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  Oh, sweet mystery of Jul.

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  • 2009
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  • 2007
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  • 2006
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  • 2005
    • November (6)
    • December (8)

I quit.

Everything’s fine. I’m fine, J.Q. is fine - huge and verbose and sweet, entering pre-K and carting around a raging Oedipal complex. Dude, I’m sorry… I’m not going to have babies for you, no matter how nicely you ask, and no matter how attentive you are to the needs of your wee stuffed giraffe. Not gonna do it. Please find someone else to impregnate. Um, once you learn the mechanics. And finish your master’s thesis, ideally.

{@Boyfriend} is fine, QuasiKid is fine, the entire isotopic nuclear family is fine. I’m not going to say we’ve beaten the odds - one or both kids could still murder us in our sleep any day now - but we’re a family. A pretty damned happy one. Kids look nothing alike, parents are a little fonder of drinking, swearing and rabble-rousing than most… but we do fairly well.

I don’t believe in god and I don’t believe in godsends. Nonetheless, this site has been one. It’s how I met my best friends… some of the funniest, wisest, strongest, most inspiring women ever to wield a mouse. Blogging allowed me to bust through a shell I’d assumed was armor-clad (turns out it was more peanut M&M). When life dealt me a bare-knuckled sucker punch - the dissolution of my marriage when my son was ten months old - I was immensely grateful to discover that I had my own personal cheering section. The situation was beyond my control… and come to think of it, that would be an awesome divorce book: “THE SITUATION IS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL! (YOU ASS)”. Writing about it, though, was a huge help. The experience became a total rebirth. It’s like the Bouncing Souls song… “I’ve got my new plates… new registration… new car… new life. NEW LIFE.”

I documented the entire process, often in squirmy, embarrassing detail. I’m so glad I did. I’m glad to have a snapshot of that time. Right now, I’m sitting in my living room, bare foot resting against {@Boyfriend}’s thigh, sipping a vodka ‘n Fresca (prospective drink name: “Non-Prescription Skelaxin”). I’m so far removed from the pain and panic of 2006. I’m glad I can peek back in that murky little snowglobe, though. I’m especially glad for all of the comments and e-mails which began, “Thank you for making me feel less alone.” That was never my intention. It was a shock - albeit a happy one - to discover that I’d provided a little comfort for those staring down the scary, greasy barrel of The Big D.

The baby and I moved to the city. I slutted around. He learned how to walk. We landed on our feet. The blog didn’t.

I’m proud of what I’ve written here in the last few years. I just can’t say I’m happy with it. I haven’t managed to find a consistent tone or comfortable style. My posts have grown far more erratic and artsy than blog-ish. Everyone and their mother (including my mother - hi, mom!) knows about the site. Knowing that the not-necessarily-friendly eyes of coworkers and friends-of-friends may be focused on me has severely limited my choice of topic. Too many events have passed without being commemorated via writing, simply because they were “unbloggable”.

“Storyteller” is one of the few roles which comes naturally to me. I don’t dance on tables at parties (well, not, um, historically). I like to claim my spot in the corner and regale anyone who cares to congregate with dirty jokes and tales of degeneracy.

I can’t do that here. Not without biting my tongue every ten seconds. Nor without radically reconstructing the style which has been my stock and trade for years. I want to use a voice more honest and simple than I’ve been able to on my present rinky-dink soapbox. This site was so right for me three years ago. I’d like to discover what’s right for me right now.

You - all of you - have been fantastic. Thank you so, so much for reading. Artistic integrity, scmartistic schmintegrity… an audience is a fantastic, fulfilling thing. Thank you for your commentary, criticism and support. It’s sometimes meant the world. Thanks for following me through the surprising, fucked-up and splendid journey which has been the past several years of my existence. And thank you for understanding why the running commentary is screeching to a halt… now.

