We sent her to San Diego with a quiet party and loving hugs. We were so proud because she’s going to graduate school. She was accepted. She found a great place to live. She is going to be happy there. We got a couple of emails from her and we learned about the zoo and what school was like for her. She was sharing the flat with a tank full of fish.

Well, there’s a hot wind blowing tonight in the east, And I heard that the park is filled tonight with police. Information Society, Fire Tonight, 1990

Friday, I got an email in which the most crucial thing going on was a sick starfish. But yesterday, I got the email saying that she is packing up just in case she needs to evacuate. Since I have gone on my news fast, this is how I hear about the events that shape our lives, from friends. Her city is on fire. Six hundred houses have burned already. She is packing up her beautiful flat.

On the TV hear they’re telling me the roads now are all closed down. Information Society, Fire Tonight, 1990

What about graduate school? The school has been cancelled because all the roads to it are blocked off. She is at home, paying vigil to the television set. The fires are to the east, south and north of her. The only way to go is west. No, April. Go east. Come home to us.

You said that if you couldn’t take the car you’d walk instead. It was the last thing you said before the line went dead. And now I’m waiting by the window holding all the things of yours I’ve found. Information Society, Fire Tonight, 1990

Yes, if April could come home, things would go back to normal. Maybe the whole West Coast will end in conflagration. Then she could come back home to us. She was supposed to be in the choir with me and we could have sung “No Man Is an Island” together. We could go dancing at Banana Joe’s again and maybe this time she wouldn’t cut her foot on a beer bottle. I could have a girlfriend to talk to again.

But there’s fire tonight on your side of town, Orange light in the sky without a sound. Fire tonight on your side of town. I watch and wait for you to come around. Information Society, Fire Tonight, 1990

No, that’s greedy. I only want her to come to Utah because I miss her. This is part of moving to a new city. A new home town will suffer its turmoil and for her to become a native, she must suffer through it too. No matter how much I would like to protect her and her city. She must stay. She must pack her belongings and she must save her starfish.

“My friend called me at 3:30 this morning because she couldn’t sleep. I met her at the gym.” When I heard her say that, my first instinct was, “That inconsiderate bitch.” I imagined receiving that call, groggy and panicked, to find out that my friend was just calling to tell me she was awake. That vision was immediately replaced with the more common experience of being awake in the middle of the night. If I wake up at 3:30 a.m., I’m up for the day. Nothing I can do will get me back to sleep. Many nights, I have lain in bed, with no one to talk to and no hope of sleep. I never even considered calling a friend. I don’t even have a friend I would feel comfortable calling at 3:30 a.m., not even my beloved sister. A wave of jealousy swept over me. I don’t have a friend I can call at 3:30 a.m. Then the quote came to me.

It’s the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter. Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992)

I remembered typing it in. Even though it was a reliable source, I wondered if the quote was real. She was an old-time movie star. The studio could have released some cool quote for her to promote her popularity. They did it for Samuel Goldwyn. Half the things he said he didn’t say. Maybe the quote was from a movie and she was the character. That would be a misquote and it should go to the screenwriter. With all the worry about the attribute, I had forgotten about the quote.

I guess that’s a lie. I forgot about the quote until it sped at me like a bullet. She has a friend who she can call at four a.m. and I don’t. I felt the wound as vividly as if the quote had been a real bullet instead of a simile. I am still feeling the blood rushing from my head to the site of injury. I don’t have a friend I can call at four a.m.

It’s not something I want from everyone. If it’s reciprocal, my friend will sometimes call me at four a.m., which is damn hard to deal with. If someone wakes me up at that time of the night, there is no going back to sleep. There is no sleeping pill that will help me sleep and allow me to wake up perky and happy a mere two hours after taking it. It’s too early to feel rested and too late to go back to sleep.

No, I want only one or maybe two people who might wake me up in the middle of the night. This person must be chosen carefully. She is special. That’s why she’s the one that matters. Maybe I’ll call my sister today and see if she wants to be my friend I can call at four a.m.

If you’ve been paying attention, you would know that my choir is performing today. Even though I had a huge Halloween party the night before, I’m “Up and At ‘Em” today to sing. The song we are performing is “No Man Is An Island” and I’ve had the hardest time with it. It’s not the vocal range. The first soprano part is very high and I have to stretch to make one note and hold it, but that’s only one note of many.

Q: Why are Unitarians such bad hymn singers? A: We’re too busy reading a line or two ahead to see if we agree with it. UUC Home Page, Unitarian Humor, May 1998

True to form, the part of the song that I’m having trouble with is one line from the song, “Each man’s grief is my own.” I don’t experience this with people other than my closest of friends and family. I have plenty of empathy for the good things, but for the bad things, I separate myself from the pain. I don’t really feel that connected to humanity.

I am a rock. I am an island. And the rock feels no pain And an island never cries. Simon & Garfunkel, I Am A Rock, 1966

Sometimes I would rather live in the “I Am An Island” world instead of the “No Man Is An Island” world. Simon and Garfunkel had it right. “Each man’s grief is my own,” just doesn’t ring true for me. People try to spread their grief on me all the time. They tell me their sad stories in an effort to relieve some of their pain and I’m sure it works for them to some extent, but their stories rarely grieve me. I usually just listen with anticipation, hoping I can cull them for something interesting to think about and move on. Their grief isn’t my own, it’s my fodder.

If somehow you could pack up your sorrows And give them all to me. You would lose them, I know how to use them. Give them all to me. Tom Paxton, Pack Up Your Sorrows, 1966

I’m more like the song that Peter, Paul and Mary recorded called Pack Up Your Sorrows. “You would lose them, I know how to use them.” That’s more like me, a peppy little ditty about taking the grief of others and transforming it into energy. I prefer that song. Why aren’t we singing that in choir? I’m not in charge, that’s why. Singing in a choir isn’t about being the one in charge. Ironically, when you’re in charge of the choir, you don’t get to sing.

Think of me today. I will hit that note and hold it. I know this because I’ve practiced alone all week. Singing in the choir isn’t about singing alone. It’s about singing together. Just know, however, that while I’m singing “No Man Is An Island” I will be thinking about Peter Paul and Mary.

Today is my Halloween party. I only throw one party a year and I plan for it all year long. The costume, the mix CDs, the movies in the background, and the slide show are all mulled over and thought about starting in February. This year, I’m going as “The Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun.” It took a long time for my costume to evolve into what it is, but now I’m decided. It’s too late to change it anyhow.

Partying is such sweet sorrow. Robert Byrne

The people I know fuss about the party more than I do. “Who’s coming to your party?” She has given her excuse for not coming but she’s still interested. I’ve told her twice, “I don’t really know. I pretty much only get negative RSVPs. It’s always a little random.” That answer isn’t good enough for her. If it were, she wouldn’t have asked me twice.

“Have you planned the food?” She knows it’s pot luck, but she still asks, “Well, I just thought that you would assign things to people who couldn’t decide.” I just shrug at her and say, “No, it always seems to work out.” I can feel it, she’s worried that everyone will bring the same thing, “Just think about it, if everyone brings Oreos, it will be the funny party where all we had to eat was Oreos.” We make some jokes about what to do with extra Oreos and she calms down.

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control. Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784), Supplement to Bougainville’s ‘Voyage,’ 1796

The strange thing is that I love this party. I have it within my power to plan every facet of it. I could only invite those who I KNOW will show up. I could plan all the food and beverages. I could even pinpoint the time during the party in which they would eat. I could plan and control every thing. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Not even close.

There are some things that I want to control. If there is good music, people have something to talk about, thus the mix CDs. If there is something for them to watch on TV, they can escape people and just be alone with the television if the socializing gets too much for them, thus the scary movies. If you show them that you care, they will automatically enjoy it more, thus the slide show of Halloweens past. Those are the things that I can control.

I’ve found that the parties that are the most fun have some element of chaos to them. I don’t want to control who attends my party. I would much rather invite everyone and let the Gods of Chaos work it out. Dealing with the food is stressful. I would much rather let Chaos Theory take care of it. The one party where everyone brought chicken was still a good party. We had chicken curry, Kentucky Fried Chicken, chicken wings, some great chicken thing that Don brought and I don’t even remember the rest. Neither does anyone else. We just remember the funny party where everyone brought chicken.

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art. John A. Locke

That’s what a party is about: talking, fun, not getting overloaded, caring and funny memories. I won’t report about how it turned out. I can tell you right now. It was great fun and a little random.

Part of the agony of throwing a huge party is hearing the excuses of those who don’t want to attend. Rather than saying, “That just doesn’t sound like something I would like to attend,” they rack their brains to think of an acceptable excuse. I guess they are worried about hurting my feelings. Not accepting my invitation never hurts my feelings. All of this year’s excuses were perfectly valid excuses that I had no argument with. Instead, I was perfectly happy to support them.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they make a good excuse. Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973) “Social Relations”

“Ramadan starts the next day.” I said, “I noticed that I had planned it on that day. I thought you might have a conflict this year,” but I wanted to say, “I’m glad that you are observing Ramadan this year. Since you’ve started practicing your religion faithfully, you seem much happier.”

“I’m deathly allergic to cats.” I told her, “I knew that you wouldn’t be able to come because of the cats, but I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“I’m exhausted so I’ll be in St. George.” I said, “Good for you. I hope you can rest there,” but I stopped myself from replying, “It’s about time that you took a break. I’ve been worried about you.”

Saying you’ll come and flaking on me kills me, though. If you can’t be truthful with me, then I’d much rather hear the excuse before the party than afterward. The excuses that come after the party, break my heart. I usually respond politely, but I always have that inner cynic that wants the truth from you. Last year I heard many outrageous and sad excuses.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. George Washington (1732 – 1799), letter to his niece Harriet Washington, October 30, 1791

“I would have liked to come, but I had a family emergency that night.” Inside, I truly worried about your family emergency. I wanted to say, “What sort of horrible things are you experiencing in your life right now that would stop you from coming to a party that you really wanted to go to? Why haven’t you asked for my help?”

“I thought the party was on Halloween.” I kept quiet, but I felt like saying, “Halloween was on Wednesday, bozo. Do you actually believe that I would throw a huge party on a Wednesday? If you really wanted to go, you would have read the invitation.”

“I couldn’t find a sitter.” I said, “I understand how difficult it can be to get a sitter,” but I wanted to say, “I gave out my invitations three weeks before the party. You weren’t able to find a sitter after three weeks of searching?” If that were really true, then my heart breaks for you.

Why is it so hard for us to be truthful? It’s hard for me to say what I’m really thinking when people give me perfectly valid excuses. It’s hard for me to say what I’m really thinking when people give me totally lame excuses. I know you’re lying. You know I’m holding back. We both think the worst and our friendship suffers because of it.

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse. Jules Renard (1864 – 1910)

Everyone repeat after me. The polite way to turn down an invitation truthfully, “That really doesn’t sound like something I would like to do.” Come on, I didn’t hear all of you repeating. Let’s try again. Repeat after me, “That really doesn’t sound like something I would like to do.” The impolite but funny way to turn things down, “No, I won’t be coming. That sounds like sheer hell to me.” Even that is more polite than a lame excuse for not attending.

When I was a teenager, I wrote in my journal every morning. I woke up at 5 am, turned the heat up and sat on the floor by the heater vent. The warm air would fill the blanket that I had brought from upstairs. Every morning I took a warm air bath and it was delicious. This heater vent was positioned in such a manner that I could lean my back on the kitchen bar. I was comfortable and warm. It was the perfect environment to write out my teen angst every morning.

