-
What Do You Do When You Just Want To Die?
Right now, in this moment, I want to die. While this isn’t purely hypothetical, please don’t freak out. Don’t refer me to a suicide hotline. Don’t tell me I need counseling. Because baby, I can guarantee you 100 percent that I am not the only person in the Universe who feels this way — at least sometimes. Momentarily. But I am one of a handful who is willing to talk about it. It wasn’t long ago that I first began really embracing this feeling when it comes up. Emotions, to me, are waves. They come, they go, they move through and around and beyond me. Ripples in a pond. Yeah,…
-
Inevitability
She looked across the choppy waves, feeling her mind begin to undulate slightly with the incessant in-out motion of the water. The invitation was clear: jump in. The waves sighed at her resistance. Breathing? There is no need for breathing. We are all the breath you need. High above, a sea bird circled and cried its impatience and acceptance. Her mind moved in rhythm with the dark churning waves. She began to feel spiny sea creatures moving slowly within her, along with smooth-sided cetaceans and the gills of millions upon millions of fish, each opening and closing like the petals of a flower. She longed to be a part of…
-
Hello Kitty is 35
This is as full of awesome as it gets. Who knew that an 80’s icon would survive this long? Now Hello Kitty is ironic. Depth of flavor. Let’s examine some other 80’s icons, and find out whether they slipped quietly into ex-iconic obscurity, or became ironic-iconic. Shall we? Boy George. Jumped the shark. Sorry, Boy. Now you’re old and creepy. Breakfast Club. Timeless. Does it help that director John Hughes has died? Do we feel older now? Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by? The A-Team. Oh, come on. You can hum the theme song, can’t you? It doesn’t get more retro-cool than that, especially considering…
-
Forest Love Song
It started two years ago (or was it two millennia?). I rented a wee dollhouse in the forest space high above the rock-strewn beach of Pt. Roberts, WA, a tiny peninsula that juts from Canada into Boundary Bay and that because of oversight or a mapmaker’s joke actually belongs to the U.S., requiring border crossings and passports. My dollhouse-in-the-woods was to be the perfect writers’ retreat — difficult to get to, remote, quiet. I could overlook the tiny bathroom/shower combination, sit on the wee sofa built for two, and write. I found myself drawn outside, though. Late-season blackberries still dotted the tangled vines marking the steep trail down to the…
-
Lessons In Non-Attachment
I am told I sometimes take things too seriously. This may be true and I am learning to let go of my issues — one clenched death-grip finger at a time. 1. Control of space. My landlords are cheap. I should have known this when I moved in, I should have smelled it on their clothes or something, but since I was dealing with “real people” instead of a faceless corporation, my expectations grew exponentially. I would be treated with care, I thought. Like a person. Loved. Because I would love my place and it would be my home. My place, my home, is an extension of me. I have:…
-
OCD Much?
It has recently been pointed out to me — not thrown in my face, since that would be, well, awkward, wouldn’t it? — that I might be a teensy bit controlling. The world “rules” was used, maybe even the phrase “lots of rules.” Repeatedly. Ahem. This may or may not be true. But in visiting my house, there are a few things you should know. 1. Anything that touches or may possibly touch my naked or sleeping body (or the naked or sleeping body of anyone whose body may at some point touch any portion of my own), including but not limited to sheets, blankets, pillows, duvets, towels, and clothing…
-
All The Pretty Little Horses
At 6, given a shiny penny to throw into the tinkling fountain at the mall we visited once a year in order to buy school clothes, I knew exactly what to wish for. I closed my eyes tight, imagined the elegant, stately horse I knew would be mine one day, and threw the penny into the water, feeling that odd mix of anticipation for something wonderful happening someday and regret for having thrown something valuable away. At 7 in the car, we’d pass horses sometimes. Living in what was once a cowtown and now was an emerging bedroom community of physicists and engineers and their kids, we were surrounded by…
-
My Coming Out Story
When I moved to the house I’m living in, I made a decision. I would throw open my blinds, my heart, and my life to the outside passing-by world. No more hiding behind fears of being seen. I would challenge myself. I would join the rest of the world. For keeps. Every day, I see the same people walking by. Sunglassed mothers pushing jogging strollers. The old woman in the plaid shirt-coat who walks as if she’s recovering from a stroke. The Steve Martin lookalike who wears the same royal blue shirt and iPod earbuds every day. The runner who sprints upright down the middle of the street, first this…
-
Dear Anne LaMott
DISCLOSURE: I suspect I, uh, stole the idea for writing a letter to Anne LaMott from Andy Raskin. Oh, you don’t know Andy Raskin? I didn’t either until about a week ago when his book The Ramen King and I went home with me from the library. I suppose I would have known him if I still listened to NPR — where, apparently, Andy Raskin talks about things — but I haven’t listened to NPR since at least 2005, and in fact the listening to NPR, especially Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion (though I saw the movie — was that cheating?) was ceded to the Other Side in my…
-
I Hate Your Dog
Somewhere along the way I must have offended the Dog Gods, because dogs and I have had a hate-hate relationship all my life. And when I say I hate dogs, I don’t mean just any dog. I mean your dog. Dogs have been pissing me off since I was a little kid. When I was three I remember walking down the block from the babysitter’s to the corner candy store to pick up a pack of candy cigarettes. I hated the flavor of these cigarettes — they were a horrid spearmint monstrosity with a powdery coating of cornstarch, not exactly kid-friendly if you ask me — but I adored sucking…