Summer ‘07: Thai restaurant, Union, New Jersey, 10:00 PM. It’s all warm and bright and vivid. Everything feels like, like… MORE. Chopstick wood, chile buzz, folds of starchy tablecloth crimped again and again between my nervous fingers. Red lacquer lions, always-full ice water and you, you, you. (Were there teeny perforated lanterns? Should’ve been.) We’re in our own teeny perforated lantern. New Jersey and water-bearing waiters just pinpricks flickering on the periphery. In here, (as Blake says), everything is soft and sweet.

You tuck one of my hands between yours. We stare into each other’s eyes. It’s one of our new favorite hobbies, along with “blushing and averting them seconds later”. “I’m so in love with you,” you say, and our little lantern erupts, a baby sun crackling to life. We could power Union for a thousand years. We could live forever. We could be consumed bodily by the blaze and wear matching blissful smiles the entire time.

Two years pass.

Read more

Medea (Lars von Trier):

“Gee… Lars… I hope you’re enjoying college.”

(reading title card): Me: “ARGLE SPRECHEN MEDEA KER PLUR FRECHT HYM NA SPROGNYECHT LA LA!” (loose approximation of original language)
Boyfriend: “What language is this? Swedish?”
Me: “I think it’s just made up.”

“Hey, boobs! And… bush! And… A LITTLE GIRL?! Is she grown-up? Should this even be in our HOUSE?!”

“The title cards should NOT be more fun that the actual movie. Next!”

Read more

What do you say about staying in love?

When you’re falling in love, the words write themselves. Everything’s joyous and beautiful. Life’s a celebration, you’re a bottle of shook-up champagne. The bliss gushes like sweet pink fizz from your lips, from your fingers, from cans of Krylon onto the nearest overpass.

It’s one of the most exhilarating experiences life has to offer. And like much of that which is beautiful and all that which is novel, it’s temporary. Bummer.

The tales and traits and quirks can’t remain new forever. Revelations ossify into facts. “Oh my god, you like rum raisin TOO?” becomes a shared smile over a double-scoop. Eventually, it becomes, “Mind picking up a pint on the way home? And some cat litter?”

You begin your time together at your best, brightest and most freshly-flossed. Your Ideal Selves, however, are used Buicks… their disintegration begins the second you step inside. Read more

“Put your hands on the car.” There were three of us, concurrently tiny. Three kids, four years, one mommy. Each trip to the supermarket was an exercise in lemming-wrangling. Produce: stop touching that. Cereal: stop hitting. Meat: get back here get back here get back here NOW. Navigating the parking lot was like transporting criminally insane lemmings to a new detention facility. Rules were vital. “Put your hands on the cart”… “keep your hands on the cart”… “okay, put your hands on the car.”

Six sticky palms planted against the side of the station wagon meant thirty seconds of safety. Pop the trunk, load the groceries, heave a sigh of relief. All hands on the car meant calmness and control. Fewer hands meant that one or more children/lemmings were engaged in possibly-fatal mischief. In that instant, calm became DEFCON-4. A brief but thrilling melee invariably followed… fumbled bananas and panic, minivan exhaust and smacked asses.

As a child, it seemed unreasonably strict. As an adult, the only thing more reasonable than the rules is the capillary-bursting anger when they’re broken. This is an aspect of the parent-child bond which will never have its own Precious Moments figurine. Read more

(Keeping everyone appraised on my slooooooooow but steady progress towards a cadaver of my very own…)

My six-credit Literacy Instruction exam is next weekend.  Here’s hoping diligent study will overcome my natural shortcomings in the area (left to my own devices, my curriculum would consist entirely of, “Now sound it out… C… A… T… what’s that spell?  You don’t know?  Like, SERIOUSLY? Oh, christ… nevermind, I’ll just read it to you myself!”).

After that, I’ve got five credits left towards my B.A.  Then I inch towards post-bac classes and volunteer work, each of which merits its own post.  I will say that I’m less terrified of hospices than physics.

Future Memory Aid of the Day, devised while listening to my G.P. lecture a student on choosing first-line antihypertensives:  African-Americans and the elderly are more likely to suffer from low-renin hypertension; younger people and Caucasians tend to develop the high-renin variety.  My G.P. even drew a chart to show each demographic’s stats.  When the trend lines converged, they looked like a knife.  A knife stabbing you in your arteries!

