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Mrs. Splashy
Yes, I am 5 years old. Apparently I sometimes like to be exuberant with water. I notice this most when doing the dishes (he is The Chef and I am The Dishwasher, an arrangement that pleases me greatly) and I come away from the sink with the front of my shirt all wet. I didn’t used to be that way. Once I lived with a man who was horribly splashy. In hotels, I’d dive into the bathroom first and shower, neatly toweling off before stepping on the bathmat, so I could avoid the Tsunami Aftermath of that man’s showers. I hate stepping on wet floors in socks. Another man was…
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Sailing
I am sad and angry and scared. There is this situation. It is pretty dire, the down-to-the-wire kind of thing that has major consequences unless some big changes are made and made fast. I wish I could say more but I’m not willing to. (hint: it’s financial) The problem is my soulmate. He is not the problem. The problem is me. I am not the problem. The problem is that putting attention on fixing the dire situation has meant some radical shifts between us. It’s those shifts that have me feeling so sad and angry and scared. What do you do when the person you love most in the world…
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Manual
They should offer people a manual. I would read it. I would keep it under my pillow and bring its well-thumbed, hi-lighted pages out from under when I needed it. Like, when the person you love is hurting and shuts you out of that hurt because it’s the same old song, really — what should you do? And, when he holds your hand and suddenly you are 13 again and you don’t know what it means — what should you do? Or, when you are sad and afraid and feeling alone and are faced with demons you welcomed 40 years ago — what should you do? If I had a…
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Tiptoe
I can see everything from up here. You would think that three inches doesn’t make much of a difference, but you’re wrong. It makes all the difference. It starts with corn. Ever been in a cornfield? I always thought the ears were up high, higher than my head, but no. It’s the tassels that are high. The ears grow along the stalk, like cocoons stuck to a pole. Corn always reminded me of teeth. But it’s the tassels I am thinking about now. Being up high like this, I can see them for what they are. They’re sex! Come here, they say. Come and get me! I have no idea…
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Exponential
It was about a year ago that the S-word was first used. Back then, it was under influence of a glass of red wine, or two glasses. I knew what was going on and let it unfold. Give it space. Let it breathe. If you are lucky, it will blossom. He needed time to feel that this amazing thing between us is real, that he didn’t just dream up the woman who loves him, and that he and I will be together in years to come, and more years, and more. It’s hard to remember exactly how it felt a year ago, light-years now, because now is now. Today we sat…
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Birth
I really thought this would be different. I remember where she started. Two eyes, a dot for a nose, and a chalky curved line smile. Suddenly I am blinded by bright hotness from above. Glittering bluewhitebright, and I can’t even close my eyes to get away from it. You probably don’t know this, but it’s nearly impossible to draw a perfectly round circle. It took her 27 tries to get this. All that smeared-finger rubbing, spit wiping me away and then gritty chalk bringing me back into being. I would shudder right now, thinking about it, but as I hardly have shoulders I can’t. Everyone says this, and I know…
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Handy
I should have known my new job was going to get me in trouble, but the pay was really good and I really thought I could make it through the six month probationary period to get health benefits, because we all know that anyone is way more marriageable once they have the bennies, and I already have the PERFECT to-die-for wedding dress picked out even thought I’m not actually, you know, dating anyone. So anyway, every morning I’d get my usual skinny vanilla venti soy latte and sit at the bus stop trying not to pick at my fingernails. I’m trying to grow them out, honest, and even though my…
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Litter
Really, the only reason I wear four-inch heels? It’s the kitty litter. On the floor. All crunchy. You know what I’m talking about, right? Okay. True story. Once I had this thing on my foot. A mole. It was there for, like, ever. And then something happened to it. Maybe it was all the tanning beds, I don’t know. But the damn thing changed! Grew a face! Okay, I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Look at you. You have your I-don’t-believe-it-face on. I can tell what you’re thinking. But listen. This happened, right? So the mole. The face. Remember? Well, the thing got bigger. And bigger. Pretty soon I couldn’t…
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Hand Of God
I’ve often idly wondered what would happen if a gigantic hand reached down out of the clouds above Seattle and pulled the Space Needle up from its roots. Sometimes when we’re standing overlooking I-5 and Lake Union below, Queen Anne across the lake spread out like a tawdry wench, I think about giant hands. “There would be mass chaos,” my soulmate says. “Anarchy. Screaming. Martial law.” I can’t really imagine the aftermath of a giant hand reaching down out of the clouds. I think of it as a mystical thing. Magic. Like the boom-boom-boom sound I heard from my front yard when I was 3, convinced there was a giant…
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Pillowcase
I should have known it was over when I began marking the sheets. My side and his side. Sleep never came on a pillowcase impregnated with his odor; I could feel his essence creeping into my pores, into my psyche, turning me into him in some awful alchemy. Forgetting whose pillowcase was whose after laundering, I’d lay awake all night trying not to breathe him into me, swearing to find a way out, hating myself for my oversensitivity. After the third year you could see how his mothball smell had crystallized into a dark smear on the pillowcase. When I left, I let him keep the sheets.