Don’t let yourself forget what it’s like to be sixteen. Anonymous

I still keep my journal every day. I type one full page of Arial 10 point text with half inch margins on all sides. I type until I fill the page, even if I feel empty. When I feel like I have nothing to say, I type the words, “I have nothing to say. I feel empty.” It usually only takes me a couple of iterations of those phrases until I realize that I’m not empty and that I DO have something to say. Typing on the computer is vastly different from the morning routine of my teen years.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. Robert Heinlein (1907 – 1988)

This weblog owes its existence to that morning page. I would post those words, but when I read them they tend to be full of the mundane and irrelevant. I find that the words that end up in my journal are useless. I think of my journal writing as a mind dump. I get rid of all the silly things that are floating in my head so that I can actually write something coherent and interesting.

Journal writing is a voyage to the interior. Christina Baldwin

In July, we moved to a new home closer to town. It’s smaller and much older, but we are really lucky. It has a forced-air gas furnace that works like a dream. The other morning, the heat came on and I couldn’t stop myself. I sat down on the hard wood floor right by the heater vent. The air filled my nightgown and the memory of all those teenaged mornings came to me. The joy of it was too good to stand up and get started with my day. There was only one thing that concerned me: how can I sit on the floor and write my morning page at the same time? Maybe it’s time I went back to paper and pencil.

The other day when I was meditating, the vision of a large, black beetle in my right hand came to me. I had accidentally squished in between my fingers and palm and I felt immensely sad about it. I don’t know if I had been saving the bug for something or if I wanted to show it to someone. I have no idea where it came from or what I wanted to do with it. Whatever it was, I was very disappointed and sad about crushing the bug in my hand. It wasn’t a disgusting thing. I wasn’t sickened by flattened insect in my hand. I was sad that it was dead with no concern for the mess. It was a huge disappointment to me.

Some days you’re a bug, some days you’re a windshield. Price Cobb

As soon as I realized that my mind was wandering, I went right back to concentrating on my breath. The vision was so disturbing that I forgot to send it a little loving kindness before I cleared it from my mind. As I talk about it right now, I am still very sad and disappointed. It’s like that feeling when you finally get that ice cream cone that you really wanted, but when you lick the lumpy ball of sweetness, it falls off the cone and into the gravel at your feet. All you are left with was the sugar cone, empty and lifeless. That’s how it felt and I’m still feeling it right now.

If you step on a beetle, It will rain. If you pick it up and bury it, The sun will shine again. Omens

What did it mean? Was I nearing that point in meditation where I was about to fall asleep? Was that the precursor to a dream that meant nothing more than my mind was trying to process the day’s activities? If that were the case, where did that overwhelming sense of loss and disappointment come from? It was a loss of my own doing, but it was a senseless and accidental loss.

The loss which is unknown is no loss at all. Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims

I believe our minds are stronger than we know. I believe that our senses are taking in so much information that we would go mad if we couldn’t filter it somehow. That filter, however, can block important information sometimes. That’s where our dreams come in. They help to remind us of everything that we saw and experienced lately. Some of it is important, but most of it is irrelevant. This sense of accidental loss that overcame me is one of the important things. I just need to think about it some more.

Sometimes I get tired. I’m not talking “sleep all day” tired. I’m not talking “admitted to the hospital for exhaustion” tired. I’m talking “disappeared for two weeks without a word” tired. Sometimes I want to leave. Sometimes I want to disappear.

When my friend gets tired, she fantasizes about having to go to the hospital. When she had her children, she had to stay in the hospital, which was the best experience for her. There were people there to make sure she was comfortable and healthy. The only thing that was expected of her was sleep, rest and relaxation. After living the life of a single mother of three, I can understand why she would fantasize about that.

We feel free when we escape — even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire. Eric Hoffer (1902 – 1983)

Me, I used to fantasize about going to prison. I imagined it was a quiet place where I could write a book. If it was good enough for Dostoevsky, then it should be good enough for me. I would be able to write as much as I wanted without thinking about work or home or family. I could just be alone and write. Even Oscar Wilde was able to write his work, De Profundis, while he was in prison. They would only allow him one piece of paper at a time and only allow him to write for a small amount of time each day. Even if they did that to me, I could still contemplate during the other hours of the day. Sure, I had heard the rumors about prison, but that was just for men, right?

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Bible, John 8:32

Then I learned the truth. “Oh it’s horrible! There is never a moment of quiet. It’s noisy all the time. You can’t even sleep.” That phrase alone was enough to cease my fantasies about prison. Four sentences from a friend of a convicted felon was enough to clear that idea from my imagination. Constant noise: isn’t that one of the definitions of hell? Then I find that for women it’s just as bad as it is for men. There are threats of beatings and rape all the time. There is no escape from the fellow prisoners or the guards. There is no safety. Instead of the quiet respite with time to write, it is a never-ending struggle to stay alive and untainted.

Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. William James (1842 – 1910)

Fantasizing about being admitted to the hospital or being sent to prison is unhealthy. The mind will bring about whatever you focus on. If we had continued on our paths, she would have been terminally ill and I would have been unjustly imprisoned (I would never knowingly commit a crime). Instead of focusing on prison, I started focusing on what I wanted to do in prison, which was to write every day. After a few years of actually doing that and hiding my work in a drawer, here I am. Writing every day and sharing it with the world.

I must admit that I still fantasize about disappearing when I’m tired, though. Now I imagine myself in a posh hotel in New Orleans. That’s much better than prison, don’t you think?

I am childless. I’m not barren. I’m not selfish. I’m not happy about it. I’m responsible. I don’t believe that a child should be brought into the world if her father doesn’t want her. I love my husband and I am willing to wait for him. Additionally, I have a teaching degree. In short, I’m the perfect person to volunteer for something like Big Brothers Big Sisters or maybe an after school program.

I was at the mall last weekend and was bombarded with chastisement. The Ad Council in conjunction with After School Now had placed a number of incredibly offensive public service announcements on the mall kiosks. At first I thought they were a joke. They said things like:

“How much do I think about helping kids?” with a picture of a woman holding her fingers very close together and smiling happily about it.

“Need volunteers to shrug off the needs of children? Count us in!” with a picture of two strong and healthy men, canoeing.

“In our busy lives, we still make time to not help kids.” with a picture of a happy young couple in-line skating.

“We’re turning our backs on kids, and loving every minute of it!” with a picture of a happy couple tandem biking.

“There’s nothing more refreshing than neglecting our nation’s youth.” with a picture of a healthy middle-aged man, swimming.

They all seem to be chiding me for not taking care of other people’s children. They are reproaching me, the perfect candidate to volunteer for an after school program. Before I saw these ads, I didn’t even know that after school programs needed help. This is how they ask for it? This is the response that their advertisements elicited from me: “Tell them to take care of their own children, you ungrateful beggars!”

All of the advertisements seem to tell me that I am selfish because I don’t volunteer to help other people’s children. The irony is that if they had asked me nicely, I probably would have jumped at the chance. It could be that Joe has been born to another family and she needs me to help her. There is a hope for me to find her like others have found their unborn children. If she is part of an after school program, however, she is lost to me forever.

The entire advertising campaign makes me militantly against all child-based charitable organizations. I am responsible. I didn’t bring an unwanted child into this world. Other people haven’t been responsible. That’s not my problem. What gave these people the right to assume that it’s my responsibility to shoulder the needs of unwanted children? How dare they insinuate that I’m selfish because I haven’t brought children in the world before both my partner and I am ready for them? How dare they chastise the adults who have already successfully raised their children for not volunteering to raise a stranger’s also? I’m not like the lady holding her fingers very close together; I’m giving a one-fingered salute to them.

Feline: that’s always how they describe females. I don’t know if it’s because the words feline and female are so similar, but it is prevalent in our language. When she gossips, she is catty. When we fight, it’s a cat fight. I don’t think it’s because of Batman and Catwoman. I think it preceded that. I can’t prove it, but I think we were considered feline in nature far before Robin ever explored the Batcave.

I’ve never understood women. I know men always talk about how they never understand women. Is it blasphemy to be a woman and say the same thing? In my world, when there is a disagreement, the first person to strike started the fight. If you start a fight, you damn well better be able to finish it. Whoever is still standing after the dust clears wins. Simple.

I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble. John Wayne (1907 – 1979)

In the female world, that sort of mentality doesn’t work. There is no physical fighting as far as I can tell. Maybe they’re all scared that the men would come running to watch the cat fight. Instead of deciding by feats of strength, there is a strange sort of speech that happens. “Why would you wear those pants?” In the correct voice, that phrase scares me a lot more than a fist aimed at my face. It took me an awful long time to learn how to say, “Because I like them,” in the correct tone of voice that says, “Do you want to make something out of it?!”

Just today, I realized that women aren’t feline in nature. They are pack animals. They are canine. All of us associate men with pack animals, but it has taken me all this time to realize that women are too. It makes sense. We are the same species, after all.

Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman. Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850), Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845

There is always an Alpha Female. She’s not always the prettiest or the smartest. She’s the bitchiest. I finally learned that if I just let her be the Alpha Female, life is so much easier. I have no trouble with idiot girls being the Alpha Female. I never wanted to compete for the males. All the idiot girls can have all the males, for all I care. It doesn’t matter to me.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969), speech to the Republican National Committee, January 31, 1958

If I wanted to compete, though. What would I do? Learning how to say, “Because I like them,” was a start. Now I just need to learn how to bark the loudest in female-speak.

(transcribed from handwritten document)

I had forgotten how good it feels. The moment I put the pencil in the sharpener I could feel the excitement. This was no ordinary pencil. This pencil is shiny and prismatic. This pencil has my name printed on the side. This pencil is special. I turn it in the sharpener, watching the shine and prism slowly peel away, exposing the dark lead.

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things. Bobby Knight (1940 – )

I had forgotten the smell. As a child, I imagined that the scent of freshly cut wood would be like the smell of a recently sharpened pencil. I was so disappointed by the actual smell of freshly cut wood. It smelled like greenery and Christmas. Nothing like a freshly sharpened pencil. If you were to ask me to describe the scent of thinking, I would tell you to sharpen a pencil and hold the tip to your nose.

I had forgotten the sound. I remember listening to thirty pencils all writing on single pieces of paper. It was most noticeable during a test. If you were to ask me to describe the sound of thinking, I would describe the tones of thirty pencils writing feverishly.

Even more intimate, I had forgotten the sound of one lone pencil, my own. Knowing that I am alone working. It is a comforting squeak and click. The dots on the “i”s, the crosses on the “t”s and the final periods all click with reassurance. The squeaks of the “s”s and the connected letters of script remain constant and hopeful. I am working. Even if I write and hide the paper in a drawer, I am working.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. Cyril Connolly (1903 – 1974)

I had forgotten the feel of the pencil in my hand. The wood is rough on my middle finger. The large and calloused lump on it has evaporated after years of clicking keyboards. I find that my hands have betrayed me. They are no longer strong and fit for writing dark lead-bound letters on paper. They have developed muscles for typing and are weak when it comes time for no batteries required.

Even more intimate, I had forgotten the feel of a pencil in my hand. The pen writes immaculately every time. You never need to turn it ever so slightly to get a better point. With a pencil, there is that microsecond of a delay. Just enough time to think of the best word and phrasing. It slows me down just enough to write my best, despite the power of the eraser. If I had to say what thinking feels like, I would tell you to turn your pencil to get a better point.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Joan Didion (1934 – )

I had forgotten the sight. My letters. My design. My darkness. My spacing. No matter how many hand written fonts I encounter, I will never find one that is exactly like mine. Yes, that’s the question mark of my design. Yes, my “a”s have an umbrella. I decided between fifth and sixth grade that my “a”s would have umbrellas and my “t”s would have tails. It wasn’t until junior high that my “y”s, “j”s and “g”s would have extra flourishes. It only comes alive again with a pencil in my hand.

