For Meriweather

She just pretends to be clumsy, so she can grab mens' packages as she falls. She's done it twice today already, once at the coffee shop, where she fondled a young, brainy bike messenger type. The second time she was entering the elevator where she worked as a receptionist in a law firm. She spotted on the of senior partners in front of her and sprinted to catch him. The opportunity was too good to pass up. She often used speed as a guise--she was running too fast and slipped over the threshold, or she was flailing to catch the bus and bumped into some obstacle, usually a trash bin or potted plant.

The surprising thing was how differently each man would react. For example, the lawyer pretended not to notice. Or maybe he really didn't notice, his package shrivelled with disuse from too many long nights curled up with a law journal instad of his wife. Married men--she could tell by a quick glance at their left hand--seemed to enjoy it. They would always yell out something like, "Hey! Watch the goods!" with a wink and a snicker.

It was the men her own age who got mad. They'd shrink from her touch and scowl harshly yelling "Watch out!" or "What the hell?"

"The technique" as she had come to call it, was a method of quickly achieving a very intimate knowledge of a man. Whether one side was bigger than the other, or one side had been removed, or there were piercings--she knew something about that man that few others knew. It was a kind of power, because they didn't know she knew it. They would adjust themselves and walk off, never guessing that a complete stranger had peered into the depths of thier lives, like a ten year-old peers into a hampster cage, observing the way the hampster nibbles on pellets or runs on the wheel.

She considered trying the technique on women, but it seemed that groping a breast or pubic area wouldn't return the same kind of information. Maybe she was less objective, being a woman herself. Or maybe women were just less puzzling in general. You could already read so much about a woman from her handbag, her hairstyle, or the way she glanced (or didn't) at her reflection in a shop window. Men hid their secrets better. It was only after giving one a full, body-checking grab that he revealed himself.

There was one man, however, that she hadn't been able to get a read on. She'd see him frequently as she would walk to her bus stop after work. He must have worked downtown too, or perhaps lived nearby. He would always be wearing khakis and a non-descript, plaid button-down. It was the male uniform--what men wore when they really didn't care about clothes, but still believed what their mothers had taught them about looking decent in public. These were the same sort of men who happily stripped down to their boxer shorts at home. She see him everyday at just about the same spot. She would be walking past the newsstand, and he would be coming in the opposite direction.

One day, she saw him approaching and purposely lingered to look at the headlines. He was three steps away from her when she turned and caught her foot just-so under the newspaper rack. She made a wild gesture of swinging her arms wide to the side as if she were trying to catch her balance, but her oversized handbag swung out just enough to pull her over, depositing lipsticks and old receipts onto the sidewalk at the same moment she extended her arm and cupped her hand.

And then she had done it, but felt nothing. No spark of intuition, no glimpse of soul. Just spongy flesh that yielded to the side. He was silent, and looked straight ahead in a blind manner. He didn't even seem to notice she was there.

She scrambled up and made her standard apologies while collecting her purse. "Oh...I'm so sorry...two left feet..." and moved down the block. On the bus she closed her eyes and tried to get a sense of him. There was nothing. "Maybe he's an alien...a zombie...a pod-person," she wondered.

And so today, she decided she was going to do something she had never done before. She was going to try the technique for a second time on the same man. She knew she risked revealing herself because the clumsy act would only work once. But she couldn't free herself from thinking about him until she was certain there was something there, or he really was as blank as she first sensed him to be.

All day, she obsessed about how and when she would do it. She needed to position herself in a way that would produce the optimum read. It needed to be something that would give her the maximum amount of contact time and allow for the greatest surface area to be covered. Halfway through the day, she noticed she had been doodling penis shapes on the "While You Were Out" notepads she used to give phone messages to the lawyers. And then it came to her: she was going in from behind.

After work, she waited at the newstand once again nervously fingering El Pais and the New York Times, and looking for him out of the corner of her eye. When finally he passed, she counted to five and then took off after him, carefully keeping far enough behind him that she wouldn't be too obvious. He was wearing a grey t-shirt and shorts today, which seemed out of character for him. He was looking ruffled, a little grungy even. His pace was brisk, and she found herself taking two steps for every one of his.

They walked two blocks and then he started to slow down. His hand entered his pocket and he pulled out a ring of keys. She saw him sifting through for one and knew her moment had arrived. This was where he lived. In just a moment he would unlock the door to this squat, brick apartment building and dissapear. Her chance would be gone. So she sprinted and lept head-first, like a baseball player diving for a fly-ball, both arms outstretched, palms exposed and fingers wide. She grabbed hold of his crotch, closed her eyes tight, and clenched her grip.

And she felt nothing, except the scraping of her own elbow against the pavement and her ribs making a heavy thud as she hit the ground. She realized he was screaming in pain and writhing on the ground in front of her. Her hand was still between his legs. He kicked her in the head and she let go. She felt no pain, just blind confusion. Nothing. Still nothing.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he screamed. She could feel people staring at her as they walked by. She had just outed herself to the world, all for nothing.

