When I was in junior high I was in love with Daniel Dillon. Daniel was amazing. He was tall and thin and had a scraggly little goatee with brown hair and brown eyes and a snaggletooth and he looked like Johnny Depp, if Johnny Depp had grown up in the sticks and wore the same shirt every day. I had been smitten with him for about a year before he spoke to me for the first time; I was sitting on a bench at school and he came over and said Can you do me a favor? Can you give me your hands? My heart stopped, and I knew that Eric had told him. Eric Shoemaker was my best friend, and Daniel was his best friend. Eric and I sat together for approximately four hours on the school bus every day, and I knew for certain that Eric had finally told Daniel about all of the dark miles spent two inches from each other in which I completely ignored Eric's beautiful face and perfect grammar and obsessed about what Daniel was reading in gym. He'd told him, oh man, and now was that moment that you simultaneously dread and long for, the one that you spent months manipulating yourself into and being horrified at the thought of. Daniel wanted to sit on the bench and hold my hand, which is how that works in junior high, and then we would go to the prom (the prom, years later with Daniel, being one of the most monumental evenings of my life, in which I witnessed for the first time an entire generation of adults rising up in unison to defeat and demolish and humiliate the spirit of one young man, that young man being Daniel in drag with earrings made out of roaches) and then we would get married and get the fuck out of Gold Hill. Can you give me your hands?

I put down my apple (ON the bench), and wiped my hands carefully on my jeans and handed them to Daniel. He said Eric was right. I said About what? He said You have really long fingernails and I have a really bad splinter; can you get this out?

I said Oh. Oh yeah, of course. Um. Here.

And then while I was taking the splinter out he said You're Eric's friend; the one that likes Darren. And I said That's me! And grinned like the big, fat idiot that I felt like.

A couple years later there was another boy, Matt Schrock. And then I was in love with Matt Schrock, and we were at boarding school together and it was this game, one day a year the boys are not allowed to talk to the girls and we each have a little round cardboard golden Hush button pinned to our chest, and we write our names on them carefully, and you cannot speak to anyone of the opposite gender. It's a huge deal to be the person left with your own button at the end of the day, but you also get other peoples' buttons if they talk to you first. So you could have your own button, and you could have the buttons of twenty people, and if you have someone else's button then the two of you are allowed to talk to each other, but not anyone else. In hindsight who the fuck thought that was a good idea? But at the time, super fun. I was in love with Matt; oh my god. And I had gone all day and still had my button, and I was going to win the shit out of that thing. And all I wanted was Matt's button. Matt's button, with his name on it that he'd written HIM SELF in blue sharpie, that had been pinned to the jacket that covered the shirt that TOUCHED his ACTUAL CHEST, and before dinner we were sitting in the lounge and he was sitting next to me, just us in the lounge, and we had never spoken to one another before. He knew I was in love with him, because it's boarding school, but we had never actually made eye contact. And he looked over at me and I kind of stared at him, and he said Can I ask you for a favor? And I knew this was it. See above, where I Knew This Was It. And I cleared my throat and smoothed my hair and said Yes. Because now, him having spoken to me, I was going to get his button and I could speak back. And he said Will you take my Hush button? And I grinned, like the happy, smitten sophomore that I was, and I said Yes; thank you. And he said Can you give it to Kourtney for me? If I walk up to her she'll take off.

I said Oh. Oh yeah, of course. No problem.

He said Thank you; I knew you'd do it! and he handed me the badge, and the safety pin was warm from his heat. And I grinned like the big, fat idiot that he knew I was.

I am currently smitten with a hockey player. Not in the way that I was when I was in junior high, or high school, or even as an immediate adult, but in the cool knowledge that he is a thing that I want and that I have things that he wants and that those things could mesh nicely, because I also don't want things he doesn't want. And I realized today that I am still sitting on that bench, and sitting in that lounge, and quietly waiting for him to recognize that yes, all of those things are real and possible and amazing, and being my best, brightest self and being exactly the right mixture of interested but not overbearing, available but not eager, and completely disgusted with myself every single day while he hands me things not meant for me and doesn't even notice that I am not fucking in love with Darren, and I never was.

there's no one in town I know

you gave us someplace to go
I never said thank you for that
I thought I might get one more chance
and what would you think of me now
so lucky, so strong and so proud
I never said thank you for that

It’s a strange thing when happiness comes upon you and you look around for the people you want to share it with and they aren’t there. There’s the sadness that comes from the people that are gone forever: Grandma Bonnie, you would love that I am in love (I’m not). You would be so happy that I dress like a girl and I don’t wear all black and I cooked a meal with four things in it. You would be so proud of me for not going back to him. You would love so much that Jake is back in school and more importantly, is actively happy. You’d hate that Zoe smokes pot but you’d love the way we’re navigating it. You would be so excited for all the things that are happening and you’d be quietly devastated by this diagnosis but so encouraging about the changes I’m making to accommodate it. You would love my life, as much as I love it, and would only wish that I didn’t swear so much.

There’s the strange wist that comes from the people that are gone by choice, who always come calling when you realize that you’re doing all the things that you talked about together, without them. Joe would love that I am going to Norway. He would fucking love it. In fact it might be the one thing that actually, finally convinced him that I am an interesting person. Maybe. Scott would love that I run the shit out of this department. He would be so proud of the fact that I didn’t quit and I didn’t kill anyone and I didn’t lose everything on the way (well, not everything.). He would say Of Course You Are. Of Course. Daniel would love that I smoke pot and not meth. That would thrill him to no end. That would be enough, probably, to get his attention without the attendant violence. That’s a thing that would be a miracle. And it makes me angry that I even think of them, when things go right. Angry. And I’m not sure why, seeing as how I have no problem thinking of them when things go wrong and I realize that I know why this is happening and it has their name all over it. Not anymore, though. The name all over it is mine, no matter what it is.