I just realized that I had even forgotten the taste. It tastes like that bite into the wood in times of thought. I can’t bear to bite this shiny pencil so lovingly embedded with my name. Yes, thinking tastes like paint and wood bitten firmly. I am so tempted. It has been so long since I’ve tasted the wood in thought. Maybe just one bite…

He’s short. I’m not talking normal short, this guy is midget short. I’m talking dwarf short. Not only that, he’s sickly. His mother was poisoned when she was pregnant with him, so all of his bones are brittle. Even my excitable nature could accidentally break his arms. He’s smart as hell, though. If you are in trouble, the sight of him should fill you with hope. It’s just that he’s so damn short

If power was an illusion, wasn’t weakness necessarily one also? Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campain, 1999

He’s loyal, too. If he made an oath to protect you, you would be protected for the rest of your life. If you made an oath to follow him, he would expect it. With great loyalty, comes devotion. He demands it by his actions, not by his words. If you know him, you don’t see the man who is under four feet tall, you see a true hero.

The problem is that I’ve never seen him. He lives in the imaginary world of Lois McMaster Bujold. I have been reading her books for a couple of years now and I find that she has completely ruined me for almost all other science fiction. Her books are so well written that I have a hard time reading lesser authors. Plus, I love Miles so much

[Y]ou have to be careful who you let define your good. Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campain, 1999

Miles Vorkosigan comes from a planet called Barrayar, where mutants and cripples are exposed at birth, or at least were just a couple of generations ago. He is the son of the second most powerful man on Barrayar and most believe that his advance in the military was based on nepotism rather than merit. He spends his young adult life proving that he is worthy of accolades and his adult life has been spent foiling various attempts to overthrow his cousin, the Emperor of Barrayar.

If all of this sounds complicated, it is. Added to all this intrigue is the fact that his mother is an off-worlder, he has an alternate identity with a mercenary group, he has a clone traipsing around the galaxy causing trouble for him and those damn Cetagandans are always trying to muck things up. Every novel she has written has enough going on to keep the most active mind on its toes and the characters still have enough presence of mind to tell me important things about my own life.

Read Mountains of Mourning online for free. It isn’t the first book in the series, but it is a good example of the compact beauty of her writing.

I made the mistake of typing in some of the searches that brought readers to me. Someone looking for the phrase “drunk parties” ended up finding me, along with a million and one porn sites. I wasn’t even on the first twenty pages for that search. Someone looking for the phrase “skater punk boy pictures” found me on page eight of the Google search. Not even Avril Lavigne made the top five on that search. Porn, porn, porn.

We had parties that Nero would have been ashamed to attend. Ronnie Hawkins

The irony of all of this is now I’ll score even higher on things that I probably shouldn’t have a score for at all. I’ve said the words that brought the searches in addition to the word “porn” repeated several times. Do I need to guard my words so closely? If the words “drunk parties” brings up over twenty pages of porn, what would the words “poking a cheerleader” bring? I used those words last week. Oh, let me check. Only four pages of porn before I showed up.

How can I guard my words so that I won’t show up on anyone’s porn search? Is that possible? Maybe I’m just the kind of blunt woman whose words will be grouped with the unsavory and vulgar. What I need to say would only become more convoluted if I tried to guard each word. For all I know, the phrase “swarm of dragonflies” pulled up a bunch of porn too. No, I will say what I think in the way that it most naturally comes out of my fingers onto the keyboard.

Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards. Lois McMaster Bujold, “A Civil Campaign”, 1999

Most importantly, it’s obvious these people weren’t looking for porn. They had pages of choices before my site to fulfill their fantasies. No, if they were looking for porn, the boring blurb underneath the name of my weblog wouldn’t have been enough to warrant a click. What were they looking for? Did they find it here? Should it even matter to me if they didn’t?

This is something I never had to deal with when I was putting my journal in a drawer. No one read it. No one found it while looking for erotica. No one found it at all. I can’t hide in the drawer anymore. If you were looking for hot lovin’ here, you’ll have to keep searching.

Doug Lomond sat at the pinochle table. It was the dinner table only a half hour ago, but the dishes were washed and the leftovers were freezing, so now it was the pinochle table. He took out the 48-card deck and started shuffling. His brother, Daniel, took the pad and pencil and meticulously wrote the words “We,” “They,” “Bid,” and “Deal” on it. Doug and his brother had played pinochle since they were children. When they married, they taught their wives the game and the weekly ritual had continued into the next generation. Doug’s wife, Emily, was talking with Daniel’s wife, Sharon. They hadn’t noticed that the men were starting the game.

Doug shuffled the cards loudly. After years of practice, he could modulate the sound of shuffling as he pleased. He needed to tell them his news. As his hands repeated the motion, he realized that he had been waiting for an appropriate segue. His eyes blinked rapidly as he came to know that he would never find the right opening. He would never find the perfect time to tell them, “I’m dying.” His wife and sister-in-law sat at the table and Doug carefully placed the deck of cards to Daniel at his right. Daniel cut the cards and Doug began to deal them, three at a time.

“Prepare to die! Danny and I found a pinochle strategy book in the used book store and we are going to kick your butts!” Sharon was picking up her cards and arranging them by suit. The words had taken the air from Doug’s lungs; his lungs that should be pink and healthy based on his regular exercise and healthy lifestyle, his lungs that never had to deal with bad habits like smoking or coal mines, his lungs that had betrayed him and turned black with cancer. He tried to calm his breathing, a technique he had nearly mastered until things got to the point that he knew that he needed to see a doctor. He quietly finished dealing and arranging his own cards while the conversation raged around him.

“A used book store, huh? I never thought of looking there. I don’t think people play pinochle anymore because I can never find anything about it in the games section at Barnes and Noble,” Emily had carefully placed her cards in her hands and was waiting for Doug. Sharon responded, “I was surprised when I saw it. You should have seen me. I grabbed the book and held it tight like someone was going to try to get it away from me. The store was empty but I was looking around like I had to protect it.” Daniel looked at Doug and Emily and chimed, “Now, prepare to defend yourself.” Emily laughed and responded, “What did this book have in it?! Cheating techniques?” The three jovial players laughed and made funny symbols with their hands that stood for hearts, diamonds, spades or clubs. Doug blinked away his tears and stayed quiet about his news.

“The bid’s to you, Sharon,” Daniel urged. Sharon pondered her cards and spoke with authority, “I’ll open.” Emily immediately replied, “Twenty-six.” Daniel looked at his cards, obviously torn, “I’ll say twenty-seven, once.” Doug didn’t want to fight his partner on the bidding, “Pass.” While the bidding continued between Emily and Sharon, Doug’s mind wandered. He could almost see the doctor’s face in his mind’s eye. He couldn’t remember her hair color, but her expressive eyes had told him the news before her lips, “It’s cancer, Mr. Lomond. It has advanced to the point that we can do hardly anything about it. You really should tell your wife and family about this. Do you need me to meet with them?” Doug had just sat there, blinking at her. It took him a full minute to respond, “No. I’ll tell them myself.” He just sat there while the doctor told him about the procedures she could try. He agreed to meet with her again tomorrow to start with her recommendations, but tonight he needed to tell them.

Emily took the bid and called the trump, “Spades. Fat lot your book did for you. If you can’t take the bid you can’t win, you know.” Sharon rolled her eyes and placed cards face down on the table. Doug took an Ace and the three spade cards that he had been dealt and passed them to Emily, who cursed under her breath while she laid down her meld, “Damn, I had three legs and I was hoping you could fill me in.” Doug looked at his hand and realized that he hadn’t passed the Jack of Diamonds to her. He could have passed that instead of the Ace. “Damn,” Doug showed his Jack of Diamonds to the table and they all groaned. Daniel spoke first, “Man, you ALWAYS send over the Jack of Diamonds, even if you have to hold some trump. Grandpa would have kicked your butt! What’s the matter? Your head still at the post office?” Doug just shook his head and looked at Emily, “Sorry, babe. I’ll pay better attention next time.” She shrugged while handing back her discard, “It’s ok. I have my family. The double pinochle would have just been icing on the cake.” Daniel wrote down the meld for both teams, they all picked up their cards.

Emily led the first card for the first trick with the Ace of Spades. Daniel slapped down the other Ace of Spades, “Dammit! Just enjoy it now because that’s your last trick.” The three players laughed at Daniel’s posturing while Doug played a Nine of Hearts. Sharon played the Nine of Spades and Emily took the trick. She always gathered her tricks. This time she looked at them lovingly, “My, isn’t that pretty?” She held them up for all to see, “Look, I pulled the other Ace on the first trick.” She was smiling and Sharon responded, “It just means that all the trump is in one hand. It’s going to be like pulling teeth to get it all out.” The three of them laughed again while Emily led the Ten of Spades. Daniel and Doug sloughed low cards in Clubs and Hearts respectively and Sharon played her other Nine of Spades.

Doug thought about how nice the evening was. The three of them were happy and joking with each other. If he told them, the night would be ruined. They wouldn’t want to play anymore. They would want to talk about it. They would want to analyze it. All of this wonderful evening would be gone. He heard the children from both families playing video games in the living room and imagined their scared faces eavesdropping when the tone of the adults changed. Three tricks went by with little notice from him.

Emily had pulled all the trump without losing control and he barely gave it a second thought. She led an Ace of Diamonds and he sloughed the other Ace of Diamonds while thinking of who would take over his route at the Post Office. The second he put his card down, the rest of the table shrieked. Daniel picked it up and handed it back to him, “You don’t want to play that!” At the same time, Sharon jokingly chided him, “No, no! He played the card! They have to go with it!” Emily wasn’t the last to speak, but her tirade lasted the longest, “We all know you have a Jack to play on this trick! You KNOW I have a loser in my hand! You should have played the Jack instead. What were you thinking?” The table quieted and he looked at the three most important adults in his life, “I’m dying.” They all shook their heads still laughing, and Daniel was the first to speak, “I’d say! That’s the second screw-up tonight! At this rate, we don’t need any fancy pinochle techniques.” Doug interrupted him, “No, really. I’m dying. I saw a pulmonary specialist today about those breathing problems I’ve been having and I have cancer.” The table fell silent and the evening was ruined, just like he feared.

Fri 11/08/02 7:35 am

To: Mrs. Apgood, Kennedy Junior High School

My name is Laura Lund Moncur. I was in your eighth grade Honors English class in the 1982-1983 school year. I don’t know if you still do this, but you gave us a creative writing assignment called something like, Story By The Numbers. You made us choose three random scenarios that we had to include in a story. I can only remember two of the three random items I had chosen for my story. My story was supposed to have a mailman as a character and have someone be told that they were going to die. I was at a loss. I tried to write that story, but it was the only assignment that I never turned in during the entire year for your class.

Unlike the many assignments that I blew off during my scholastic career, this one haunts me. I have thought of this assignment many times over the last twenty years (My God, has it been that long!). Twenty years have past and I’m still thinking about my unfinished Story By The Numbers.

There is a cartoon show called Daria which used to play on MTV, but now plays on Noggin. I watched an episode of it last month and Daria’s English teacher, Mr. O’Neill, assigned her a special project where she had to write a story using characters that she knew in real life. She was having trouble, so she went back to him. He told her that sometimes boundaries paradoxically free our minds. The limitation that he put on her story was that there had to be a card game. I immediately flashed back to my unfinished assignment.

