance to the new job. The child would see less of her than he already does, and the family unit would be so tired once they all were together, the quality time, such as it is now, would be greatly diminished. Next year, she would have to send him to a particularly terrible school in the area near her home, and turn him into a latchkey kid, something she wanted to avoid. And so she began to wonder again, why is she doing this?

On Wednesday, she began to voice these thoughts to others, first to those with no real opinion one way or another, but those she trusted to give her honest advice. These people confirmed her thoughts about staying, encouraging her to think again and make the right decision before it was too late. In the afternoon, she sat down with her boss and asked what she needed to do to keep her job. Her boss was shocked, struck temporarily dumb by this stroke of good, unexpected luck. First off, her boss wanted to be sure this is what she really wanted to do, and wasn't being swayed by anything anyone had said to her in the office about staying. Secondly, her boss welcomed her back with a hug and an almost audible relaxation of her shoulders. Staff was directed to contact everyone to whom the goodbye invite was sent and tell them the good news.

So, she stayed, and the consensus from all is that everyone is glad she stayed. She likes her job, loves the people, and she feels good about her choice.

However, yesterday she downloaded and burned a Jon Secada CD as a favor for a co-worker, which made her want to hurl.

strung out again: elliott smith
all good naysayers, speak up! or forever hold your peace!: sufjan stevens
first instant, last report: earlimart
everything in its right place: radiohead
sick of you: nada surf [non-album track]
farmer chords: ben gibbard & andrew kenny

look at a place far away from here

2006-03-10T22:46:00.000-08:00

She was finally offered the new job, the job she worked so hard to get, the same that she sweated over, the one that she lay awake nights for. The offer wasn't as great as she had hoped, but it was sufficient enough for her to accept, for the possibility of growth and upward mobility. She turned in her notice and her boss went out to her car and cried. Her co-workers keep asking her why, why is she leaving, her best friend telling her to stay, stay, stay. The crush keeps giving her these sad faces, has repeatedly asked her if this is an elaborate joke, and has been hanging out even more than usual, which is quite a bit. But there's nowhere for her to go in her present job and there are no raises on the horizon. This new job is outside of the industry where she's worked for over ten years, it's something completely new and completely different.

She is having an internal struggle with herself, and she's been asking herself the same question as those around her: why? Why leave a job she knows front and back, why leave the comfort zone and an easy day, an easy life? Why complicate things more than they need to be, why turn things over to see what's beneath, why rock the boat? Every time she gets a job, she learns it with ease and quickly becomes indispensible. After two years anywhere, she gets antsy and starts looking for something else, something better, another opportunity.

But this is the first job she's ever had that she'll miss when she's gone: the people, the complexity, the environment, the power that she held, however miniscule. She's beginning to regret her decision, to wish she never accepted the new position. She's even asked her boss if she would be hired back if she doesn't like the new position. In a heartbeat, in a New York minute, without hesitation, she was told. These people love her, they are her friends in and outside of work. Now she's going where nobody knows her and nobody gives a damn.

i'll believe in anything: wolf parade
(she cannot get over what a fantastic song this is)

constant blue

2006-02-19T01:34:00.000-08:00

It's raining. It's raining and it's cold but it's okay, and she's sitting at her computer desk, looking out into the night, listening only to the sounds of her fingers on the keyboard and to the taps of the rain on the window. She sits with no socks on but her feet are curled under the hems of her sweats and are toasty warm. She's been staring at the screen of her computer for the better part of today and her vision is bleary, as if she has driven hundreds of miles.

She read this and she wondered what makes her, her? She's unsure. But she knows the things about her that she doesn't like, all the things she wants to change and doesn't, or can't. Mostly doesn't. She needs something to wake her up, to shake her gently, and then not so gently, by the shoulder. Something to whisper in her ear and force her to realize that she's not really living, she's just passing time.

She constantly feels as though she's in a state of waiting for something to happen. Sometimes she sets these things up for herself: she's waiting for a call to see if she got the new job (not yet), she's waiting for Sunday so that she can read secrets, she's waiting to buy a house so that she can decorate it how she wants and feel at home, instead of bare apartment-white walls and none of her within. Other times, it's just a vague sense of anticipation, but not excitement, like standing in a line or in a doctor's waiting room for her turn to have a flu shot.

But then she doesn't even know who she is. She knows who she used to be, and who she wants to be. She knows that a few pictures on the wall of a house won't make her feel at home; she doesn't even feel comfortable inside her own skin. And suddenly she cannot stand to hear the silence between raindrops on the panes of glass, and she turns on the music to drown her thoughts.

wait: death cab for cutie
your legs grow:nada surf
same ghost every night: wolf parade

i've got your number

2006-02-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you're thinking of moving, don't try moving to the metropolian ooze that is her area, where there are more area codes than there are in most states, where traffic creeps and morals sleep, where house prices are skyrocketing to unbelievable heights, where a family who grosses more than $150,000 a year cannot afford to live in a shack. The air is filthy, the crime rate high, the utilities costly. It's the place that worldwide, people dream of, to make it big, to be a star. And where so many come to find that they will never realize that dream, where they figure out that you have to know someone who knows someone. Where you're never quite sure if that's the nose that girl was born with, if those are her breasts, or are they constructed of silicone.

But even as she complains about it, it's home, the only home she's ever known, the only place she's ever wanted to live. She's visited a few places, but they don't feel like this to her. She adores the bright blue sky, but she misses the stars at night. She delights in the sights and the sounds but abhorrs the helicopter in seemingly permacircle over her home. And she loves the wide variety of homes here, some built in the early 1900's, in the craftsman style, complete with built-in shelves and drawers and hardwood floors, to some built last month in the cookie-cutter style, with paper-thin walls and yards too small to fit a doghouse in.

And she hates that she can't afford to buy any house here, of either kind.

los angeles, i'm yours: the decemberists
california waiting: kings of leon

Great stuff from Elbow's second album, Cast of Thousands:
fallen angel: elbow
snooks [progress report]: elbow
i've got your number: elbow
buttons and zips: elbow

how high?

2006-02-12T01:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes she really misses getting high. It was a much easier way of getting shitfaced and forgetting about everything troubling about her life than by getting drunk. She has never been a big drinker, mostly because once she's past the point where the taste no longer bothers her, she loses all control, drinks excessively and crazily, and ends up getting horrendously sick [leading to some very embarrassing situations]. With the pot, all she had to do was take a couple of puffs and she was in a place where nothing mattered and time passed without a second thought.

She actually used to smoke a lot. She wasn't depressed much during that time, because she didn't do anything or think hard about anything. Her brain was like mush; she didn't care enough about anything to be depressed about it. Smoking was all she cared about, because once she was high, all concerns left her. She would smoke at every opportunity, and it was easy, since so many people in her life smoked. Then some quit, some changed, and she stayed the same. It became harder to buy weed, and she found herself hiding and lying to others about the fact that she still smoked. Finally, eventually, she admitted to herself that she needed to quit. And so she just stopped buying it.

It was easy to quit - if it wasn't in her possession, she knew she'd be okay. There had been a stretch of a few months when she had quit before, because she was trying for a new job and thought she might need to take a drug test. When she got hired and no drug test was given, she thought only for a split second about staying off the weed. But at the first opportunity, she started again. But the last time, she just kept it away from her and she went cold turkey. She's been around it since then and easily passed on taking a toke.

But sometimes, like today....oh, she just wished for that oblivion, that carefree, weightless feeling.

More great lyrics on random [okay, the first one she picked]

you think you were my first love/ but you're wrong/ you were the only one
i know very well how i got my name: colin meloy [the smiths cover]

feel the hollowness inside of your heart/ and it's all right where it belongs
right where it belongs: nine inch nails

you make the sound of laughter/ and sharpened nails seem softer
ana's song [acoustic]: silverchair

and then the leaves turn to brown/ another year turns around/ i'm hurting, vultures are circling/ it never gets better, it never gets better
hurtin' 4 certain: the russian futurists

i am a writer, writer of fictions/ i am the heart that you call home/ and i've written pages upon pages/ trying to rid you from my bones
the engine driver: the decemberists

ipod randomness

2006-02-10T21:47:00.000-08:00

She has seriously neglected this blog...she is contemplating if she should shut it all down or not. She's using it mostly for the links to the right, to read their blogs.

Great lyrics to random songs on her iPod

she appears composed/ so she is, i suppose/ who can really tell?
waltz no. 2: elliot smith

there are lotions/ there are potions/ you can take to hide your shame/ from all those prying eyes
lazy line painter jane: belle and sebastian

ambition makes you look pretty ugly/ kicking squealing gucci little piggy
paranoid android: radiohead

you know a neutral sky/ and nothing to do at night/ little highway lights/ they shine
it's a curse: wolf parade

swoon, baby, starry nights/ may our bodies remain/ as deep we move i'll feed you light/ may our bodies remain/ in history i'll treat you right/ i'm honest that way
public pervert: interpol

it's better to burn out/ than to fade away
my my hey hey (out of the blue): neil young

something always takes the place/ of missing pieces/ you can take and put together even though/ you know there's something missing
missing: beck

never for money/ always for love
this must be the place (naive melody): talking heads

she shines with her own kind of light/ she'd look at you once/ and a day that's all wrong/ looks all right
kentucky woman: sun kil moon [neil diamond cover]

between the click of the light and the start of the dream
no cars go: the arcade fire

and as the spotlights fade away/ and you're escorted through the foyer/ you will resume your callow ways/ but I was meant for the stage
i was meant for the stage: the decemberists

coachella

2006-02-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

She will go to Coachella again this year. She missed last year and was terribly sorry. It will not happen again. Tickets go on sale this weekend - see you there!

all i want for xmas is my two front bling bling

2006-01-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

What she wanted for Christmas this year: Some terribly romantic adventure or gift, not necessarily expensive, just something different, unexpected, exciting, and fun.

What the husband wanted for Christmas this year: a "grill", i.e., teeth like this guy:

What they both received for Christmas: nothing.

music's all i need to get by

2006-01-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

She has been contemplating starting a music blog instead of continuing this weepy blog of her personal secrets and shames. While the blog has been unmistakably helpful to her, allowing her to unload things she cannot discuss in her offline life, it is hard for her to write some of the things she writes and even from here, she holds things back. The maintenance of this blog is basically nil, thanks much to the site that reliably hosts it, unless she gets the itch to redecorate. When she abandons it for over a month, it is still there, and she is glad for it. So maybe she won't stop writing her theraputic stories; it is far, far cheaper than therapy and almost better.

She has been in therapy twice, both with male therapists, and both times, she felt her time and money were wasted. The first time, her therapist was generally quiet and allowed her to talk about whatever was on her mind. However, she felt the need to be guided, prompted, poked with a stick, but was too frightened or stupid to tell him this. She felt shy and uncomfortable with him, and spent the majority of her hours sitting on his couch, a hugging a pillow to her chest, talking about things that sounded so trite and inconsequential the moment they left her mouth. He sent her to a psychiatrist?...in any case, one of the doctors who could prescribe her an antidepressant. They prescribed her Prozac at the lowest dose, for her to take for a month or so, and then they might up the dose. She felt no change with the pill, and even though the doctor told her not to expect it to work right away, she had hoped for a major turnaround. When this didn't happen, she stopped taking the pills and stopped going to see the therapist.

The second time, she saw a different therapist and felt the same way: like she was depressed about the husband not doing the dishes and about the child not listening to her. But it was more than this, in ways she could not explain, she could not and cannot, even today, vocalize. The therapist tried to get her to take antidepressants but she refused, and then he pressed and pressed her about why she was unwilling to take the pills she figured wouldn't help. She finally stopped going to see him too, but was still as depressed as before.

She has thought about going to see someone else, and being serious about taking the pills she knows they will offer her. Maybe if she takes them religiously, maybe if she tells a therapist (maybe a woman this time?) what she needs, how she really feels, her honest thoughts (because she wasn't always honest with the therapists either, wonder why they couldn't help her??), maybe she'll feel better. Maybe.

In any case, she's not sure she'd keep up a music blog any better than she does this one.

iPod random shuffle (up to 1,990 songs and counting):
this heart's on fire: wolf parade
gimme shelter: the rolling stones
mountain: the harvey girls [not girls, strangely enough]
we can have it: the dears
the needle and the damage done: neil young

back

2006-01-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

So where has she been? It's been a long time since she posted, over a month to be sure. So much has happened, and yet so little.

After Thanksgiving, she got very sick with the flu or something. It caused her to want to do as little as possible after she got home from work, made dinner, cleaned up, and did all the usual stuff. She put aside the iPod, she rarely approached the computer, but instead fell into her bed as soon as the last dish was washed and the kitchen light switched off. She dragged through her days, making mistakes at work, being short-tempered at home, and struggling to get ready for the holidays, which seemed to barrel toward her like a meteor.

Once she finally began to feel like herself again, the child came home with a flu so vicious the whole house was brought down, and even though she could barely think or breathe without coughing, it was she they relied upon for comfort. It was she who concocted chicken soup out of nothing but powdered chicken bouillon and some chopped spaghetti noodles when no one could manage the trek to the grocery store. It was she who finally made it to the pharmacy and loaded up on canned soup, juice, water, and cold medicine. It was she who felt sick the longest and who, even now, still has the husky voice of someone who coughs with a chest cold at night (not the sexy, husky voice, sadly).

During this time, she interviewed for a new job, in an industry she has never worked in before, doing a job she has never held. But her background involves many of the job duties, and she thought of it as a wonderful opportunity. She flew through the first interview, coughed and wheezed during her presentation during the second interview, but wasn't selected for the position. Her chest tightened even more upon receiving that news, but the company has contacted her again for another opening, interviews to be scheduled soon, and she waits.

And then, there were the holidays.

So to her, it seems much has happened, but maybe not. In any case, it is nice to be back.

vacation's all i ever wanted

2005-11-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

She is going on vacation for a week or so and won't have internet access. It's a scary thought. She leaves some random songs for your listening pleasure...

sick of myself: death cab for cutie [matthew sweet cover]
believe me natalie: the killers
misunderstood [live]: wilco
ride [rabbit hole remix]: the doves

Still have to pack.

a couple of weeks or so in her life

2005-11-10T23:21:00.000-08:00

She caught herself thinking, "I wish I was young again," and realized she's not even thirty yet and she's resigned herself to being old. She doesn't get along well with women her own age, preferring the company of women her over 35, and those closer to her mother's age. She is too serious in her manner. She has been told by many that she is an old soul.

The divorced guy at work who flirts with her, tells her all about his kids, and who stares at her breasts asked her, "what happened to you?" and asked why she hadn't been doing her hair recently. That particular morning, she spent more time on it than she had in the past week. Today, she spent even more time on it, curling and styling it so she could make a point, and he called in "sick" the day before a holiday.

She's going to see Death Cab for Cutie tomorrow night, the first concert she's ever attended by herself. She's been listening to only them on her iPod so she can sing along at the show. While she likes most DCfC songs, she has her favorites and these she knows the lyrics to very well. It's the others, that she doesn't listen to as often, that she feels she needs a refresher on. She is not looking forward to a bunch of teenybopper kids at this show. Although she isn't old (see aforementioned statement regarding feeling old), she wants to enjoy the show without little kids getting in the way, especially those to saw the band on the O.C. or learned of them through another annoying teen friend and now thinks they are cool. The husband wants her to go out and buy some Mace so that she's protected when walking back to her care after the show. She'd like to use it on some kids who are bound to annoy her in the venue.

Her insomnia is back so instead of sleeping she thinks about an imaginary apartment in a big old house that has been split into four apartments. She lives on the upper floor, accessed by a big staircase inside the house, which has a decent kitchen/eating area, a small living room with a big bay window and one wall all bookshelves, and one bedroom with walk-in closet and a bathroom with a real tub. In her dream, she lives alone.

She checked out about 15 books from the local library. One is Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, which she is reading with the child. He tells her he doesn't like to read, which breaks her heart to hear, since reading is such an important part of her life. She feels he would miss out on a whole world if he doesn't become a reader. However, he is like her in the sense that he'll read a scrap of paper with some scribbles on it if it's the only available thing to read.

She baked chocolate chip cookies earlier in the week. She loves to cook, she hates to bake. There's a world of difference. So it's worth a mention that she actually made, from scratch, something that requires baking. She did not buy the dough that comes in the tube, she did not buy the cookies that come in a slab, all round and ready to be placed at regular intervals on a cookie tray. She assembled the requirements and squinted at the tiny print on the side of the NAME BRAND chocolate chip bag. She measured and mixed and added eggs one at a time. These cookies were breathtakingly delicious, compared to the waxy and plastic tasting pre-made cookie dough cookies. She has vowed never to buy those again. She realizes that this means she won't eat chocolate chip cookies more than once every couple of years.

She used to love her neck. When she was in high school, she admired her long, white neck. The skin was lovely and smooth and it flowed so nicely over her collarbone and over her upper chest. Now, she hates her neck. No one ever tells you that when you have children, especially boy children, that hair sprouts places where there was no hair before. She did not know she would have to chase unsightly hair with tweezers every day or else have a five o'clock shadow-type appearance. You think she is kidding, but she is not.

The child volunteered to bring home the class rats this weekend. She doesn't mind rats, in fact, she kind of likes them. But one has a massive tumor growing on its underside, and it pains her to watch the rat pull itself up and down the stairs of its cage, dragging the tumor around...it's horrible. She wishes the teacher would have the rat put to sleep instead of enduring this terrible growth. She doesn't even want to look at it. Apparently, according to her preschool teacher friend, rats are prone to tumors. Who knew?

Enjoy the next five Death Cab songs that randomly play on her iPod:

different names for the same thing: death cab for cutie
state street residential: death cab for cutie
a lack of color: death cab for cutie (a favorite - she knows all the words)
president of what: death cab for cutie
pictures in an exhibition: death cab for cutie

it's a lullaby from a giant golden radio

2005-10-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

She forgot what a profound and powerful experience live concerts are. She hasn't been to many over the last few years, not that she ever really went to a lot of shows. She loves to see bands in small venues, before the rest of the world sees the greatness she sees in them, jacks up the ticket prices, and drives them to larger arenas where she cannot see the sweat on their brows or see them dance around the stage.

She saw Matthew Sweet once in a little club, and he watched her sing his words back at him through the whole show. He pulled her onstage at the end and met her after the show, where he signed her CD covers and gave her a kiss and a hug. She saw Depeche Mode at the Staples Center where the acoustics sucked and she could barely differentiate between Dave Gahan and Martin Gore (there's a big difference, really). The only big show she's been to that the huge audience didn't ruin for her has been Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl, because the sound and band is so awesome. Besides, there were video screens where she could watch Thom Yorke contort his face and gyrate all over the stage like he was having a seizure and Johnny Greenwood make gorgeous sounds out of feedback, squeaks, and squawks.

But most of the concerts she's attended have been essentially the same: sweaty people grooving to the same sounds, unattainable musicians up on a stage singing and/or playing their hearts out, getting contact high from the weed, meeting other fans in passing, buying shirts and shwag, the pounding of the music in her head and a glow of pure happiness long after the show.

She can't wait to see Death Cab For Cutie in a couple of weeks.

blonde on blonde [live]: nada surf

say hi to your mom/nada surf

2005-10-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

She had to type this down while it's still fresh in her mind, her ears still throbbing from the music, her feet still aching because she was stupid and wore high heels to look nice instead of flat, comfortable shoes like she knew she should have done.

She waited in line outside the venue, amongst giggling teen girls, some of whom were dropped off or accompanied by their parents. Those with parents stood away from their moms or dads, pretending that they were there just with friends. All in all, it was a good, well-mixed group of people, fans from all walks of life. She decided to stand near the stage, but up on the steps so she could see the band clearly and not between the head of the two or more extremely tall people who invariably stand in front of her.

