My Imaginary Forest

When I wake up, before I remember

my life, sometimes I can pretend

I live in the imaginary forest.

The traffic is rushing water

and from my pillow view

out the sliding glass door

everything is green,

like I live in a treehouse over a brook.

On Sunday I was at the coffee shop when Puhg texted

they cut it down, the bright one,

the one the pair of hummingbirds live in.

As I crossed the street back I saw two men in vests and goggles

and a pile of dust and a mound of dirt.

I asked what happened, they said landscaping.

I said no one told us, they seemed sorry.

I asked if there were more coming down and they pointed to another.

We need it, I said. It’s true, we do. All summer we cook

against that wall.

No one in the building has bedroom AC.

I went upstairs, frantically paced around.

I went on the balcony to watch as they prepared another slaughter.

I opened my email to find the property manager’s contact information,

not fast enough. They were whirring the chainsaws.

I ran down again and pleaded,

who can I talk to? There’s been a mistake.

One guy said, I know, I know. He pointed me to his boss,

down the sidewalk. I rushed over.

I live beside the tree, I told him.

He didn’t need this. Not in the rain. Not on a Sunday.

He said call the building manager, so I did immediately.

He rolled his eyes and said we should just walk over.

So we did. Poor M___, grey haired and tired,

she was spooked to see us.

The guy said I need to talk to someone

about the last tree. M___ called the owner,

explained there is a tenant, upset, tree reasons.

I could hear the owner’s annoyance over the phone,

“I don’t work Sundays,” she said.

M__ said, “Neither do I.”

Neither do I, I wanted to hiss. But you didn’t think about that when you sent a bunch of men and metal to my window at 8 AM, did you!?

M___ gave me a shrug. So I leaned over,

close as I could to the phone, and said—

That tree is not coming down. I am hugging the tree!

The tree guy threw up his hands and walked off.

Owner grumpily said they could do a call tomorrow.

M___ mumbled maybe it would work out.

I huffed back out into the rain. Tree guy approached me.

He said, How about this? We just trim the tree?

Yes! I said. Yes! I made him promise, he laughed and said,

I promise, I promise.

I sat inside at the the balcony door, peeking at the guy up there.

He kept his word, only trimming.

Why didn’t they just trim your friends? I asked her, telepathically.

I made a batch of cookies for the trio in orange vests.

A thank you. But I also left my number

on a Post-It. Maybe they’d tell me

if something bad was going to happen later.

I tried to calm down and have a “rest of the day.”

But the next morning I woke up

and saw the skyline instead of leaves

and cried and cried and cried.

Later, when I was at the cafe, I got a text

from a number I didn’t know.

“Hi Alice. This is Paolo the tree guy. I just wanna thank you for the treats. It was good. You are awesome thank you??”

“Hi Paulo! Thank you so much for helping me save that tree! I love that tree.”

“I can tell you love that tree have a wonderful day”

Losing Not Free Things

Last night Bisque's bike was stolen from our third floor balcony. I came home from sketch rehearsal to find him somber and shirtless, missing that mint green zip machine. I loved Bisque's bike. It was hip and cute and accompanied my loved one on the lake shore trail, to music in the park, to Potbelly. It hunkered down in the snow. It was purchased in the desert.

It hurts. It hurts to know something was taken from you. Something with a lot of personal value that is now irrelevant to the thief. It hurts to feel like these things happen. It hurts, or some feeling like it, to recognize this happens all the time in this dumb city. People are jerks, they do not watch out for each other. I get honked at for using the crosswalk designed to be used. We get shoved. People crowd around the el doors, fighting before the cars even stop. Why do we live here? I call the appropriate government office to ask when to buy the appropriate vehicle stickers. I get an answer, I sit on the hot train, walk half a mile, get told I'm in the wrong place.

And I am trying to be empathetic. Before bed Bisque starts, "I'm against the death penalty but..." I laugh because I know what he means. If you steal such a happy seafoam fixit, perhaps you should die. When people steal they think they need something more than you, they have to survive (in some sense of the definition). I should understand at least my life isn't in a place where I must steal to make it all happen. But that hurts too. The amount of times I get asked in one day to help. The shaking change cups and the cardboard signs. The people who launch into their stories while I'm waiting at a red light. That guy who swore he'd pay us back the $25. That guy who tsked at me like I was the rudest person alive for not buying him a new amplifier battery?(!) The woman who stands in the same spot on Belmont asking surprisedly for a dollar, her little play of pretending this is the first time she has ever needed anything. It's not fair that when some quiet skinny man shuffles into Taco Bell Bisque buys him dinner only to come home to a porch rail ripped off.