In an effort to exorcise the demon of The Story By The Numbers, I finally wrote it. I threw in the card game limitation because I couldn’t remember my third random bit. I’m sure I could have written this and felt relief if I hadn’t turned it in to you, but I thought that you might like to hear from a former student. Ironically, I married Mike Moncur (another one of your students from the same year). We’ve talked about that assignment together several times. He has no demons because he turned his in and promptly forgot it.

I’ve attached my Story By Numbers as a Word document to this email. May you have a wonderful life. Thank you for being in mine. Say hi to Miss Cooper for me.

Laura Lund Moncur

How fun to hear from you!!! I can’t believe it was that long ago that you were here at Kennedy. I remember you so vividly. You were so cute…..and always smiling. I remember Mike, also. He was such a good kid. I hope he still is!!! I think when you have a catchy name like Laura Lund (both names starting with the same letter…..alliteration, remember?!) and Mike Moncur we tend to remember them easier.

Your story is great!!! It is so well written…..story line, sentence structure, punctuation, everything! You grew up good….and smart!! You get an A+ on it!! (Ask Mike if I ever gave him an A+ on an assignment!!!)

Thank you so much for contacting me! It was so fun to hear from you. I will tell Ms. Cooper about you. Good luck with all your endeavors. Tell Mike to behave himself and always mind you!!!

Mrs. Apgood

I’ve been singing alone for years. After years of singing under the abuse of a temperamental choir director, I sang alone gladly. No angry reproaches were directed at my self-esteem when I sang the wrong words in the shower. No music stands were lobbed at my head when I sang an incorrect note in my car. I was able to sing alone and I did it very well.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. Pearl Buck (1892 – 1973)

Singing a cappella is scary to some. There is no accompaniment to find your notes. There are no other voices to hold the note if you need to breathe. It’s just you and your voice. Every note must be perfect because that’s all they’re going to hear. Every song must be interesting and compact, because that’s all they’re going to hear.

Singing a cappella holds no fear for me. There is no accompaniment to prove that I’m off key. There are no other voices to sing the correct words and show the world that I sang the wrong ones. Every note is my own. Every song is for me alone, because I’m all they’re going to hear. Most importantly, there were no music stands directed at my head.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself. Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892), Song of Myself, 1855

Still, I was called. I don’t believe in a higher power, but I was asked to sing in the choir by the choir director. I had made a pact with a friend that we would both join when the summer ended. Even though she is in another state now, I still joined. It was partly in memory of her and partly because it had been so long since I had sung with other voices.

I’m not choosing the music, so sometimes I have to work my range to its fullest. I’m not choosing the lyrics, so sometimes I have to sing words that are uncomfortable to me. I’m not choosing the meeting times, so sometimes I’m tired and not eager to sing. All of these are ways for me to grow, where I have stayed stagnant for years. I didn’t even know that I was stagnating before I joined.

Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious. Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC), Eclogues

After two months of practices and three performances, I haven’t seen one music stand fly in anger. The choir director is patient and loving. I’ve never worked under a patient leader before. I still worry about perfection, but that is my personal demon that has surfaced in more creative areas than just music. Our next performance is Sunday, October 26^th at the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society. Feel free to see how much I’ve grown if you’re in the area.

I have one unborn child. She has dark, curly hair. It will grown into an unruly rat’s nest, but right after her teens, she will be reconciled with it. At age three, however, they will be soft, dark curls that will make her look like an angel. Her name is Amanda Joe, but we were going to call her Joe. If she wants the girly name that her dead and unmet grandmother wanted for her, that’s her choice. We would have called her by that grandmother’s middle name instead.

Our children change us whether they live or not. Lois McMaster Bujold, “Barrayar”, 1991

I don’t know if she will ever be given life. She has visited my mother-in-law’s dreams. She haunts my conscious thoughts. Her father would be uncomfortable around her, but she would crawl into his lap and put her little arms around his neck and squeeze the discomfort right out of him. I know she would like him best, but that doesn’t hurt my feelings. Kids can’t help but choosing a favorite.

The unborn haunt us in times of death. She is lurking in my mind, holding Calvin’s hand. She is perpetually three in her unborn state, but I can imagine her at every age. I can see her in junior high school. She is learning algebra and programming computers in Pascal. I can see her in high school. She is more interested in clothing and sex than mathematics and prose. I can see her as an adult. She is contemplating her own unborn children.

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs. P. J. O’Rourke (1947 – )

I am a member of the first generation that actually gets to choose whether or not we have children. I know that my mother’s generation had the choice of the Pill or prophylactics, but the former wasn’t perfected and the later was stigmatized. This is the first time that we can go into a grocery store and choose from twenty different styles of condoms without shame. This is the first time that women like me can be protected from pregnancy for all of their child-bearing years using a variety of methods (pills, patches, IUDs, female condoms, diaphragms, shots, and the list keeps growing). There is no excuse for unwanted children in the United States. If someone says that a child is an accident, they are lying. Just because you didn’t plan it, doesn’t mean that it was an accident.

I am a member of the first generation that will be haunted by unborn children by choice. There are many who have been haunted by unborn children. Some of them are unborn because of physiological circumstances that are beyond their parents’ control. Some of them are unborn because they didn’t get in line quick enough. My situation is different. Joe is unborn because I have chosen to be “responsible.” More and more of these unborn ghosts are unwanted, like the discarded pictures that I have been adopting.

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I have such an entourage of ghosts that follow me that sometimes I feel like a celebrity. I have Calvin as my protector and bodyguard. I have Joe to remind me of work that still needs to be completed. I have my paternal grandmother to keep my nose to the grindstone. There are many others that follow me. So many that it’s a wonder that I ever feel lonely.

February 22, 2002

He was trying to talk to her again. His speech was awkward and stilted. She could tell that just asking her the question was incredibly difficult for him. “Have you gone down to any of the houses?” She shook her head and responded, “Nope. I haven’t done anything. I really should get down there before everything is gone.” She left it open for him. He could ask her to go downtown with him. Come on, fella, you can do it.

“You should really go down there. The Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” She sighed, disappointed. “I know. I’d really like to share that experience with someone.” He let a few awkward seconds pass before he just turned around and left her cubicle. At this rate, just dating is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him.

Later that evening, she looked around her immaculately clean apartment. She fired up her computer and went online. Every time she downloaded her email, she cursed the day that she put her information on the dating service. She hadn’t received one email from a normal man. Every one of them was either a pervert or a freak. She sifted through her inbox: pervert, spam, perverted spam, freak, freak, perv. When it was clean, she started to surf. His quiet and reserved voice stuttered in her head, “The Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” She logged off.

She felt like a tourist in her own city. All the boring office buildings that sat nestled between the mountains were covered with huge murals of Olympic Events. She couldn’t even drive to where she normally parked when she went downtown because there was an entire section of her city quarantined off. She parked and shuttled to the various houses representing the different teams. Free beer. That was a phrase she had never heard in her beloved city, but she was driving. No beer for her.

She clicked pictures galore. The rings on the mountain, every mural on the buildings, and she even clicked a picture of that famous singer in that band that was performing that night. She didn’t actually see the performance. She just took a picture of one of the many televisions broadcasting all the events. Despite all of the gaiety, she was still alone, and worse, she could feel it. Worse still, not one person around her noticed.

February 22, 2003

“Don’t you wish it was all happening again?” She was very confused. Sometimes he was so nervous around her that he would say weird things. He pointed at the old Olympics poster in an effort to clarify, “Don’t you wish that we could rewind and do the Olympics all over again?” The wave of loneliness washed over again, “God, no! I ended up going downtown alone to see everything. It was horrible.”

He just stood there bobbing his head. She could tell that she had said the wrong thing and he had no premeditated response. She picked up the silence, “It would have been so much better if I had gone down there with someone I knew.” She left it open for him. Come on, fella, you can do it. He fidgeted and touched his face. “Hey, you think you’d like to go to coffee sometime?” She smiled, “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“He’s famous.” That was my first thought when I saw the discarded photo on the side of the road. I was walking on 700 East and at the freeway underpass, I found it. It is a picture of the lead singer of the Goo Goo Dolls, I think. The Olympic rings are to the right. It looks like he is on a television screen. Honestly, it’s not a very good picture, but after going to the trouble of picking it up, I didn’t feel right just throwing back on the ground. I put it in my bag. I’ve always been one to rescue discarded photos.

For seven years, I worked at K-Mart. I started as a checker and worked almost every department in the store. When I was at the Service Desk, part of my job was to refund merchandise. At that time, K-mart would let you get a refund for whatever pictures you didn’t like, no questions asked. Not very many people would refund their pictures, but a few people took advantage of this program.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
– Paul Valery (1871 – 1945)

As the recipient of these poor, rejected pictures, I always felt a sadness for them. Since we were instructed to just throw the pictures away, I would take my favorites of the discarded home. When I was looking for my photo of Calvin (still missing, sorry), I found these cast off pictures alongside the precious photos of my high school friends. Even though they didn’t depict anyone that I knew, they were just as precious to me.

I had made up stories about each picture. In one there were two boys glowing at the camera. They are dirty as hell, but they look like they were having the time of their lives. I imagined them at age nineteen, fighting in Vietnam together. I imagined them grizzled, old codgers fighting with each other. They laugh together and remember the good times in the mountains of Utah.

Back in ‘Nam ya wouldn’t have done this to me!
– Imaginary Old Coot

In another, there is a picture of a tree. The photographer had stood at the foot of the tree, turned the camera to the sky and caught it in its full splendor. I was immediately reminded of a song by The Cure called The Forest. I imagined the boy looking for his dream girl, only to find that he is just lost in the forest, all alone.

The girl was never there.
It’s always the same.
I’m running to what’s nothing.
Again and again and again and again and again.
– The Cure, The Forest

Unlike an abandoned pet, these pictures bring me comfort without the obligation. Unlike my own pictures, they bring me good memories without a hint of bad. Unlike so many of the discarded, they bring me hope of rescue. Time to think of a story for my new discarded picture.

Update 01-12-09: You can now see these photos at this entry.

• Pick Me! » Photos That Have Been Left Behind

My schedule is regular. I work 8 am to 5 pm every Monday through Friday. When we are slow, I get every other Friday off. I drive the same route to work every day. I’ve heard that when I’m feeling like I’m in a rut that I should drive to work via a different route, but I’m loathe to do it. I have found the most efficient route and I am reluctant to vary it, even for variety.

Oregano is the spice of life. Henry J. Tillman

I used to see the car every morning. On the intersection of 1500 South and 500 West in Woods Cross, I wait every morning to turn left. The car would be heading south on 500 West right through the light. It was one of the cars that needed to get out of my way before I could turn, but it was special.

I drive a lime green New Beetle right now, but this car is a different hue of green. This special car is almost a neon green. It is not a color that occurs in nature except in the deepest ocean. The furtive and luminescent fish that don this color hide from us, so we are surprised when we see that color and it doesn’t hide. That car never hid. It brazenly drove right past me every day.

Then something changed. For the last couple of months, I haven’t seen that special car in the morning. I don’t know if I have been coming a millisecond too late or if it has been leaving a millisecond earlier, but I haven’t seen it. My incredible sense of self worth decided that the driver of the car was purposely trying to miss me. Two green cars with hues just different enough to clash. The driver was avoiding me. Paranoia strikes.