Say Hi To Your Mom was up first, a quintet, although one band member seemed to do not much more than stand behind the world's smallest keyboard and plink at the keys. No matter. The music was excellent, the band rocked. The drummer was especially enthusiastic. He got up at one point to induce the crowd to clap, jumped off a platform, gave an audience member a missed high-five, then slapped hands with that person from behind. During the first few songs, Matthew Caws stood sort of behind her and watched for a bit. The lead singer's guitar playing was really great, something she didn't expect, and the bass player/additional keyboard guy was cute with long sandy brown hair held in check by a headband. After the show, she met them (except for the one guy who seemed...a little extra), shook their hands told them they played an incredible set. They were gracious even as they signed personal autographs for fans at their memoribilia table.

twenty-second century: say hi to your mom

let's talk about spaceships: say hi to your mom

download/stream more say hi to your mom songs here

In between Say Hi To Your Mom and Nada Surf, various Police and Talking Heads songs were played over the sound system. Awesome.

Then Nada Surf hit the stage and rocked it hard. The bass player (Daniel Lorca maybe?) had long crazy dredlocks and smoked continually through the show. She was afraid his hair might catch fire, but she supposes he knew what he was doing. Whenever he needed to sing backup, he would spit the cigarrette out of his mouth, onto the stage, and several times, he picked one back up and continued smoking it. The drummer was highlighted with two "rearview" mirrors so the audience could see him from the back. One minor complaint: the lights sucked, and half the time the band was in darkness or just bad lighting.

They played some old stuff (80 Windows), some new stuff (What Is Your Secret), and thankfully, a lot off of the Let Go album, arguably their best. The band looked very comfortable with each other and with their performance, and played two incredible encores, one of which sampled some Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. They played Popular, a song she didn't expect to hear, and it was loud and rocking and she loved it. She danced and sang along, screamed until her throat went sore, and clapped so that her palms smarted. All in all, it was a great show, and as she walked to her car along the vacant streets, huge buildings towering over her, she smiled and hummed along to the songs inside her head.

80 windows: nada surf

what is your secret?: nada surf

blizzard of '77: nada surf

Nada Surf also played a great little song called meow meow lullabye that they recorded for a children's album. It just so happens that she bought this CD for the child. It is an adorable song made hilarious when Matthew started making strange yowling and purring noises.

meow meow lullabye: nada surf

Enjoy.

did you see the fire in their eyes as they screamed every word of every song i know?

2005-10-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

She is going to see Nada Surf tomorrow night, one of her favorite bands but one that she has never seen live. She is tremendously excited but irritated because she is battling an ear infection so she will hear them half-assed. But at least she will be there, feel the heat and the sweat of others who love the music, she will move and groove to the beat, she will live in the sound.

first lines from an iPod on random and some songs to check out

you come in, check my time; you've got fornication crimes; i've seen your hope on television
cause=time: broken social scene

so quiet; it's neither heaven nor space; it's just high
neither heaven nor space: nada surf

i am a chimbley, a chimbley sweep; no bed to lie on; no shoes to hold my feet
the chimbley sweep: the decemberists

eyeless in the morning sun you were; pale and mild, a modern girl; taken with thought, still prone to care
those to come: the shins

i see you in the morning; wearing only one shoe; i say, i see you've lost something; what're you gonna do?; you say but no, i found one; there's another out there for you
more like the moon: wilco

eleanor put those boots back on; kick the heels into the brooklyn dirt; i know it isn't dignified to run
eleanor put your boots on: franz ferdinand

can't you see that i'm smilin?; can't you see there's a part of me that's brand new?; used to be was a part of me felt like hidin; but now it comes through
knot comes loose: my morning jacket

a heart of stone; a smoking gun; i can give you life; i can take it away
banquet: bloc party

this cocoon; caught in vesuvius' shadow; only the ashes remain; and i waited there for you; why couldn't you?
cocoon: the decemberists

play another happy song for me; 'cause i need another drink; i gave up on a family; chasing down this other thing; i'm not the same boy i was fifteen years ago; but i'll be on the radio; so for now, farewell
another rock star laments (acoustic): the prayers and tears of arthur digby sellers

this charming man

2005-10-12T19:48:00.000-07:00

She was living at home with the mother after the child was born when it became apparent that she needed to get a job and get out of the house. She was going a little stir crazy, which wasn't helped by the final fracturing of her already broken relationship with the child's father. The mother tried to get her to apply where she worked, but Ellen was determined to make it on her own.

She considered applying at the place she worked before the child was born, but since she walked in and quit with no notice, which happened to be the day before she found out she was pregnant, she couldn't bring herself to go back. She scoured the newspaper classifieds, circling ads for clerical positions and any others that mentioned health benefits. She spent hours trying on the clothes in her closet, most of which either didn't fit her post-baby body or were inappropriate for job interviews. Ellen would drop her mother off at work and take the car for the day to fill out applications and shop for inexpensive work clothes.

She didn't have much luck with getting called back for interviews, as her work experience was fairly lacking. Even though her computer and customer service skills were good, they were considered unproven. She finally scored an interview as an office manager for a fledgling office furniture company and she dwelled on it, night and day. The morning of the interview, she dressed in a blue and white dress that accentuated her breasts but hid her tummy and hips, slipped on blue heels, and carefully applied the faintest hint of makeup.

She arrived to the interview early and walked through the glass double doors into the showroom. It was early morning and the store was all but deserted except for the owner, who looked over a ledger with a cordless phone glued to his ear. He signaled to her to have a seat and turned to walk back into the office area. She sat on a conference room style chair and looked over at the other occupant of the room, a man who appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with curly blonde hair and a wide smile, sitting in a tall backed executive chair. He looked her over and asked her politely what she was doing there, and carried on small talk so that she didn't have time to be nervous.

He was from the local paper and he was waiting to talk to the owner regarding the store's weekly advertisements. He had the friendliness of a reporter but none of the smarm, and he made her feel attractive and smart as his smile washed over her. Finally the owner finished his phone call and took her back into the office for her interview. She was nervous but answered all of his questions well, despite having limited experience in managing an office and none at all with using their payroll software. Afterwards, he walked her out to the front where the reporter was waiting for his turn, and as she came out into the bright showroom, his face lit up like a sunrise.

He asked the owner if he planned to hire her, and the owner replied politely that he still had another person to interview and he would let her know. With a serious tone to his voice but with a wink in her direction, he told the owner that she could come and work for him any time. She smiled at him, already in love with the way that his unruly, curly blond hair shone like a halo in the sunlight that streamed in the glass front. She knew she couldn't hesitate any longer, and she reluctantly left, feeling good about both her interview and the prospect of seeing the newspaper guy again.

But she didn't get the job; she was passed over for someone who had been an office manager and who knew the payroll software. She couldn't fault the owner for hiring someone else, but she was sad that she wouldn't have the opportunity to see that guy again. However, he gave her the gift of knowing that she was still desirable, still a woman, and not at the end of her rope.

this charming man - death cab for cutie (morrissey cover)

something more than broken hearts and new addictions

2005-10-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

She and the husband had the big fight earlier in the week; the one where everything feels like an ending, where nothing is really resolved but emotional wounds are inflicted and sustained. She said, regretfully, something about how she had had enough of this, how maybe she should just leave. And he yelled that she should just go then, how she shouldn't make threats like that, how he wouldn't care. And her heart ached to hear that, especially because they both know she cannot make it on her own, financially or emotionally.

She tightened herself up like a little fist and perched on the edge of their bed, shaking in anger and fear, of weariness of life and this situation, trying not to cry even as the tears rolled into the indentations on either side of her nose. The husband, who by this point was laying in the bed, tolerated her posture of silent fury for about fifteen minutes before he pulled her down onto the bed next to him. But she stayed in her taut shape of bent legs and arms wrapped around her body until he finally fell asleep.

The husband generally wishes to forget that a fight has even happened the next day, and he tends to act like it never did, making her even more irritated because nothing has been solved. So in the morning, he woke her before the sun rose to give her a kiss before he left for work. She turned from his affections and rolled onto her stomach; she had been awake most of the night anyway. After she left she started to think that there must be a better way to resolve their issues, since arguing hasn't really accomplished anything.

She has decided not to fight with him anymore. So when he didn't do something she asked him to please do, she went out for a walk at night to cool off and put space between them. And then the next night when he still didn't do it, she went out for another walk. And the next, and the next, until finally he got her point and did what she had asked. So tonight she didn't go out for a walk, instead she made him a lovely dinner and watched baseball playoffs with him, which is what he wanted her to do. It's a start.

scientist studies: death cab for cutie

move along, there's nothing left to see

2005-10-01T22:33:00.000-07:00

She is not someone who is good about returning phone calls, email messages, or letters, at least not in her personal life. She has good intentions and always means to call friends or family, but something holds her back. She doesn't like to talk on the phone, mostly because she is forced to be on the phone all day long at work, but also because she never knows what to say.

She falls silent when she picks up the phone to call her mother, her grandfather, even when her father was alive, she didn't call him half as much as she should have. Her idle prattle about the weather doesn't take up more than a couple of minutes, and then there's that awkward pause when she realizes she's got nothing else to say to these people. She answers with a blunt "fine" when asked how she is, even when she's tumbling in turmoil within herself. Only her mother will occasionally be told more, but even then, it's edited for content.

No one in the entire world knows who she really is, the thoughts she has inside her. No one knows that sometimes she talks to herself, says horrible things to herself in the mirror. No one knows how often she wishes to be gone from this world, or at least from this particular life, the daily drudgery and unhappiness.

Does any one ever really know anyone else? The husband is an open book to her. He tells her anything and everything, readily, and always has. She doesn't suspect him of hiding anything from her, but there are some things she doesn't tell him. There aren't many things she refuses to tell him; it's mostly things she's omitted from ever mentioning to him. He is the closest person to her in the world and yet she's like an iceberg, with only the very tip visible above the surface.

gagging order: radiohead

there's this nagging suspicion that won't leave me alone tonight

2005-09-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

She was driving today in a scene that seemed right out of a car commercial. The sun filtered through the trees so that the pavement was dappled with shade and light. The leaves that littered the green grass and skirted in the breeze amongst the cars were a variety of fall browns, oranges, and reds. Hills and houses obscured by high hedges and towering trees lined the curvy road, and she felt as if she were floating as she guided her car around each bend.

But instead of enjoying the drive, being alone, listening to wonderful music, and the lovely scenery, she thought about work.

She'll be back to her old self soon, she hopes. It certainly can't get any worse than this, can it?

everything i try to do, nothing seems to turn out right - the decemberists

don't leave the light on baby

2005-09-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Every morning for the past couple of weeks, she has pulled herself out of bed before the sun has started to tinge the sky with pink, and thrown her body into the shower. She applies makeup through a haze of sleepiness, dresses in the half-dark, and makes the first noise of the day with the hair dryer. She ushers the child through his morning routine of cereal, school clothes, and teeth brushing before they both make their way out the door and into the car. She drops him off at before-school care and rushes to her office, always the first to arrive, and the last to leave.

Her desk is nearly collapsing with the weight of the work it holds, and every hour someone deposits something else for her to do on top of her already overflowing inbox. The phone never stops ringing and the demands don't stop coming. From the second she arrives at her desk to the moment she finally leaves, she works non-stop, without a second wasted. She has eaten lunch twice in the last five days, once at her desk and the other time in five minutes in the employee lounge, taking huge bites of salad while looking at the clock out of the corner of one eye. Today she missed a funeral she felt obligated to attend because she just couldn't fathom leaving all the work behind.

The husband is angry at her for all the time she spends at work, because as a salaried employee, she isn't entitled to overtime. She is instead given time off with pay, and she hoards this time for when the child is sick, for long weekends, and for mental health days she knows she will need as soon as the workload steadies. She is tired all the time, and frequently falls asleep in the early evening after eating dinner, her one real meal of the day. She has spent both of the last Saturdays at work, and is contemplating going in to work tomorrow (Saturday). Her boss had to force her to leave this evening, even as she looked in horror at everything still needing to be done.

In sheer desperation, she has given people her home phone number to call back because she really needed to talk to them. The husband frowns as she holds work-related conversations for over an hour, and as soon as she hangs up, the phone rings again. She balances work on her lap in front of the TV, glancing up every so often to see Hurricane Katrina footage or something on the History Channel.

Last night, at around two in the morning, her lonely husband pushed his body against hers and fondled her. He whispered sweet things in her ear and stroked her hair in the way she likes. But she groaned and pushed him off of her, too sleepy and exhausted to respond. She can't wait for this to pass.

don't leave the light on baby - belle & sebastian

heavy rotation: september 3

2005-09-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when her iPod, half full at about 2500 songs, goes random. Selected songs are linked for evaluation purposes only and will expire in seven days.

i was born (a unicorn): the unicorns
jealous guy (live john lennon cover): elliott smith
neighborhood #1 (tunnels): the arcade fire
dollars and cents: radiohead
no knock on my door: the verve
fugitive motel: elbow
the world has turned and left me here: weezer
as ugly as i seem: the white stripes
hell is chrome: wilco
gimme shelter: the rolling stones
let it ride: ryan adams
this must be the place (naive melody): talking heads
music when the lights go out: the libertines
mystify: INXS
tyrone (erykah badu cover): my morning jacket
no children: the mountain goats
let me sleep next to the mirror: idlewild
you're gonna need someone on your side (live): morrissey
syncronicity 1: the police
let's get lost: elliott smith
wait: death cab for cutie

the big uneasy

2005-09-03T00:37:00.000-07:00

The husband has insisted upon watching the news every night this week. Every evening she comes home from an extremely stress-filled work day to a hungry family for which dinner must be prepared, a dirty and cluttered home, an unevenly tempered husband, and scenes of such horror and despair on the television that she can barely stand to watch. Just like 9/11, she has a hard time watching the news with pictures of these people in situations she would find unbearable, of thousands upon thousands of the suddenly homeless and hopeless. She does not wish to hear more about the tragedy because she desperately wants to do something instead of just watch impotently, and she knows there is nothing she could personally do to possibly help.

Her parents met and married in New Orleans, and lived their first childless years of marriage there. She has always loved the city, and dreamed of attending college at Tulane just to be nearby. The last time she was there was in 1998, and she didn't get to spend much time there. She and the mother waited on line for cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde while a man with a saxophone played his heart out. They shopped for tourist items and bought a muffalata from a deli where the mother used to buy them when she lived there years before. They shared the overstuffed sandwich in the airport, while other people watched, drooling in envy.

Her grandparents live north of the hardest hit areas, and while Katrina swooped through their town, they were miraculously unscathed except for a few downed trees and of course, no power or telephone. She finally heard from them yesterday, and heard about how some people had extensive damage and some people were injured. But nothing like what their neighbors to the south have experienced.

She argues with the husband over why the help is so late in coming. Her husband, the staunch Republican, has answers for everything (just like our commander in chief) but none which satisfy her anger over the suffering in the streets of her beloved city. They had talked about going there this past summer but ultimately chose not to. She regrets this decision deeply; the husband and the son will never see this city as she chooses to remember it and how it was before this disaster. Even the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain makes her weep. But the wailing babies and the old people who are left abandoned, dead with only a piece of paper listing their next of kin, those haunt her nights.

how many ways to reach abandon?

2005-09-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

What is your favorite song? she was asked, and the question sent her reeling. How could she narrow down her favorite song, when she has so many? She can't even narrow down her favorite song by a particular artist, although she might be able to pinpoint her favorite song on an album. But even that would be terrifically difficult, a feat which might require pencil, paper, loud repetitive playing, and time to ponder.

She began to name artists and albums, not songs, to the inquisitor, ticking off on her fingers those that first came to her mind, not even knowing how many slipped through the space between her digits. She talked about the first single she ever bought, the '45 singles she would steal from her sister until the sister got wise and put them up on a high shelf she couldn't reach. She mentioned the music she used to listen to in high school, most of which she listened to because it was what everyone listened to, and like a sheep, she followed the herd. She brought up her turnaround, late in high school and beyond, when she grew up and started expanding her music horizons, the artists that influenced her and changed her musical tastes. She talked about the some of the less well-known music she likes, the ones that no one recognizes if she says their name, the strange looks she gets for talking about them. She discussed the wonder she felt when she found other, like-minded people online who shared her passion for music out of the mainstream and people who liked things beyond her tastes. And the person who had asked the question got way more than was bargained for.

So...what's YOUR favorite song? Tell her a title or tell her a tale.

upcoming goodness

2005-09-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

She has finally updated her links to the right by adding many of the music blogs she frequents; they are all excellent but she still has many more to add. She will be writing a new entry very soon (it's on her extensive to-do list) and listing some more songs for heavy rotation, probably tomorrow. But for now, she must force herself to go to sleep, or else she will feel like shit in the morning.

shivering inside

2005-08-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard about 9/11, right? Just like the mother remembers where she was when JFK was shot. But early on that September morning she woke up and went downstairs and did something she never, ever did in the morning: she turned on the television. She still, to this day, does not know why she did this. And she turned it on just in time to see a plane hit the second building, leaving her to think for a split second that maybe this was some movie or something. But the reality hit her, and she sat down on the couch with her hand over her mouth, her heart slowing and her eyes wide. She got ready for work in a trance, keeping the child away from the television, knowing that a kindergartener did not need to see these images, would not understand what the hell was happening. She didn't even understand what was happening; how could she even try to begin to explain?

This week, she and the husband watched a two-night special on National Geographic about events leading up to September 11 and the aftermath of that day. She was shocked to learn about the many, many warnings this country had about a possible attack, especially the televised tapes of Bin Laden saying in no uncertain terms that the US should expect an event of horrible magnitude. She wonders why her government seemed to do nothing, even when faced with bald faced evidence, they did nothing. But she supposes that hindsight is 20/20, and maybe the evidence this show presented didn't have the red flags attached that everyone can see so clearly now.

But the very worst part was not the missed warnings, but watching those images of the planes ripping into the buildings, hearing the 911 tapes, the survivor's stories, the people who received calls from the airplanes from their loved ones who knew they were doomed. She yelped in anguish when she watched people jump and fall from the buildings, so anxious to get away from an unspeakable horror that they would throw themselves off a ledge to escape it.

But she openly wept when she heard the stories of selfless people, mostly WTC employees but firemen also, who helped other people get out of the buildings, went back for more and were never seen again. Their photos on the screen made her cry more than hearing the numbers of the people who died in these attacks, because she could see them smiling in the pictures, they were real people, real heroes. And after the buildings fell, there were volunteers who worked round the clock, looking for survivors in the rubble, who worked with the sound of firemen's locator alarms beeping in their ears, in the silence there was only the ringing of these alarms alerting the world of the heroes it had lost.

heavy rotation: august 19

2005-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

This time she is posting three lovely Elliott Smith songs [for evaluation purposes only, of course, all links expire in 7 days].

between the bars - elliott smith
pretty (ugly before) - elliott smith
twilight - elliott smith

Happy birthday, Ellen.

the second time it happened

2005-08-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

A few years later, Ellen is four or five months pregnant in the heat of summer in a place that reaches 125 degrees at times. Air conditioners, cold showers, and laziness don't help and she languishes, already deeply depressed and without direction. She continues to be sick in the mornings and starts to feel generally awful all day long. All of her friends have gone off to college, and she is lonely and miserable in the unbearable heat. At this point, her father is working in the big city and she and her mother live like roommates, seeing each other in passing. But her mother sees her crouched by the toilet every morning, heaving even when there's nothing left to expel, and sees her lay around with no ambition. Her mother offers Ellen the option to accompany her and the father for a weekend up in the big city where it will be cooler, a change of scenery, and a way to forget about her troubles for a while.