Were We Wild And Young?

When we were 16, my friend wrote on her LiveJournal, "I shouldn't be sad. My boyfriend's awesome and the Sox are winning." I doubt she remembers the day or why she was blue. The journal has been deleted, but that line has always stuck with me. And perhaps high schoolers can be myopic and immature, but sometimes they're more keen than any of us could dream to be.

I don't remember, were we wild and young?

All that's faded into memory.

I feel like somebody I don't know.

Are we really who we used to be?

Am I really who I was?

The lights will draw you in,

and the dark will bring you down.

And the night will break your heart

only if you're lucky now.

There's Only One

After a full decade relationship with the series, I finally finished One Tree Hill. In high school a friend lent me the DVDs so I could join in on the lunch table discussion. I was sad that fall. I couldn't sleep one night, so I watched the first episode. There was something right about One Tree Hill. Yes, it's a teen soap. Yes, the main characters got married at the end of the first season (also known as their junior year), but the feel was real. A high school that maybe didn't always exist, but one that sometimes did. Something resonated. I watched until four AM that night. And when I slept, I slept well.

It went from bad to terrible fast. Too many kidnappings, exhausted heart transplant plot lines, a stalker step-brother. You know. It's trash. The last good season was Four. It lasted 'til Nine. But there was always a bit of sweetness at the bottom of the cup.

The final season was fine. The producer must have known. The characters waded around in superficial messes. But I will miss you, One Tree Hill. There is always something about the end television. These people who guided you for more than a third of you life--they no longer exist. These people who once got you through that long night as a confused teenager.

Me at the River Court. Yes, I visited the set. 2011.

It's the oldest story in the world. One day you're seventeen and planning for someday. And then quietly and without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.

High and Dry

Writing a play for high school girls. I have massive writer’s block, which is odd for me. But also, I’m just really grossly burnt out. I so don’t deserve to be. I just had fall break. This morning Ro stopped at home for a mid-morning cig and we sat on the back porch, her in work clothes, me in an over-sized Cosby sweater. It was like a game—“What stresses you out? This is what stresses me out.” And then we died laughing because we’re 20somethings just hanging out at 10 AM on a Thursday. How bad could it be? I mean, we recognized that, but then we paused, and all the grey stuff still hung over.

So, this writer’s block. High school girls. I plunged into some prime material: my old LiveJournal. It was just so sad. I mean, even when I was happy, it was still sad. This puddle of gloom, of “What will happen after this? This is all so fleeting.” College had umbrella’d since I was twelve. I clicked through other friends’ journals. None updated since 2006, 7. These kids stuck in cyberspace. And they were sad. So sad. Just like me! Girls I loved, girls I didn’t, girls I envied, girls who envied me. None of us were that different. But in each piddly little entry was a kind of hope. A hope that the writer was young and knew more was to come. Twinge of nostalgia for high school sure to end, but a feeling of relief that soon the confusion was over, the sad sack days were numbered.

Honestly, I liked high school, but I also grew up surrounded by TV and movies assuring me that growing up is supposed to feel like hell. At times it did, but that was apparently norms. College is more the mystery. Everyone I know went through some form of depression in college. But it wasn’t cute anymore. It's just wrong. "No one is supposed to feel this way anymore," you think. But deep down you know everybody does and this time it never ends.

Lena Dunham said in an interview last year that she created Girls to explore just what is wrong with youth culture. No one ever says they are happy when asked sincerely. For a while I took this as a challenge to be genuinely happy, and I think I was. I think I am. But it’s weird that the word “think” is in there.

Sandusky & Kiddie Creeps

Well, well, well Sandusky has be sentenced. Heard the official news from Maf and Tax Ant when we went to Yogurtland Tuesday. We all reflected on the Penn State man, the one who claimed innocence until the very end. How could he do that? I think I know. I think he thought he was--either delusionally or on some technical self-made plane.

That's the thing about secrets we keep to ourselves--they almost don't truly exist. The societal lines versus an imagined moral world blur. Secrets are poison. Morality, sensitivity, community are based on honesty, communication, discussion.