Ergo:  when you think of hypertension, imagine an old black lady smacking you with her cane and yelling, “I ain’t got no damned renin, missy!”

I thought of coming up with one for beta blockers and ACE inhibitors involving the young Caucasians in Ace of Base, but even I have my limits.

Bonus Future Memory Aid of the Day, Sesame Street Edition: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cachexia By Way of the Letter “C”:  COMMON CAUSES include CANCER, CONDOM usage (AIDS), CONSUMPTION (tuberculosis), COPD and COCAINE (hardcore drug abuse).  Unlike starvation, the body CAN’T adapt to it. It’s possibly due to inflammatory CYTOKINES. Isn’t medicine COOL? Well, at least I think it’s cool. I also spent last night happily reading up on mucormycosis and aspergillosis, so I’m clearly Queen Dork of Nerd Mountain.

We’ve been a family for eight months. The dude in the TJ Maxx checkout line confirmed it.

“Y’all are a FAMILY, that’s what you are!” he said, smiling and offering us his spot.. We thanked him, shuffled our progeny forward and exchanged grins.

We’re a little ambiguous. The grown-ups don’t wear wedding rings (and probably never will). The children - while both as ebullient and shrieky as chimps in a taffy factory - look nothing alike.

I guess our Samaritan figured (much like we did) that if you’ve got big people covertly grabbing each other’s asses and little people cackling and whapping one another with deeply-discounted tchotchkes… then damn it, they qualify.

After we’d hit the half-year mark, I started thinking about what we’d learned. A blended family has its own problems and peculiarities. And it’s not a lifestyle most people expect to lead. Our culture has a hard enough time shaking the Prince Charming myth. As for the idea that one’s prince might come saddled with Ex-Princess About-as-Charming-as-an-Enraged-Pit-Viper? Show me a storybook that subversive and I’ll eat my unwashed running tights. Read more

Cars crash quick
Pavement slick
Rock salt can’t halt
Iced-up heart
Bleary eyes
(Nine-car pile, fault’s all mine)

I hit medians
I punch walls
I make way more than my fair share
of late-night sniffly pay phone calls

Longer the stasis
The worse the unrest
Each flurry hits like airbag dust
Drifting down on a still-sore chest

Believe believe in summer me
Who’s springed and sprung
Whose treads don’t slip
Smear the dreams in Vaseline
Kiss the chap right off my lips

I’m a big fan of little serendipities. They’re not “signs” of anything in particular, but nor are they meaningless. You choose your path… but it’s still nice to hear the soundtrack swell up all triumphant-like when you do.

A few days after my Hippocratic Epiphany, the director of my department forwarded a thorny problem over to me. While I was working on it, she e-mailed the rest of the group to let them know the issue was being addressed.

The way she put it made me smile. “Dr. Thumbscre.ws is currently assessing the situation.”

Paging through the lovely Geohde’s archives, it suddenly struck me: “Y’know, I don’t think I’d mind getting stuck at work perfoming a rectal exam nearly as much as MOST people would. And not due to some perverse anal-philia, either. Medicine’s ickiest aspects seem more preferable than other professions’ most banal. And, yes… I may have had one or two fantasies about flinging my ID badge on my boss’s desk and snapping, “Parse your own stupid data - I’ve got rectums to inspect!” Which would be a perfect opening for a lawyer joke, were my fantasies a little less dignified. Read more

Never have I felt like such a grown-up.

It’s not like I wasn’t asking for it. I spent years squirming past more hesitant types, gunning for front of the line… itching not only to try the next carnival ride that life had to offer, but to sit in the first car.

I was the first of my friends to smoke and drink, to fuck and work, to pile their dreams into K-car and crash it into an embankment.

I’m not sure why I was in such a hurry. But I was, and I am. When I write, I’m an old-school romantic. I give every individual moment its golden-hued, soft-focus reverence. In real life? I’m a lot less likely to smell the roses than to weed-whack them out of the way in my eagerness to see what’s behind the hedge.