Although she is now several months pregnant, it isn't immediately obvious and she hasn't gained much weight, especially since she has a hard time keeping food down when she feels like eating at all. She can still wear most of her clothes, but she notices how tight they fit around her hips, how snug the waistband on her jeans. She tries to pack some things that will be cool and still look decent, since she knows she won't have much more of an opportunity to wear them. Strangely enough, the mother's car does not have air conditioner, and they drive with the windows rolled down, the fan going full-blast, and the stereo on max. As they drive up and out of the valley she's lived in ever since she can remember, she feels the air grow cooler as the sun sets and they move closer to the coast.

When they arrive, the night is chilly and she finds herself smiling, her headache easing. The father takes them out for dinner, and she eats with the security that the food will stay put, and they stroll back to the father's apartment, full and content. The parents decide they want to go see a movie, and she tells them she's tired and wants to go to sleep so that they will have some time to themselves. But as soon as they leave, she picks up the phone.

Over a year ago, Ellen's friend introduced her to some guys who live up here in the big city, and they've visited down to where she lives. She is friendly with them, but since the friend broke up with one of the guys, she hasn't seen them in a while. So she calls the one her friend broke up with, the only one whose phone number she knows. He sounds surprised but pleased to hear from her, and offers to make the drive down to pick her up and take her out. She says she'll meet him outside, down the block where she'll easily be seen from the main road, in front of an ATM, under a street light. He tells her he will be driving a long white car, old but well-kept. She brushes her hair and looks at herself in the mirror, confident she looks as she did when he last saw her, not sad and pregnant.

She locks her father's apartment door behind her and walks down the steps to the lobby and out the glass door that requires a code to enter. She walks across the street and over to the next curb, past a store that sells doll house furniture and past a dimmed cafe where employees stack the chairs on top of tables and wipe down the counters. She jaywalks across the next street, past the used book store and appliance repair shop and down to the bank, and stands under the streetlight, the circle of light coloring everything a golden yellow color. She fidgets there under the scrutiny of the light, and watches a few cars come around the corner, none of them fitting the description of his car, and observes people stop at the ATM for money. She waits, and eventually a car slows at the corner, the driver shrouded in darkness, but she can tell he is looking at her.

She leans down slightly, trying to look in the car, and the driver pulls to a stop. She thinks it's him, and walks toward the car, where the man gestures for her to open the door. She does, and is about to step in when she gets a good look at the guy: it's not him, definitely not. It's some creep who leers at her and pats the seat next to him. She puts her foot back on the ground and slams the door, walking quickly toward the bank, knowing she cannot get back in her father's apartment and frantically trying to decide what to do. The man stares after her for a few long moments, then drives away. She finds she is holding her breath and finally exhales, gasping for air with relief and more fear that he will come back. But shortly, her friend arrives, and gets out of the car to give her a hug and open the door for her like a gentleman. She acts normal, as normal as she can, and forces a smile.

She never tells about this, or the other time, to anyone, until now.

the first time it happened

2005-08-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

One day Ellen was fed up with the suffocation she felt in her parent's house and walked out the door into the early evening, the ground still radiating heat from the desert sun. She walked alone up the pavement and turned right at the corner where her street was sliced in half. She continued down the familiar path that once took her to elementary school and to the bus stop that took her to middle school before she decided it wasn't cool to ride the bus and opted to walk the mile or two instead. She gazed out at the expanse of green grass of the school, quiet and calm in the dusk, the swings and jungle gym as distant as her memories of playing happily on them at recess. She kept walking, down to the busy street next to the train tracks, and her hair whipped around her face as she turned left toward the overpass.

She slowly started up the arch of the overpass, built to eliminate long waiting lines for the train to pass and the occasional accident of train meeting car on the tracks. Cars ascended over the steep hill easily, pulling up one side and gliding down the other, while she felt her calves tighten and her breath grow heavier with each step. When she reached the top, she paused briefly at the top, looking out over the tracks through the chain link fence, at the porch and street lights starting to flicker to life as the sun set behind the mountains. She went on to descend down the other side, to the other side of the tracks, as it were, to the poorer north side of the town, the side the city's newspapers always neglected to mention unless it was in a negative light.

Ellen walked, kicking stones ahead of her in the sand, toward a convenience store that sat in the middle of a vacant lot that continued on the other side to the freeway that ran one way to the big city and the other way to hundreds of miles of nothingness. Once she arrived there, she realized she had no idea why she had come here, what to do next, if she should go home or just keep walking forever into the desert. She went around to the side of the store where the pay phones gleamed under the bright yellow street light. A very thin teenage boy was already there, leaning into the phone cover, talking quietly into the receiver, his back to her. She skirted around him and picked up the other receiver, flicking her eyes up at the same time he did, and she recognized him as someone who went to her large high school but not someone she knew the name of. He turned away from her, resuming the same position, except now with his back pointed at her.

Suddenly embarrassed by the fact that she had no idea who to call, she replaced the receiver to its cradle and turned around toward home. She walked in total darkness now, past the eyesore neighborhood through the vacant lot and back up the overpass. This time, the climb seemed less harsh and felt shorter, and before long she was stepping down onto the sidewalk of the busy street running under the overpass, cars still speeding by in a flash of light and with the occasional staccato burst of music from a car stereo. As she walked alone along the road, in bright patches of streetlight and strips of darkness between them, she became aware that a pickup truck had slowed down beside her and the driver motioned her over. She paused just long enough to peek into the window, hoping it was someone she knew who could give her a ride. But it was some unwashed, scruffy man in an old shirt that was once white, motioning her to open the truck door.

Instead of complying, she picked up her pace, swinging her arms fiercely in an attempt to propel her more quickly to home. The man trailed alongside her in his truck, then pulled into the nearby driveway of a closed and darkened auto repair shop, effectively blocking her path. He leaned over the bench seat and rolled down the window and stared out at her under bushy eyebrows and grinned at her with shiny yellowed, crooked teeth. He asked her in Spanish, "how much?" and without hesitating, she bolted, running in front of his truck and around to the other side, not slowing down as he yelled obscenities after her. She ran in a convoluted maze home, just in case he was following her, biting her tongue and clenching her fists in fear the whole way. When she made it home, no one even noticed she'd been gone, and she went immediately to the bathroom and locked herself inside. She looked at her old shorts and t-shirt, at her young, chubby body inside them, and wondered what about them, what about her, made this man stop and all the boys her age look the other way?

restaurant review

2005-08-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

This evening they sat in a Japanese restaurant, just your typical happy family sharing a dinner together. The restaurant, formerly a Denny's-type diner, sits on a busy corner, its blue tiled roof suggesting pancakes, the paper shuttered windows going around the building saying something else entirely. The husband balked when she suggested stopping there for dinner on their way back from the realtor's office, after having placed a bid on another house. Granted, Sushi Time doesn't exactly seem like the name and doesn't exactly look the part of a fine eating establishment, at least from the outside, but at least it wasn't Der Wienerschnitzel or Wendy's as he was suggesting.

When they entered the restaurant, it was as if stepping into another world. The windows were tinted deeply and covered halfway as mentioned with paper screens that blocked out the bright setting sun and the noise of the traffic outside. The huge genuine sushi bar was occupied only by one man who kept the sushi orders coming the whole time her family was there. Lovely Japanese curtains separated the kitchen and back rooms from the main eating area, and towards the back was a kareoke machine, silent now early on a Monday night. The deep cherrywood furniture gleamed, the soy sauce bottles reflecting perfectly in the table's surface. It was decorated simply, but definitely Japanese, it was spotlessly clean, and totally empty.

Soft music in Japanese wafted through the restaurant as she and the husband perused the sushi menu. Both she and the husband love sushi and Japanese cuisine in general but rarely go out to eat it; any Asian-type food that they eat comes home in styrofoam containers dripping with teriyaki and sweet and sour sauce from the Chinese takeout down the street. They ordered an assortment of sushi: Ebi with perfectly curved shrimp over rice; Tako with deliciously chewy octopus; Ika, squid, which was chewier than the octopus; spicy tuna that really packed a punch; her favorite, the spider roll; and the old traditional California Roll with real crab and fresh avocado. She sipped the good, hot miso soup and shared with the son, who has previously turned up his nose at any Asian cuisine.

The son marvelled at her and the husband's ability to wield chopsticks, and tried in vain to imitate them. He tried all different kinds of sushi and liked them (except the spicy tuna was too spicy), ate tempura for the first time, but shunned the ginger and wasabi. She shared with him the mo-chi green tea ice cream that she loves and eats only once in a blue moon, an unfamiliar treat that he now loves as well. She fed him from her chopsticks and he opened wide like a baby bird.

But what she most enjoyed was the fact that her little family didn't bicker at each other, the son displayed good manners and the husband didn't snipe at him for the littlest thing, they ate heartily and generally had a lovely evening. This is something they haven't had in a long time and she knows she will treasure this evening in her box of good memories for a long while.

heavy rotation: august 6

2005-08-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

The following three songs are such that she keeps going back to time and time again. She loves to share the music she adores with others and plans to make this a frequent event in her blog. Click on the link below each review to download the song, and let her know what you think. Each link will expire in about seven days, and all links are for evaluation purposes only.

Interpol is a band that she resisted for some time before finally taking a listen to them and learning that they really are as good as the hype surrounding them suggests. Every time she heard them, she lumped them in with bands of the moment like the Hives and the Strokes. She wasn't very impressed with either of those groups, and she felt that Interpol was just another band who would put out a single or two before fading back into obscurity. But she would read magazines whose reviews she trusted, like Q (excellent British music magazine) and Blender, or she would visit Amazon.com and their albums popped up into her recommendations every time. On the radio, she would hear "Slow Hands" and think that it was okay, but nothing special. But eventually, she gave them a try and listened to a few tracks off of their album Antics, and she was hooked. This song runs through her head all the time and she adores it.
Interpol: Not Even Jail

She first heard the Dears' music on download.com, an excellent place to legally download mp3s of up and coming and some well-established bands. But she had read about them previously, probably in Q magazine, and when she saw the name she didn't hesitate to download the track that was offered called Lost in the Plot. When she listened to it, she seriously thought Morrissey was either their lead singer or guest-singing the song. Come to find out, they are huge Smiths fans and this makes her like them even more. This song, however, doesn't have that Smiths feel as some of the others do. In fact, she had to listen to this song over and over in order to piece out the lyrics. No matter - she loves it.
The Dears: Heartless Romantic

Nada Surf's first single was Popular, a satire on being popular in high school, and was in heavy rotation on MTV when it was first released, partially because of the excellent song but also because of its biting video. She loved this song and would giggle with glee at the video. Then Nada Surf failed to sell enough albums and lost their record deal. They went to Europe and made The Proximity Effect, a disc that to her knowledge has not been released in the US, but was available on kazaa, a free music service that she no longer uses. Their music was always excellent, but for some reason they just couldn't get the recognition they deserved. This all changed when they released Let Go, a CD that was hyped in the press and roundly loved by most who heard it. This is the song from where she derived the name of this blog, and it's a wonderful, sad song.
Nada Surf: Paper Boats

rate her panties?

2005-08-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, she gets a hit on her blog every time someone out there wants to learn how to make an actual paper boat. Note to those people: SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO MAKE A PAPER BOAT AND DOESN'T CARE. And she got one for the cracked tailbone story; apparently someone out there wanted to know how they could make that one work for themselves, too. But she also got a hit for "rate her panties" because of one of her more racy posts, where all of the words were contained in the post, but notin that order. What the hell is someone searching for with that bullshit?

Now, she knows some people who get a lot more interesting hits, and to be honest, she doesn't get much traffic through here through search engines, and that's the way she likes it. But this makes her want to write shit like "monkey fucking" and "Thom Yorke for President" and "Jude Law busted for having sex with anonymous married blogger" to see if it gets any hits. Come on, Jude Law....come on. She doesn't care if he is a cheating asshole. She doesn't want a committed relationship with him or anything.

And yes, she's taken a couple of hits from the bottle in her freezer this evening, thankyouverymuch.

hell

2005-08-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

She has found a level of hell more commonly known as house hunting. There are no houses in the immediate area selling for less than four hundred thousand dollars. Yes, that's right: $400,000 for a tiny house that's over fifty years old and still needs a lot of work and landscaping to make it liveable. Look at this house, selling for $430,000, conveniently located in the ghetto, close to train tracks and a major freeway [not a good thing] with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a miniscule one car garage, and everything in, on, and around the house is twice as old as she is.

Last weekend, they went househunting and was disappointed by every house they went to see. One bedroom house? Check! Bad neighborhood? Check! Falling down shack held together by six nails, DIY stucco, twine, and a prayer? CHECK! Then they visited a lovely little home, owned by the same couple since it was built in the fifties. The people had loved this home and had taken such great care of it, had installed lush gardens and fruit trees, and enlarged the house over the years. She spoke with the couple at great length, explaining how she absolutely adored the home and wanted it. They made an offer, more than ten thousand dollars over the asking price. Three long, horrible days passed before they were told they were outbid and the house had been sold to someone else.

That night she grieved for the death of her dreams of moving into this house and making it their own. She knows there will be more homes, there will be another she will like and eventually they will buy a house that is perfect for them. But this house was perfect; it had everything she wanted and was in a great neighborhood. She is so discouraged because of the lack of quality of homes she has seen, and by the size of their pricetags. She doesn't want to spend almost half a million dollars on a home that she will have to spend thousands more to make livable, and to worry about the neighborhood as well. She crosses her fingers and makes plans to go out again this weekend, and hunt for a house to live in.

She's listening to the Libertines' self-titled album to release some of the tension she's feeling while house hunting.

there's nothing on tv on friday afternoons

2005-07-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Song first lines on iPod set on random:

"if heaven's on the other side of this dressing room..."
- This Mattress by Five Mod Four

"young ones groan and the rocks below say, 'throw your skinny body down, son'"
- Shakespeare's Sister by The Smiths

"i have walked a few miles; i got blisters on my slippered feet"
- As I Rise by The Decemberists

"glass of milk; standing in between extinction in the cold and explosive radiating growth"
- Mammal by They Might Be Giants

"there are angels in your angles; there's a low moon caught in your tangles"
- Of Angels and Angles by The Decemberists

"what makes you think that it won't grow back in a day or two?"
- When They Really Get to Know You, They Will Run by Pedro the Lion

"broken yoke in western sky; my stomach turned, my mouth went dry"
- Broken Yoke in Western Sky - by Death Cab for Cutie

"how to fight loneliness; smile all the time"
- How to Fight Loneliness by Wilco

"the mongel cat came home; holding half a head"
- Myxoymatosis by Radiohead

"sunshine; been keepin' me up for days"
- Pretty (Ugly Before) by Elliott Smith

"we are two mariners; our ship's sole survivors; in this belly of a whale"
- Mariner's Revenge Song by The Decemberists

"she says, 'wake up, it's no use pretending'; i'll keep still and breathe in her"
- Naked As We Came by Iron and Wine

"mmmmm...if your ass is a chinese restaurant, i'll have the pupu platter"
- I Wish I Was Queer (So I Could Get Chicks) by The Bloodhound Gang

"i think i have the best of me inside my head"
- Eat My Dust, You Insensitive Fuck by The Catherine Wheel

"gotta mona lisa lying by my side"
- California Waiting by Kings of Leon

"i've been a liar, i've been a thief"
-Heartless Romantic by The Dears

"tom, get your plane right on time"
- The Only Living Boy in New York by Simon and Garfunkel

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5; break down, baby"
- The Number Song by DJ Shadow

"so messed up, i want you here"
- I Wanna Be Your Dog by Iggy Pop (as performed by Wilco)

"in the boardroom the quiet man takes a second to think what to do"
- Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It by Belle & Sebastian

"i'll lay down my glasses; i'll lay down in houses; if things come alive"
- Not Even Jail by Interpol

girls' night out

2005-07-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Last night, she and her co-workers met up for a barbeque/poker party. It was held in a sprawling house on the side of a hill overlooking the valley below, stretching from the nearby fields of vegetables tended by agriculture students at the college, to a faraway church steeple, fuzzy in the haze of the horizon. After a long several weeks of constant scandals and being under the thumb of the higher-ups at work, they were ready to relax with some margaritas and comfort foods out by the pool. Although the day had been hot, the temperature had levelled off, a nice breeze was blowing, and the sun was behind the hills to their west.

The only complication was a complicated barbeque that shot flames up in the air and that licked from the bottom like a kitten's paws under a door. But once they got that under control, the chicken was grilled in minutes and they piled their plates and ate in silence. Soon, as the plates were emptied and refilled with seconds, they talked about their families, amusing incidents at work, gave advice, and giggled like schoolgirls. As the beautifully landscaped yard began to dim, they made their way inside where a professional-type poker table was assembled in one of the vast living rooms.

Everyone slipped off their shoes and pushed their feet into the plush carpet beneath the table, freeing themselves from their constricting heels and pained arches. Several of the ladies did not know how to play poker, and some of the more experienced players, herself included, tried to explain the rules, winning hands, and how to bet. A couple of practice rounds later, they divided up the chips and tossed down their buy-in. They laughed and teased and mocked each other while they played, sipped their margaritas, and applauded the tactics and winnings of the others. After a time, people lost their chips and helped the less-experienced. At the end of the night, two people who claimed to never have played before took home part of the pot. They said their goodnights and filed out slowly, still talking and joking, into the front yard to go home.

She drove down the winding road towards the freeway, the cool night air feeling fresh on her face. She decided at the last moment not to take the freeway, but opted for the dark and quiet of surface streets. She rolled down her windows and cranked up the stereo, enjoying the few moments of her life, happy, full, and alone.

diarios de motocicleta

2005-07-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

She just watched this movie, and it was simply wonderful, one of the best movies she's seen in a while. And it didn't hurt that he was in it...click for full-size...

hello there

2005-07-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

This is the best picture from her recent vacation...click for a better view.

highly recommended

2005-07-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Jonathan Safran Foer
From a Basement on a Hill: Elliot Smith
Guero: Beck
Our Thickness: Russian Futurists
Antics: Interpol
Funeral: Arcade Fire
Having a day all to yourself and spending it alone
Having full bottle of Grey Goose vodka chillin in the freezer and a bottle of tonic water chillin in the refrigerator

and she was

2005-07-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

And as she knew he would, he came to her with promises of change and words of remorse and regret. He pulled her unwillingly into his arms and stroked her tense back, kissed her neck that turned her head away from him, whispered in her ears that strained not to listen. But this time was actually different. She laid aside her tools that he considers manipulative: her tears, her wailing, her way of bringing up the past to burn him. She fiddled with her fingers in her lap and spoke to him simply and calmly, telling him her sorrows and disappointments and how she wished things could be this other way. And she told him that she couldn't continue the way things were, and she was willing to work and to try together, but that if he wasn't willing, then she would have to go. And she didn't use this as a threat, she stated it as a matter of fact and from the look on his face she knew that he knew that she was serious.

And he took her fingers in his hands and brought them to his lips and kissed them, the way he used to when they were first falling in love. And he made small promises, not big leaps of faith that she knew he couldn't or wouldn't keep even as he was making them. Small promises that she knew he could manage, that would sweep the clouds from her sky just enough to bring some brightness back into her days.

And he told her how he loved and needed her, how she was his life and how he didn't remember how he could possibly have lived before she was with him. And he apologized, deeply, truly, with his eyes aglow and staring directly into hers.