She sat up, and looked at him. He was breathing hard and his shirt was stained near his shoulder where he had hit the concrete. He struggled to sit up, and faced her. He loomed in and she braced herself for a slap or punch. She deserved it. But all she felt was a wet touch on the lips.

He had kissed her? She opened her eyes and looked at him. And then she saw it, the thing she had been waiting for, the feeling she had been waiting to feel, a tiny object placed on the horizon, so small it was hardly there, and just a movement away from vanishing altogether. She found she was staring at herself. Like standing between two mirrors, where the reflections were endless, she had felt nothing because he had been thinking of her. He pulled away and looked hopefully at her.

"Ya'll are fuckin' crazy!" she heard someone say. They both turned and saw a grizzled man with a plastic bag full of empty soda cans watching them, one hand still searching the garbage can. She couldn't help but laugh, and was happy to see that though he was still holding himself, he was laughing too.

A meditation on Louis Armstrong

I
Louis would have felt awfully awkward at dinner with my family. Mom would have put spaghetti on the table--the kind with the big chunks of stewed tomatoes in the sauce--and his grin would have gone away. His mouth would no longer be like an ear of corn with big, juicy white kernels, but pursed lips like a pert lemon.

Maybe he would have liked mom's pork chops and apple sauce better. But if spaghetti was what we were having, then he better eat it. And on top of all that he'd have to make small talk with my dad, and try not to smack me across the table for staring at him--his big gold ring, his jaunty checked cap, cushy merino argyle socks so proudly ending in a pair of fine leather shoes.

"How nice, how nice..." he'd politely say in response to my dad's bad jokes, or my mom's attempts to make him eat more greasy garlic bread.

II
You are what you eat. As if teeth are corn kernels, and eyes are lemon leaves. I could eat myself outside in. Begin with my licorice hair and saffron eyelashes. Nibble off my potato chip fingernails and feast on my pudgy little vienna sausage fingers.

It's not an attractive fantasy. I'd rather my doorknobs become chocolate-covered almonds and my stairway transform into slabs of peanut brittle.

I'm such an American. A consumer. The world is more attractive as a place for me to gorge my appetites. Perhaps as an Iraqi suicide bomber, the idea of my lips as a sour lemon feels like a better idea. A bright, shiny fruit for God alone.

III
juicy fruit is gonna move ya
chews so soft it gets right through ya
juicy fruit the taste the taste the taste is gonna move ya

The worst of me

40+ hours a week and I arrive home with only the worst parts of me intact. The food hoarder, beer guzzler, bitch, sloth, whiney parts. The better parts get spent uselessly on clients and co-workers, coffee runs, and e-mails.

I walk in the door and my priorities are drink, shit, eat, sleep, leave me alone. Leave me the fuck alone.

I thought this job would be better. It is. But I'm still exhausted. I'm still unable to cope, addicted to caffine and alcohol, craving space from telephones, friends, and family.

It's not them. It's me. I've sold my brain to someone else for the past 10 hours and I just got it back! I want to keep it to myself before I have to consider their thirst, hunger, exhaustion, sickness, whatever it is they want to me to take care of. And there are animals, and mail, and unanswered phone calls, and oh yeah, better exercise so I don't get fat (I'm getting fatter every day, fat ass).

I spend time with friends and I barely hear what they say because I'm thinking I only have two hours and then need to go back to laundry, groceries, oil change, cat food, drain cleaner, garbage. I eat food and forget I'm chewing. My mouth is full and I taste nothing. The only time I am truely happy is tucked in bed, the lights still on and slightly drowsy, I have seven blissful hours of nothing in front of me with space from my life, my fat body, my dissapointment.

The bee-hive having

I love this letter from our "bee-keeper"...

Pam and Tony,

On thursday, I took the whole hive apart again. I couldn't find the queen but there was lots of brood and I'm sure she is in there lost in the piles of bees that are present. I did make another split, so I unloaded a few more of those bees and brought them over to my place to requeen.

My earlier attempt to requeen the first split failed. The queen was released but killed. Don't ask me why but I placed her in the hive too soon and the bees were still stressed while in transport and relocation. At $14.00 a queen, I'd say its something I need to get better at.

Your hive shows no signs of wanting to swarm. It is an extremely strong hive that is ready for the honey flow to start. My next move will be to add a honey super in about 10 days. I have great expectations as everything is primed and any swarm tendancy has ended.

A couple of guard bees slipped out of the split hive that I was trying to load into the car and a bee nailed me in my left lower eyelid. When I woke up this AM, it felt and looked like I had been in a barroom fight. My left side of my face was really swollen. That happened at about 4 o'clock, and I hoped that you weren't returning soon. You must have noticed something was up.

I left the feeder in the entrance but they don't need to be fed. At least, not in any time soon. Talk to you later. Give me a call if there are any questions......Thomas

Sense of place

As long as we stayed outside, we could live in our own world. Inside, the adults made the rules and we became the kids we were instead of the people we wanted to be.

