She tried to hold on to me and keep me from going. I pulled and pulled until I fell backward, hitting my head on the coffee table. Orange shag carpeting and a broken martini glass. My mother.
"Are you queer now?"
Someday I will bust open so big the whole town will know it. All my dad could say is "This family is fucked."
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, February 11, 2010
I see her hold the baby in her arms and I cry. So many of them have babies and husbands and careers. Things that they can talk about at parties while they clink their wine glasses together.
What have I accomplished? What are my dreams? What path can I take now that I've taken one often traveled but seldom genuinely enjoyed. I am on the edge of a world that is of my own phony creation...where I can make myself happy whenever I like...or I can destroy myself just as easily. The yellow brick road must lead to reality. Reality is the only happiness. You can either live life as it is or simply settle on existence and float through it without putting down your roots.
The mistakes you make. These are the kind of stories you use...like breaking the glass in case of emergency...to tell your kids some day. (Maybe so they don't make the same mistakes you did.) And waste the biggest gift of all...a life. Life is a gift often wasted.
What have I accomplished? What are my dreams? What path can I take now that I've taken one often traveled but seldom genuinely enjoyed. I am on the edge of a world that is of my own phony creation...where I can make myself happy whenever I like...or I can destroy myself just as easily. The yellow brick road must lead to reality. Reality is the only happiness. You can either live life as it is or simply settle on existence and float through it without putting down your roots.
The mistakes you make. These are the kind of stories you use...like breaking the glass in case of emergency...to tell your kids some day. (Maybe so they don't make the same mistakes you did.) And waste the biggest gift of all...a life. Life is a gift often wasted.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
What Really Matters - A Short Story I Wrote in High School
What Really Matters
“It’s not my fault that Billy stuck his hand down the garbage disposal. Stuff like that just happens sometimes. I mean, what can you do? One minute, the kid’s fine and the next thing you know he’s waving that bloody stump around the kitchen and raising hell. What a mess. All I was trying to do was keep the house clean. What did he have to go and do that for? It was spotless, let me tell you. And anyway, once he regained consciousness and I found the rest of his thumb, the kid was fine. Which is more than I can say for that garbage disposal. It doesn’t work right anymore. Makes this God awful noise like some demonic Satan machine. Sort of a high pitched wiiirrreeeeh! Sounds just like the exorcist come to the kitchen sink.
“Anyway, I think that I’m a damn good babysitter. You know, a good babysitter is hard to find these days. One that cares about what really matters. You know, the important things, like keeping the house clean. And kids today are getting so hard to handle. How many kids did you say you have? Two? Well two’s fine. Once you get more than that though, you’re just asking for trouble.
“So after I put most of Billy’s left hand in the freezer and wrapped his stump up with some cling wrap, I dragged him to this chair in the living room. A beautiful chair. Such a nice big comfortable chair … forest green if I remember it right. He’s a big boy and it’s so hard to carry somebody when they’re passed out and limp as a chicken. Just like a soggy mattress, but I managed all right. He looked a little pale, but that’s okay. At least he was breathing right?
“Well after that whole mess, I decided to go watch a movie. That family has so many video tapes. It’s unbelievable. So I watched Friday the Thirteenth: Part Four and The Shining with Judy Ann and Arlene. They’re Billy’s little twin sisters. Six years old and they look exactly alike. Curly blond hair and blue eyes. Can you believe it? Anyway, when the movies were over, I couldn’t find Arlene and Judy Ann looked a little pale, so I decided to go fix dinner.
“So Arlene shows up and wants to take a bath and make some toast at the same time. Well I couldn’t see much harm in that, although it was a little strange. Making toast in the bath tub … How does that get you clean? But I said it was all right and she took the toaster with her to the bathroom. Kids do the cutest things. Well I’m fixing some salad and the next thing you know the electricity goes out. May God strike me dead, it was the weirdest thing. The lights were on in all the other houses. So I called Arlene for dinner, but I guess she couldn’t hear me at the other end of the house very well because she didn’t come to the kitchen when I did.
“I couldn’t see in the dark worth anything, so luckily I found some candles by the stove and got them lit somehow. But I guess Judy Ann got too close to the flame or something because that hair of hers caught fire real fast. Burned up real quick before I could find that old fire extinguisher. She always had the prettiest blond hair I’ve ever seen. But I guess she can always wear a hat or something and the other burns from where her dress caught fire were only second degree. Who knew that the gas was on anyway?