Don't get me wrong--I obviously don't support pedophilia. But, the problem is no one does. It should never be condoned, but we need to support our local pedophiles. Sid has this bit in his stand-up (paraphrasing) like, "There are unsung heroes out there who are...incredible people, more heroic than 9/11 firefighters...and those are the pedophiles who don't do anything about it." Then, of course, the punchline is, "Would you please stand and be recognized?"

But, he's right. I can't imagine how difficult and taxing and awful it would be to want something so much and know the rest of the world thought it was disgusting. I have trouble enough not eating the entire tupperware of cookies Maf gives me in one sitting...and everyone can understand that. Over my pumpkin froyo, Maf explained working in a hospital once for a man who castrated himself because he was a pedophile, and he was afraid one day the temptation would be too strong.

I don't know what kind of issues or cerebral malfuction one has to have to be into kids, but it's a disease, and I'll tell you what--chastising those who've been caught as the scum of the earth is not supporting the teenager out there already fighting the scary urges he has developed. That teenager is growing up in a world that tells him, "You tell anyone this and you will be a monster." How is he going to get help? He's not. He's going to bottle up his problem until he absolutely can't handle it anymore, and he is going to abuse a kid he thinks is a safe bet, and the kid will be so messed up and detached from the situation, he might never tell anybody. And that teen now adult will think, "I did it, and I didn't get caught, and, so I think it's going to be okay." And his secret moral compass will re-align.

Basically everyone in America is happy Sandusky is going behind bars, and most of us are making jokes at his expense--it's easy--pedophiles are one of the only factions of people that no one gets offended at being the butt of jokes. (Ha. Butt. See?) But, let us take a moment of gratitude that we have not been born with or developed a terrible desire in our hearts. That we get to stand from the sidelines and judge. And we should take a moment to love these "sickos" in the world--these sickos who have undergone much more struggle than any of us, much more pain and sadness than I will probably ever feel, much more abandonment by society in a time of secret need. Let us be those listening ears, let us love.

Never Forget

Today Andrew McMahon announced that he will no longer be performing with Jack's Mannequin. This has seriously saddened me. I mean, yeah, I've seen him in concert six times, but I always thought I'd make it to fifteen. Ten at LEAST.

I have hope he will still perform in some capacity in the future...but it won't be the same. Just like how he would only play one SoCo song in the early says of JM...will all my favorites be pushed to the wayside? Will he even make any more music? He might not.

Most of the time, I believe things should die. Things are just things, and they are not meant to be forever. Friendships grow and change and dry. Fashions come in and go out. We get too old for camp. We get too serious to sleep-in. We get too relaxed to mince words.

But I always hoped that Andrew's music-making would outlive me.

Admittedly, his last album was my least favorite of them all. And, admittedly, I'm not the same gushing girl when he posts a blog on his website. I see his Instagram, and I'm like, "Yeah. Typical." I used to be in love with his hippy dip persona when I was a junior in college. Probably because that's the age when HE got popular, and, you know, I think he stayed there. And I didn't.

But, I still thought...I don't know. I still thought something.

Uptown Theatre in Kansas City. 2010 SoCo Reunion Tour.

Would it be in poor taste that this is the biggest tragedy that's ever happened on September 11th? Yes, I guess so. I won't say that.

You spin around me like a dream,
we played out on this movie screen,
and I said, "Did you know I miss you?"

EDIT: Coincidentally, I just saw this post went up at 11:11...

Today's the Day

In the green room before my class's final performance, we stood in a circle, hands on backs on hands on backs as an ensemble for the last time. I have truly loved these people. The combination of acknowledging I might never play with any of them again mixed with standing in the historical spot where teams of old pros to newbies to originals have paced in anxiousness almost brought me to tears.

Today is the day you decide to move, or risk, or speak we have learned all month. This is the 1% of time Life is grand and wild. Today is that day.

Be in the scene you want to be in, I was told--more barked--this week. Why aren't you having fun? Our teacher yelled, genuinely angry.

Walked down Addison for what seemed like the last time ever. It's probably not, but it will never be the same. Not like it was on August 9th, 2012 when the rain had just cleared and the cool set over the peanut peddlers and the giant aluminum pop can cut in half--Wrigley Field. And the crowd crushed a crashing sound wave. I scuttled to the Red line for the last time--not the last time, but the last time on August 9th, 2012.

Del Close's notes taped inside a cabinet backstage. "Weird" written on the flat where the audience could never see. Listen and response.

Horrible photo of my classmates, but also kinda cool--like it was taken from a disposable camera in 1985.