We didn’t have any money anyway, so the Globe Hotel with its fish fry and cigarette smoke aroma was off limits to us. Hanging out behind the Aurora Theater was as much a thing to do as seeing the movie inside. There were always packs of skate rats, hair hanging over one eye, doing ollies and grinding their boards across the cement of the theater parking lot. That was usually where things got started. Rumors of parties floated like pollen. But mostly there was nothing, and we’d stay until the adults rolled out of the theater and drifted through the parking lot to their cars.

Other kids would go to the Boys Club at night. Kids whose parents would likely pick them up in a minivan promptly at 10 p.m. I went there a few times. Its gym and the game room didn’t appeal to me. There weren’t any dark corners where my secret life could be led. It provided a choice between basketball or foosball, but what I wanted was to make up my own rules.

We’d move in a huddle, down Main to South Grove. Hamlin Park was there for us, with its canopy of trees and the swings that beckoned like our own version of a living room. Sometimes it was the train tracks. Sometimes the corner of Sycamore and Linden. Going home wasn’t an option—even though for all of my fantasies of a game of Mexican hide and seek—nothing ever happened. It was important to be there in case Sarah did go off with Jason, or Pete’s parents did go away and that meant that he and Amy would go to second base. Or in case, that night, he did notice me.

Found Poem

The meadow sweet, the beehive cluster,
a nebula of blooms in sequence.
One, two, three cherry blossoms
in an ancient orchard,
so reddened and subdued.

Wear thick eyeglasses,
for red flower
robin's egg
bright forsythia
is risky to the eye,
like a red hot penny in the hand.

A wide angle lens will try to tell you,
"North is up."
But there's merely an edge
moving to swallow midnight into day,
a volcanic surge, a rising planet,
a gathering glow eclipsed in dull red
as dawn approaches.
Be sure to squint, or you might fall in love.

Inspiration

From Being Perfect by Anna Quindlen:

"Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird, and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason ever to write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time ever has. That is her own personality, her own voice. If she is doing Fitzgerald imitations, she can stay home. If she is giving readers what she thinks they want instead of what she is, she should stop typing. But if her books reflect her character, the authentic shape of her life and her mind, then she may well be giving readers a new wonderful gift. Giving it to herself, too."

Advice for 15 year-old girls from an older woman

I'm using full names in this one. Fuck 'em.

If only I had known....This was the topic of Dan Savage's column this week, "Advice for 15 year-old girls from older women." The advice that struck me? "Just because a man wants to fuck you doesn't mean he likes you."

Ah yes. Those men. Pete Rooney. Chris Schavi. And there are others.

I've always preserved my self-dignity by believing some unseen obstacle got in the way. Maybe he did like me, but then he changed his mind. Maybe the time and circumstance wasn't right.

Let me clarify a bit, there wasn't actual fucking with either of these men (if you can call them that). But there was pursuit. Attention paid. Physical co-mingling. And on my part, emotional attachment. Hope. Expectation. Dissapointment.

Chris lived across the state. I remember looking at his town on a map and wondering what it was like to live there. He played hockey, which seemed so foreign to me. The boys in my town played soccer. I sent him a birthday card, and received no response, despite including my phone number. Nothing in the entire month between encounters. When I saw him again, I expected him to be happy to see me. It was awkward. He didn't acknowledge me in any special way. I boldly went to his room and acted chipper and nonchalant. He would barely look at me. I think later that weekend, as I was standing by myself, he approached me and said something lame. I surely would have looked at my shoes and said something like, "Yeah, whatever."

Pete Rooney. He would have like to fuck me. What a conquest that would have been for him. Gaining attention from the shy, pretty girl that had avoided him all semester. How powerful that would have made him feel. Unfortunatley, he drank too much champagne and passed out.

When I read the Dan Savage article, as hard as it was to admit it, I knew it answered all my previous questions about what happened. My earlier questions were easier on my ego.

1. Did he really like me all semester, but just not show it? (Try to remember bit encounters that would reveal a clue.)
2. If we has hooked up earlier, would it have turned into something real?
3. Why did he get so drunk?
4. Did he really pass out, or was he pretending?
5. Was there a bet? Did he make a bet about me with that ass, Brian?
6. What was that bashful call the next day all about?

The high tea. It was horrible. He ignored me. The girls he has spent his whole semester with were there. Those kind of girls. Beautiful. Rich. Loud. It was as if he couldn't switch over from the persona he had developed all semester. And neither could I. At least not in front of those people. It would have been like thunder--hot and cold air colliding and everyone would have heard the crash and smelled the static in the air.

What I never realized before today, was that both the encounter with Chris and Pete has something in common. I was abandoned by my friends afterward. With Chris, all my friends roomed together and left me out. I was exiled to the uncool girls' room. The fat girls, the not-so pretty girls, the kind-of-psycho girls. With Pete, I got stuck sitting with Amy C. at the tea. There was no room at the other table for me. She was a meek mouse of a girl. Sweet, but we had barely exchanged two words all semester.

But was it me or them? Did I purposely push away from them, as if to say "I'm different now"? Was I punishing myself? Was I exhiling myself, suddenly feeling like a cast-off? Or did I just need a break from my friends' prying questions and piercing eyes? My friends knew what had happened. The unpopular girls didn't.