---

Last summer, {@Boyfriend} and I discovered an abandoned WWII tank factory. Tucked away in a drowsy, antique-heavy burg, it was slated for redevelopment by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But the Corps clearly had bigger fish to redevelop - the factory and surrounding grounds had lain dormant for so long that they’d begun to merge with the surrounding landscape. On its south side, the town had built a nature trail. Once a linchpin of national security, it was now guarded by a snarl of shrubs and saplings. The townsfolk apparently preferred recreation to exploration; the little thicket was undisturbed. Being evil out-of-towners, {@Boyfriend} and I were elbowing through foliage within minutes of spying the smokestacks. Read more

Lots of people have tried to become physicians. I don’t have exact numbers, but I’m gonna say kajillions.

The whole process is like driving the Alaskan Highway. If you dodge an avalanche, you just know there’s going to be a rabid wolf around the bend.

Some people can’t hack the prerequisites. Some people don’t get accepted. Some people don’t get funding. Others burn out in the first year… the second year… the intern year, when they’re already massively in debt. Some people go all the way, discover their own special personal relationship with Vicodin and have their license yanked. Some people go all the way and rue the day they started.

I kinda want to try. Read more

We each carry our own little arsenal of things that keep us sane.  If these things were dumped into a communal cardboard box, well… it would smoke and tick.  It would hiss and twitch.  It would smell like the bleachers in back of a vocational school.  It would leak fluids that ate the varnish from floorboards.  It would cut your fingertips and demagnetize your credit cards.

It would contain playing cards, both naked-lady and conventional.  Whisky.  Vodka.  Gin.  Rum.  Tequila.  The collective top half-inch from every bottle in a friend’s parents’ liquor cabinet.  Fake tears.  Real tears.  Graphic sexual fantasies during parent-teacher conferences.  Passive aggression.  Active aggression.  Calling the waitress a cuntface and the manager a faggot.  Smashing your coffee cup against the pastry case and storming out.  Lies, half-truths, flatteries .  Tucking your chin into your chest each time you walk past a reflective surface.  Concealing a workplace masturbation habit by feigning irritable bowel syndrome.  Spending the duration of every hug imagining what it would feel like to pulverize the recipient’s eye socket with your fist.  Prayer.  Xanax .  Gouging your inner arms with paper clips whenever your coworkers aren’t watching.  Implying that the long-sleeved turtlenecks conceal something sexier than Neosporin .  Making the moon your god.  Pulling a ligament and irritating the baby by hoisting the car seat above your head, standing drenched in holy lunar silver and asking, pleading, begging, please, please, just let this one make it.
Read more

Thank god for Tragedy Coworker. That’s all I’m saying.

I don’t work with him directly. I don’t even see him that often. He’s still had a bigger impact on my life than anyone who’s ever filled out my performance report. Managers have spent years trying to make me stop oversleeping and peppering my flowcharts with bubbles like “NOD AND PRETEND YOU KNOW WHAT ‘FIDUCIARY’ MEANS” and “OH, SHIT : NOW YOU’RE REALLY FUCKED.” Without trying - without even being aware of it - Tragedy Coworker made me grateful. Permanently grateful. Reverent, even… praising everything from chaos theory to the solar winds for my undeservedly-blessed little life.

He’s tall, dark and one of the nicest men you’d ever hope to meet…. friendly, funny and open with everyone from guys with name tags on their shirts to guys with conference rooms named after them.

A few years ago, something awful happened to him. We’re talking the worst thing in the world. We’re talking something so horrific that I can’t talk about it. Hell, I hold my breath when I think about it, lest the idea get too comfortable in my body.

You can probably guess. Read more

In one of my best and worst dreams
I am in a park
It is chilly, gray, deserted
Except for me and two little boys
with my hands and other peoples’ eyes.
They are laughing, running, wrestling.
I am laughing and crying.