And so they have taken two small steps together, adjusting themselves as a unit instead of two people chained together through matrimony. And today she was content in a way she hasn't known in some time, with the best anniversary present she could possibly have received, unwrapped, invisible, but priceless.

trip conclusions

2005-07-08T22:15:00.000-07:00

She has returned from her two-week vacation with two very definite conclusions:

1. She no longer yearns to get pregnant.

2. She no longer wishes to be married to her husband.

She spent the whole trip vaguely or overtly irritated with him, mostly because he takes no consideration of her feelings at any time. If she wants to do something, she has to start a huge fight with him, and if he does give in, he remains in a huge funk and refuses to talk to her until he can get drunk and forget about it.

You know why she only posts on Friday and Saturday nights? Because he's off drunk somewhere, or passed out in the living room, sleeping off a drunk. Right now he's out getting drunk, and she left him there after he'd consumed over 12 beers and she was tired of it.

She has no wishes to bring a child into this kind of resentful relationship, and she ponders what to do about the fact that she already has a child living in this situation. She cannot afford to live alone, and no one to go to for help.

She knows that tomorrow he will come home somehow [she has his car and she will refuse to pick him up] and he will act remorseful and beg for her forgiveness [like a man who beats his wife, she thinks to herself when he does this] and make promises [which he never keeps, he never keeps them, ever] and he will reach for her and try to soothe away her anger with kisses and caresses. And at night [if he isn't drunk] he will reach for her in the darkness and she will turn away from him and avoid his attempts at reconciliation and then he will turn away from her in anger and sulk until she begins to feel sorry for him. Then she will fight with herself, the angry feelings of betrayal and disappointment and snippets of hate with the feelings of affection and love that he has repeatedly smashed and drowned with his self-destructive drinking. And now [and then too, when he is there, whether or not he has made it to bed with her] she will cry, alone in their bed tonight, alone in her heart, in her head, and she will run through her long, long list of regrets and add another to the end.

100 greatest albums

2005-06-24T18:52:00.000-07:00

In response to Spin's 100 albums list, she decided to take note of which she owns. A few are owned by the husband (N.W.A., Jay-Z) but she didn't count them as they aren't hers and she doesn't listen to them. These are the CD's (or in the case of Dr. Dre's the Chronic, the tape!) that she actually owns or owned at some point (many of her CDs have "disappeared" throughout the years"). Many of the others, which are kindly listed here, she has downloaded songs from but not the whole album. Not a bad showing, she thinks, although some of the albums on the list she feels are bullshit. Except number 1. That was excellent.

1. Radiohead - OK Computer
17. Nas - Illmatic
18. Guns N Roses - Appetite For Destruction
35. Dr. Dre - The Chronic
41. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
48. Radiohead - Kid A
57. The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
61. Weezer - Pinkerton
69. DJ Shadow - Entroducing...
74. Portishead - Dummy
77. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
78. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
85. R.E.M - Automatic for the People
87. Blur - Parklife
93. Pearl Jam - Ten (Epic, 1991)
97. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

out of office

2005-06-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

She and her family will be on vacation for the next two weeks, the longest vacation she has taken as an adult, longer even than her wedding/honeymoon. Internet access will be slim to none, so she won't be around.

She will post pictures upon her return.

haven't laughed this hard in a long time/ better stop now before i start crying

2005-06-20T20:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend Ellen had a mini reunion with her three best friends from high school. They slid into conversation with such ease it felt as if no time at all had passed since their high school graduation, over 10 years ago. It made her wish she spent more time with these people she's known almost twenty years of her life, people who saw her through all of her awkward stages, the people who knew more about her, or at least about her paat, than anyone else on earth. She feels so comfortable with them, she doesn't need to front or put on a game face with them. They drank margaritas in a Mexican restaurant, giggling and teasing each other, and especially her best friend's fiancee, who is the odd man out. Even though they like him, even though he's a great guy, he isn't a part of their clique and he knows it. The four of them tell inside jokes, old stories, and laugh about old memories.

As she sipped on her second margarita, she wished they didn't all live so far away from each other, not in distance, as the farthest person lives about an hour and a half from her, but where their lives have taken them. The sole male of their group has done well for himself, having several degrees and teaching school like he always dreamed. The petite one has bumbled around for years with bad men, poor jobs, and terrible choices. She is now talking about opening up a franchise of a well-known chain and is semi-engaged to a guy who seems nice, but who comes with a lot of baggage. Ellen wishes her luck. Her best friend is engaged and finally working in her chosen profession, seems happy, but who is stuck living at home out of guilt. And then there's Ellen.

twilight: elliott smith

break(fast cereal) her heart

2005-06-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

This evening she watched a commercial in which a couple travels to another country to adopt a pair of fair-haired children, possibly Russian. The couple climbs out of a van to the sounds of some simple wordless tune where the children wait on the corner with a social worker-type person. The cuts little kids cling a little to the social worker, but eventually consent to being strapped into the van where they sit nervously on the way to the airport. Then the shot moves to mid-air on the plane, and the two kids sit with their adoptive mother, while the adoptive father leans around from his seat behind them. The new mother uses Cheerios to draw a smiley face on a paper plate in front of the little girl and the father adds a cereal nose. The kids smile and the next thing you know, each parent is holding one of the kids asleep on their lap on the plane. The next shot you see is the new family in the airport, the kids smiling and holding hands, the parents beaming.

Ellen sat in her recliner, tears welling up in her eyes as the end of the commercial reveals that this is based on a true story. She hadn't cried like that since the son was very small, and there was a Lenscrafters commercial where the baby needed glasses, and the "mom" says at the end of the commercial something like, "Now I know he can see his mom," and she would lose it every time. Now there's a Cheerios commercial she's got to watch out for that might trigger the waterworks.

Before the son was born, she could have been described as downright unsentimental. She didn't like dolls or trinkets, or Precious Moments figurines. She collected books, records, and tapes for their sentimental value. Her heart could not be displayed in a china case, but could be heard in a powerful chord, or be read off of dogeared pages smudged with finger grease.

But after the son was born, she wanted to display photographs, keep the little paper they gave her at the hospital listing the son's weight and length, and she considered bronzing his booties (if he had had some, she might have done). She held onto outfits far too small for him for far too long. She got misty-eyed at sad movies like she never had before, and she didn't mind that change. But she doesn't like this feeling of falseness that radiates from these heartstring-tugging commercials, that are created solely to sell cereal.

about

2005-06-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Something fun taken from justblu.

1) Her uncle once:
sent her a mixed CD full of songs that she either owned or hated. She isn't very close to this her only real uncle, but she's trying to change that.

2) Never in her life:
has she ever told anyone what was really on her mind.

3) When she was five:
she attended preschool for the second year, after harassing the mother so much that she needed to go to school, that she managed to send her at four.

4) High school was:
something she regrets not fully participating in, everyday.

5) She will never forget:
the sound her mother made when she was told her firstborn was dead.

6) She once met:
this great guy who became her husband, but who she hasn't seen in the last several years of their marriage.

7) There's this girl she knows who:
is finally graduating from college, after several roadblocks, on Saturday.

8) Once at a bar:
she took three shots of "Sexy Green Alligator" in a row, followed by lots and lots of other drinks. She doesn't remember the car ride home.

9) By noon she's usually:
counting the minutes until work is over.

10) Last night:
she was exhausted but couldn't sleep.

11) If only she had:
realized that credit cards aren't "free money" several years ago, she wouldn't be under a mountain of debt.

12) Next time she goes to church:
will be for a wedding or a funeral.

13) Terry Schiavo:
was kept alive, but wasn't living.

14) She has a confession to make:
she's playing hooky from work right now.

15) When she turns her head left:
she sees one of the beautiful sconces with candles that she has on her wall, that she rarely lights.

16) When she turns her head right:
she sees the stack of CDs she wants to burn onto her iPod but she's lazy.

17) You know when she's lying when:
she says, "I was just about to call you" because she hates to talk on the phone.

18) Everyday she thinks about:
running away and starting anew.

19) If she were a character written by Shakespeare she'd be:
Lady Macbeth: crazy, murderous, obsessed with handwashing.

20) By this time next year:
hopefully she and the husband will have bought the house of their dreams and have another baby on the way.

21) A better name for her would be:
she wouldn't want a different name.

22) She has a hard time understanding:
most people's motivations, including her own.

23) If she ever goes back to school, she'll:
love to go full-time, forever.

24) You know she likes you when:
she gives you a genuine smile (hint: you can tell when you see it in the eyes).

25) If she won an award the first person she'd thank is:
her mom.

26) Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferraro:
who are four people who have never been in her kitchen?

27) Take her advice, always:
don't do anything only because someone expects you to do it.

28) Her ideal breakfast is:
her father's waffles.

29) A song she loves, but does not have is:
dunno...she's got too much music already.

30) If you visit her hometown, she suggests:
staying for the annual festivals starting in December through February, and then leaving before it gets too damn hot.

31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips & track stars:
she's seen 'em all, and would give them all away but the tulips.

32) Why won't anyone:
treat others the way they want to be treated themselves?

33) If you spend the night at her house:
you'll end up drinking beer, watching funny movies, and licked by the dog in the morning.

34) She'd stop her wedding for:
ugh...once was enough.

35) The world could do without:
hate, crime, ignorance, and violence.

36) She'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than:
nothing. She's phobic about roaches.

37) Her favorite blonde is:
Janice, the nicest, sweetest, most wonderful blonde she knows.

38) Paper clips are more useful than:
a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

39) If she does anything well:
it's cooking.

40) And by the way:
she hates to do dishes.

41) The last time she was drunk:
a few Saturdays ago, but she didn't overdo it, it was just a nice buzz and relaxing sleep.

her

2005-06-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

inthemiddle
Originally uploaded by barcospapel.

For a limited time only, a picture of her at her cousin's wedding. She sits in the middle, her back to the camera, the husband at her left.

she's like twilight/in between day and night

2005-06-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

She is a force that will not be denied. When she gets an idea into her head, she does not quit until she has bowled over her opposition, changed the opinions of the naysayers, and debated all of the finer points of the issue. She will employ covert tactics, if necessary, sublety her watchword. Or she can go over the top, heaping spoonfuls where only a dash was needed. She is relentless and will lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, as she goes over her options and perfects her game plan. This strategy is excellent in her occupation, since she can conceive an idea and see it through until its perfect completion. But when it is her own body that fails her, she falls silent, her plans in tatters around her, and she descends.

She has been trying to get pregnant since January, and has since had several missed periods and no luck at all. When her monthly cycle is due and comes and goes without a sign, she wonders, is this it? More than a month passes and still her body remains silent. But there is no life sparking within her, just a deep sadness and a trash can full of home pregnancy test sticks.

The husband consols her as best he knows how, until she snaps back at his attempt at soothing sympathy. He is at a loss at how to help her deal with the situation. She thinks about how easy it was the first time, and perhaps it was so simple because she didn't think of it, didn't even consider it happening. It was a deep denial she built around her, that it couldn't possibly happen to her. And now when she can barely think of anything else, her womb cannot be bothered. It frustrates her to no end that she cannot fix this problem, she cannot bargain with it, she cannot solve the mystery of why and why not.

maginary girl - brendan benson

her name

2005-06-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

she had seven faces/ thought she knew which one to wear

2005-05-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult things she has had to do in recent memory was think of five anecdotes she wouldn't mind having broadcast to millions of people nationwide. As she sat in the plush maroon chair, precariously balancing her Jeopardy answer sheet atop a flimsy piece of cardboard on her knees, her whole life flashed before her eyes and there was not a shining moment she wished to share. She glanced around at the other eager beavers who seemed to be either scribbling down their glowing life achievements, or wondering how they were going to narrow it down to just five. The pink sheet before her didn't prompt her much for what to write, it only mentioned career achievements, awards won, most embarrassing moments, interesting hobbies.

The staff told the test takers that Alex would pick one of the five topics, mostly at random, and occasionally would go slightly off topic, leaving the already flustered contestant wide-eyed and frantic following the first commercial break. But she couldn't think of anything even slightly interesting about her life, and it crossed her mind a moment to make something up. But the thought of even one person in her life catching her in a fib in her one and only chance of being on her beloved game show and on television stilled her brain from concocting a fantastic tale.

The stories were meant to be brief, one line responses. Her palms dampened as she looked around and saw everyone else's to be complete and hers left blank. She scribbled something about her job, and tapped her pen against her cheek as she idly listened to the coordinator with one ear and thought hard. Would Alex [and America] be interested in her extensive music collection/obsession? Maybe. She wrote it on line two. She'd never really traveled anywhere interesting, except for Baja, but it wasn't something she could picture herself discussing with Alex as he leaned against her podium, cards in hand. She'd never won any awards or contests, outside of a few swimming meets in her youth or the meager academic heights she'd reached. Her fingers trembled as the coordinator announced the start of the test and then her worries dissipated as the first question came on screen.

Once the passing names were called and the other failed examinees poured out of the studio, the trash cans by the door became filled with the unneeded pink sheets. Ellen, being the private and paranoid person that she is, tucked hers away in her purse. Not only were her name and address clearly printed at the top, she would be ashamed if anyone saw that she couldn't think of more than two "highlights" of her life.

might makes right: a jeopardy experience

2005-05-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

They gathered on the ground floor of a parking structure at Sony Pictures in Culver City, a mishmash of people standing awkwardly in a scattered group as the Sony employees rushed in and out of the heavily secured ground. They had been instructed to dress as if they were going to appear on the show, and Ellen wore a demure turquoise and black skirt suit that she figured would help her stand out but look smart and professional. Most of the men were dressed in suits, complete with jacket, some appearing more comfortable than others in their tie and jacket. Several of the men looked smashing, their suits perfectly tailored and hanging just so from their shoulders. Others wore suits pulled from the back of the closet, the hems a bit too short, the pants just slightly too tight. Ellen observed one very young and very skinny young man in a pair of Dockers and a clean but well-worn collared shirt - his old shoes and lack of a belt making him stand out as he stood next to his besuited brethren. There were more than a few very large people, one man garbed sloppily in a maroon shirt and navy sweat pants. There was a man there whose arms were half the length of an average man's, dangling just below his short sleeves, his fingers stubby and clutching the hand of a girl, who she presumes was there to help him write. There were approximately fifty to sixty participants, the men outnumbering the women 3 to 1, at least.

They were herded to the studio by a round, energetic, balding man, who also drove the less able-bodied participants to the studio in a little cart. Each participant was given a very nice Jeopardy pen to keep, an answer sheet with 50 answer lines, a pink sheet on which to write the anecdotes that Alex mentions after the first commercial break on the show, and a piece of rather flimsy cardboard to use as a hardback to write on. After an entertaining orientation session, the test was set in motion. The "answer" was displayed on a large screen, just as it appears on your television, and is read by a recorded Johnny Gilbert, the announcer for the show. There is a different category for each of the fifty questions, and they are not the $200 questions, but more like the $1000-$1200 questions.

Ellen was quick to answer some of the questions, but others stumped her completely. Some answers eluded her brain, but a few questions later some answers would pop into her head and she would write it down. The coordinators had encouraged the participants to write any answer, because they were only graded on the correct answers, of which they needed to score about 70% to pass. The participants were only given eight seconds after the reading of each question before the next would pop up on screen, and she couldn't think too hard about one question before it was time for the next. She could clearly see the test of the person in front of her in the stadium seating, but she is not a cheater and she barely had time to think about cheating anyway.

After the test was over, the coordinators gathered the tests and disappeared into a side room to grade the tests, and presumably, laugh at the wrong answers. In their place came one of the "Clue Crew", the people who travel to different locations and read some of the "answers" in a video setting instead of Alex. She was charming, eloquent, funny, and extremely informative. She answered all questions from the crowd with ease and humor, and she came across as a truly genuine person. She introduced one of the two new clue crew personnel, due to start next season.

Then before seemed humanly possible, the coordinators emerged from their room to announce the passing participants. They read the names, and the participants clapped for each nervously, each praying and hoping their name might be called next. Three men, directly behind Ellen, had their names called and she wished she had sat behind THEM. Out of around fifty or sixty participants, only nine passed, and out of them, only one was a woman. Ellen was not this woman. The rest filed out the door, some gracious, others looked like they had been kicked in the stomach. Ellen shook the hand of the Clue Crew girl and smiled, before tucking her new pen in her purse and following the others back to the parking structure.

She fell into step beside another woman, who began to ask her what she had answered for a few questions. She told this woman what she had answered on each, and the woman groaned about how she wished she had thought of that. Ellen thinks she did fairly well, although it's hard to tell because the scores, passing or failing, are never revealed. Ellen asked this woman if she had come from far to take the test, and she replied that she had flown from Seattle expressly to take the test. The woman who was walking on the other side of her had come from Utah, hoping to be the next Ken Jennings. Ellen commented to the woman from Seattle that she knew she would think of some of the answers on her way home and want to kick herself. The woman laughed and agreed, then they parted ways as Ellen tried to remember on which level of the parking structure she had left her car. Ellen was glad she didn't have to waste money on a plane ticket for an hour and a half long test that she failed.

And so, on the traffic-filled drive home, since they were conveniently released just at rush hour, Ellen tried to think of the answers for the questions she had been unable to answer. One of the first questions seemed so easy and yet, she couldn't solve it during the test, when it mattered. Then the answer hit her and she smacked herself on the side of the head and howled with irritation.

The answer that stumped her that she figured out after about 2 minutes in the car?

Category: Rhyme Time
Three word phrase that means the strong make the rules.

an unending ache, a wish, a hope, a need

2005-05-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until several hours after she had got out of bed, showered, dressed, driven for two hours in solitude, sat down in a room full of trainees, and written the date that she remembered what day today is. Was. Will forever be.

For seven years, this day has crushed her soul and conjured up memories of the indescribable sound her mother made when the father told her that her first born was dead. She always felt a fraction of the huge gaping hole she felt in her chest when her father told her the same news. She can only imagine the pain he felt, and she knows that this event, not so much his cancer, was what slowly killed him. But, as is to be expected, she supposes, every year she became less and less of a mess on this day, and today, the seventh anniversary of the day her heart was ripped to shreads, she barely noticed until she saw the date in her own handwriting.

Every day, in some small way, she misses the sister. She will hear a song and wish she could share it with her. She will read a book, see a movie, visit a website, read a blog, and think the sister would find it funny or interesting. She sees things that would be perfect gifts for the sister. But these things don't bring her to tears or drop her down a well of depression anymore. They come and go as would a cloud passing in an otherwise clear blue sky, blotting out the sunlight for a while before passing, unremembered.

Not long after the sister died, she had a dream where she was in the shower, and the mother came rushing in, shouting that the sister was calling on the phone, and Ellen dried her hands to take the cordless phone, and pressed it to her ear. She was horrified to realize there was no one on the other end and worse, to find that she had nothing to say.

the week in review

2005-05-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Her part-time assistant of two years quit her job this week in order to go full-time, and the only thing she can think of is the agony of trying to train a new one, and just when she'd almost perfected the current one.

She received an email from the people at Jeopardy, inviting her to take the test to appear on her favorite game show. She has spent the last several days reading books of cultural trivia, attempting to cram 12 or more years of school she'd forgotten or ignored in the first place into two weeks of prep time.

The weather has officially turned hot, and she bakes in bed next to her lightly snoring husband, trying unsuccessfully to sleep. The combination of stress from not sleeping, losing her assistant, worrying about performing well on her Jeopardy test, and the oppressive heat has given her an embarrassing fever blister. She feels as though all eyes are upon her.

No blank space is safe from her pencil. During an important meeting wherein she was supposed to be taking notes, she was secretly doodling a drawing of a lemon.

She has been absentminded of late, making stupid mistakes such as matching the incorrect day of the week with the correct date on important invitations and documents, which have been discovered by her boss. She cannot concentrate and she doesn't know why.

She was relieved to have the results from a complete physical and bloodwork come back showing her perfectly healthy. Somehow she had convinced herself they would show cancer of all sorts and sky-high cholesterol.