IN OTHER WORDS: My improv class is over, I've learned a ton, I feel so grateful.

ALSO: Breather from blogging while I work on a few projects. Be back soon.

And, baby, isn't this your chance to make a break from circumstance?
And isn't it enough to prove today's the day?
And isn't it enough to prove today's the day?

Rough

Having a rough day. It happens. It's spring outside, but maybe the sun's distance still makes my brain get winter blues. I don't know what to do. Scratch that--I know a lot of things to do, but I can't make myself do them. I KNOW the hard part isn't doing things, it's just starting to do things. Furthermore, the hardest part is not doing things. I know this. I know this, but still. But still.

I have decided to remind myself of some times I was truly happy:


ACTF 2008.


Tokyo Disney with my abroad group.


Seeing Andy solo.

These yellow lights are turnin' red, turnin' red.

You Just Can't Show Me

Ultimately the only thing that can make you happy is a choice to be. I believe this. The world could be over. Or your world--you could be afraid to return to school, could be struck with two deaths in one transitory year, could keep getting bloody noses and accidentally muss up your white hankie permanently....but you can understand Good and shake it all off. You can shrug--no, MORE than shrug--you can lace up your sneakers and go jogging down the lake path. I believe this. But, I also believe sometimes it's very very hard.

Maybe it's just watching that episode of Boy Meets World where Cory gives Topanga his jean jacket and remembering first seeing it in your suburban Chicago bedroom, on your bed that you had to climb, and turning off the TV to run over the lines of your speech for the next morning's competition. High school speech is magic, but is it? Who really cares? You say it was so good for you, but who cares? What's actually Good anyway? I repeat: Who cares about any of it? And no matter how decadent the caramel salt latte, how cushy the employment benefits, how absolutely perfect the Arizona heat in January is--there's still unhappiness if you can't make THE choice. I believe this.

But that's why, although we are not entitled to it, we are sent angels in the form of a friendly stranger offering positivity about your writing, about Life. In the form of the poor depressed folk singer who, despite his forever unhappiness, has given me dozens of reasons to be happy--two being "Goodnight Rose" and "Desire," which remind me of walking through Kyoto at night, up the steps of the art school. I asked the noodle shop for a knife. My Japanese wasn't good enough. I ripped open the avocado with my fingernails.

And although we might not be deserving of these angels because we have been such horribly sad, dysfunctional little maggots, they come to us, and although they cannot make us happy, they can remind us to try.

You know me. You know my way.
You just can't show me, but, God, I'm praying.
That you'll find me, and that you'll see me,
and that you run and never tire.
Desire. Desire.

Declaring Murder: Part II

So, remember last Thursday when I updated with lots of sappy e-mail quotes, and I said I had had a rough day? The roughness was this: a student was suspected of having violent tendencies towards me to the extent that my professor and the department wanted a security guard outside my classroom.

The storm has passed, and I am fine. It was really a "better safe than sorry" thing. This student of mine had been doing poorly all semester: absences, poor work, etc. and, well, his grade was showing it. I met with him one-on-one and sent him helpful e-mails, but, nope. He still insisted on blaming me for his bad grades. And, technically, I did give them to him.

Anyway, he dropped the class--destined to fail, and he was very mad. And he made his dislike of me very known. And, I could deal with that, but then two additional students made meetings with me to argue grades of a recent assignment. Both students failed and for good reason. They were livid, and they took it out on me. I got to sketch rehearsal completely fried and sad.

Chelle explained, "Oh, yeah. I've totally been completely mean to TAs, but really I'm just mad at myself for not doing well." I suspected as much, but it doesn't make the arguments less draining, my consistent politeness to everyone less tense.

I guess I just want to say is we should be honest with ourselves and others--even little toadstools like TAs--because we all have hearts.


Sidestreet in Heidelberg. 2011.

On a positive note? Today in class a student was casting kids to read his scene, and a guy raised his hand.

STUDENT: Okay. But you have to say the "s" word.
(Everyone laughs.)
ME: Thank you for the public service announcement.
STUDENT: Who else wants to read?
(Another GUY raises his hand.)
STUDENT: Okay. But you have to say the "n" word.
(No one laughs.)
STUDENT: Just kidding!

You and me we sweat and strain, bodies all achin' and wracked with pain.

EDIT: Chelle just read this and texted me, "For the record my TAs aren't as nice as you and they never can speak English."

Stop Sex Trafficking

My current laptop backdrop. Summer 2010.