Pt. I
Pt. 2

As Wikipedia would later inform us, cocaine can be administered via injection, inhalation and the ever-popular insufflation. It cannot be administered via the IKEA-ocular method… that is, by setting in on your coffee table and staring at it in horror. Nonetheless, within minutes of locking the door and bolting down the stairs, we were babbling like drug-addled idiots. Jason had provided a thirty-second explanation; it began with “I really hate the smell of guacamole” and ended with him dropping a stout, cellophane-wrapped bundle on top of my physics textbook.

“Holy shit! Please tell me that’s not what it looks like,” I blurted, recoiling against the couch.

“I don’t know what it is, Amy! I just know it looks like… you know…”

“Something Tony Montana would use to prop up a wiggly table leg?”

“Very funny. Did you lock the door? Would you mind checking it?” I darted up the stairs, jiggled the deadbolt, darted back down.

“Locked,” I panted, “Babe, this makes no sense. Maybe it’s… flour?”

“Would you bake snickerdoodles with that?” said Jason. He shoved his hair away from his eyes, sighed and ripped a sheet of looseleaf from my notebook.

“… maybe from the organic food co-op?” I ventured, “People don’t throw out drugs! They throw out VHS tapes and ThighMasters and stuff. What are you doing?” Jason had popped open his Swiss Army knife and was gently sliding the blade against the top of the bag. The fear in his eyes had been replaced by something bright and incisive. I knew the look… equal measures daredevil and disobedient toddler. It had earned him innumerable broken bones, admission to (and expulsion from) two well-respected technical colleges and my total adoration. Read more

The basement was semi-finished. It smelled damp, it felt damp and we spent all our time huddled under quilts on the orange sofa, trying not to touch the floor or the walls for fear we’d contract some kind of fungus.

We were semi-fungal ourselves, pasty and pudgy, squirming beneath low ceilings and low spirits. Seven years post-graduation, we still hadn’t reached legitimate adulthood. The Five-Year Plan was our scissor jack, each bullet point another quarter-inch between us and several thousand tons of self-loathing and suburban rancher.

The honor roll kids were buying condos.  We were on couch arrest, sleeping and studying and scheming and screwing on a few feet of threadbare velour.  We paid Jason’s father rent and complimented his mother’s casseroles.  We progressed in infinitesimal increments.

One day, in case you were wondering, is 0.054% of five years. Read more

This is why we do it:

Because we have to.

Because it’s impossible to be an impartial observer unless you’re a Zen Buddhist or a fence post.  Because chewed-up ballpoints feel better than splinters or koans.

Involvement empowers.  Neutrality protects.  There are those who are fundamentally compelled to grasp live wires just to see what they feel like.  When that handful of amperage is figurative - when you’re walking into a war zone, a strip club, a border crossing - there are no better rubberized shoes than pen and pencil.

Because there is a right way to say things.  Not one right way - a right way. It isn’t like solving for X.  It’s more like weaving an afghan with dandelion fluff and straight pins.  In other words, equal parts charming and finicky.

If you’re doing it correctly, it’s more craft than art.  The craft keeps you improving.  The art keeps you interested.  Artistic discipline is a seventh-grade earth science teacher.  She doesn’t explode or ignite things too often… just frequently enough to keep everyone awake, alert and receptive to marvels which aren’t actively ablaze. Read more

[Pt. I] [Pt. II]

[Apologies for the enormous delay.  While exhausted and bombarded, we're all doing swimmingly.  And we're now the proud owners of a pen specifically designed so inmates can't use it as a weapon or a crack pipe.  Eat it, Mont Blanc.]

I lurched into a parking spot adjacent to the courthouse, jumped out, slammed my door and ran. As I hyperventilated in the lobby, a kindly lawyer steered me towards the pre-trial area.

“Is the person you’re looking for already incarcerated?” he asked.

“Not unless he gave His Honor any sass-mouth,” I said.

“Well…,” smiled the lawyer, guiding me out of the elevator, “Let’s just hope he didn’t.”

I scurried across the dim marble atrium, grabbed {@Boyfriend} by his freshly-purchased suit and held tight.