Even paranoids have real enemies. Delmore Schwartz

The other day, I left work later than I normally do. It was my turn to be heading south on 500 West and that special car was heading north. Seeing it was like being greeted by an old friend. After months of being missing in action, my buddy had resurfaced. I felt like waving to the stranger behind the wheel.

I left ten minutes later than normal. The difference of ten minutes was the only distinction. How many people do we see every day that we would miss if we arrived to work ten minutes earlier? How many people do we miss seeing because we don’t stay late at work? Whether we notice it or not, we see the same people every day.

Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892), Leaves of Grass

Even though we don’t speak to them, they are our brothers in arms. They are struggling with the same traffic jams. They are faced with the same snow storms and blinding sunshine. They are groping with the same burdens of life, work and death. It will probably be months before I see that special car again. I’ve never talked to the person behind the wheel, but I still consider him my friend. That’s why I’ll be driving the same route to work tomorrow. Variety be damned.

I was in Salt Lake’s best used book store, Sam Weller’s, last weekend. They had a whole section of old calendars and date books. I was looking through this section and I was wishing I could find a diary. I wanted to peek into the life of someone. I wanted to take home a handwritten journal that documented the life of a stranger. I wanted to hear their personal thoughts and know their intimate secrets.

At the time, I was clueless. At the time, I was just consumed with finding an interesting document of the thoughts and feelings of an ordinary person. I made absolutely no connection to the weblog phenomena at all. Sifry’s Alerts logged over one million weblogs on September 27^th. There are over one million journals, diaries, calendars and date books online right now, with more every day. Over one million people are out there, crying to be heard.

In the future, technology will be so advanced, that people will go home and want to touch a piece of wood. David Bowie (paraphrased)

Something is wrong with this society. I don’t know what it is, but people are LONELY. I’m not talking the normal loneliness that comes at times. I’m talking about a chronic loneliness that eats away at the soul. People are HUNGRY to talk. It only takes a kind word, a polite nod or a look straight in the eye to start the floodgates. I have been blessed with hearing the stories of many strangers and right now there are over one million more that are begging to talk to me.

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. Ann Landers (1918 – 2002)

I don’t really blame the television. We turn on our televisions and the voices make us think that someone is in the room with us, but those voices aren’t fulfilling the need. They are one-sided and they can’t hear us when we cry. They don’t even have the decency to stop talking when we weep openly. The fact of the matter, however, is that it is us who choose to turn the television on instead of seeking companionship when we are lonely. Are we so out of step with our emotions that we don’t know when to turn off the TV?

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), An Ideal husband, 1893

What is going on in our society? What is different? Was it always like this? Were humans always so lonely that they clung to the stranger who would hear their words? Is loneliness the definition of humanity or is this a new occurrence? My prayer was answered. I found one million journals to read and they are unfolding to me every day. Be careful what you wish for…

“Did you hear?” It was a few years out of high school. I was married. My cheerleader friend was married and had given birth to a beautiful baby girl. She called me, which was rare these days and said the phrase that always prefaces a bad conversation. “Did you hear?”

It’s never good news. It’s either bad gossip or bad news. It’s never greatness that follows the phrase, “Did you hear?” I told her no, wanting the conversation to get over with as soon as possible and hoping that it was just gossip. “Calvin’s dead.”

Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home. Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

I don’t remember where I was. I don’t know if I was at work or at home. I don’t even remember where I was living at the time. I don’t even think that I said anything after she told me. “You need to go to the funeral,” she told me. “Yeah, sure. Do you want to carpool or meet me there?” “Oh no. I can’t go. I can’t let Football Player see me after having this baby. You know, he’s married now.” “Calvin got married?” “No, Football Player!” She was frustrated with me.

So, I went to Calvin’s funeral alone. Once again, I was the outsider and this time, I didn’t have my friend with me to justify my presence. The funeral was at Goff Mortuary. I have trouble remembering phone numbers, but the name of the mortuary where my friend was eulogized is in my memory forever.

I sat at the back of the room. Football Player and all the rest of the gang were there, decked out in the most horrid colors: yellow, purple and green. They were dressed in the team colors for the Utah Jazz. Of course, all of us are Jazz Fans, but Calvin had his last laugh because all his friends carried his coffin looking like the biggest dorks on the planet.

Always cool, Football Player’s face was stoic and unchanging. I don’t remember what anyone said at the funeral. Calvin’s fiance spoke about him and I tried to reconcile her with the lawyer’s wife that I had imagined for him.

Calvin had died in a car accident. They didn’t say whether it was drug related, alcohol related, sleep deprivation or whether Calvin was even driving or not. I never really found out what killed him beyond a couple of tons of twisted steel. I guess that’s enough.

There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed. W. Somerset Maugham, ‘Of Human Bondage’, 1915

They buried him at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park. Of the many times I’ve driven past that place, I don’t think there was a time when I didn’t think of Calvin. I haven’t returned to his grave, but the day I stood by it, I remember thinking that this place was too quiet for him.

I wish that I could tell a different story about Calvin. I wanted to tell the story of the man who beat adversity and made it through law school. I wish I could tell you that Calvin is representing drug offenders in the Utah courts. I wish I could tell you about his beautiful wife and his beautiful house. I wish I could tell you how he got there. Instead, he is so much worm food at Wasatch Lawn Mortuary.

Sometimes when I see a thin, curly haired boy skateboarding, I feel that essence of protection that used to surround me when I knew Calvin was at the party. I know that he haunts me to this day and I tell his story in a desperate attempt to exorcise him. If I had my way, I would relocate his grave to the skate park at Taylorsville Park. I think it would be a much better gravesite for him.

It was sitting on the counter at my friend’s house. “What’s this?” She glanced at it and answered, “A picture of Calvin.” I shook my head, “I know, dumbass. What are you doing with it? Why is it here? Where did you get it?’ She shrugged and explained that she was using up the rest of the roll and snapped a picture of Calvin. “Can I have it?” She shrugged and said that it was mine.

If I had a photograph of you or something to remind me. I wouldn’t spend my life just wishing. A Flock of Seagulls, Wishing (I Had a Photograph)

From that point on, my friend assumed that I was in love with Calvin. She asked me many times if I liked him or not and I truthfully told her that I didn’t love him. I couldn’t explain why I wanted the picture, so she just decided that I must be in love with him.

It sat in the back of the Beetle for a long time, reminding her of my supposed love each time she rode with me. Eventually, I put it in the photo album next to the pictures of friends at the prom and school pictures that had been given to me. That photo album is hiding somewhere downstairs in the basement and it might as well be lost to me.

I have a picture pinned to my wall. An image of you and of me and we’re laughing with love at it all. Thompson Twins, Hold Me Now

The truth of the matter is, I DID love Calvin. He felt like the big brother who would always be there to protect me. I didn’t have any brothers, so I had never felt that feeling for a guy before. It was a strong feeling and I was scared of it. I knew that I had no sexual attraction to him, yet I really cared about him. I didn’t know how to describe that sort of love to her. In retrospect, she would have understood perfectly. As I said before, she had many brothers. She was the youngest and the only sister, so I’m sure she would have understood if I only had been able to articulate what I thought.

My beloved car of my high school years was a white Volkswagen Baja Beetle. Mike Pinkston and I had spray painted a yellow smiley face on the roof of the car where rust was trying to grow. For years after I sold it, I would see it every once and a while. It would drive past me and all the memories of my high school days would come rushing back to me.

It had been one of those parties. If I had been drinking, I would have sworn off of it because it was one of those times when I needed to have all of my facilities. I don’t know what started it. Testosterone, yeah I think I’ll blame testosterone. I don’t even know who started it, but Football Player played a large role in the events of that evening.

Oh, treacherous night! thou lendest thy ready veil to every treason, and teeming mischief’s beneath thy shade.
Aaron Hill

By the time I walked out of my friend’s house, the Beetle was on its side. Twelve football players were in the process of trying to get it upside down. Anyone seeing their precious first car being treated so poorly would have screamed, so I had no shame in screaming and trying to get them to stop it. They were well on their way to turning it completely upside down when Calvin walked out.

Calvin, the stoned skater. Calvin, the Super Senior. Calvin, the skinny outsider. “What the hell is going on out here?!” Suddenly, all twelve of the football players put the car down and started explaining. Football Player tried to get Calvin on his side. Cool as ever, he explained how funny it would be to turn my Beetle completely upside down. Calvin would have none of it, “Get the Beetle right side up! Quit being stupid.” He turned around and went back into the house. The remaining eleven football players immediately turned my car right side up and the party broke up. Amazed, all I could do was stand by and watch.

Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.
Czech Proverb

My image of Calvin was instantly changed. Calvin, the quiet despot. Calvin, the secret ruler. Calvin, the protector. The world was instantly upside down. Instead of weak, Calvin was strong. Instead of addle-brained, Calvin was smart. Instead of an outsider, Calvin was the leader. My car was right side up and so was I. The funny thing was that I didn’t realize that I had been living my life upside down for so long.

I can never predict when it’s going to happen. I never know when a normal conversation is going to turn into a confessional. Had I known everything, I would have recorded this long talk on a tape recorder. In Nixon’s office, I would have pressed the button with my foot and his words would have been documented. Maybe if they had been recorded, I would have realized that they weren’t that special. Maybe after fifteen years of thinking about that conversation, his confession has grown in significance than it actually was. All I remember are a few sentences from those three hours, but they seem so important to me.

Calvin looked around the cluttered kitchen. He had just sat down, was leaning awkwardly on the high chair and slurred, “Dude, why do you come to these parties?” I remember feeling like an outsider. Calvin, an outsider himself, was questioning my right to be there, so I defended myself, “She’s my friend. I have just as much right to be here as you do.” He shook his head and laughed to himself, “No. I mean why are wasting your time with these guys? You should be?” He lifted his hand arbitrarily and waved it around. It was the same hand that had the half-empty warm beer. He took a swig and I prayed that I hadn’t handed him someone’s chew spit. My friend had many brothers, all of whom chewed tobacco and spit into whatever was handy. I hadn’t even thought to check it when I handed it to him. He grimaced at the taste, put it down and got a cold one out of the fridge. Her fridge had a seemingly never-ending supply of beer.

He popped open the fresh beer and looked at me for an answer to his question. I responded, “Where should I be? Studying like a good girl. I do enough of that.” Instead of saying that I wasn’t good enough to be there, I was somehow too good to be there, which was just as insulting. It was as if he thought that smart people didn’t need to have fun. It was somehow beneath me. “Man, if I was you, I would study all the time. I would get straight A’s?”

Then it came, like a rusted pipe, gurgling and splashing brown and mucky liquid all over me. He told me everything. It was convoluted and messy, but he told me what he wanted. He wanted more than anything to be me. He didn’t want to change places with Football Player, who was poking a cheerleader as we spoke. He didn’t want to change places with the skater that we knew that went professional and was getting paid to play. He wanted to change places with me because I had a chance and he didn’t.

He had seen a lawyer on television. I don’t think it was an actor playing a lawyer, I think it was a real lawyer who was defending someone here in Salt Lake City. Calvin had been inspired by this man. This lawyer, who was probably some publicity-hound ambulance chaser, represented the epitome of success to Calvin. “If I could be a lawyer, I could do some good. I could talk to anyone and just talk so perfect that no one could argue with me. See, if I was you, I would go to college and get to be a lawyer. Nothing could stop me then?” He trailed off. He had been talking for a long time about the lawyer, about how much he wanted to be like him and about how I could be a lawyer, if I just studied harder. He was just staring at the clutter on the kitchen table.