“Well, I charge five dollars an hour and I believe that looking after those three gave me a lot of experience. I think it went pretty well to tell you the truth. I must say, after all, that was the best macaroni I ever did make for dinner.”
“It’s not my fault that Billy stuck his hand down the garbage disposal. Stuff like that just happens sometimes. I mean, what can you do? One minute, the kid’s fine and the next thing you know he’s waving that bloody stump around the kitchen and raising hell. What a mess. All I was trying to do was keep the house clean. What did he have to go and do that for? It was spotless, let me tell you. And anyway, once he regained consciousness and I found the rest of his thumb, the kid was fine. Which is more than I can say for that garbage disposal. It doesn’t work right anymore. Makes this God awful noise like some demonic Satan machine. Sort of a high pitched wiiirrreeeeh! Sounds just like the exorcist come to the kitchen sink.
“Anyway, I think that I’m a damn good babysitter. You know, a good babysitter is hard to find these days. One that cares about what really matters. You know, the important things, like keeping the house clean. And kids today are getting so hard to handle. How many kids did you say you have? Two? Well two’s fine. Once you get more than that though, you’re just asking for trouble.
“So after I put most of Billy’s left hand in the freezer and wrapped his stump up with some cling wrap, I dragged him to this chair in the living room. A beautiful chair. Such a nice big comfortable chair … forest green if I remember it right. He’s a big boy and it’s so hard to carry somebody when they’re passed out and limp as a chicken. Just like a soggy mattress, but I managed all right. He looked a little pale, but that’s okay. At least he was breathing right?
“Well after that whole mess, I decided to go watch a movie. That family has so many video tapes. It’s unbelievable. So I watched Friday the Thirteenth: Part Four and The Shining with Judy Ann and Arlene. They’re Billy’s little twin sisters. Six years old and they look exactly alike. Curly blond hair and blue eyes. Can you believe it? Anyway, when the movies were over, I couldn’t find Arlene and Judy Ann looked a little pale, so I decided to go fix dinner.
“So Arlene shows up and wants to take a bath and make some toast at the same time. Well I couldn’t see much harm in that, although it was a little strange. Making toast in the bath tub … How does that get you clean? But I said it was all right and she took the toaster with her to the bathroom. Kids do the cutest things. Well I’m fixing some salad and the next thing you know the electricity goes out. May God strike me dead, it was the weirdest thing. The lights were on in all the other houses. So I called Arlene for dinner, but I guess she couldn’t hear me at the other end of the house very well because she didn’t come to the kitchen when I did.
“I couldn’t see in the dark worth anything, so luckily I found some candles by the stove and got them lit somehow. But I guess Judy Ann got too close to the flame or something because that hair of hers caught fire real fast. Burned up real quick before I could find that old fire extinguisher. She always had the prettiest blond hair I’ve ever seen. But I guess she can always wear a hat or something and the other burns from where her dress caught fire were only second degree. Who knew that the gas was on anyway?
“Well, I charge five dollars an hour and I believe that looking after those three gave me a lot of experience. I think it went pretty well to tell you the truth. I must say, after all, that was the best macaroni I ever did make for dinner.”
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
There are certain people who were just meant to have these things. When I say “these things,” I mean love, attraction, family, friends, motivation, success. I know that there are people that I want to be close to, but for whatever reason, it will never happen. Maybe it just can’t happen. I feel like I was so close to being happy at one point. Now I feel like I’m about to fall off the world. It’s like a record that keeps spinning and someday we’re all going to fall off. Not all of us jump off though. Some people fall off happy and real. Some people get stuck on a scratch and their life becomes this rut, a broken record that can’t or won’t fix itself. A giant conveyor belt at the checkout line. Have I been scanned yet? Do I need to scan myself? Am I in your bag of groceries or am I alone and in someone else’s. Am I going with the flow or did I roll off to the side…somewhere where you’ll forget about me. This is where it ends. The last stop is here. When do I get off this roller coaster that's spinning 900 mph into oblivion? When will people realize that they're just fragile pieces on this record player that spins us all? The gift is playing us right now.
The two girls set their blanket down on a Chicago beach. Annabelle had never dipped her feet in the waters of Lake Michigan, unlike her friend Sarah who had been there many times before. The girls settled in the sun, letting it burn their pale skin. Annabelle was unaware that she had not applied her SPF 50 sunscreen on her entire back, causing it to burn unevenly.