There hadn’t been any sass-mouth. There’d been a bloodthirsty assistant D.A., a pile of unfriendly case law and a judicial ultimatum. Everyone - including {@Boyfriend’s} attorney - seemed to agree: this wasn’t winnable. Sure, he could’ve exercised his right to a trial. But in some cases, standing on principle just makes you an easier target. In most cases, a definite bitch-slap is preferable to a potential beat-down. There are those who can afford to risk brutal legal penalties, and kudos to them. May they never be forced to graduate and exchange their Che Guevara t-shirt for a captain’s hat. Read more

Click here for Pt. I

Corporate America has been pretty good to me. It’s kept me in roller ball pens and out of the pool hall. It’s paid for copious quantities of Goldfish crackers. It’s allowed me to visit highly-trained medical specialists instead of Chinatown Cyst Removal & Dumpling Shack.

Capitalism has a Dark Side, however (NASDAQ symbol: NODUH), and it has occasionally bitten me on the ass.

My 401(k)’s third-quarter performance… the after-effects of the cafeteria’s Bechamel sauce… these were mere love-nips compared to the chomp delivered the week before {@Boyfriend}’s trial.

“What do you mean I can’t take next Monday off?” I gasped.

“I’m sorry,” said my boss, “I usually try to work with you, but Conrad’s going to Aruba that week, so we’ll be short-handed already…”

“Listen.” I paused and took a deep breath. Take it easy, I warned myself, You catch more flies with honey than by threatening to apply an electrified binder clip to your supervisor’s testicles.

“I wouldn’t usually push the issue. But someone I know might… um… be going to prison that day.”

“Really?”

“Well, it’s technically jail, but… well… yes.” Read more

[Note: prison story to be concluded shortly. He didn't get shivved or anything, I've just been busy.]

sparkly belt
C-section scar
he knows where
the bad hurts are

gloss bitten lips
a thing for pain
half of her life
all of eighth grade

what they might be
they will not feed
truth by teaspoon

what she might let
they will not get
tears to jazz june

unworthiness
nervous untuck
she knows well
that blacked-out suck

carries self-hate
drags self-effacing
yanks hard at hope
combat boot lacing

what they might be
they will not bleed
your unfurled gauze

what he might let
they will not get
hand tuned to your
station: because

So here’s how it went down.

It was a mistake.  It was One of Those Things.  It was also what’s known as an “ungraded misdemeanor”, which is a deceptively cutesy term.  Rip the tag off your mattress?  T.P. the sheriff’s Taurus?  That’s an ungraded misdemeanor, pal.

As it turns out, the legal definition is the only benign thing about it.

It’s not the sort of thing you laugh about with friends years later.  The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania may not grade it, but most people eagerly issue a big ol’ “F”, for “fuck-up”.  So do a number of public interest groups.  Viewing the offense a little less disdainfully is a one-way ticket to Wingnut Terrace.  It’s not quite “publicly raping the corpse of the puppy you just murdered with an Iraqi-manufactured shovel”… but suffice to say, it’s not a hell of a lot more popular.

______

During a particularly raw patch last winter, {@Boyfriend} and I split up.  We were apart for thirteen days, each enlightening as it was grueling.  Discoveries were made.  Plane tickets were purchased.  Diet Coke was employed as a food group.  The fourteenth night, I borrowed my mother’s Buick and flew up the turnpike, blinking back tears and blasting spooky, atonal college rock.  “A lot’s happened in the past two weeks,” I’d meekly offered, “And, y’know, I still have some of your socks…”.  When I arrived, we sat at opposite ends of the couch… both thinner, more washed-out, wiser.  Not wise enough to know exactly why I’d come, but enough to stare and squirm until it became apparent.

______

We lasted about fifteen minutes before touching knees… then foreheads… then grabbing one another, tight, like the last strong sapling at the edge of the ravine.

Relationship v2.0 has been more… More.  Better and harder, truer and more complicated.

One of the complications?  The looming specter of my beloved’s incarceration.