“Calvin, you could be a lawyer.” The minute I said it, I knew I was lying. I had been thinking of the slimy lawyers on the back of the phone book, but even they had to pass the bar exam. I looked at Calvin and for the first time, I saw him the way teachers saw him. I saw him the way the world would look at him. The teachers saw Calvin, the Super Senior, who was taking four years to graduate instead of three. The teachers saw Calvin, the stoner, who got “sconed” every day and was rarely seen straight. The teachers saw Calvin, the abandoned, who lived with his sister because there was nowhere else to go. The teachers saw Calvin, the skater, who didn’t study because it was his “destinate.”

“No, but you could be a lawyer.” He had been pushing this idea during his confession, but I wasn’t having any of it. “I don’t want to be some slimy lawyer. That’s your dream. You could do it. I don’t know how you would do it, but you probably need to stop smoking pot first.” He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too late for me.” I silently and guiltily agreed with him.

Calvin, if you are angry with me for revealing your deepest thoughts to the world, come haunt me, you skinny bastard. I haven’t seen your face in so long that I am eager for the meeting, even if you are angry with me.

It was the tail end of another huge, drunken party. The couples had paired off in rooms. The singles had gone home. They either were driven home by me or they had snuck their keys and drove themselves home. Frankly, I was seventeen and I had lost track. I was sleeping over at my friend’s house and I looked at the kitchen table, not wanting to clean up. I didn’t make the mess, why should I clean it? I sat down between the kitchen table and the wall and just observed.

Calvin stumbled up the stairs. One of the singles, it was time for him to go home, but Football Player was his ride and he was blissfully coupled in one of the bedrooms. My skate-punk friend plopped down in a chair opposite me. He awkwardly leaned on the high chair, and I realized that he was drunk. This was a rarity for Calvin. Drunk, not high. I actually had never seen it before and I handed him half of a warm beer. He winked at me, “Just pretending to drink.” “Bullsh*t,” I thought to myself.

I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on. Oscar Levant (1906 – 1972)

I don’t know what had spawned this drinking. Maybe he had been “just pretending to drink” and ended up drinking a little too much for his weight. He was painfully thin. I’m sure that his sister fed him enough, but he was so tall. It’s just hard to eat enough to bulk up a boy who is that tall, especially when he skateboards so much. Maybe it had all gotten to him. Everyone was coupled up except him. He was left with Nerd-Girl, cleaning up the cluttered kitchen. Maybe he was stone cold sober. I had never seen him sober, so his personality change could have been his actual personality. I’m just guessing fifteen years later what could have been the reason for his drinking, but I guess that doesn’t matter now.

Over the next three hours, Calvin talked like I had never heard him talk before. When he was high, Calvin would talk a lot, but say very little. He would repeat words and phrases, which gave us the impression that he was talking, but he really told us nothing. “Destinate to skate” and “Scone Dog” aren’t really personally revealing. They’re just funny phrases that didn’t tell us much. But then again, people talk to me. Sooner or later, when people need to talk, they come to me. The kitchen became a confessional and I became the female eunuch.

It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

As I sit here at the keyboard, I’m reluctant to put down what I remember from the conversation. Confessions of this sort seem privileged to me despite the fact that I’m not a member of the clergy, a doctor or a lawyer. I don’t know what causes these desperate and personal admissions, but I enjoy them when they happen to me because for that one brief moment, I bond with a stranger. What if I jinx it and the confessions cease just because I voice them?

I said that I was going to tell you about Calvin, and here I am at the most revealing moment I ever had with him and I am reluctant to share. I sit here thinking about his beloved sister, who took him in when he had no place to go. Would she want to hear this story? Would she be upset if the whole world knew it? What about Calvin? What would he think if I told the world his confession after all that has happened? I need to think about this overnight before I continue?

In the eighties, the suburbs of Salt Lake City didn’t have much of a culinary selection after midnight. If you didn’t want to sit in a greasy spoon, you were relegated to Sconecutter. My, this story needs a lot of explaining. Scones in Utah are nothing like scones in Great Britain. In fact, I think a place like Sconecutter would do well anywhere if the rest of the world would just redefine the word scone. In Utah, a scone is fried bread. Think of it as a hush puppy without the cornmeal.

Sconecutter serves savory and sweet scones. The scone itself is a rectangle approximately four inches by six inches by two inches, cut in half lengthwise (thus the name, Sconecutter). They will make them into sandwiches for you or slather them with honey butter. As if the scones weren’t abominations themselves, they also serve Scone Burgers, which are pretty self-explanatory, and Sconuts, which are scones that are frosted like donuts. Most abhorrent of all their greasy creations is the Scone Dog. I’ve never eaten, ordered or even seen a Scone Dog, but I suspect they are scones with hot dogs as the meat. So much for explanation.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 – 1944), “The Little Prince”, 1943

So, it’s 1987 and I’m with the core group of partiers: Calvin, my cheerleader friend, her drill team friend, her football player boyfriend and me, nerd-girl. They’re drunk. Calvin’s high and I’m driving. It’s about 11:30 pm and we are at Sconecutter. Most importantly, they are all underage and if the guy behind the counter realizes they’re drunk, we’re all busted. The important thing is to be cool. “Be cool,” the football player tells me. Even though he’s drunk, you can’t tell because he is always cool.

I order and pay for myself. Little Miss Drill Team orders, Football Player orders and my friend orders and pays for all of them. It’s Calvin’s turn to order, “Scone Dog!” He pronounces it slowly and incredulously. He sounds like Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Worse still, he keeps saying it. “Scone Dog!” Now, he’s pointing at the menu at the item, “Look, Dude, Scone Dog! I want a Scone Dog!” Football Player lowers Calvin’s pointing hand and takes him by the shoulder, whispering, “Cool it. Dude, you don’t want a Scone Dog. Man, just order whatever you want, but C-O-O-L I-T.” He draws out the last two words in a ferocious whisper.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

The girls are worthless and they are laughing each time Calvin says the word again. I step up to the counter, “My friend doesn’t want a Scone Dog.” The guy at the counter is instantly on my side, “No, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.” I flirt just enough to get the attention away from Calvin and Football Player arguing about whether a Scone Dog is palatable or not. “So, what do you think he should order?” The two of us can still hear Calvin in the background repeating the words “Scone Dog” over and over. The guy at the counter appropriates Calvin’s voice and accent, and saying, “How about a Sconenut?” He drew out the word “Sconenut” in the same way Calvin kept repeating “Scone Dog.” I laughed and nodded. “Maple or chocolate?” I order both.

This story was told many times by Miss Drill Team and my friend. Whenever we remember Calvin together, the Scone Dog story is brought up. I never heard Calvin say that he wanted to get high after that. He just wanted to get a “Scone Dog. “

Not long after that, Sconecutter started an advertising campaign with the tag line: Let’s Go Get Sconed! I don’t think that Calvin initiated that, but it was brilliant and they still use that slogan today. Additionally, I noticed that Scone Dog is no longer on their menu. What a shame. Now I’ll never know.

We were drunk. I know I had made a vow of sobriety, but this was a quiet party. This was a small party. Only friends and people I trusted were with me, Calvin being one of them. Ok, I lied. All of us weren’t drunk. Calvin was high. How about this? We were impaired. Somehow that doesn’t sound as good as, “We were drunk.”

One reason I don’t drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time. Nancy Astor (1879 – 1964)

We were impaired and waiting. I have no recollection of what we were waiting for, but we were waiting on my best friend’s front porch. In our neighborhood, the front porch of our houses consisted of a slab of concrete. I’m not talking about one of those old-time porches that are covered and roomy. It was dark and we were sitting on a cold concrete step. Ok, I lied. All of us weren’t sitting. Calvin was skating.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with, that it’s compounding a felony. Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945)

Over and over, he jumped his board from the first step to the second. He was high, mind you, and he was skating perfectly. His soliloquy, however, wasn’t as perfect, “It’s my destinate to skate!” Just in case we girls didn’t understand him, he clarified, “You see it’s my destiny to skate, so it’s my destinate to skate, so I destinate!” He kept repeating that phrase over and over. I guessed that getting high must be very different from getting drunk. To him, he was saying something incredibly clever and important. To us, he was just skating very well and speaking poorly. Yet we were entertained and what we were waiting for became nothing in my memory while his mumblings are dear to me.

I have been thinking a lot about friendship the last couple of days. The memory of an old friend long gone reminded me to think of my friends. When I was a child, I always had a “best” friend. Choosing a favorite friend seems so strange to me now because I compartmentalize my friends now. I have friends to talk about life with, different friends to get drunk with, different friends to spend lunch at work with and even different friends to remember and miss. Just like my peas and potatoes, I don’t mix my drinking friends with my lunch friends

Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) (attributed)

Back when I was a kid, though, it was a different story. The most important person in my life was my best friend. I didn’t want her to like anyone but me. It was a jealous love with no room for lunch friends. My best friend roller skated with me, ate lunch with me, talked about life with me and partied with me. There was no room for any others in my life. And if she found room for others, I became insane with jealousy. My best friend changed names many times over my youthful years, sometimes in spite and sometimes because friends just change with age

Later, there became a distinction between girl friends and boy friends. Once I started having boyfriends, I found that I had to make a mental distinction between my best friend that’s a girl and my boyfriend, who obviously would be my best friend that’s a boy. I believed that my boyfriend had to be my best friend, but I still wasn’t willing to give up my “best” friend, whomever she may be this month.

The friend that I’m mourning, however, was neither a best friend nor a boy friend. His name was Calvin Hardcastle. He was tall and thin with dark hair and eyes. I didn’t find him particularly attractive and I doubt he noticed me. During high school, I partied with the jocks and the cheerleaders. The same people who were reluctant to talk to me in the high school halls were perfectly willing to let me see them at their drunken worst. I was a cheerleader’s nerdy friend and Calvin was a football player’s skateboarding friend. We were both outcasts in a sense. We were both on the outskirts of popularity.

After one horrific party, I vowed never to drink at these damn parties again. This group of rowdy football players would have nothing to do with my sudden sobriety. The first party after the “incident,” I found my Diet Coke spiked with alcohol several times. Protest on my part only brought my situation to their attention. Later in the evening, Calvin pulled me aside. “If you don’t want to drink, it’s way easy. All you do is carry around a beer,” he put a red and white Budweiser can in my hand, “and when they’re not looking, you dump a little bit out. That’s what I do. I’d way rather get high than get drunk, but they get all bugged if everyone isn’t drinking. Just pretend to drink.” My eyes grew to the size of platters, “You’re a f**king genius!” I whispered. Why hadn’t I thought of it myself? I’m supposed to be the nerd-girl. I’m supposed to be the one with sense. Instead, I had to get instruction from the stoner skate-punk. That is my first memory of Calvin Hardcastle protecting me.

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. Sidney J. Harris

Over the next couple of days, I want to tell you more about Calvin. What a strange friend. I don’t have a picture of him, yet I can remember his appearance vividly. I have no recordings of his voice, yet I can hear him clearly, “I’d way rather get high than get drunk.” I never touched him, but I can almost feel that beer can in my hand. What a strange thing memory is

We are planning a trip to Las Vegas and I’m giddy with joy. Living in Salt Lake has the happy advantage of only being a day’s drive from Sin City, so we have been there many times. Looking at myself from the outside, I wonder why I’m still excited to go there. I have been there so often that I know the geography almost as well as Salt Lake. I have been to all the hotels on the Strip and I can tell you the coolest things to do for almost no money.

