Part 1 is here.
A few days after my new roller-derby league’s first practice at the rink, I moved into my new apartment, a decrepit studio roosted atop the tiny row of shops on Main Street. My mother had been right: it was exactly the sort of outdated decor I’d find endearing, complete with hideous linoleum. (Floral and geometric? How exotic!) The place had no shower and a kitchen sink that sprayed water in three different directions (none of them “downward,” sadly). But my parents had kindly applied a stunning new paint job to it, and I noted its crystal doorknobs, arched doorways, deep cast-iron tub, and built-in cabinetry with approval.
I scored this wee residence for a pittance of $500 a month, including heat and water.
At the time, I was trying to take a picture of my bike, not my apartment. That’s probably obvious.
This felt like home, for sure. It was the realm outside those walls I was less certain about.
(Continued)
So, this one time, in March of 2010, I decided to return to my hometown, after residing for years in a much bigger city, to start a roller-derby league.
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The day I bought that car, I knew what I was going to do with it: I was going to fit my entire life into it, and I was going to drive it a very long way, all by myself.
Right after I let my mom talk me into a variety of cheesy poses, of course. First things first.
I called it Operation Hobo: a quest to pare down my possessions to a scant 75 cubic feet of cargo, give or take the passenger seat.
(Continued)
Thursday, December 23, 2010
I’m happy. Profoundly so. I want to say that I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but I have a tendency to think that at any given time, that same way you always think you’ve never been in love before just as soon as you are, again.
But I am happy, and the most striking thing for me is that for once, I’m feeling that way on my own, as plain old me. I have not accomplished very many desirable cultural markers. My marriage failed, and I’m childless. I’m not engaged and I don’t own a house. I don’t have an iPad or an iPhone or an iAnything. I don’t have a lot of money, and my wardrobe is downright pitiful. I am happy for very little reason at all, as far as I or anyone else can tell, and that makes me feel safe, insulated from the ups and downs of those two most revered economies, love and money. If you can be happy without a reason, there is nothing to guard.
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Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Should you ever become misinformed and start perceiving yourself as a kind-hearted individual who feels that all human beings have inherent worth, rest assured that you can always correct this delusion simply by doing some dating.
The unfortunate truth, as you will surely discover, is that you secretly think you are better than almost everyone, and that you are so convinced of your own amazingness that you will probably be forced to die alone, wearing a smug and superior expression that will hopefully remain more or less intact despite spending the days subsequent to your expiration alone with your hungry, unscrupulous cats.
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Saturday, August 14, 2010
When a small child you have never met
picks up her foot to step off a curb
and into rush-hour traffic
approximately thirty feet from where you are sitting,
right now,
idly drinking your iced coffee
and letting the pattern of the metal patio chair beneath you
imprint itself onto your thighs,
and you look up from your newspaper just in time
to see the sole of that one tiny shoe leave the earth,
you will work so hard.
(Continued)
Nito, my cat, died last week.
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“My love of [you] is in me, moving in my heart, changing chambers, like something poured from hand to hand, to be weighed and then reweighed.” –Sharon Olds, “High School Senior”
I build the version of you that I love inside of me, even though you’re right in front of me. I think everyone does, often without knowing it, and they get upset when that inner version disagrees with the truer, fleshier version, which has the advantage of being incarnate but is, quite frankly, unknowable, unstable, and unpredictable. I get upset, too, like anyone, when I am stung by disappointment or surprised by some mismatch between the working model of you that I carry within me and who you are being, to me, right now.
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1. Do you like animals?
a) Like animals? I LOVE animals!
b) I’m an asshole.
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Jeff and I are in Madrid. Yes, my ex-husband and I went to Madrid together. Many potentially fascinating theories could explain this odd development, but here, let me save you the trouble: we are in Spain together simply because we both wanted to go to Spain.
(Continued)
