Since the Days Are Few

Since the days are few
and far
between
when you can actually turn off
the yakking, the grinding, the lurching,
the smacking, the shooting, the blistering,
the shrieking, the shrinking, the gasping,
the gossiping, the hurting, the whining,
the sinking, the soaking,
when you actually do,
actually do think
with some foreign sincerity
"Things are very good,"
grasp onto the line,
be hooked by it,
take the bite,
lose your cheek meat in the metal,
bleed--fine--
before you're yanked out of the water,
before you're hanging in the sky,
gills dry, unable to breathe.

Lesson of the Maine Grasshopper

My morning run is full of grasshoppers. They sense me coming. They leap aside. Today one little guy jumped a few feet in front of me when he sensed my impending jog. Of course in five seconds, I was still headed right for him. He jumped forward again, even further. But, I was still on the same path, so he had to jump a third time. The little goober went through this vaudeville act like six times before finally, finally--he jumped backwards when he sensed me approaching.

I'm sure it didn't make sense to him at the time. But it was going to be long, tiring road with no rest if he tried to keep up with me moving ahead. A backwards step (or bounce) was actually the best option. And, honestly, from my perspective, it didn't matter which way this bug skittered. What is "ahead" to a grasshopper? To us?

Who Am I to Argue with Spotify Giving Me NFG for my Run?

The needle on my record player has been wearing thin.
This record has been playing since the day you've been with him.
No more long rides home,
no more of your station--
I didn't like it anyway.
Remember the time we wrote our names up on the wall?
Remember the time we realized "Thriller" was our favorite song?

Have I waited too long?
Have I found that someone?
Have I waited too long
to see you?

Maybe it's for the best.
Maybe it's not for anything.
It wouldn't be so bad to take this right from me.
No more long rides home,
no more of your station--
I didn't like it anyway.
Remember the time we wrote our names up on the wall?
Remember the time we realized "Thriller" was our favorite song?

Have I waited too long?
Have I found that someone?
Have I waited too long
to see you?

How many times I've tried.
It's simple to you, so simple to lie.
How many times I've tried.
Blatant mistakes of your design.

Have I waited too long?
Have I found that someone?
Have I wanted too long
to see you?

I've had so many chances.
Turn my back and I ran away.
I've had so many chances
to see you.

Choice Analysis

I auditioned for the spring play my sophomore year of high school with a monologue I cobbled together from a Junie B. Jones children's chapter book. I thought it was pretty funny. Not sharp or anything. I got cast in a small role basically based on the directors (my speech coaches) knowing I was a good investment because I worked hard and had potential once I got more confidence and ripped off my braceface.

I told Henne I was cutting more of the book for my Humor piece for the upcoming Speech season. "Boring," he said. "You can do better." I guess it was a little juvenile. And maybe adult male judges wouldn't have the same sheen of nostalgia for girlhood in first grade. I chose something else and had a successful season.

At the State competition, in the final round, another girl performed a cutting of a Junie B. Jones book. She won first place. I got second. What do I think about this? I think I would have been better than her, but really I don't know. I can't know. I can't help but think if we had both done the same piece, even if we had been the best in the round, we simply couldn't have gotten 1 and 2. Really, if I were judging that round, I think I would automatically bump us down, paired together to 4 or 5. I mean, there's a lack of originality at stake, right?

Blue Lobster Files

And then I was stuck. Snack to stuck just like that. Twigs that I can't break with my claws? What was it? Tough. Too tough. I waited. Then. Pulled up, up, up out. Sky, air, cloud, peach blob holds this box I am in. Peach blob whistles. Peach blob calls to other peach blob. Peach blogs look at me. I am not afraid. They seem like predators, but I feel, they will not be. Something is out of the ordinary.

Lot of other guys here. Our pinchers magically unworkable. What is this? What is this?

We arrive. I sense arriving. The other dudes are off, slopped together. My legs twinge. I don't feel good about where they're going. The pack of them. We're not meant to be in packs. But not me. Peach blobs get closer, more peach blobs. There is something special happening. I hope I find out soon. Something worth celebrating.

I travel with one peach blob in a mystic cave. A moving mystic cave. I understand light now. For the first time I really see it. In a way I didn't know it could be, without the come and go of wave haze.

Turns out the mystic cave is it for me. Lots of peach blobs. New peach blobs. Every day. And I see them change when they're with me. Something really big is about to happen, this I have known, but I cannot figure it out. I am also very bored. I don't have to look for food anymore, which was nice at first. But now, I'm not so sure. Perhaps in in preparation for The Thing Happening. That buzz of excitement.