The girls walked to the edge of the water and started to build castles in the sand. Sarah and Annabelle were unaware that Ms. Walker watched them from a distance under her lime green beach umbrella. Sarah thought of Mexico, a place she had never been, and started building a sand castle in the form of a Mayan pyramid. Annabelle joined her, forming mounds of wet sand into various sized domes.
Sarah was showing Annabelle around Chicago that day. They wanted to go to the zoo later to see the fish pond and the aviary full of tropical birds of many colors. Sarah let the wet sand run through her fingers, forming little towers in the sand. They looked like custard cones, lumpy yet delicate, with their bases wider than their peaks.
After an hour, they gathered Sarah’s blanket and began to walk towards the zoo. Ms. Walker’s children ran to build their own castles by the water as their mother held back her tears. This is where it ends, she thought, thinking about her broken marriage and her thighs covered with cellulite and sunscreen. She watched as the girls’ castles dissolved into the water, a little more with each crashing wave, until there was nothing left of them.
The girls walked to the edge of the water and started to build castles in the sand. Sarah and Annabelle were unaware that Ms. Walker watched them from a distance under her lime green beach umbrella. Sarah thought of Mexico, a place she had never been, and started building a sand castle in the form of a Mayan pyramid. Annabelle joined her, forming mounds of wet sand into various sized domes.
Sarah was showing Annabelle around Chicago that day. They wanted to go to the zoo later to see the fish pond and the aviary full of tropical birds of many colors. Sarah let the wet sand run through her fingers, forming little towers in the sand. They looked like custard cones, lumpy yet delicate, with their bases wider than their peaks.
After an hour, they gathered Sarah’s blanket and began to walk towards the zoo. Ms. Walker’s children ran to build their own castles by the water as their mother held back her tears. This is where it ends, she thought, thinking about her broken marriage and her thighs covered with cellulite and sunscreen. She watched as the girls’ castles dissolved into the water, a little more with each crashing wave, until there was nothing left of them.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Full Credit
I must start by saying that I've never blogged before. I used to write back in high school and haven't written much since. I regret that, but here it goes.
I will give full credit to Gregg Araki for coming up with the term "Doom Generation." I fall well within this generation and have a birthday between generations X and Y. Sometimes, this generation gap seems to swallow me whole. But enough about me. Let's talk about jobs.
A woman has a plan to grab a loudspeaker and stand in the middle of Union Square. (This woman lives in San Francisco.) She recently lost her job and lives with a roommate who has two cats, one of which gets lost on a constant basis. The woman stands in Union Square, holding her loudspeaker and asks why everyone has forgotten her generation. Her generation used to be called the "MTV Generation." Apparently this term no longer applies to those born just after the death of disco (1979). She is too old...and will turn 30 in two months.
She states her resume, holding her roommate's cat under one arm and the loudspeaker in the other. Graduated from University of California Los Angeles in 2002...majored in something that doesn't really get many job offers now but seemed fun at the time. Multiple years working with kids. Multiple years dating the wrong people. Multiple years going to class and wandering around campus feeding the squirrels.
As she steps down from the upside down bucket she was standing on, one man claps for her. Accidentally, she puts the cat down instead of the loudspeaker without realizing it. Her search continues.
I will give full credit to Gregg Araki for coming up with the term "Doom Generation." I fall well within this generation and have a birthday between generations X and Y. Sometimes, this generation gap seems to swallow me whole. But enough about me. Let's talk about jobs.
A woman has a plan to grab a loudspeaker and stand in the middle of Union Square. (This woman lives in San Francisco.) She recently lost her job and lives with a roommate who has two cats, one of which gets lost on a constant basis. The woman stands in Union Square, holding her loudspeaker and asks why everyone has forgotten her generation. Her generation used to be called the "MTV Generation." Apparently this term no longer applies to those born just after the death of disco (1979). She is too old...and will turn 30 in two months.
She states her resume, holding her roommate's cat under one arm and the loudspeaker in the other. Graduated from University of California Los Angeles in 2002...majored in something that doesn't really get many job offers now but seemed fun at the time. Multiple years working with kids. Multiple years dating the wrong people. Multiple years going to class and wandering around campus feeding the squirrels.
As she steps down from the upside down bucket she was standing on, one man claps for her. Accidentally, she puts the cat down instead of the loudspeaker without realizing it. Her search continues.
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