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. Charles Kuralt

On the drive down, we always stop in Filmore. It’s a tiny town whose slogan reads: You Have a Friend in Filmore. I always wonder who it is that’s my friend there because the clerks at the gas station aren’t all that friendly. I keep hoping that I’ll eventually find that friend in Filmore, so we stop whether we need gas or not.

We also stop in St. George. You have to drive along Bluff street and pay homage to the Friendship Inn Sands motel, which pretty much looks the same now as it did in the sixties. We get gas here because if you wait until Mesquite, you’ll pay about twenty cents a gallon extra. Rumor has it that there is a muffler man in St. George, but I’ve never seen him.

This time, we are planning on staying in a hotel in Jean, Nevada, which is about twenty minutes south of Las Vegas. The hotels are clean and cheap. For only twenty bucks a night, we will get a clean room and access to the hotel pool, so I’m stoked. So what if I have to drive a little to get into town. It’s about the same as what I commute every day to work, so I’m not complaining.

Before he sets out, the traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by travel. George Santayana (1863 – 1952)

First on my list of activities this time is Paul Van Dyk at Ra. The Luxor Hotel is the one that looks like a huge pyramid. Totally cool in and of itself, but add to that a nightclub that stays open until dawn and Paul Van Dyk at the turntables and I’m in heaven. This is the reason we are going down to Vegas, so he is first on our list of activities.

We are also going to see Simon and Garfunkel in concert. The tickets are horrendously expensive, but this might be the last time we are able to see them in concert together. I just wish that I could go back in time and see perform in the sixties. This is the next best thing since time marches on.

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me. Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)

My most fixed interest is relaxation. Sure I have plans and items on a to-do list that need checking, but the most important thing to me is to get relaxed and ready to face the next year. In the past, I have kept a traveling journal, but I have never done that in Las Vegas. I have written in my regular journal, but a traveling journal is different. I usually draw pictures and write about the new experiences in the new locale, but Las Vegas is like a second home to me, so I’ve never bothered recording my thoughts about this city. That sounds like the most relaxing thing I could do on this trip. Keep a traveling journal for Las Vegas. Goody, I get to buy a new journal! Maybe I’ll be the first poet to go to Vegas.

Last Saturday, I went to a meditation group. A beloved friend of mine is starting this group and she wanted people there that knew her and could give her some moral support. I was happy to attend just to help her, but I wasn’t really feeling like a meditation class would help me at all.

All my experiences with meditation fall into two categories. Sometimes I spend the entire time saying, “Stop thinking about things! Concentrate on your breath. In – Out – In I wonder what I should have for dinner. Stop thinking about things!” to myself. The other times, I fall asleep. Reaching that bliss of observing without judgment and concentrating on my body has been elusive. I usually find the most peace when I’m writing my journal or singing healing songs to myself. But I was there to be moral support for her. It didn’t matter whether I was successful at meditation or not. I was just there to help her out.

Not merely an absence of noise, Real Silence begins when a reasonable being withdraws from the noise in order to find peace and order in his inner sanctuary. Peter Minard

She opened the class, we introduced ourselves and she gave us some basic instruction. She told us that we would meditate for fifteen minutes, discuss our observations, meditate for fifteen more minutes and close the class. While we were meditating, we were supposed to be thinking of the word, Maitri, which is a Pali word for loving-kindness. If we get distracted by sounds, feelings from our bodies, or thoughts we are supposed to notice them and send them a bit of loving-kindness while we go back to concentrating on breathing out.

During the first fifteen minutes, my thoughts kept returning to the fact that we are going to have to discuss our observations. My mind kept preparing opening words for the upcoming speech. But, hey, I’m just here for moral support. It doesn’t matter if my speech is good. Just forget it. Loving-kindness and back to my breathing. I found myself thinking about the food I had eaten just before the class: smokehouse almonds and an apple, yum! But hey, I’m just here for moral support. I don’t need to think about breakfast. Loving-kindness and breathe out. I had a glimpse of a vision of a sci-fi scenario in which rooms of people are meditating together to stave off the invasion of the baddies. Loving-kindness and breathe out. When is the gong going to strike? Has it been fifteen minutes. This feels just like when I had to stay still during prayer at church when I was a kid. That was hard. Loving-kindness and breath some more. Gong.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

It felt like a long time, that first fifteen minutes, but not once did I scold myself for not meditating correctly. I didn’t swear. I didn’t curse. I was only there to be a support for my friend, so it didn’t matter if I meditated correctly. I was only there to help her, so I just needed to be quiet and calm for fifteen minutes.

Almost everyone spoke of their observances while meditating. I found that even among the experienced, their thoughts would wander. For some, it was a new experience to be in a group and they felt a special energy that was lacking when they meditated alone. That went right past me. If there was special energy in the room, it eluded me. Others were struggling with their thoughts as much as I did. We started the second fifteen minutes.

This time, I was able to go several seconds of just noticing my breath before my mind rushed in. It was so much easier. I had that dizzy feeling that comes to me when our Reverend is truly inspiring. It wasn’t there the whole time, but I had a glimpse of peace, which is more than I’ve ever experienced while meditating. Once again, it didn’t matter if I did it right because I was just there for moral support, and paradoxically, it helped me meditate better than I ever had before.

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

When searching for peace, I still think that the best method for me is to go to the keyboard and write a few pages of my random and disturbing thoughts. No matter how disturbing they may be, they seem less so when they are on the computer screen, flickering ethereally. There are times, however, when journal writing isn’t enough. There are even times when not even singing healing songs is enough. When that’s the case, now I can fall back on a weekly meditation group. Of course, I’ll attend every week for moral support, so it won’t matter if I do it wrong.

There are a slim number of people who don’t talk to me. They seem to be immune to my superpower. When a ride of more than five floors on an elevator is enough to hear the life story of a normal mortal, these people seem superhuman to me. I can know them for only a minute in the checkout line and recognize their immunity. What is worse is when I know them for years and they are still closed to me. Worse still, I have no stories about them.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say. Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784)

A typical story sounds like this: There was a woman that I worked with for three years at UBTL. She worked in the Histology department. They even put me in Histology temporarily when another girl went on vacation and I never got to know this woman. We played tennis together once and I learned no more than the fact that she had an antique typewriter stored in her closet and was wondering if she should sell it or give it away. It took me three years to learn that she had a typewriter in her closet that she never used and was unsure of how to dispose of it in an honorable manner. Three years?

There was a guy who worked in the sporting goods department at K-Mart when I worked there as a teen. He was a year younger than I was and he went to a different high school than I did. Even though he lived nearby (within skateboarding distance of my house), he went to Granger while I went to Kearns High. That’s all I can tell you about him. We had hours of lunches and breaks together in the few years that the two of us worked at that store, yet I couldn’t tell you one thing about him. He was must have been smart because he went from porter to the sporting goods department in a manner of a couple of months. That I learned just from observation. Anything else about his private life was a mystery to me. Years together and I learned nothing about him, when five minutes is usually enough to learn an entire life from a normal human.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims

Don’t tell me that these people are shy. The shy flock to me. I know shy. I married shy. I am friends with the shy and the outgoing alike. Shy people love to tell me their stories while their family members look on in amazement. Shy people confess things to me that their clergy would be surprised to hear. These people are not shy. Well, that’s a lie. These people are shy, but that isn’t their power of immunity. These people are so guarded that not even I can learn about them. That isn’t shy. That isn’t even uber-shy. That is another animal altogether.

I don’t believe these people fear me. It’s not like they are wary of the information that they will give me because I will hurt them with it. It’s not like they don’t trust me. It’s almost like they have no need to share. It is so rare when another human being is willing to listen to us that when most people find me, they want to talk until they are empty. It is only time constraints that stop them: the elevator opens, the lady behind the counter asks them to pay or their turn for a bathroom stall arrives. No, these people who don’t talk to me don’t fear me. They just don’t need to tell me their stories.

And what a shame that is because I would like to know their stories. Where are you, Sporting Goods Guy? Did you follow the typical path of a Utah Mormon boy? College, Mission, Marriage, More College, Job, Family, Bishopric? Maybe you were too smart and your dark night of the soul got the best of you. Maybe your path was College, Mission, More College, Loss of Faith, Grief and Separation from The Church? Are you grieving your life? Are you celebrating it? Where are you?

And what about you, Histology Nun? Were you ever married? If you were, what happened? If you weren’t, what about the one that got away? You worked at a dying biomedical testing laboratory. When they went under, where did you go? What is your story now? Did you go to a hospital? Did you go to the University of Utah? Did BYU hire you? Where are you and what is your life looking like now?

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time. Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881)

These people are like the dragonflies to me. I don’t know where they came from and I don’t know where they went. They were in my life for a brief moment and they didn’t deliver the message from the gods that they were supposed to give me. They didn’t tell me which of my habits were healthy and which were damaging. They flew and danced so quickly that I could barely see them when they were here. They remained silent when the world was screaming its stories to me.

People who don’t know me want to talk to me. I was sitting alone in a fast food restaurant and I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He was waiting in line to order his healthy sandwich with less than six grams of fat. He wasn’t staring at the menu. He wasn’t staring at the rack of potato crisps and fat-filled snacks. He wasn’t staring at the dim-witted lady behind the counter who made my sandwich so efficiently that I was grateful for those rare people like her. He was staring at me.

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it. Horace Mann (1796 – 1859)

I have been spending my lunch hours reading “The Summing Up” by Somerset Maugham. I had already enjoyed my Seafood and Crab sandwich (not under six grams of fat, mind you) and was having trouble reading because the guy in line was staring at me. I casually took a sip from my straw and looked him straight in the eyes. I was trying to tell him, “Leave me alone. I don’t know who you are, and I don’t really care what you have to tell me.” That’s not how I usually handle things, but I was an unescorted and married female. I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. My glare didn’t matter, though, because it didn’t work. He was so excited to talk to me.

“Have you read ?The Razor’s Edge’?” I shook my head and replied, “No. I think ‘Of Human Bondage’ is his best. ‘The Moon and Sixpence’ is good too, but it’s heartbreaking.” I’ll give him an essay question answer. That should make him leave me alone. No such luck. “Yeah, but that’s the best kind of story to read when you want to cry.” Wow, this guy wants to talk. “Well, I run a quotations website, so I’m reading for quotations. It’s a different kind of reading. This guy is great for quotations.” The dim-witted counter lady finally got his attention and he reluctantly turned around and ordered his sandwich after mumbling something positive. I sighed with relief.

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941)

After he left, I congratulated myself for turning on the school-marm attitude and scaring him off. After writing this, however, I regret it. I asked for advice. I wrote my weblog and asked the universe if I should dare to read another book. When the potential for an answer came, I scared it away. I should have said, “No, what is it about?” Instead of fearing him because he was a man and probably a pervert, I should have asked him my question, “I find his work disturbing. Should I dare read another book? Is it worth it?” Now, I’ll never know. He was so aching to talk about that book to someone that he was willing to talk to a stranger. I guess now I have to read it. I owe it to the stranger because I judged him unfairly.

Strangers talk to me. The beautiful and the scarred; the healthy and the damaged; the brilliant and the addle-brained; the shy and the outgoing: it doesn’t matter who they are, strangers talk to me. Standing in the grocery store, waiting for a bathroom stall, in an elevator, in a restaurant: it doesn’t matter where I am, strangers talk to me. Embarrassing, droll, touching, lecturing, exciting, furtive: it doesn’t matter what they talk about, strangers talk to me. Yet, every conversation is as different as the person.