This weekend, I attended a public affairs conference about sex trafficking. Obvi, kind of a downer topic--but hugely important to address. I heard a lot of very unfortunate facts about little girls in other countries.

Out of all the scary (and real) stories involving razorblades and kidlets and burning cigarettes and drug addiction, the saddest thing was this:

Sometimes girls who live in brothels are sent back home to talk about the fun new job they have been away doing for the past few years. Since the girl is trusted in her own town, parents send their daughters away with her, and a new generation of slaves are trapped. Even sadder--sometimes, the original girls realize they are giving too much money to the middle man and simply open their own brothels and exploit girls like they themselves were once exploited.

I am the saddest for the girl who holds onto these scars and finds it fair, fine, advantageous to so blatantly disregard the golden rule.

Instead of getting mad, I will write this and do my best to live it:

1. Just because it has been done to you doesn't mean it is fair for you to do it to others.
2. Just stop. Just STOP being part of the problem!

Tonight, I'm down on my knees.
Tonight, I'm beggin' you please.
Tonight, tonight it bleeds.
Oh why can't I be makin' Love come true?

Not Watching Spring Break!

1. At the gym, turn on MTV.
2. See that it's MTV's Spring Break.
3. Wonder what the point of MTV's televised Spring Break is. Kids that are doing it are there--having fun. Kids that aren't are watching and feeling lame about their lives.
4. Wonder if the majority of kids currently on MTV's Spring Break spent a Spring Break watching MTV's Spring Break, feeling like a loser middle schooler/ high schooler, and promising to one day BE on MTV's Spring Break.
5. Therefore, by broadcasting what a "cool" Spring Break is, MTV has defined it for hella peeps and perpetuated it through peer pressure via programming.
6. Realize a sad cycle for our youth.
7. Decide to watch MTV's Spring Break to see how lame it is.
8. Change my mind!
9. Decide not to even give MTV's Spring Break that satisfaction!!!!!
10. Listen to "Put on a Happy Face" from Bye Bye Birdie!


My Spring Break partners in crime. Photo post-Robin Hood. May 2010.

And spread sunshine all over the place. Just put on a happy face.

Running in the Dark

This morning I woke up with a heavy chest. It was difficult to get out of bed to work out. My body was saying, "Everyone has a snow day. It's silly you're still going to class." The class I am auditing for my department research met despite the rest of the college shutting down. Too much to do and a professor who lives on campus.

The class is at eight, so I was sliding down to the gym at 6:30. Slowly clomping and skidding. The sky, overcast, offered not light. There were no cars passing. I got the gym to find it open but deserted. No lights. I pecked around for switches. I found a couple--not the big ones apparently. Just some little spots on the corner. I hopped on a treadmill anyway.

It was the first time in a long time I felt myself running away anger, hurt, stress, sadness. All the little monsters. They came up from an unknown soil and manifested inside my legs. I felt alone. I was.

In the dark I ran, and really with each step I looked forward with hope. The frosted cars in the lot, half a Mojo bar I remembered in my Hello Kitty lunch box.

In class, I felt the vicious internal jabbings get quiet. And then farther. And then they were in Tallahassee, and I was sitting in my little class discussing methods for tutoring writing. And my chest wasn't heavy, and I don't know why that was. I don't know why that was.


Jamin, Fukoi, 2008


And I know you have a heavy heart. I can feel it when we kiss.
Sop many men stronger than me have thrown their backs out trying to lift it.

Bye Bye Baby

January 2, 2011

Blanche has been staying with her gramps since Thanksgiving. I was in transit for over the school break (including taking a train back here from Chicago) so she was returning home to me in two weeks when my dad next visited.

This morning he called to say she died last night. I am sad, of course. But, hamsters die. Little hearts. And, what kind of life is a little cage anyway? Still, I wish I had gotten to have her just a little bit longer. She was great company, adorable, and she really did lift my spirits. There's nothing like cozying up with a good book and a hamster. I recently put a picture of her on the desktop of my work computer. Yesterday my dad texted me to say he was listening to a duet of Blanche running in her wheel and the strangely similar sound of coffee percolating.

Some great memories of Blanchie:
-As aforementioned, the times she would just curl up on me as I did homework.
-The random places I would bring her--like newspaper pitch meetings, play auditions...whatever.
-When she escaped her ball and I found her just sitting upright under a chair, uninterested in going much farther.
-The way she was trained to climb the bars when she wanted a snack or to be played with.
-When she would lie on her back pressed against the bars of her cage when she got too hot.
-How she would keep Muff awake at night when we were roommates.
-How I really wanted to see her after I had gotten my wisdom teeth out.