And sometimes I am held on my back, and I can't breath, and the blobs--smaller blobs, bigger groups of them--are touching me. This used to concern me, but now anything out of the cave is at least interesting. I'm lonely.

Maybe The Thing will mean more companions. I like one blob. It has whiskers like mine. He holds me the most. I feel comfortable in his blob blobs. He shines with pride about The Thing, it seems. When will this thing happen? This very special thing in the air. What is it? Where is it? A huge guy stares at me all day. We have caves across from each other. "Hey," we wave, but we'll never even see each other without the glassy haze between us. Is he part of the special Thing? Does he know?

How long will I live this way? It's been longer than my life at this point. I don't remember the old home. No matter how many times I lose this clink clank on my back, it comes back. Nothing changes, forever on the precipice of The Thing. That happiness, giddiness, but what, what, what could it be, and when will I know? I'm starting to wonder if I will ever know. What a world! I'll probably never be let in on the secret.

Never knowing,

shocking, but we're guessing.

We're just moments.

We're clever, but we're clueless.

Lesson of the Train Baggage

A week ago I left for my East Coast summer adventure 2015. My cheapest ticket available required me to take the busiest train line at the busiest time of day. In April, when I planned the trip, I made a mental note of this. Last week, with a packing hangover, the mental post-it has fluttered away.

Waiting for the train, I could already feel the heavy judgement surrounding me. Side eyes that said, "Oh, you think you're getting on THIS train, huh?" When it arrived, I crowded around the doors with my suitcase, duffel, and backpack. I acted no different than usual but inside I was absolutely shouting, "You're not gonna fit!" Then another side of me: "Play it, cool, for the love of donuts! Don't let them smell your doubt! They'll elbow you out!"

I made it in, and the general disgust cloud around me stank stronger. My bags were unruly--rolling slightly, bumping knees, threatening to bump the line of sitting women. "I should be sitting," I thought angrily. "Look at me wrestling with this luggage that I NEED because I have to have show clothes and hiking clothes and workout clothes and regular clothes. Don't you all know this!?" I did my best and kept my eyes down from the early morning clucks and tsks. "I'm sorry," I thought--then, "No, I'm NOT sorry." A seat opened. Before another girl could even make a solitary move, I said, "Do you mind if I sit down?" She huffed and turned away, absorbed in earbuds.

I sat with my tiny mountain, people specifically taking the time to sigh as they skirted around me. I trolled internally, "If you had just gotten up and let me sit near the back, no one would have any issues!" As the airport got closer, the car got emptier. Relief.

And I thought. I thought of the times on the train when I to have been grouchy others brought their giant stroller aboard and sat smugly as we all Cirque de Soleil over them. I thought about how most days I don't mind standing on the el, but some days I do mind, and I look rudely at all those guys my age taking up seats. Feminism, yes, but also, in those moments, I just want them to feel bad. And then I think, I think about how many times a tired-looking person towers over me, and I refuse to look up. I was here first, fair and square, and I don't have to feel bad about that. If you wanted a seat so bad, you should have gotten on at an earlier stop. Never mind where you work, where you live, your schedule. Somehow, when I have what I want, your situation is your fault. And when you have what I want, the universe is so so unjust.

Moss: Part III

We hiked The Porcupine Mountains, the collective crew of Counselors in Training--big and small, blistered and bouncing. I was afraid to go on the trip because what if I didn't hike fast enough? And I had to carry the pots in my pack. And I hadn't gone to REI like the other girls for those special swishy trail pants. And we weren't supposed to wear t-shirts. Well how was I supposed to know?! I had been wearing a t-shirt for literally occasion of my high school life!

On the third day we made it to Lake Superior. It was too cold to swim, but the water brought a newness. A sense of accomplishment and a marker that we were halfway there (oh-oh-livin on a prayer!) and the trip couselors could use a break too so they basically went to bed as soon as we had put out the fire. Tee, Rench, KHo and I were up, determined to get on that lake if not in.

We wobbled atop a path of rocks just peeping from the water's surface. Tee pointed down at a very mossy one. "Slick," she said. I stepped as delicately as I could but I still flaked for a moment before sticking the landing.

The sun was setting and Rench listed all the schools she visited and which she was applying for and the ones her friends were going to which were just short of disgusting. Rench was the cabin dum-dum but she had a million polos and chacos in the way that made it seem her intelligence would have little to do with where she ended up at school.

"Where are you guys going?" In the distance a tiny boat squatted just under the pinking clouds. KHo came from money too. She pressed her. "I don't want to talk about it." KHo said. "Can't this be the one time in our lives we don't talk about it?" The orange floated away, we tip-toed to shore.