It will be a brief stint, admittedly.  In addition to the wildly popular “seven to ten” and “twenty to life”, our penal system also dishes up smaller offerings…. an extra-value meal, if you will, of sentences measured in hours rather than days.

This is less of a consolation than you’d imagine.  There is only one ideal length of jail time.  It is the same as the ideal rib to fracture, or the ideal quantity of trichinosis colonies on your pork chop:  none.  Anything else is a bitter compromise.

______

“Let me get this straight,” I’ve joked, “We were apart for two weeks and you managed to incur criminal charges?  Truly, my love is an umbrella which shelters men from their deviant impulses!”

Joking’s one of the only things you can do, really, other than gnawing your cuticles and re-ironing your trial clothes.  Whether you stand accused of murdering or littering, you’re innocent until proven guilty.  Assuming you can post bail (and weren’t littering, say, fragments of prostitutes’ skulls), your first lambada with the law is liable to be brief.  The wait is the surprising part… surprising and absolutely maddening.
______

Televised justice has a lot more in common with porn than reality.  It’s dispensed hard, fast and smokin’ hot.  One minute, they’re hauling a body out of a greenhouse.  The next, they’re interrogating a mulch distributor.  There’s a Lysol commercial, witness badgering (”Are we to believe that soil aerator embedded itself in the victim’s sternum?”) and then - et voila! - wrongs are righted, handcuffs are applied and it’s time for Jeopardy!

In actuality, weeks, months or - in the case of particularly heinous charges, years - may elapse between crime and punishment.  The court system’s a massive Rube Goldberg machine; it’s easy for cases to ping-pong through multiple delays and postponements.  Even under ideal circumstances, both sides must be given sufficient time to build their cases.  However, criminal defense attorneys aren’t usually keen on client participation.  They’re more personal assistant than therapist.  They take your information, they take your money, then they scurry off into the shadows, presumably to polish their horns and practice Sam Waterston-style eyebrow acrobatics.  As the defendant, your duties are limited to writing checks and refraining from further shenanigans.  Your only reminders of the impending Big Event are an empty wallet and uneasy stomach.

Pre-trial anxiety’s a nasty little gremlin, though.  At first, it’s small, fuzzy and easy to cram under the bed and ignore in favor of more pedestrian pains-in-the-ass.  But as the day of reckoning grows closer, the beastie under the bed gets progressively louder.  Work problems, family problems, small appliance fires… they’re all drowned out by a shrieky, screechy, gavel-banging, bone-rattling fear.
_______

The day before {@Boyfriend}’s trial was a productive one.  We ran errands, made phone calls, composed neat little bulleted lists.  At around 11 PM, we stopped at a gas station to check off a few final items, like fueling the car and stockpiling cigarettes.

Oh, and finally losing it.

“You want anything?” I asked, walking towards the mini-mart.  “Soda?  Snack?  Some… ummmn… jail money?”

The ride home was miserably grim.  {@Boyfriend} focused on the road; I stared at streetlights and attempted to keep my tear ducts clamped by force of will alone.  After a few miles of silence, {@Boyfriend} murmured, “Hey… I’ve got the perfect song for this occasion,” and turned on the stereo.

Fucking indie rock.  You wouldn’t expect Kryptonite to be quite so twee, would you?

I’d held it together for months.  I’d made hundreds of anal sex jokes.  I’d been fine, fine, perfectly fine.

“Will you come visit me when I’m in prison?” lilted The Beauty Pill, “My outside sweetheart / Bring me birthday cakes with contraband inside / Outwit the guards?“

The second the parking brake was up, I buried my head in his t-shirt.

“What’s wrong?” he said, stroking my hair.

“This… this is just… really, really sad!” I said, wiping my eyes on his shoulder, “I’m sorry…”.

We held each other, tight, terrified little saplings bracing themselves for Hurricane Justice.  After a few minutes, we grabbed our assortment of jail supplies and headed inside to stare at the ceiling and count the hours.