I'll be the other hand that always holds a line
connecting in between your sweet heart and mine.
I'm strung out on that wire.

Oh Dear

I hit a dear.
I think I killed it.
I could not stop and check.
I am sorry.
I was shaking.

It was ten minutes from home.
A song from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown was playing--
"My New Philosophy."
It must have been on the median.
It ran at me, attempting suicide?
I braked hard, but its body was already crashing into my side.
I winced for glass to shatter.
I was driving Kay's car.

I said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I cried and went straight to the bakery--Kay is on the late shift tonight.
I got out slowly, scared to examine the damage.
Side mirror broken. Dented door. Dead animal.
I walked with jelly legs to the bakery door. I looked in the back.
Kay put down the dish he was doing and smiled, it fell fast.
My hands were over my mouth. My glasses were fogged with tears.

It's not fair this should happen this week. This week I found a possum dying in front of me.
Kay excused himself from work a moment. He held my hand saying it was going to be okay.
He looked at the car scars, optimistic about insurance, grateful for my safety. He drove me home, walked me inside, embraced me, went back to work until 4 AM.

I hate that the creature is now a lump on the highway. I hate that my shoulder feels sore. I hope the hawks are hungry. I hope the bugs feast.

In a sick way, I feel blessed to have more proof of love.



And I could write a song a hundred miles long
Well, that's where I belong, and you belong with me

Choo Chew

Back with my high school friends. Meetin' where the train tracks end.


Graduation Eve

Sometimes I remember a Chicago news story from 2003. A boy, eleven, was late for a dental appointment. He was riding his bike. He was panicked. He had to cross train tracks. A train was coming. He would surely be late if he waited. He didn't cross fast enough and died right there. The dentist's secretary had to call his mother. She was mad he missed the check-up, but he kept not coming and not coming home and not being anywhere. His body was discovered later that night.

I heard a train whistle clear and loud today. It's sunny out. There are a lot of good things.

I wanna pull it apart and put it back together. I wanna relive all my adolescent dreams. Inspired by true events on movie screens. I am a one-man wrecking machine.

Up Now

I know the night. I know this night.
I have been up doing small things upon things
for no reason
besides I can't sleep.

After the surprise
"It's late!"
come the tries
to drift, but
the clicking lamp back on, the rolling, scoot, sit.

I am up. I know this night. Boredom.
Moving slow. So
slow. Then, sweet night
is here. I know this night! This night
reminds me that it's all fine. I am alone.
It's so quiet. Blanche whirs, stops. I write, stop.
There's something personal here--something very
velvety. I love this night!

I move with more excitement. I sort through new inspirations.
I gracefully gather up all the yolk of dreams and ex-worries.
I whisk them into night's filling. Night's work.
I work. I plot. I plan--it's all good until--

I know this night. Oh, how I know it.
I'm alone again.
It's fall again.
It's cold here. I need some noise to drown out my own remembered conversations!
Please!
A noise!
I know this night
of let-downs. Of pasts--they do not change.
I know the night now. I know it now.

Please

Tonight I prayed.

I have been praying very hard lately. I will say that. I have been hoping for happiness for myself and all the others I know transitioning in life. I guess that is really everyone. All the time.

I have been praying for the health of my family. For the crumple of terminal illness. For the light of Truth. For the overdoses to end, for the poor to feel clean, for the rich to feel safe, for SNL to be funny, for circuit three to end faster, for winter to walk slower. I have prayed.

I have prayed for sweethearts in Canada, for a writer in South America, for the several strip clubs in East St. Louis, for the few brunch places in the city, for postcards to be invincible, for a wedding to be successful, for musicians to make their best work yet, for the good books never to end and the wars to stop today.

Tonight I prayed for Hilary Swank. Insomnia tricked me into thinking Boys Don't Cry would put me to sleep. And, oh, I was so sad. I was so heartbroken. I was so pained. I prayed for those men who ruin everything. And as I saw the time run close to the end I prayed so very hard that once all the horrible things had happened, once it was all over, the credits would role and there would be no screens with words that told the future for those people. No, I prayed, please do not let this be based on a truth. Please.

It was.

I hadn't known.

Served Faithfully

Today.



Sometimes it seems like love is just a fancy word for compromise.