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882), Essays, First Series: Prudence, 1841

Since I am the common denominator, most people think it’s my fault. They tell me that people talk to me because I’m compassionate, but I don’t really care about them. Other people tell me that it’s because I ask too many questions, but many times I never get a chance to ask any questions. I’ve been told that it’s because I am the type of girl who looks you straight in the eye in a world of people who tend to look at their feet in public. The truth of the matter is that I like to hear stories. I think people can instinctively recognize a willing audience. Part girlfriend, part priest, I can turn any place into a confessional.

Confession of a Sister

We were at the now defunct Utah Fun Dome. When I was a kid, it was called The 49^th Street Galleria, and it was home to the local arcade, indoor miniature golf, roller skating and bowling. She sat next to me on the bench outside the bathrooms. As we waited for our family members to come out, I observed the declining condition of my beloved childhood playground. The ventilation cover above our heads had dust and grime clinging to it like algae on the side of a dirty aquarium. A rogue balloon flopped helplessly against it. This time, it was my fault. I started the conversation. “Walt Disney would have had a fit if he owned this place.” She followed my line of sight and shook her head.

“My sister worked at Disneyland. She said they were the best years of her life. They wouldn’t let something get out of hand like that. Everything is clean. She had to move back here.” I nodded and she continued. “Now she stays at home with her kids. She said Disneyland was the best place to work.” My husband came out of the bathroom and I stood up and said goodbye.

She left me with the vision of a beloved sister. The heroine sister: the kind that gets a great job at Disneyland. The prodigal sister: the kind that returns reluctantly to the fatherland. She ended up raising children in the homeland and considers working at Disneyland better. This sister, who has offspring and the luxury to stay at home to make sure they get the best of care, would rather be cleaning vomit off a Doombuggy. I want to talk to that sister. I want to wake her up.

Instead, I politely say goodbye to the sister that always stayed home. The dependable sister: the kind that stayed here to quietly raise her own children. The loyal sister: the kind that cherished her homeland more than adventure. This sister, who took her children to the dying and decaying Utah Fun Dome and happily rested while they noisily went to the bathroom, told me a sad and disturbing story in just a few sentences. I didn’t need to talk to this sister. She was already awake.

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850)

There was a swarm of dragonflies in front of my house the other night when I came home from work. They stayed on the east side of the house and were there for at least an hour. I couldn’t tell if they had found a different swarm of tasty bugs to eat or if they were attracted to my house for other reasons. Maybe it was an omen.

If you dream that a dragonfly lands on your body then you will have excellent news from someone far away from home. If you see a dead dragonfly, then the news will be bad. A dragonfly perched gracefully on some other object shows that you will soon be having guests that may be hard to get rid of. The Dream Dictionary

The problem is that it wasn’t a dream. The dragonflies were real and staying in my front yard. They didn’t land on my body. They didn’t die. They didn’t even perch on anything. They flew wildly and actively. There were no birds feeding on them. I couldn’t even tell if they were feeding on anything.

Dragonflies symbolize illusion, dreams, change, enlightenment, irresponsibility, unreliability, weakness, instability, swiftness, dreams and seeing the truth. They are messengers of the elemental world and the god/esses. They are connected to Summer. Wyldkat’s Pagan Place

So dragonflies can symbolize just about anything according to the Pagan world. It could be that the gods had a message for me and I missed out. It could be that the dragonflies were there to herald the end of the blistering summer that we suffered from all season. It could be that they were scolding me because of my irresponsible, unreliable, weak and unstable ways. Or they could be trying to tell me to keep dreaming, to be enlightened, to seek the truth and embrace change. With such a variety of meanings attributed to such a lively and active insect, I’m bound to find meaning there somewhere.

Dragonfly is the essence of the winds of change, the messages of wisdom and enlightenment, and the communications from the elemental world?Dragonfly medicine always beckons you to seek out the parts of your habits which you need to change. Native American Animal Omens

According to Native American mythology, the dragonfly beckons me to seek out the parts of my habits that I need to change. With that many dragonflies in one small area, I must need changing badly. How would they know? Sure, they’re helpful insects that eat the pests like mosquitoes and their evil West Nile Virus. That doesn’t give them the knowledge to discern which of my habits are helpful and which are damaging. Those damn dragonflies, how dare they judge my lifestyle?!

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it. Oprah Winfrey (1954 – ), O Magazine

So what does it mean? A strange and large swarm of dragonflies came to visit my home. I ran into the house and called my husband to see them. Neither one of us had seen that many dragonflies in one spot that didn’t include a body of water. The neighbors went about their business and were completely oblivious to our visitors. We watched their seemingly erratic movement for about a half hour before we had to leave for an appointment. We didn’t see them arrive and we didn’t see them leave, but we enjoyed them for that brief moment while they were there.

Maybe that’s what it means. Stop. Look. Bring your loved ones. Enjoy us while we’re here because we won’t be here forever. Take the time to watch us. Pay no attention to the people who are too blind to see us. Don’t worry about where we came from or where we will go. Just drink us in while the summer evening is still warm. Soon it will be cold and we will all die, so look at us now.

I forgot to tell you why I love him. I forgot to tell you why I’m tempted to read that book I found at the failing used bookstore in Sugarhouse. I forgot to tell you why I handed the tired and grieving owner my last three dollars. I love Somerset Maugham because he taught me how to love Impressionist art.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life. W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965), Of Human Bondage, 1915

Before I read Of Human Bondage, I couldn’t make sense of it. Impressionist art seemed like the sort of thing that artists without talent resorted to. I’m not talking about Abstract art, with its Jackson Pollack squiggles of paint. I’m not talking about Surrealist art, with its Salvador Dali melting watches. I’m not even talking about Cubism art, with its Pablo Picasso double noses. These are also art movements that I had relegated to the home of incompetence, some of which I have learned to love and others I have just learned to tolerate. I’m talking about Impressionist art, where the picture is told in globs of paint on huge canvases. It’s like looking at the world without my glasses. Why would anyone paint that?

Of Human Bondage follows Philip, a failed artist turned medical student, on the journey of his early life. It is Philip’s sojourn in Paris and his burning desire to be an artist that helped me appreciate the artwork of the Impressionists. On my last visit to San Francisco a few years ago, I visited the museums and was lucky enough to see a Monet. I remembered Philip’s pride at showing the artwork of Paris to his friend, Hayward. I imagined him at my side, telling me why this painting is brilliant and why everything else in the museum isn’t worth seeing. The painting became dear to me because of a well-written story.

The important thing was to feel in terms of paint. W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965), Of Human Bondage, 1915

Now there is a whole classification of art that I can enjoy that I couldn’t enjoy before. Because the artists were referred to so often in that damned and haunting story, their paintings are dear to me. I still can’t appreciate them for the artistic ability. It may be that he is right and only a painter can judge a painting.

[T]he painter’s arrogant claim to be the sole possible judge of painting has anything but its impertinence to recommend it. W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965), Of Human Bondage, 1915

There are some artists that I wish I could resurrect just so I could smack the hell out of them. I would give Andy Warhol a good thrashing for ruining the concept of art. I would give Frank Sinatra a sock in the jaw for not recording more songs in his later years. Most importantly, I would beat the tar out of Somerset Maugham for being so right and so wrong.

Life isn’t long enough for love and art. W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

I can’t believe that an artist must suffer. I want to believe that love is the best and most true inspiration for art. I want to live in a world where artists are the people who have the most loving lives. I want artists to be the self-actualized people. They have shelter, food, and acceptance, and only then can great art spring forth from their bodies. I want to have the hope that now that I have love in my life, I will still be an artist.

Then again, I know that he is right. How may stories of suffering artists do I need to read before I believe him? What about those artists that didn’t suffer? I don’t believe it. We just didn’t know about their suffering. The biographers were negligent and didn’t find it. Maybe the artist suffered so much in youth that there was enough art to last during the luxurious and indolent years.

Even darker, I know that everyone suffers. No one escapes this world unscathed. Give me an hour stuck in an elevator alone with anyone on this planet, and I will hear about their pain. Give me five minutes in a checkout line with most people, and I will learn their pain. Worst of all, if we were able to exchange our pain for anyone’s we would chose our own. No matter how blessed the life of that adversary may seem, that person is suffering and if I only knew, I wouldn’t even think of trading places.

There’s always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

I can’t believe in a world where all the relationships are like that. I have to believe there is that magic that happens when both people are equally in love with each other. I have to believe that there is a chance for me to be madly in love and be madly loved at the same time. I can’t bear to live in Somerset Maugham’s world.

Yet, the dark corners of my heart know he was right. Sure, he was a bitter old man, but he also lived longer than I have and lived more than I probably will live. He must be right because he’s a published author. I’m the one who is idealistic. Everyone should just settle. I should just be safe in the knowledge that when I’m madly in love, he is just allowing me to adore him and eventually I will lose him to the object of his adoration. I should just refuse to allow Charles Strickland in the house and let him die like the dog that he is. The only other route is the acid tonic before sleep and the four days of agony. Four days isn’t that long. God, I wish that I had never read his works.

It’s asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965), Of Human Bondage

I find myself poised at the beginning of another book by Somerset Maugham. It is called “The Summing Up” and I find myself paralyzed with fear. I have learned so much good from this author, but at the same time, I have learned to hate him and am filled with the desire to box him about the ears. Should I read it and risk more pain? Should I read it and learn more from this man?

I have wanted to do this for a long time. Its first incarnation was The Quotes of the Week page for the website that we have run since 1994. I wrote a weekly installment that included links and quotes and a column from me. I thought it would be so easy to write one column a week. I found out, very quickly, that it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I would sit for hours just thinking about what I could write that had some connection with quotations. Sometimes I would procrastinate and then hurriedly finish a piece. “It’s not very good, but I only had an hour to do it.” I would tell myself.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. Eugene Delacroix (1798 – 1863)

I was too blind to recognize The Demon of Perfection looming in the back of my mind. It has been five years since I wrote my last Quotes of the Week page. Because I never allowed myself to have an “off” week, I became so frustrated with the project that I stopped writing completely. Ok, that’s a lie. I don’t think that I have ever stopped writing completely. I’m always working on something literary, even if it’s just my personal journal. A true writer never stops writing, even if she’s just formulating stories in her head.

But that wasn’t enough for me. Writing stories and hiding them in the drawer feels wrong every time I do it. In fact, writing fiction feels wrong. Something about me wants to write the truth. Deep inside, I feel like I need to concentrate on non-fiction. Whether that means telling the story of my life or giving you a lecture on perfection is not the issue. The issue is that I need to tell the truth.

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can’t accept your imperfections, that’s their fault. Dr. David M. Burns

So here I am. Some entries will be imperfect. Some entries will have no quotations. Some entries might be all picture and color and very little description. Some entries may be brilliant and touch you. I have no idea which are which and it doesn’t really matter because I’m here for me. I need to write. I need to write every day to be a healthy person. I need to tell you the truth as I see it. I can no longer write my own personal truths and hide them in a file on my computer. I need to know that others can see this, even if they don’t like it. Even if my entries are flawed, they need to be seen.

I don’t confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is?the higher achievement. Lois McMaster Bujold, “Mirror Dance”, 1994

I am a secretary at an electrical engineering firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on April 12, 1969, which means that I’m an Aries, but if you cared about those things, you would already know that. I have a Bachelor’s Degree from Westminster College, with a double major in Mathematics and Education, neither of which have helped me write this weblog in the least.

My Motivational Quotes of the Day page is maintained by my husband, Michael Moncur. My first attempt at a weblog was the Quotes of the Week Page back in 1998, but I soon wearied of trying to write solely about quotations. This site gives me the freedom to talk about whatever I fancy.