All in all, an uneven week with highs and lows which she handled decently. How about you?

magnificent display

2005-05-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

[with bonus complete stranger who wouldn't get out of her shot]

bamboo

2005-05-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

a scene from a life

2005-04-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Ellen and the husband were watching one of the only shows she actually takes the time to see, besides Jeopardy. There was a scene in which a woman was raped, and Ellen made an offhand comment to the husband, spoken only because she was horrified by the very thought: "what if that happened to me?" At the time, the husband said something like, "don't even SAY that!" and then lapsed into complete silence, as is the norm between 8 and 9 pm on Tuesdays.

Tonight, the husband came home from his usual Friday evening bar excursion a little worse for wear. He sat down next to the couch and pulled her close to him, and explained how traumatizing that comment had been to him, and how he had had bad dreams and thoughts about something happening to Ellen. He asked her if she would wait for him to come out of jail, because if someone did do something to her, he would be forced to hunt them down and kill them. Ellen explained to him that that would be the very worst thing for him to do to her, because he would be taken away from her at the very time she needed him the most. After fifteen minutes of trying to explain this to him, she gave up without ensuring his comprehension. She figures he won't even remember the conversation tomorrow.

Then he turned his attention to the movie she was watching, a movie completely devoid of humor or explosions, but full of meaningful looks and sadness. He watched for a few minutes, and then asked her how she could watch depressing stuff, "after what happened to you". She realized he was referring to the death of her sister, who will be gone seven years in May. She told him how she had come so far since that time, she could talk about it, think about it, talk about her sister without crying or falling to pieces. Then she told him how glad she was he didn't know her when it happened, how glad she was that he met her almost exactly a year later, when her heart had healed a little. She told him how she was such a mess at the time, how she couldn't do anything without thinking about her sister, imagining the scene, how she looked, how she might have done it. How hard it was for her to imagine life going on around her without her sister in the world. How she wished to share things with her sister, the only other person who knew her whole life, who experienced the same things she did, and how it devastated her even now that she couldn't. That when she found out that her father died and she held the phone in her hand, the one and only person she wanted to call was her sister. How she sees things and reads things and hears things that she knows the sister would have loved. How for years after her death, she would see the sister's face in a crowd and how even now she sees the sister's features hidden in other people's faces.

Then she said she wished he had known her before the death of her sister, when she was able to be happy, when she didn't live her life as a bundle of nerves. That she would have liked for him to know the person that she thinks of as her real self, someone he's never met. And she looked down at the man leaning against her, his head almost resting in her lap, his arms wrapped around her, and listened to his faint snores as her tears dripped onto his forehead. And she realized she wasn't crying about her sister anymore, but for herself, for the part of her that died the same day her sister did, the part that the horrible death killed in her.

crushed

2005-04-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

It is just an innocent crush between them, or if truth be known, the crush is all on her side. He works in the same building as she does, and often drops by her office just to talk, about nothing, about everything. She felt a kinship with him from the first day they met face to face, as she processed his new hire paperwork and went over the usual information with him. He listened intently to what she had to say, shook her hand firmly but gently when he left, and completed all his requirements promptly and without any issues.

In a way, he reminds her of the husband. He is not much taller than she, as is the husband, and is not thin and not fat in the same way as her husband. He has a kind and open way about him, bringing in everyone, projecting the same friendliness to all of his co-workers. He does not have movie star looks, but this has never mattered to Ellen, in any of her relationships, or any of her crushes. In high school, she fell into a crush with a guy who she initially felt sorry for, because he was what she considered unattractive. The husband isn't stunningly handsome, but his features match and she likes the way he looks, and this crush is the same. The crush is self-conscious about his thinning hair, as is the husband (although it isn't thinning much at all) and he called attention to it during one self-depreciating joke as he sat in her office.

However, part of her affinity for him stems from the differences between him and the husband. He takes his wife places she wants to go, whether he really wants to or not, because he knows it will please her. The husband, on the other hand, does not do this for his wife unless she harasses him so much it sucks any fun they might have had out of the experience. The crush plans trips to far-away locales, while the husband refuses to fly anywhere. She will listen to his stories while leaning on one hand, sighing softly to herself while she imagines herself on these excursions. There are other endearing differences between the crush and the husband, and she gets irritated with herself for even thinking about them.

One day when she was alone in the office, he came in and sat across from her desk, and just talked to her for a couple of hours while she pretended to work. He is married, and he talked a little about his wife, how they met (high school sweethearts), where they live, some of the things they like to do. But mostly he told her about himself, in bits and snippets, and she responded in kind. They share an affinity with a lot of the same movies, television shows, and they are very close in age, so they share memories of fashion and lifestyle, whereas most of their co-workers are almost ten years older than them both. Most days he will come to see her, and if they pass in the hallway, he is ready with a smile and perhaps a small comment for her.

She will never tell anyone about her feelings, these feelings she knows are just a mindless crush that nothing will ever come from. She doubts that he feels anything for her other than an office friend, and of course she would never pursue anything other than friendship with him. If anything, this is the post in her blog that she wishes more than anything that her husband will never see. She knows if he ever did, he would be devastated, unbearably hurt, crushed.

david

2005-04-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

Ellen received the initial notice of her high school reunion this morning, an email delivered from the classmates website and forwarded to her by her girlfriend, in case she hadn't received one directly. It is the plan of Ellen and her closest remaining friends from school that they will all go together or not at all. Though she is very close with these people, she knows that there are stories in their school lives that she isn't aware of, because they are certainly as scared as she is to encounter those people again. And one of the stories she has, that they probably don't know:

David was the golden boy of his senior class, two years ahead in school from Ellen. He was rich, popular, smart, and handsome. His blond hair glowed like a gently mussed halo and he dressed casually in the expensive and cool brands of the time. He was equally easy-going with everyone, evoking backslaps and praise from the boys, blushes and giggles from the girls. Except Ellen.

Ellen sat next to him in Spanish, an awkward but intelligent student who could read, spell, and understand Spanish well, but who would not speak it because she was embarrassed and afraid of making mistakes. She was self-conscious because she was large busted and taller than many of the male students, and tended to try to hide behind her books and the student sitting in front of her. And David must have picked up on this immediately.

David tormented her daily, always ready with a demeaning joke, a taunt, or a humiliating stunt. He enlisted his other senior friends in the class and they were relentless on the poor sophmore Ellen. They teased her about her clothes, told her that she smelled, ridiculed everything about her. She never wanted to go to that class, and hated everyone in the room, including the teacher, who never did anything to stop the torture. She didn't learn anything in that class, because all she did was dream of not being there.

Two years later, David was attending college at a sunshiny party school and Ellen was now a senior in high school. They had had no further contact, but as he had been a popular and well-liked student, the news traveled fast when David hit his head on a curb while skateboarding and died of massive head trauma. The entire school fell into mourning and people wore black armbands, organized a memorial, and dedicated a plaque in the quad to David. Ellen felt nothing, and hers were probably the only dry eyes in the crowd when the students were asked to give a moment of silence to his memory.

desolation

2005-04-17T00:43:00.000-07:00

She has been playing the same song over and over again on her iPod, the one with the mournful tune and the sad, lonely lyrics. She found an old CD that contained files from when she switched over from the old computer, well over a year ago, and loaded them onto the new one. She wept when she saw the picture of her father sitting at her dining room table, smiling into the lens, a year or so prior to his death, the first and last time he had been in this rented space of hers. She finds she can barely remember the sound of his voice, the kind things he last said to her. She weeps again now, alone in her bedroom, after midnight on a Saturday night, typing these words.

In her head she is always sobbing. No matter if she puts on a brave face and appears at work, smiling and behaving in a professional manner. She is shattered glass within. She is short with her family, and she cringes when she realizes the tone she has taken with the son at times. She has little patience with him, and she is immediately sorry when she snaps, because it is not his fault, nothing is his fault. She sneaks into his room at night and stands above his sleeping body, silently apologizing for being a shitty mother, for being everything she tries not to be. She adjusts his pillows and the blankets that cover his long, soft body, curves her hand gently over his hot, sweaty head, and wishes things could be different. She thinks with deep remorse that it is too late, she has already damaged him beyond repair. The million ways that parents can permanently fuck up their kids, she has done them all.

champagne from a paper cup

2005-04-16T01:52:00.000-07:00

1. Ellen discovered that she likes Asti Spumante champagne. Quite a bit, actually. At the wedding of her brother-in-law last weekend, the people at her table gave her the bottle, and encouraged her to drink straight from it. She did consume more of it than anyone else at the table, but resisted to drink from the actual bottle.

2. The husband, who was in the wedding party, drank quite a bit as well and decided he wanted to embarrass his wife as much as possible. He told anyone who would listen how much he wanted to lift his wife's dress up and "lay some pipe". He also told them how much he loved his wife, to his credit, and how her "ass looked great in that dress". People she had never before met would tell her, upon being introduced, the things her husband had told them. Everyone was great about it, but Ellen was mortified.

3. The bride herself was pretty far gone by the time the bridal party arrived at the reception. She wandered about, being led around by her new husband, and appeared red-eyed and bleary throughout most of the evening.

4. Ellen was not seated with her in-laws at the wedding, but instead with her favorite cousins of her husband, two guys who always make her laugh and make sure she has a great time. She is forever grateful to whoever made the seating arrangements, as the table with her in-laws looked boring and she is glad she didn't have to sit there.

5. At the bachelorette party the weekend before, the male stripper took quite a liking to Ellen's husband's cousin, a knockout girl who should be a model. He paid extra attention to her, and after his "show" was over, he got dressed and told everyone he was single, being quite obvious about trying to pick her up. Ellen's cousin-in-law was disgusted, and eventually one of the husbands had to be discreetly called to come over and chase him out.

6. The title of this and the previous post are Death Cab for Cutie song titles. Ellen has, in the last three weeks, downloaded 290 songs.

this temporary life

2005-04-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

The husband was diagnosed with diabetes a little over four years ago. He dropped a dramatic amount of weight in a very short time period, with no change in his regular habits of lying around on the couch as much as possible. He started drinking gallons of water a day, leading to excessive bathroom visits. He was hungry all the time, and just felt generally lazy. But the biggest indication was that half of his family is also diabetic. Ellen visited a certain well-known medical website for diabetes symptoms and found he was exhibiting most, if not all of them. He didn't take the news very well, and lamented about the changes he would need to make in his life and that he thought Ellen would leave him for someone "who isn't diseased." She has spent a great deal of energy in the past four years trying to get him to take care of himself.

Ellen, on the other hand, is hypoglycemic, which is virtually the opposite of being diabetic, also known as hyperglycemic. Hypoglycemia is when the blood sugar level drops to alarmingly low levels, whereas diabetics are concerned with lowering and maintaining a constant blood sugar level. The typical range for blood sugar should be in the range of 70 to about 120. When the husband was diagnosed, his blood sugar level was in the low 400's.

This afternoon, Ellen was making lunch for herself and the son, when the knife in her hand slipped and she sliced a neat gash in one finger. She gasped and instinctively brought her injured hand up to her chin, dropping the knife on the cutting board and startling the son. She sent him upstairs to get her a bandage, while she cleaned the cut under the kitchen tap. Thankfully, the knife was relatively clean and very sharp, and it wasn't but a moment before it stopped bleeding. But it was then that she realized how her hands were shaking.

She took down the blood sugar testing equipment from the cabinet and took it into the bathroom, where the son would not have to watch her prick her finger and squeeze out a sizeable amount of blood for the test strip. She brought up the pen-like contraption to prick her finger and had a difficult time keeping her hands steady enough to draw blood, moving around as they were. When the test was complete, she was shocked to see it register 47, a very low count.

She immediately drank a sugary lemonade beverage that she thankfully had in the back of the refrigerator. Due to the husband's condition, she doesn't keep much in the house that would immediately raise her blood sugar, short of eating spoonfuls of actual sugar. She ate lunch with trembling hands which she tried to keep from the notice of the son, who babbled incessently, as he always does.

When the husband came home, she told him what had happened, and he was horrified to think of what could have happened to her. She listened with a faint smile on her lips as he admonished her to report this to her doctor immediately, and to buy some glucose pills to keep with her at all times, just in case. She smiled to hear her own words coming out of his mouth.

in transit

2005-04-02T00:30:00.000-08:00

this one time, in baja...

2005-03-30T21:54:00.000-08:00

The Baja trips were as much of a routine in Ellen's life as school starting in September or as Christmas falling on December 25. So many strange and interesting things occurred on these trips, and the memories swirl around in her mind as she tries to remember when and where each happened.

There was the time when one of the Volkswagen vans broke down and they were stopped at the side of a two-lane road where a car passed by every ten minutes or so. Actually, this could describe almost every trip, at one point or another. But on this trip, two men in a late-model Cadillac pulled up behind the vans to see if they could help. The kids were already milling around outside in the glaring sunshine, listening as Ellen's dad and the two men spoke in rapid Spanish while gesturing and peering at the broken engine. One of the men seemed more knowledgeable in fixing VW vans, so he and Ellen's dad poked at the engine. The other man spoke to the kids in Spanish, and when he realized there was no comprehension, waved the kids over to his car and pointed inside. There, walking around on the backseat of the Cadillac, was a live lobster, easily 20 inches long. It was bright red, its claws fastened shut with a huge rubber band, its antennae waving around as it tried in vain to find a way out. Ellen wondered if the lobster was a pet, or was destined for a juicy lobster taco.

And then there was the time that they camped out on a lonely beach where they saw no people, except for once on the first day. A solitary fisherman offered them fresh fish, and when they declined, he never returned. Stranded out on a sandy ridge about a mile from their campsite was a huge ship, leaning slightly to one side. Ellen convinced some of the Doctor's kids to walk over to it with her, and they found a rope ladder hanging down from one side. The area around the ship was completely deserted of anything: shells, seaweed, rocks, trash, everything. The craziest of them climbed up the rope ladder and onto the ship. Within fifteen minutes, he was scrambling back down the rope, shouting not to go up there and refusing to talk about what he had seen. To this day, she does not know if he was kidding around or if he saw something that frightened him.

And then there was the time that they left out some sour cream dip overnight and in the morning, they were awakened by cows who had invaded their campsite and eaten the dip. They were accompanied by a bull who had a frayed rope tied to one ankle that dragged along the ground behind him. Ellen's family had to bang pots and scream and wave their arms around to get the cows to move on down the beach.

And then there was the time that the caravan had stopped in a major city and the adults decided to sit in a cantina and have a beer or seven. The kids weren't allowed inside, and they milled around out in front of the cantina which was situated high off the road atop great concrete steps, each over a foot high, and this is when Ellen was a small thing. Somehow, under the supervision of the sister and the Evil Daughter, Ellen managed to tumble down these concrete steps, landing at the bottom in a scraped up, bloody heap. The adults hurtled down the steps and she remembers the father scooping her up and taking her up the regular sized stairs into the bar, where she was set upon the bar so that her cuts could be attended to.

And then there was the time that the mother, the Alternate Mother, the sister, and Ellen were shopping in a busy Mexican marketplace. Ellen, at about four year old, was looking at an assortment of brightly painted wooden toys and was momentarily separated from the mother. Somehow, the mother forgot her youngest daughter was even with her, and she walked out of the store and quite a way down the street to where the caravan was waiting for them. When the mother and father came face to face, he asked her, "Where's Ellen?" to which she replied, "I thought she was with
you!"

The Genius Husband, with his long legs, immediately bounded off in the direction from which the mother had come. The others followed suit, the mother frantically searching everywhere, trying to remember the area where she might have left her daughter. When they came upon the small towheaded Ellen, she was walking behind a group of other tourists, not crying, but when the Genius Husband came into view, she burst into tears and was mad at the mother for the rest of the trip. Up until her teens, she would remind the mother about how she left her in Mexico.

baja: part two - the cast of characters

2005-03-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

The Doctor was an old friend of the father's who almost always accompanied Ellen's family on their Baja trips. He was not the first person you would have thought was a medical doctor. He never wore a shirt or shoes, opting for ragged shorts and an assortment of bandannas, and the world's oldest sandals, if shoes were absolutely required. He was diabetic and would uncerimoniously pull out his kit of needles and insulin and inject himself wherever and whenever he chose. Ellen does not remember ever seeing him without a beer in his hand, preferably room temperature. His skin was permanently tanned a deep brown by the sun, and wrinkles grew around his piercingly bright blue eyes. His ready laugh would echo through the camp at all hours of the day and night. His wife, a quiet woman with the same blue shade to her eyes and brown tan to her skin also had the same tendency to go nowhere without a beer. Their kids were a rowdy bunch, much like their father, but were already adults by the time Ellen was born. They were all kind to her, but were much more interested in other things that didn't involve kids and as a result, she never got to know them very well even though they camped side by side for weeks at a time, every year. One of the sons, however, would sit and watch cartoons with her when everyone else was preparing the vans for the Baja trips, and she thought of him as her favorite. As she got older, however, she would come to see that he had never really grown up, which is why he preferred spending time with the other children.

The Alternate Mother was Ellen's mother's best friend, an exuberant woman with bright red hair and very pale skin that never failed to attract quite a bit of attention in Baja. When Ellen was young, the Alternate Mother, her Genius Husband, and the evil daughter lived with Ellen's family in a house that was small for one family. As a result the Alternate Mother scolded and cared for Ellen and the sister just as she would her own daughter, and Ellen came to think of her as another mother. The Genius Husband of the Alternate Mother, was a tall, super skinny man with a bush of wiry black hair that stood up in all directions and an identical-looking beard that covered half of his face. He had suffered some injury or had had some surgery (Ellen doesn't remember which) that caused him to speak as if he was trying to keep half a mouthful of water in his mouth at all times. He could be hard to understand, not only because of the speech impediment, but also because he was incredibly intelligent and logical, something that the young Ellen had a hard time wrapping her mind around. Ellen and the sister would take a Rubik's cube, twist it and turn it a hundred different times, in a hundred different directions, and even pull off the stickers and trade their places. They would give the Rubik's cube to the Genius Husband and watch, in awe, as he would examine it, then turn it over and over until it was perfect again. He could do this with any type of logic puzzle, no matter how complicated, in a matter of minutes, amazing the little girls who would squeal with delight when he would perform this magical feat.

The Alternate Mother and the Genius Husband had a daughter who should have been named Damien, the world's most repugnant and evil person alive. The Evil Daughter was missing all of the toes and part of one of her feet, giving it the (appropriate) appearance of a cloven hoof, the result of having been in a tractor accident as a young girl. The Evil Daughter was slightly older than Ellen's sister and would torture both of them in a myriad of ways, big and small, but Ellen only remembers the things she did to Ellen personally. She would join forces with Ellen's sister and exclude her from any activity, something that was devastating to Ellen, especially since there was no one else for her to play with, and she idolized her big sister. Ellen lived in fear of the Evil Daughter, never trusting her when she wanted to play with Ellen. She often wished the Evil Daughter would mysteriously disappear, but unfortunately, the Evil Daughter returned every year to torment her.

There was also several other people who often traveled with the above on the annual Baja trips, but for one reason or another were not part of the usual cast of characters. People faded in and out of her life, many of whom she wonders where they are and hopes they are doing well. But the Baja trips continued until the year after her freshman year in high school, and the various experiences blur together in her mind until they seem like one, long, strange trip.

baja: part one

2005-03-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

At the mother's wedding, Ellen was reminded by several of the attendees of the yearly event that shaped her entire early life: the Baja trips. Each summer, as soon as she and the sister were released from school, the troops would begin to assemble. The Doctor and his wife, and their kids, who were in their twenties and thirties, would pull up to Ellen's house with a packed Volkswagen van. The van would contain everything that one might possibly need for several weeks in Mexico, including huge plastic containers of water. The Alternate Mother, the Genius Husband, and their evil daughter would arrive in their own van, followed by a variety of other hangers-on who would vary from year to year.