First thing: it’s not Boys and Girls in America. It’ll never be Boys and Girls in America. So stop comparing them, okay? You could pine for Boys and Girls‘ bad-boy charms, or you could surrender to the older, wiser embrace of Stay Positive. This isn’t to say it doesn’t rock - that it does, and with all due hardness. But beneath the balls-out gusto is some serious contemplation. The kids have been places, seen things, given testimony. Their hands are still eager… but they’re also a little shakier and a lot dirtier.

2006’s Boys and Girls was a joyous cacophony - lauded, loved and, like, totally loaded. Its recurring cast of miscreants couldn’t walk upright, but B&G deftly strode the line between wry and wide-eyed. It was philosophical fist-pumping, equally comfortable on critics’ year-end lists and puke-splattered jukeboxes… bar rock about rocking out to bar rock, man.

Stay Positive’s a different little baggie entirely. Read more

Memory isn’t stored in neat, contiguous sheets, like cerebral lasagna noodles. It’s more like pasta salad. Events, places and sensations are wound into a multitude of tight little spirals. With every conscious moment, they’re stirred and stirred again… rising to the top, sinking to the bottom, falling beneath the picnic table of time. The whole bowl’s slippery and unstable. Your personal history doesn’t always cling together in chronological order - or any discernible order at all. The scent of Mr. Sketch markers can nestle beside the taste of your first girlfriend’s lip gloss, or the time you ate a bad batch of mussels, or any one of a thousand other things, depending on the day. Memoir usually ignores this, as well it might. Human memory is a turbulent goo. It’s messy, mayonnaise-y and doesn’t lend itself to narrative clarity.

These are my memories, however, and they and I agree: narrative clarity can suck it.

A straight line may be the quickest jaunt between points A and B, but it’s not the most scenic. Life may be linear, but that’s not necessarily the most beautiful or truthful way to document it. It’s difficult for an audience to empathize with a life in full, or for an artist to portray it with Kodachromatic vividness. Individual moments, though? Forget noodles - they’re more like bullets. Small enough to hit the mark, big enough to blow things open.

You’ll see what I mean. Read more

I spent a month with my hands on my desk, sitting still. Neither self-discipline nor negative consequences had managed to pin me down. The thing that finally did the trick wasn’t Ritalin, per se… it was one of its unexpected side effects. Perspective. Lots of it. Heavy as lead and twice as dangerous.

Stillness invites introspection. It’s why we’re drawn to forests and mountaintops. It’s why prisoners devour Bibles and G.E.D. coursework. Our brains can churn away almost anywhere (insert obligatory titty bar joke here). When given a small pocket of peace, though, they can delve into real mischief. Ask your average hermit. Ask Ted Kazcynski.

Left to its own devices, my brain churns like an epileptic Amishwoman. It screeches and crashes, slaps on new gears while gnashing existing ones. Methylphenidate manacles a small piece of the contraption. A few cogs and sprockets are segregated, slowed and stopped. They’re able to kick back in a lounge chair, enjoy a nice cold slug of WD-40… and finally comprehend the lunacy of the greater whole. Read more

[Pt. I]

Thing is, I was hoping the game would be changed from Intramural Shoe-Gazing to something a little more, I don’t know… normal? Popular? Liable to result in varsity letters, half-naked cheerleaders and glory?

I’d spent so much time feeling lazier and ditzier than the glut of humanity. I imagined other people’s brains as Habitrails, with thoughts darting through neat little tubes. Mine felt more like a hamster wheel… stuck in a weird frantic stasis. I secretly hoped it would be a simple swap. A trip to PetSmart, a Schedule II controlled substance… end result, whirring metal is replaced with sleek acrylic and everyone’s happier. After a single pill, however, I knew that wasn’t gonna happen.

There aren’t any physiological effects… at least not for me. Pity. Some members of the neurotypical hoi polloi find the stuff rather delightful. Me? My hands, heart rate and temperement remain rock-steady. However, there’s never any doubt that the relevant molecules have been absorbed and begun raising a ruckus. So how does it feel? It feels like… it feels like… analogy time! Read more

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