The three vans and sometimes other cars would travel in a caravan to the border and would cross into Mexico. From there, they would stop in the major cities of Ensenada and Rosarito only long enough to buy ice and authentic Corona beer, and maybe give the kids a chance to get a paleta, the real fruit ice cream sold everywhere by an old man with a cart, easily found by the jingling of several bells tied to the handle. After that brief stop, the caravan would travel until either reaching their destination (rarely) or until one of the vans broke down (almost always).

Then the fun would begin. The men would pour out into the blistering sun to gather at the rear of the broken-down vehicle. They would examine the steaming engine and discuss the nature of the engine failure while sucking down ice-cold Coronas. The kids would fidget and sweat in the back of the van and harass the women until they were allowed to get out and wander around. Usually there was nothing more than a few scrub bushes and dirt to look at, but it was always better than the plastic seats sticking to the backs of their legs and the overheard bickering of the men. Before long, someone would have determined the reason for the breakdown, and would drive off in search of a auto repair shop for the necessary fix. The rest of the crew would be left behind to make camp.

The remaining men would hitch the disabled vehicle to one of the others, and it would be towed to the nearest available beach. On almost every occasion, the nearest beach would prove to be not only nearly deserted, but also beautiful and exactly what they were looking for. The powdery white sand might be marred only by the slimy green washed up seaweed and perhaps a few rocky places. But it almost always was littered with smooth seashells and perfect round sandollars, and the odd manta ray skeleton. In many cases, the water would be warm and gentle, and the ocean waves would be the only water that cleansed their bodies for weeks. When the tide would go out, everyone would walk far out into the sand where hours before, several feet of water stood. They would collect clams and crabs, every once in a while a lobster, and other interesting things, before the tide rolled back in.

the wedding

2005-03-12T21:43:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, the mother will walk down the aisle and marry husband number two. She was married to Ellen's father for just short of thirty years, and divorced him not long after he was diagnosed with cancer and about a year after Ellen moved out of the house. Ellen carries a crippling resentment towards her mother that she cannot let go. She is dreading attending this wedding where she will be expected to look cheerful and happy for the mother, where inside she will be screaming.

When the mother and father were living by themselves, after Ellen moved out, the mother was frequenting chat rooms and talking to men. The father, oblivious to all of this, sat alone in the living room, watching television. Whenever Ellen went over to visit, the mother and father would always be in separate rooms, never interacting, just going through the motions of being a married couple. Ellen never saw this when she was living there, but once she was on the outside, she saw their marriage crumbling away.

The father was terribly depressed and upset after the death of the sister, and Ellen believes he never really got over it. It was after she died that he became close with Ellen, and they were finally able to form a father-daughter relationship that she had never known before. He was diagnosed with cancer but didn't follow through on his treatments, stopped seeing a doctor, and let it all go. The cancer was given free reign to spread while he wallowed in his sorrow.

The mother, however, felt if the father wasn't going to take charge of his life, she was going to take charge of her own. So she told the father she wanted a divorce. Ellen thinks the father never expected this to happen, and although the mother offered to let him stay in the house, he packed up his stuff and moved away. Over a thousand miles away, in fact. When he was gone, the mother went off in search of herself and became unconcerned with everyone else.

After a couple of years and a number of failed romances, the mother met the new husband and is marrying him after about a year of dating. He seems like a nice enough man, but Ellen senses that he is not entirely comfortable with his love's daughter. Ellen tries not to send out vibes of irritation, but he can probably tell. Unfortunately, they aren't directed at him.

So, come Saturday, she will smile and nod, talk to all of the wedding attendees, but her mind will be a thousand miles away, with her father, barely one year gone and already replaced.

heartache

2005-03-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

The father lay in the back bedroom of the little house, a prisoner in a hospital bed stationed in front of a television that seemed to be always tuned to the History or Discovery channel. He was always a large man, but with every visit he seemed to shrink, his t-shirts hanging on bony arms, his sweats drooping from a diminishing waist. She would hang out in his room, unsure of what to say or what to do. They watched television, she would read a book when he dozed off, she would play solitaire in the corner until she couldn't stand it anymore. The smell in the room was foreign, a clinical smell, mixed with something else she couldn't identify until later: fear. Hers and his.

The last visit she made when the grandfather called to tell her he wasn't sure how long her father would last. She flew out to the nearest airport and rented a car for the weekend, sure the grandfather was overreacting. On her last visit, the father seemed okay, skinny maybe, not eating much, but still mobile. When she saw the father this time, however, she knew the grandfather was right. His unfocused eyes were glued with yellowy mucus, his hair almost nonexistant, his gaunt face and peaked cheekbones stretched over with milky pale skin. She almost cried out to see him this way, she didn't know how to react. The grandfather and the housekeeper had to take care of his every basic need and they were forced to keep him heavily medicated due to the severe pain.

She knows the father knew she was there. He whispered to her when she arrived, telling him she loved him and that she was by his side. She stood nearby when they cleaned him, her heart breaking into a million pieces to see him so weak. Part of her wanted to stay and hold his hand until the last moment, the other couldn't wait to flee and believe that this wasn't really happening. She could only stay a couple of days before her family and work needed her back.

She drove away to catch her flight, not knowing that two days later the grandfather would call her when she was still laying warm in her bed, fresh from sleep, to tell her that the father had died. She hung up the phone after a brief talk with the grandfather, and cried alone, silently, for not being there, for being a terrible daughter, for not loving the father enough, for not calling as often as she should have, for everything.

This week was the one year anniversary of the father's death, leaving the family of her birth to count only herself and her mother. The same mother who, when her only remaining daughter comes to town, cannot manage to stay with her daughter for one night, but instead prefers to drive over an hour to stay with her fiancee. The mother who is getting married in two weeks, the mother who asked for good dates for her wedding in the spring, and immediately selected one of the few that her daughter had specifically asked her not to schedule it on. The mother who can only talk to her daughter about herself, who always brings it back to herself should the conversation stray.

She misses the father intensely, the kind man he became in the last several years, who always had time for her and wanted to hear from her as often as possible. Without exception, the father would give her whatever he could to her, whether it was time, advice, a place to stay, or even money if she was hurting enough to ask him.

Goodbye, Daddy.

in the wash

2005-02-27T19:57:00.000-08:00

She has been alone with herself, with her thoughts, for the great majority of this weekend. The husband is off on a boys weekend out with his friends and cousins, and the son is with his biological father. Even the dog was gone, in a kennel until she picked him up Sunday morning.

On Saturday she attended a work-related training that happened to be held in her hometown. Immediately following the dismissal of the class, she pulled onto the freeway for the long haul home. She turned up the stereo as loud as possible and sang along in the one place she knows no one will hear her. She unlocked the front door and found the silence deafening. She watched some television, wrote the previous post, read a little, but couldn't really immerse herself in anything.

This morning she decided to take all of the laundry to the laundromat, in order to get it done with quickly and also for an excuse to get out of the house. The parking lot of the brand new laundromat down the street was already filled with late model cars and the laundromat itself was teeming with families, kids running amok and televisions turned up loud to Telemundo.

The next place she went, a relatively new laundromat, was also full. She considered going back home, but then remembered the old, ugly laundromat she passes on her way home from work. There weren't many cars in the parking lot, and few people were doing their laundry there. She unloaded the car and started four washers before she took the time to look around and observe the patrons. There was a young couple, the only people there close to her age, who stood the entire time directly in front of whatever machine they were using at the time.

But the great majority of the people there were Mexican bachelors washing one or two loads of clothes, one whites and the other worn looking work pants and shirts. These men's faces were permanently browned and wrinkled from the sun, their baseball caps pulled down low over their foreheads. They carried in their laundry not in plastic bins, but in plastic shopping bags and old duffel bags. One man eyed her as she leaned against the rocking washer, as it spun the last few minutes. She noticed his ragged clothes, his need for a haircut, but also the careful way he folded each faded blue shirt and threadbare whitish t-shirt.

She is certain these men would love to have someone to do this type of work for them, a woman to clean and fold their laundry, to have food on the table when they came home from work. Probably some have such a woman, back in their former country, who receives a wire of money or a letter stuffed with dollar bills. Probably they would appreciate someone folding their faded shirts and old jeans. She thought of her own two boys, who appear to think clean clothes appear from a fairy and food magically appears in the refrigerator once a week.

She is secretly glad to have been alone this weekend, without anyone else to take care of. However, she is wondering when they will be back, how soon can they get here?

homecoming

2005-02-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

Ellen has traveled to her hometown for this weekend. The drive was uneventful, though she noticed the hills on the way were much greener due to the recent heavy rainfall, and the mountains were dusted with much more snow. Sometimes she gets a bad taste in her mouth when she is forced to return to her origins, but other times, memories of this area can make her weep and she will wonder why she ever moved away. Usually, she is reminded of why she moved quickly upon her return.

Her hometown is currently hosting the county fair, an event which shakes up the town for the two weeks it runs. It is a giant affair [at least for an area this size], bringing in lots of tourists and making even the crappiest of local hotel chains raise their prices to an astounding $140 per night. And that's the cheapest she could find. She abandoned her thoughts of spending the night in a pet fur-free hotel room, and resigned herself to staying the night in the home she grew up in.

Her childhood bedroom is no longer a room to sleep in. She is currently sitting in a chair in this room, which has become an office slash storage room, and bears no resemblance to her former "cave", as it was referred to. It is situated in the back of the house, and it never received much sunlight, making it the darkest and coolest room in the house. She loved holing herself up in the room that the mother forced her to paint a pale pink for cheeriness. The walls are no longer pink, but instead are what she thinks of as "bare apartment wall white".

The bedroom she inhabited once the son was born is also not her room anymore. It was first the sister's room, and it was a sanctuary for her as well. Ellen remembers running into the sister's room and jumping on her waterbed, something she would be smacked or yelled at for by the sister, no doubt. Once the sister had moved away and Ellen needed more room for the impending birth, she made it her own comfort zone, with room for the baby's dresser and crib, and later, a single bed for the toddler son. Now it is the mother's room, with a new big bed and Ellen's beautiful old dresser, which was too large to fit in her first apartment and which she now regrets giving to the mother.

She drove through her old town, taking pains to avoid the fairgrounds and the traffic it brings. Her winding route took her past many an old memory. She passed by Nava's mother's house, where she saw his mother outside on her lawn. Ellen briefly considered stopping, but couldn't bring herself to do it. She instead sped up, imagining that Nava's mother watched her drive past. She traveled the route she had used to walk to her middle school and back, crossing through the very intersection where she was hit by a car in her youth. She found herself driving the very way that she walked to and from high school every day, where many of the formerly vacant lots had sprung up new homes and apartments, and even a Starbucks. A Starbucks!

She drove past the vacant lot where she and Cindy would fly kites in the summer, where guys would drive by once, twice, before stopping to talk to the wild girls in short shorts and tank tops. It looked the same to her, only smaller, sadder. Yes, the Kmart is still there, yet now it is a BIG K. She drove past the grove of trees where she once made out with Nava, and where she would often walk to catch the bus to work, where she would walk carefully so the dust wouldn't dirty the bottom of her pants. She drove past the ghetto apartments, now painted a shocking orange, where she ditched school once with Nava.

Every street, every neighborhood, everywhere holds a certain memory for her. Even though so many of the buildings have changed, the shape of the strip malls, and the configurations of some of the streets. But it is no matter - her heart recalls all of this and more.

uneasy like saturday morning

2005-02-19T04:17:00.000-08:00

It is shortly after 4 am and the storm of the century [according to the local news media, anyway] has descended upon her valley. Rain pours down on her roof, rattles against her windows, and drips indiscreetly from a spot in her hallway ceiling. She was awakened by a boom of thunder so loud that she thought maybe two trains had collided directly outside her bedroom window. She lay in bed for a while, watching the flashes of lightning illuminate her room for a moment, counting the seconds until she heard the crack of thunder. One-one thousand, two-one thousand...

So now she sits, huddled in a quilt, at her computer desk. It's freezing, the husband left for work 45 minutes ago, the rain is loud, and it's far too early to write anything coherent.

overheard

2005-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

In honor of her favorite work timewaster, since now Blogger and all other journal sites have been blocked:

February 13, 2005:

Guy: The Notebook? What the hell is this movie about?
Girl: Oh, it's some romantical shit.

--Blockbuster Video

late nite boredom

2005-02-13T23:34:00.000-08:00

This is a blogger challenge stolen from this blog, who stole it from another blog. This is also what happens when Ellen is unable to sleep.

The rules are thus:
1. Open up the music player on your computer or iPod etc.
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the "shuffle" or "random" command.
4. List title of the next ten songs including artist, no matter how embarrassing.
5. List the answer on your blog and link to where you found it.

The results are thus:
1. tisbury lane: mae
2. radio cure: wilco
3. bilzzard of '77: nada surf
4. heartspark dollarsign: everclear
5. sit down. stand up.: radiohead
6. yellow ledbetter: pearl jam
7. everything in its right place: radiohead
8. certain people i know: morrissey
9. maps: yeah yeah yeahs
10. say it again: badly drawn boy
11. rabbit in your headlights: UNKLE

[She cranked this list right up to 11 because of the multiple Radiohead songs. Although the UNKLE song is sung by Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead. Okay then, one more:]

12. the real thing: grand drive

All excellent songs, none of which she is embarrassed by.

the future is pain

2005-02-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

And after writing so much about past events, those memories have come back to haunt her in the most unexpected way: in her dreams. In these dreams, she sees Nava in a whole new light, her mind divising ways to bring them together even as she sleeps with her back pressed up next to the husband. She thinks, how odd it is that dreams betray you. She rarely remembers her dreams, but these are vivid and stay with her for days before finally fading from her mind.

She thinks part of the reason she has been remembering these, and other disturbing dreams, is because she cannot sleep comfortably. Two weekends ago, Ellen slipped on the concrete steps outside her house while wearing slippers never intended for outdoor use. Her legs went up, one slipper flew over the fence into the neighbor's yard, and her tailbone bounced off of one step and flat onto another. Both she and the doctor think she cracked her tailbone, but as there's nothing that can be done about a broken tailbone, she was sent home with some Ibuprofen and an order to buy a doughnut pillow. She cannot bring herself to actually use said pillow, and instead suffers as quietly as she can when sitting.

But as a back sleeper, she can no longer sleep for long before her body instinctively turns onto her back, and she is rudely jolted awake by severe pain in her backside. So she sleeps lightly and uncomfortably on one or the other side, or on her stomach, catching as many winks as she can. This has led to a state of not quite being awake and not quite being asleep that makes for many a restless night and zombie-like day.

One dream she had can be traced to something she read earlier in the day. When she was waiting in the doctor's office to be seen for her tailbone [standing up, of course, enduring curious stares from other patients], she picked up a magazine that had an article about that Governor who resigned because he was gay, despite being married with children. This article contained stories about other women whose husbands had declared themselves gay and left for a different kind of life. So, of course, that night she dreamt the husband was leaving her for another man.

But the incredibly detailed and palpable dream she had where she walked hand-in-hand with Nava through a trickling mist in an unidentifiable city, talking for hours, can be traced back only to her memories of talking to Nava, dredged up by writing about him.

self-imposed reading list for february

2005-02-12T01:26:00.000-08:00

in the shadow of no towers by art spiegelman
Art Spiegelman wrote Maus, one of the most moving books she's ever read. While she liked many of the sentiments contained within, some of it was lost on her because she isn't from the East Coast.

blankets by craig thompson
This is a masterpiece - this is what she has envisioned creating all her life. Simply beautiful, heartwrenchingly sad, exquisite.

the fixer by joe sacco
She has read several of his graphic novels about his experiences in Bosnia/Yugoslavia/Serbia and was less impressed by this one as by his others.

geisha: a life by mineko iwasaki
Having been a big fan of Memoirs of a Geisha, she was eager to read this book said to be the basis for Memoirs. She could see the many connections and ways that the stories had been changed for Memoirs. Still, it was a good story.

geisha by liza dalby
Eh. Good pictures. Much of it reads like a textbook. She feels like the foremost authority on geishas now, however.

balzac and the little chinese seamstress by dai sijie
She hasn't finished this one yet, but it already has her considering reading some Balzac, which she never has read before. She doesn't read many classical authors, but she does enjoy a good historical novel.

reading lolita in tehran by azar nafisi
funny in farsi by firoozeh dumas
snow by orhan pamuk

She hasn't started these yet.

She also tried to read Journey From The Land Of No, by some author [too lazy to look it up right now], but it was tedious and she couldn't get into it.

nava: part five - the end

2005-02-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

Fast forward about three years since the last time she saw Nava and you'll see a lot has changed in Ellen's life. The son is over three years old and seems to grow an inch or two every day. Ellen has patched things up with the son's father enough for them to have a civil relationship, and he has regular visitation with the son, who he adores. She has a full-time job with benefits that allows her to provide the son with the most wonderful of babysitters, who she can fully trust her child with while she works. She has enough money to buy the things she and the son need, but not enough to move out on her own yet, which is fine, since she and the mother are getting along great. Her sister died just over one year ago, which has given her unending pain and guilt, but also caused her to grow up even more. She is a much more serious and cautious person, and has lost a great deal of her carelessness and ability to have fun. She has recently met the man who will become her husband, and she is happy and in love. They are tentatively discussing the possibility of a future together and she glows.

Ellen is on her way to drop the son off at his father's house when she passes Nava'a mother's house and sees the Coroner's van. She slows a little but keeps on going, down the street to where the son's father stands in his front lawn and looks down the street at the same van that caused her to pause. She gets out of the car and makes polite small talk with him in front of the son, and then ushers him off with the grandmother so that they can talk. She asks him what is going on at Nava's house and he tells her that Nava's sister shot herself. The son's father was a very good friend of Nava's sister and her boyfriend, and he looks pale and sweaty in the blasting June sunshine.

Ellen drives back home to her mother's house and calls her boyfriend. She tells him that she cannot drive out to his house this weekend. At this point, she had not told him about her sister's death, because not only is it still too raw for her, she is embarrassed that her sister shot herself. She explains the whole story to him, and he is sympathetic and appropriately caring. She tells him that she is going over to Nava's mother's house, but she doesn't fully explain her past with Nava, only that she was friends with his sister.

Nava's mother's house is dark and understandably, devastatingly sad. Nava's mother hugs Ellen tight and cries on her shoulder. Because the son's father was good friends with Nava's sister, Ellen knows that Nava and his family have heard what happened to her own sister. Ellen sits next to Nava's mother and tries to console her as best as she can, but of course she is inconsolable. Ellen looks around the house and sees the pictures of Nava's family, some of them the same ones that were there when she would sneak into his house at night. The face of Nava's dead sister overwhelms Ellen and she feels tears roll down her cheeks, which are inflamed because she knows she is really crying for her own sister, not so much for Nava's.

Nava has refused to come out of his room to speak to anyone. His [crazy, possessive] girlfriend sits on the couch opposite Ellen and makes small talk, mostly about the fact that she is worried about Nava, how he won't even talk to her. Ellen sits on the couch and waits through round after round of mourners come to pay their respects to the family. She is waiting for Nava. His best friends show up and he refuses to come out. Finally, he comes out to use the bathroom and his girlfriend convinces him to go see his mother, at least. He sees Ellen on the couch and she stands up. He makes a beeline for her and they stand in the living room, holding onto each other, in front of everyone, for what feels like an eternity. They finally break free and sit on the couch, and he breaks his silence to talk to her, no one else. The girlfriend sits by and tries not to fume and resists scratching out Ellen's eyes, because she is amazed that Nava is talking to anyone.

After the funeral, after a period of time, Nava starts to call Ellen in the middle of the night again. They talk, mostly about their sisters, about the similarities, the differences, the hows and the whys, the I-should-haves and the why-didn't-I's. The conversations become fewer and farther between as Ellen's life begins to revolve more around the future husband's and she has less time to talk to Nava. Then the night before she moves out of the parent's house to live with the future husband, Nava calls her and they talk for over an hour, an hour that she should be spending packing. He says he is having trouble with the crazy possessive girlfriend, that he is living in their apartment alone. He wants her to come and see him, and with the hope that she will not regret it, she agrees to meet him.

Ellen picks him up from his mother's house in the future husband's truck, no less, and he says he needs a few things from the store. It seems the girlfriend has taken his car and left him with no food in the apartment. They walk through the grocery store together, talking as he shops, both of them hoping no one they know will see them together, each for their own reasons. She drives Nava back to his apartment and helps him put his groceries away. He gives her the grand tour of this tiny apartment, and she is touched mostly by the toys scattered on the floor of his son's bedroom. They remind her of her own son. They sit across from each other in the living room and talk for a few minutes, and Ellen tells him she has to leave before it gets too awkward. Part of her wants to kiss him, to feel him close to her again. But she loves the future husband and the life she is making with him more. Instead, they hug, holding each other close for an extended period of time, as if they were frozen in the middle of a slow dance, exactly like they did in his mother's living room on that devastating June night. On the drive home from Nava's apartment, she cries silent tears and the image of his face, of his beautiful, sorrow-filled eyes, is seared on her memory forever.

Ellen has not seen or heard from Nava since that night nearly six years ago. Sometimes she drives past his mother's house, and she has considered stopping by to see how he is. But she does not, or cannot. There will always be a connection between the two of them, and she feels as though some part of her will always love him. She hopes he is well and happy. But something inside of her tells her that he is not.

nava: part four

2005-02-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

And this is the hardest part of the story for Ellen to tell. She's come up with various ways to write this next part, all of them discarded. This is the part of the story that she's most ashamed of, the part she wishes never occurred. However, her history with Nava, and her life she supposes, would not be complete without this chapter included. So please, try not to judge Ellen, as she has sentenced herself to a lifetime of regrets and shame already. So here goes.

After Ellen found out she was pregnant and decided to keep the baby, her life stretched out before her like a long, straight stretch of highway in Arizona: dull, boring, never-ending, lifeless. She and her friends graduated from high school and she watched them prepare for the first day of the rest of their lives: college. They packed up, waved goodbye, and moved away to start their own lives. Ellen sat at the kitchen table in her mother's house and cried for the death of her dreams. She was now left in a house she had vowed to leave the moment she graduated from high school, with a baby growing inside her, her mind filled with self-hatred and despair. But as she began to plan for the impending birth, she lost herself a little bit every day, and became some kind of zombie, trying not to think of anything else.

Once the son was born, Ellen was able to immerse herself in him for a while. Babies are time-consuming and tiring, and she spent every waking moment caring for the son, and the rest of the time sleeping. Her friends would call and visit when they could, but they had their own lives and Ellen began to grow lonely. Her relationship with the son's father was deteriorating and on the day that he smashed her head against the wall as the baby's wails reverberated through her skull, she closed the book on it. She warned him never to touch her ever again and shut him out of their lives for quite a while. She never told the mother what happened on the day she came home with a red face streaked with tears.

Not long after that incident, Nava called Ellen out of the blue. They talked for a couple of hours, catching up, and he asked her to come hang out with him at his grandmother's house. She left the son with the mother and drove to his grandmother's, a trailer in disrepair, where he snuck her in the back so grandma wouldn't know. There, she got her first good look at him in some time. He was skinny and wan, with dark circles under his eyes. He eagerly showed her his prized possession: crystal meth. She had never taken drugs before, not even pot, and she was shocked to hear herself tell Nava that if he was going to do it, then she would have some too. He set up lines for her, himself, and for his brother, and with trembling hands she held a piece of Bic pen to her nose and inhaled.

The horrible medicinal taste of the drug dripping down the back of her throat almost caused her to gag. The brother handed her a cup of soda which she gratefully gulped down. Nava handed her the Bic pen portion again, but she refused. She felt a rush of energy, and sat fiddling with her purse, keys, and the buttons on her shirt. The brother wandered off to the living room to watch TV and Ellen found herself making out with Nava. She was twitchy and nervous, as all sorts of thoughts and ideas crossed her mind, even as she gripped Nava's bony body close to hers.

This became a ritual, starting with Friday nights and all through the weekend. She would leave the baby with the mother and drive Nava out to his dealer, then sneak into the grandmother's house to get high. Sometimes Nava and his brother would smoke the crystal meth, and after a while she tried it. She never felt as high smoking it as she did snorting it, but she didn't miss the taste in her throat. She would come home in the middle of the night and stay up playing solitaire on the computer or watching TV mindlessly, not blinking. She noticed a strange smell about her person, and a grittiness that sweated out of her. She neglected her child and began to sneak out of her own house during the week in order to meet Nava.

But she also was paranoid, broke, and weakened from the drug, and she made stupid mistakes. One night, the baby woke up and started to cry, and the mother eventually got up to see why Ellen wasn't attending to him. She found Ellen's bed empty and the car missing. She waited up for Ellen to return and when Ellen staggered in the door, she was met with a fierce mother, hands crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Ellen shamefacedly promised never to repeat this transgression, and went to bed, spending the whole night staring awake at the ceiling, wondering why she even wanted to get high. That night was the last night she went over to Nava's, and the last time she used meth. She has never looked back.

Ellen grew up very fast after that night, realizing that she was a mother now and needed to act like it. She cut Nava out of her life and got a real job. She started taking care of herself and the son, making him the focus of her time. She enrolled in college courses at the community college and found she enjoyed them much more than she ever enjoyed high school. She called up the son's father, set strict rules for behavior, and reintroduced him into fatherhood. When the sister died, she became the glue that held her family together and learned to be strong when she needed to be. And she figured she'd never see Nava again. And she didn't.

Until one day, when she drove past his mother's house and saw the Coroner's van parked outside.

nava: part three

2005-01-31T20:08:00.000-08:00

After returning from the summer at her maternal grandparents' house [which is another story, for another time], Ellen was a different person. She no longer cared about Nava, Cindy, or about much of anything that had interested her before. It was a gigantic relief to be back in her home town, and she spent the remaining week or two of the summer tracking down the friends she had abandoned for Cindy and reestablishing her relationship with the mother. She retrieved her high school yearbook from a friend who had taken it around and had it signed by a great many people. Most of the entries included inquiries as to her whereabouts and wishes for her safe return. No one really knew what had happened to her.

When school started again, Ellen refused to return to her old pattern of ditching, drinking, and general slovenliness. She attended classes, turned in her homework, and paid attention to her appearance. She hung out with the same group of friends that she had made in the seventh grade, her support system of real, true friends. She realized that her relationship with Cindy and subsequent shunning of them had not diminished their love and loyalty to her, and discovered that she was much happier with them than she had ever been pandering to Cindy's desires.

Nava, now split up from Cindy and spiraling down a wrong path of his own, reached out to Ellen as the one person he could confide in. He began to call her late at night, with his own system of waking her. He would call, let the phone ring once, and then hang up. About five minutes later, he would call again, and she would pick up quickly, before the parents could rouse themselves to pick up the receiver. They would talk until the sun rose, about their thoughts and dreams, hopes and wishes, about people at school, about anything at all. But at school, they would rarely encounter one another, mostly because Nava wasn't there, but even if he had been, they existed in two separate universes. During the night, on the phone, they were closer than she had ever been with anyone.

One night, after a couple of hours on the phone, he said he wanted to see her. She followed the same routine as when Cindy begged her to sneak out of the house, this time walking all the way across town in the middle of the night to tap gently on Nava's window. He brought her inside his house, through the kitchen, where she was shocked to find his entire family asleep in the living room, the television flickering unwatched over their sleeping faces. In his disastrously messy bedroom, they kissed and held each other passionately, and he told her how much she meant to him, and she realized how foolish she had been to walk miles in the dark to his house, to sneak in, and how much she just wanted to go home. After that, she stopped responding to his late night phone signals, and he finally stopped trying. He descended further and further into delinquency, drug dependency, and finally, selling drugs. They never saw each other, and their friendship dissipated, though she still wondered where he was from time to time, and hoped he was okay. She would hear from mutual friends every so often, who would tell her how skinny he was, how terrible he looked, how he had gotten into some kind of trouble.

Over the years, Ellen and Nava would talk from time to time, and then fade from each other's lives for a while. First Nava started going out with the extremely possessive girlfriend who would later have his son. Nava could not extract himself from her, and at the beginning did not want to, long enough to have his heart-to-heart conversations with Ellen. Then Ellen began her destructive relationship with the son's father, and she was unwilling to carry on anything behind his back, innocent though it might be. She was completely devoted to the son's father, and didn't want to do anything to tip what she thought was a perfect balance.

nava: part two

2005-01-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

So after the note incident, Nava refused to talk to Ellen, and rarely even acknowledged her presence. He apparently decided the best tactic of getting back at her was to hurt her feelings as often as possible. In addition to ignoring her, Nava flirted with her friends, singling out the least attractive one on which to lavish attention. The friend was flattered, but was loyal to Ellen, and he eventually tired of her as well. He was slowly breaking her heart with this behavior, and Ellen deteriorated. Her schoolwork suffered, she stopped eating, she cried all the time, and didn't know what to do with herself.

After quite a long time, Nava decided that the gossip had died down sufficiently and he began to talk to Ellen again. But he made it clear that any hopes she had of renewing their relationship should be discarded. She resigned herself to a friendship with him, and made the mistake of introducing Nava to her best friend at the time, Cindy. Nava was immediately struck by Cindy and started spending as much time as he could with her. Ellen's heart was crushed again by Nava, but since it was her only connection to him, she helped Nava foster a relationship with Cindy. She and Cindy would sneak out of their houses in the middle of the night and walk halfway across town to meet Nava and his skeezy friend Louie. Louie constantly tried to cop a feel or kiss her or molest her in some way, when her thoughts were with Nava, who was busy molesting Cindy. After every such excursion, she would wonder why she did this, and told herself that next time, she would refuse. But every time Cindy wanted to sneak out to meet Nava, she would dutifully creep out her back door and meet Cindy down the street from her house.

Soon Cindy and Ellen were ditching school and meeting up with Nava and Louie at Louie's house. There, Ellen would drink whatever alcohol Louie could fish out of his older brother, watch the older brother and his friends roll joints and smoke them, and listen to the sounds of Nava and Cindy making out in the bedroom. They would emerge with flushed faces and bright purple hickeys on their necks, looking slightly sheepish and smugly satisfied. Ellen would pretend to be engrossed in the TV or pretend to be drunker than she was, just so she wouldn't have to look at them. Then one day, she called the mother precisely 15 minutes before school was scheduled to be out and told her that she would be home late from school. The suspicious mother called the school and found out that her daughter had been absent or truant from school 32 times in the last couple of months.

Just about the time Ellen had finally settled down into the couch at home, the mother drove up, stormed in the house, and started hitting Ellen with a stick she picked up from who knows where. Ellen shielded her face from the blows, made confused noises, and struggled to get up off of the couch to get away from the mother. The mother screamed at her daughter, telling her that she knew about all the absences and truancies, and what the hell did she think she was doing, and where the hell had she been if she wasn't at school, all the while chasing Ellen around the living room. The mother dropped the stick and threw her shoe at her daughter before picking up an assortment of kitchen implements with which to beat her child. Ellen's mother hit her repeatedly with wooden spoons until they broke, until Ellen was reduced to a crouching lump on the kitchen floor. The mother continued to hit her daughter with spatulas and metal whisks until finally the daughter lept up and ran out the door. The mother chased her daughter across the lawn, grabbed her by the back of her collar, and dragged her back into the house. Ellen was slapped across the face a number of times, before the mother caught herself, and went to take a shower in an effort to calm herself down.

Ellen, shocked sober and tingling painfully all over her body, called the police and told them her mother had just beaten her up. She cried herself senseless until a cruiser parked in front of the house, and an officer slowly made his way to the front door. The police took Ellen to the station and tried to get the story out of her. To this day, she doesn't know what they said or did to the mother. The police took pictures of her black eye and the angry red welts on her back and legs and arms. Finally, it was decided that Ellen would spend a couple of days in a foster home, and an officer who was the father of a boy she knew took her home to gather a few clothes and necessities. He drove her out to a big house about 20 minutes away from her own, and left her in the care of a frazzled woman fostering about six other children.

Ellen lived about five days with the foster family, crying and wondering what the hell was going to happen to her the whole time. At the end of her stay, a police officer took her back home, where her father had a bag waiting. He drove her to the airport and sent her to stay with her maternal grandparents, in the deep south, for the last month of her school year and for the rest of the summer. She remembers the long drive to the airport, wondering if she would survive throwing herself out of the moving car and run far, far away. Nava was the last thing in her mind as she flew away from all that she knew, leaving her friends to wonder what happened to her.

excuses, excuses

2005-01-27T13:24:00.000-08:00

Ellen has been sick with the flu, and it has taken all of her available brain power to just pour a glass of OJ when she wakes up. Not to mention having to drive the son to school first thing. She thanks her lucky stars that they haven't been wiped out in a major train accident.

Sorry. Not funny. Part two of the Nava story coming soon.

nava: part one

2005-01-21T19:40:00.000-08:00

When Ellen became a sophmore in high school, she met one of the people who would change her life forever. Nava was one year behind her in school, but with a wisdom that belied his years. He was exactly what she considered her type to be at the time. He was dangerous, as he lived in the worst of the several gang neighborhoods that were very active at the time, but not too dangerous, because even though he was friendly with the gang members on his block, he was not a member of the gang. He was handsome, with a round, soft face, piercing blue-green eyes, and an easy-going manner about him. He was also very smart, although he did not excel in school or particularly care for attending classes.

Ellen and Nava were part of a group of students who frequently took trips on buses out of town for events. They also gathered together most days a week for practice, and therefore spent a lot of time in each other's company, making kind of an extended family. And all families have their spats, rotten apples, and black sheep. Ellen noticed Nava immediately - he stuck out of the crowd and she was instantly enamored by him, a fact that he seemed oblivious to at first. He was rather shy and didn't seem to talk much to anyone. Ellen was a natural blabbermouth, something that tended to get her in trouble, but this made it easy for her to break the ice between them, introduce herself, and eventually get him to speak back.

Ellen followed him around like a lovesick puppy, but tried not to hang all over him at the same time. She tried to find any excuse to talk to him, stand near him, be with him. Her girlfriends teased her about it, but she would not be put off. When the group started to travel frequently, almost every weekend, she made sure she was sitting near him, and eventually they became good friends, and finally she could sit with him.

On one such trip, the group was sitting on some extremely cold metal bleachers, watching other groups perform after they had already given their own performance. She sat next to Nava, shivering like a leaf, not only because of the cold. Nava had wrapped himself in a blanket while she sat wearing a sweatshirt, sitting on her hands, and stomping her feet to stave off the cold. She asked him if he would share the blanket, and he told her to sit in front of him. He draped the ends of the blanket around her shoulders and had her sit between his legs, and she was warm from the blanket and from the nearness of Nava. As the night wore on, Ellen found herself closer and closer to Nava, and she had never been happier.

On the bus ride home, the bus was pitch black, cold, and semi-quiet, since the performers had all been awake since very early that morning. Ellen snuggled next to Nava for warmth and he welcomed her into his arms. They kissed for the first time, as quietly as possible, enjoying the feel of each other's warm lips and tongue. His hands snaked around her body, releasing feelings she had never experienced before. She let him slide his hands under her shirt and into her pants, his fingers tentatively touching her in all of her private places. He placed her hand on his crotch, and she rubbed him, hard and straining, through his jeans. Mostly, they kissed with a passion previously unknown to her, and they fell asleep together to the rhythmic movements of the bus on the freeway.

The next week at school, Ellen's head bubbled over with this secret that she couldn't tell anyone. She desperately wanted to tell someone, but she didn't want to be thought of as a slut, and she didn't know how Nava felt about what had happened. She hadn't spoken to him since the bus deposited them into the school parking lot in the wee hours of the morning, when he'd given her his lopsided smile and walked away to his mother's waiting car. In class, she wrote a note to her close friend and passed it down the row to where she read it incredulously. Their excited whispers and shocked expressions were not lost on the boy who sat between them, and instead of passing one of the notes, he opened it and read it.

This boy told everyone who mattered what Ellen had written in her note about her night with Nava. The worst was that he was a friend of Nava's and he made sure to give Nava the lowdown. Nava refused to look at her, much less talk to her. She was shamed, broken-hearted, and miserable. She could not believe that she had done something to make Nava hate her, and whenever she saw him in the hallway, he would pointedly ignore her, her sad face and pleading looks going unnoticed. Ellen fell to pieces, enduring the gossip that spread about her and Nava, more ashamed that she had betrayed him than anything else. She could not figure out how to make him understand that she was sorry.

twenty-one hours and counting

2005-01-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Ellen is enrolled in a beginning drawing class at the local community college. This class will benefit her educational goals in no way, as it is not a requirement for her major of choice and she has previously satisfied her elective requirements. However, it gives her something to look forward to in an otherwise unremarkable existence. She finds herself staring at the clock two days a week, silently calculating the number of hours before class. The days when she does not attend class are dull and dreary and tend to pass in a blur.

She has arranged to leave work early in order to make it to the class through some serious deception. The only art class she could possibly have taken causes her to need to leave work an hour before her regular dismissal time. Ellen told her boss that she would be enrolled in a class that works toward her major, which would help her in her current position. Ellen knows that if her boss thought she were only taking the art class, her boss would not grant the early leave. She does make up her time, by skipping her lunch altogether, or by taking a shorter lunch and working later on the days with no school. She feels somewhat guilty about keeping up the lie, but now that she has started the art class, there is no turning back.

Ellen arrives just in time for the class, after stalking people in the parking lot for a decent place to park. She anxiously awaits the professor, a diminuitive Asian woman with a heavy accent and clumsy teaching skills. But once she manages to get her point across, the professor's instructions bring previously unknown life to Ellen's hands, enabling them to create something as simple as a perfect, free-hand circle, or as difficult as the perfect, uncountable bumps on a basketball illuminated by a bright white light.

Ellen has always been one of those people who sketches and doodles on any available piece of paper. In high school, she was constantly scolded for turning in assignments that featured curling vines and flowers in the corner, or sad-faced girls in the margin. Her notepad at work is filled with half-drawn mountains and trees, cats slinking on fences, or shaded cubes and spheres. This class is helping her to refine her technique and bring her closer to what she thought was an unattainable feat: happiness.

alone again, naturally

2005-01-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

Ellen has been planning to throw a birthday party for the son and eight of his friends for the past couple of weeks. A week before the party, she invited the mother to join them, telling her that it would really mean a lot to the son if his grandmother was there, since he doesn't get to see her that often. The morning of the party arrived, and Ellen opened her email to find a quick note from the mother, letting Ellen know that the mother would not be attending the party because she had more important things to do, namely, cleaning her house.

While Ellen wasn't entirely surprised by this, she is extremely disappointed in the mother. When she was growing up, the parents put their daughters second, or third, or ninth, behind work, school, housecleaning, whatever.

Ellen lived in a house where she always felt alone, no matter who was home. She had no relationship with the father to speak of, as she was alternately either afraid of or embarassed by him. He was a large man, both tall and heavyset, and when he spoke to her, it was invariably a gruff order, or a terrifying shout. She used to tell her friends that he wasn't her real father, and invented stories where her father was a bend-over-backwards gentleman, a handsome man who died tragically in a variety of ways. When she was in middle school, he got a job in the major city two hours away from home and lived in an apartment during the week, coming home most weekends. This afforded her the freedom of living in a single-parent family without the disgrace and hardship of a divorce.

The mother worked full-time since she was a toddler, leaving Ellen in the care of various babysitters. She even arranged to have Ellen enrolled in pre-school a year early, when she was three. Ellen was a latch-key kid in first grade, coming home to an empty house before her sister arrived home a half an hour later. Even when the mother was at home, Ellen was merely a nuisance, someone to be ignored or just barely tolerated.

Ellen vowed never to treat her own children in this manner, but she fears at times she goes too far. Since she only has one child, she knows she sometimes focuses too hard on him. She never had any brothers or other peer male family members in her life, so she is astounded by the way the son will wallow in filth and has no cleaning abilities whatsoever. She remembers being clean to the point of anal retentiveness, not only with her own body, but with her room, whereas the son could live his whole life without taking another bath, brushing his teeth or changing his clothes. When she was the son's age, Ellen could clean the entire house from top to bottom, mow the lawn, use the trimmer, and was one year away from starting a paper route that took her through one of the more dangerous parts of town, alone on a bike, between four-thirty and five in the morning.

Sometimes the son's hygiene habits, or lack thereof, drives her absolutely crazy and at the point of just losing it with him, but then she has to step back and remember, the son is just a little boy, and little boys are just like that. Even so, she wonders which is worse: a mother who lets her children fend for themselves, or one who hovers overprotectively?

leo: the epilogue

2005-01-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

Ellen and Leo rarely worked together after that, and never alone again. Somehow, Leo made sure that their schedules never crossed, and Ellen was certainly fine with that. They both pretended nothing had happened and he never came close to touching her ever again. After about six months, he got a job working with his father, and quit his position. She never saw him again.

After that, Ellen began to wonder about why she never said or did anything. She wondered if she had somehow encouraged his come-ons, touching, and flirting by not specifically telling him to stop or informing the manager. She replayed the incident on the floor over and over in her brain, laying awake many a sleepless night, trying to figure out why she didn't push him off of her. Did she secretly like the attention? Did she want him to kiss her? He didn't hold her down, and she probably could have squirmed away, but she didn't. He knew there was no one who could have heard her call out, as the third employee wasn't due for at least another hour. She never came to a satisfying conclusion on this issue.

Ellen was extremely traumatized by the experience, and began to believe at that point that all men would try to do the same thing if given the opportunity. Unfortunately, most of the men in her life did not let her down in this respect. When she had started to work at the store, she was out of shape, a little pudgy. But she had to walk several blocks to the bus stop to get to work every day, and even if she didn't work, she walked more than a mile to get home, plus all the walking back and forth at the store equaled at least several miles a day. The fact that she rarely ate much at this time plus all the walking made her lose any remaining baby fat and become quite shapely. The women in her family were blessed [or cursed, depending on how you look at it] with full breasts, and had tons of conversations with men who never looked up once from her chest. Many men, some old enough to be her father, propositioned her as she rang up their purchases. One 27 year old man called so much and came by the store to see her so often that the manager finally banned him from ever returning from the store.

It was a long time before she could trust a man again, and when she did, it was the wrong man.

daily quiz

2005-01-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

Ellen has decided to plug a fun little thing called the LJDQ, or the Live Journal Daily Quiz. She was one of the members of the original Daily Quiz, which was really more weekly, or bi-weekly, than daily. The new version is also weekly rather than daily. While she really, really misses the original incarnation of the Daily Quiz, this is almost as good, and just as funny.

The object of the quiz is not to answer the questions correctly, but to provide the funniest, smartassed answer possible. Go to the site, read through the instructions, then browse through the previous answers for typical responses. Go on! It's fun. The Live Journal Daily Quiz is for you.

the birthday

2005-01-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

Even though Ellen loves when it rains, she had begun to wonder if it was ever going to stop. It wasn't really raining when she left the house this morning, but it was still dark and overcast, with the mountains snuggled under a blanket of low, dark, ominous clouds. But just now, when she left her windowless office, she was pleasantly surprised by the clear, ice blue sky and cold wind that slapped her in the face and woke her up just that much more. It is absolutely gorgeous outside, but the clouds hover over the mountains, promising more rain. All weather reports claim that Wednesday, this will all clear out and it will be a bright, sunshiny day.

Today is the son's birthday. She dutifully took an assortment of cupcakes to his classroom, where the kids will devour them and become even more hyper than anyone thought possible. She considered writing the teacher an apology, but then thought better of it.

Even though she was not ready for the son when he was born, and she wasn't much more than a child herself, she now would not know what to do without him. He changed her life in so many ways, making her a better, more responsible person who would never, EVER accept a line of cocaine and always makes sure he brushes his teeth, wears clean underwear and has a sweater when it's cold outside. Even when she hears herself say something exactly like her mother would, even though she promised herself she would NOT turn into the mother, she appreciates being a mother to the son. He is a good boy, a smart student, a sensitive sweetheart, and her only child.

leo: part two

2005-01-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

So after the groin-rubbing incident, Ellen's relationship with Leo went back to witty banter and innocent teasing, although she was much more reserved than she had been. For weeks, nothing happened, and she fought with herself, convinced that it had happened, that it was intentional, and that she hadn't imagined the whole thing. Once, she was about to say something to one of the other assistant managers, May, who was great, but she was so unsure and young she held her tongue and said nothing.

One night, she was closing, and Leo was the assistant manager on duty. She balanced her till and grabbed the rickety old vacuum held together in some places with duct tape, and began the arduous task of cleaning the floors of the store. Leo went in the employee's room and double-checked her till, ran some reports on the computer, and sorted the money in the safe. She had turned up some CD on the sound system, and she was dancing and singing along to the music as she cleaned. Ellen was really into the music, not really paying attention, when all of a sudden, Leo was right behind her, his hands on her hips as they swayed to the beat. She screamed and dropped the handle of the vacuum, jumping away from the unexpected touch. He stood there, laughing at her, as she attempted to find her breath and the switch of the vacuum. "Do I scare you that much?" he joked as she stared at him incredulously, panting and shaking. He turned and walked back into the employee's room, leaving her to wonder what the fuck was happening.

After that, she began to receive telephone calls at the store when she was closing, but not when he was the manager on duty. She would be at the bank of cash registers, where the phones, Ticketmaster computer, and the special orders were kept. The phone would ring, and she would rattle off the 20-second schpiel that she had had to memorize, only to hear a pause, and then an eerie voice would say, "I'm watching you," before a click and a dial tone. Or sometimes, "I can see you," which was incredibly freaky, as the store walls were basically one big window. And at night, she couldn't see out of them - just her reflection. Ellen asked the other associates if the same had happened to them, but none had experienced those calls. Just her.

Ellen began to notice that she was scheduled to work with Leo unusually frequently. He began to start conversations with her about her private life, if she had a boyfriend, what were the things she liked. She told him small details, not getting too in-depth. She found herself closing the store with him all the time, and more and more touchy-feely moments occurred. An accidental brush against her breast there, a bump of his ass against hers there. Then, one morning, they opened the store together.

Ellen didn't usually get to work the opening shift at the store. She was still in high school, so during the week was out of the question, and the manager tended to have the younger employees work the night shifts, figuring they had more stamina. She often worked big ticket sales, but there was always four or so employees working those mornings, so it was a different feel to open it alone with Leo. She showed up two hours before the store actually opened and stood in the cool morning air, waiting for the assistant manager to arrive and unlock the heavy metal gates and let them in. He drove up in his orange-red pickup truck with the camper shell, hopped out onto the dewy pavement, and sprinted up the steps to stand beside her. He grinned and began twisting his keys in the locks and they pushed the gates aside with an eardrum piercing squeak. All seemed to be going the way it normally did.

The opening crew usually did some restocking, sorting through the bins and putting the product in the correct places, but the night before had evidently been slow, and there was nothing to do. Leo looked at the notes that the night manager had left, and told her to pick out a movie to watch on the TVs perched high up along the walls. She suggested a few movies, which Leo rejected, before he finally chose "Officer and a Gentleman", surprised that Ellen had never seen it. She sat cross-legged on the floor and watched the beginning, as Leo did the few tasks that had been left for him. After a while, he came up behind her and sat on the carpet. He started massaging her back slightly, causing her to tense rather than relax, and he scooted closer and placed one leg on either side of her, so that she was sitting between his legs.

Then Leo's hands started snaking around her sides to grab her breasts. Ellen was so shocked she did not know what to do but sit there unmoving, not breathing. He continued to touch her, sliding his hands down her stomach and over her crotch. Then he got up and walked around her, got down on his knees, and kissed her, his tongue inexpertly moving into her barely opened mouth. She responded, not knowing what else to do, and before she knew it, he had pushed her back and was straddling her, pressing his groin against hers. She could feel him, hard against her, and then he grunted, stood up abruptly, and ran into the employee's room. Later, she realized that he had come in his pants, but for the time being, she was frozen there on the floor, feeling violated and dirty.

Ellen got up and walked to the front of the store, and sat on the step of the cash register bank until the third employee arrived for work. Leo stayed in the employee's room as much as possible, not talking or looking at Ellen for the rest of her shift. Ellen remained pale, quiet, and shaky all day until she could finally escape home. She immediately dove into a scathing hot shower where she washed the feel of him off of her.

After that, she was rarely scheduled to work with Leo, not that she minded. And two weeks later, he announced he was getting married to his long-time fiancee, whom she had never even heard of before that day. On his wedding day, he came into the store to show himself and his bride off, knowing that Ellen was there. He gloated and preened, while she stood and stared. She never understood what really happened between them, or even if it was between them or just all him. She only talked to him after that when absolutely necessary, and he made sure they were never scheduled to work alone together. She felt strangest when his bride would come into the store, pretty and vapid and clueless, and Ellen would stare at this woman, wishing she could tell her all that had happened.

Because of this, Ellen has never seen "Officer and a Gentleman" all the way through, and never will. She has heard it is a good movie, but she has no desire to see it.

notes from the weekend

2005-01-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

1) Ellen drove 250 miles in a downpour that was made worse by torrential winds and horrible driving conditions. At one point, a highway patrol cruiser got in front of her and other drivers and weaved across all four lanes on the freeway to slow down the traffic. Once he got out of the way, almost all of the vehicles sped back up to five or ten miles MPH above the speed limit. There was a brief moment that she considered pulling over to the side of the freeway and taking a breathtaking picture of a gorgeous, misty mountain.

2) Ellen was seriously offered a line or two of cocaine in the world's most overdecorated house. Everywhere she turned, there was a stuffed bear wearing a red hat, or a life-sized Santa that really sang and moved, or a clock that chimed a Christmas carol on every hour, or a stocking, or a tiny house with windows that lit up and played music. She thought that if she had actually taken the offer, the items in the house might have come to life in her imagination, driving her even crazier than usual. Not that she would have done it, anyway.

3) She was sent to pick up a $40 take-out order from a favorite local restaurant. She was shocked to discover that they had a special offer: order $25 or more, receive either a free plastic-ish bag emblazoned with the restaurant logo, or a free bottle of cheap, white wine. She opted for the wine, based on the recommendations from the employees, who flirted heavily with her in front of the husband.

4) She learned that a good friend of her husband's lost his paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother within two days of each other. To ease his pain, he was offered a line of cocaine, which he accepted.

5) Both of the NFL teams Ellen cheered for this weekend lost. Badly.

6) The son's paternal grandparents made sure he came back from their house with every piece of crap they bought for him over the weekend, which filled two very large sacks, but they forgot his raincoat even though they drove through the same storm she did. They compensated by stopping along the way to buy him a day-glo orange quilted jacket with detachable hood, like something the world's least fashionable hunter would wear. Even the son, who really doesn't care about what he wears or how he looks or even if he's remotely clean, refused to wear said jacket to school this morning for fear of looking "stupid".

7) Ellen was unable to go to sleep last night, suffering the worst bout of insomnia she has experienced in a long, long time. She tossed and turned in the bed for a while, read for a couple of hours on the couch, then returned to the bed for more tossing and turning. She eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion at about 3:30 am, and was rudely awakened at 5:00 am when her alarm screeched. She is trying to focus here at work now, taking care in choosing her words and attempting to actually listen and pay attention when spoken to. It took her about eight tries to type "orange" correctly in the paragraph above. She is tempted to go outside and take a nap in her car on her lunch break.

8) Ellen has survived one full week of not smoking. Ellen really wanted to smoke on Saturday night, but she resisted. She feels proud of herself, but she still really, really craves smoking.

9) Part two of the Leo story to come sometime today. Maybe.

leo: part one

2005-01-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

When Ellen was sixteen years old, she was hired into what she considered her first "real" job: as a sales associate at one of a small chain of record stores that was eventually eaten by the big corporations like Best Buy or Circuit City. The evidence that she loved this job is clear - she never called in sick just because she didn't feel like going to work, like she has in all of the jobs to come. She came to work early, stayed late, lobbied for more hours, and even occasionally dropped by on one of her days off. She had always been way into music, and this job provided her the opportunity to expand her horizons. She went from strictly Top 40's drivel to a wide range of music, including classical, some jazz, and even a song or two from the country section.

Leonardo, or Leo for short, was an assistant manager at the record store. He was 22, about the same height as Ellen, but otherwise very attractive. He has jet black hair that he wore slicked back and big, dark eyes. He was also the first Jehovah's Witness she had ever met, since the predominate religions in her neck of the woods were first Catholic, then Christian. She learned this early on in her employment, when the manager produced a very lovely birthday cake for him and he spurned it like she had offered him a steaming pile of cow dung. "We don't celebrate birthdays," he had huffed, before storming out of the employee's room and talking to the manager as little as possible for the rest of the day.

Ellen and the rest of the associates were required to wear a boring uniform of blue polo shirts and khaki pants that made everyone, male and female, look identical. However, Ellen chose neat fitting khaki pants and polo shirts that emphasized her full breasts, unlike most of the employees, who hardly ironed or even washed their uniforms with any kind of regularity. The management got to wear nicer blue shirts and dark slacks, which Leo filled out very nicely, to Ellen's eye. He always looked very classy, each hair in its place, clean shaven, perfect.

Even though she was hit on by customers on a regular basis, young and old, Ellen didn't take advantage early on in her tenure at the record store. She concentrated on making exact change, stocking endless boxes of CDs and cassettes, and balancing her till at the end of her shift. The manager on duty always had to double check the associates' cash and credit receipts, and Ellen prided herself with always being even, or only off by a penny or two.

Ellen and Leo had what she felt was an innocent flirtation going on - they would banter and tease each other, but that was all that was between them. So it surprised her one day when she was in the employee's room eating lunch on her break when he rubbed up against her. She was sitting on the edge of a tall three-legged stool at a small counter, munching on a sandwich and flipping through a Rolling Stone magazine. The employee's work schedule was posted to the bulletin board directly in front of her. Leo walked into the room and shut the door behind him, and she barely glanced up to see who had come in before looking back down again. He walked up right behind her and pressed himself against her back, his groin area touching her ass on the stool. She tensed and tried to scoot forward but there was nowhere to go except the floor or on top of her sandwich, both equally unappealing. He pretended to be looking at the schedule and even ran a finger down the sheet as if looking for something. And then as quickly as it had happened, he moved away and out the door.

Looking back, Ellen is sure that if she had said something, Leo would have stopped. But she was so shocked, so surprised that he had done this, that she began to doubt herself, and maybe even wondered if she had imagined it. But then it got worse.

watching the downpour on a friday night

2005-01-07T22:42:00.000-08:00

The rain continues to stream down from the sky, in a week-long torrent that leads the local news to proclaim a STORM WATCH 2005. Ellen thinks it is beautiful, how the collected water reflects the streetlights and how it washes all the dirt and smog from the air. During the brief pauses between rainfall, she can see how clean the sky appears and how fresh the air in her lungs.

Ellen sits at home, silent in the quiet house, after the son has gone to sleep, with the dog curled at her feet. When she moves even slightly, he sighs or looks up at her with his big brown eyes full of love and unwavering trust. The husband carouses with his friends, leaving her at home to fret. She worries not that he will cheat on her, but that he will be involved in an accident and not come home. Ellen has had too many people leave her for the fear not to live in her heart.

She has never feared that the husband's eye will stray. She knows he looks, but that he loves her and will not leave her. Ellen has, she admits, wondered if they are truly right for each other and if the marriage was the right idea. After all, their relationship progressed very quickly. And she wonders, if they can't even make it work, how can she and the husband?

having trouble breathing

2005-01-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

The depression envelops her like a scratchy, stifling hot blanket that wraps around her a little too tightly, but leaves her bare feet out in the cold to freeze. Ellen sinks down into a funk that is thicker than tar and just as black. It removes any ability she might have to think, to function properly, to be herself. Like switching off a lamp, Ellen swings from light to dark seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Partially, she is irritated that the husband would rather eat day-old, disgusting when they were fresh chili-cheese fries than have dinner with her and the son. But mostly, she is stricken by the thought that she is never going anywhere, never doing anything purposeful for herself or for anyone else in this world. She works all day long, then comes home to her job of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her family. When school starts next week, she will add that to her long list of duties without subtracting anything to make room. There isn't any extra time to spend with the son, or the mother, or with the friends. Ellen was so busy and/or depressed over the winter break to get together with Alice, and now she's so embarrassed that she didn't call Alice that she doesn't have the heart to reach out again.

While she's proud that she hasn't smoked in four days, Ellen notices her hands creeping like spiders to eat the leftover holiday goodies at work. Her resolution to exercise more and get back in shape has failed as the rain falls and she finds other excuses not to walk on her lunch break, the only period of time she has to herself. She frowns at herself in the mirror each morning, ashamed and let down by what she sees. The strange dreams haunt her half of each morning, and once they have faded from her mind, all she can think of is going home and crawling back into bed.

liars and the lies we tell them

2005-01-06T13:39:00.000-08:00

The son has, in the last few years, developed the nasty habit of lying excessively, usually over trivial matters. For example, if one were to ask him, "did you brush your teeth?", the answer will always be "yes!" even if he hadn't brushed his teeth since last July. She has learned that the correct way to ask him this question is to say, "did you brush your teeth this evening after dinner?" because if you don't specify precisely when, he will automatically assume you meant this morning, or maybe on this day last year, etc. It seems at times that she must give him the third degree to get actual, truthful information. The son is beginning to be quite weasely about answering questions.

Unfortunately, he is exactly like his mother in the way that he will give all the information available only if he is directly asked.

So last night, she was horrified to hear herself tell the son something like, "I'm not telling you to lie, but sometimes you don't have to tell the whole truth." And once it was out of her mouth, it was too late to retract. The son remembers statements like these for eternity [although little else of real importance], and will most likely pull this one out the next time he is in trouble for lying. She can just hear it now: "But Mommy, you said..."

The offending sentence was spoken when the son told her about getting in trouble at school yesterday. He and a friend were playing a game that had been forbidden to them. When the teacher asked why they were playing this game, the son told the teacher that the other child had supposedly asked for permission which was granted. They were both punished, but the other child had a more severe punishment. Afterwards, the other child told the son that a "true friend" wouldn't have tattled. So her advice to the son was that since he was going to get in trouble anyway, the best course of action would have been to just keep his mouth shut and take the punishment that was coming to both of them.

Now she feels like she's given the son the license to lie. Or at least not to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

Day four with no smoking, and she's been having the strangest dreams. Is there a connection?