Then there’s the people that are there, right there, right where you can see them and feel them and thank them, that we may or may not take for granted and I hope that I don’t take anyone for granted. It’s so easy, when things are going poorly, to recognize the people that are getting you through it. It seems that it should be just as easy, when things are going well, to recognize the people that got you to it. There’s a recurring item in the Game of Thrones books (and yes I am aware that’s not what they’re actually called) where every night, before she falls asleep, Arya Stark whispers the names of the people that she would kill if she could, so that when the opportunity presents itself she doesn’t forget who they were. “Weese,” she would whisper, first of all. “Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Amory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.” There is an entire segment of the population that, before they fall asleep, whisper the names of gods or idols or things that they want, so that they are forefront in their minds even while sleeping. To me, that sounds like My sister. The kids. Jason, Kalera, Maryjane. I do not know what I would do without you.

The Philippine Tarsier is a small primate residing in the trees of jungles and sanctuaries throughout, well, the Philippines. The Tarsier has long been considered to be a slow, lazy, non-motivated, somewhat dim-witted cousin of their more famous family members due to the fact that they really do nothing all day except sit around yawning and stretching while one member of their group obtains enough food for all of them. Wake up in the morning, stretch, yawn, move to a branch, stretch, yawn, lounge a while, stretch, yawn, move to another branch, lounge, stretch, yawn. Not entirely unlike what I do at work. They are the most boring animals on Earth, with the lifestyle of a sloth but without the endearing facial features; in fact, the Tarsier is something of a hideous looking creature. He has bug eyes and giant teeth and his incessant yawning gives him the appearance of being constantly on the verge of screaming.

It was this realization that led a researcher at Texas A&M to look more closely at the Tarsier, when it occurred to him that when most creatures yawn, their eyes squint and close; when the Tarsier yawns, his eyes open wide. It's such an odd thing! What a strange little animal; it can't even yawn correctly! Of course after they thought about it and tested their theory with the proper equipment, it was revealed that the Tarsier is not yawning at all, it is in fact screaming. Always. All day long, at a frequency of 75 kilohertz. This is almost four times higher than the range that the human ear can detect, and is higher than the range that many animals can detect. This prompted the researchers to take another look at EVERYTHING they knew about the Tarsier, and everything they thought was wrong, wrong. The Tarsier, rather than lazing his days away basking in the sun while his brothers tended to his every need, was in fact the only alarm system standing between the entire primate colony and the predators in the surrounding area, and spent all day screaming instructions at a frequency that only his family could hear. All day long, protecting his family and home. Wake up in the morning, scout, scream, move to another position, scout, scream, observe the predators, scout, scream, move to another position, observe the predators, scream. All day, without taking even enough time to find his own food, so that he would starve if his family did not bring it to him, that's how committed he is to his role.

Sometimes it feels like we are screaming and screaming and screaming, whether it's a warning or a plea or whatever the hell it is we're screaming about, and everyone around us just marvels at the simplicity of our life. How easy it is, how effortless, how nice it must be to have what we have and be who we are and live our monstrously fucked-up lives without a care in the world. Not a single care; free and easy and poppin grapes. It isn't true, though, and our friends and family know that and maybe we don't sit around talking about it all the time but that's fine and you know why? Because I know that when the time comes that I'm on the ground, scuttling around trying to find enough food for my tribe, my tribe is up in the trees looking out for me, all day, every day, and even if no one else knows it, I do. And that's a comforting silence.

The Ferris Wheel was stopped in place on the night we broke up for good. I noted this as an aside while en route to the only man you have ever worried about, and the only one I went to with my heart in my hands, the heart you returned to me last night. I told you it was a phase, and you agreed. I told you that you were wrong last time, and you are wrong this time, and you said Probably. I told you that I would not allow it, and that since it’s my heart too I should have a say. You said that was adorable, and I envisioned myself with my insides on the outside, frantically trying to breathe through a mouth ensconced in what was once my stomach, staring at you through my ribcage, while you kissed where my hair used to be and told me it was hard for you too.

You said that I deserved better, and could have better. I told you that I knew that already and that if I wanted better I would have abandoned you for it long ago, and that I do not want better, only you in all your glorious fuckery. I told you that you are the only thing I do on purpose, and that it’s not up to you to decide whether I’m selling myself short because I want what I want, and I am grown enough to know it when I have it. You said that none of that mattered, and told me again how difficult this was and that you didn’t want to hurt me, and kissed me on the forehead.

I asked you why you lied, and you said that you didn’t. I told you that saying you didn’t want to hurt me was not entirely true, since you kept doing it and doing it of your own free will. I asked you if you had been taken over by aliens, forcing your hand while you pounded frantically from the Plexiglass lobes of your consciousness, desperately begging for me to hear the real you and release you from your prison of stupidity before it was too late. You laughed, and said Sugarplum, you’re impossible.

I left you sobbing and bereft when I told you that I did not want to see you, or hear from you, or know how you were doing. You could not believe I could be so unyielding. What you do not know is that I can’t see you or hear you or recognize your placement, because I have eaten my own senses as I fled from my beating heart, my castle in flames, my cities overrun. You did not say that I was adorable, and you did not kiss your favorite hand.

I gathered what was left of myself and went to the only place I could, the only fortress that has never closed to me, and the only person that has ever known me intuitively, instinctively, and begged to be let in. I know what time it is, and I am in pieces. I know in my bones that this signifies the real end, the true end, and I hand him my parts and pieces, and ask him to take them away. Instead he sorts through the outsides to find the insides, and when everything is back in place he tells me which parts are his favorites and when he knew they were, and where we were and what I was wearing and tells me that you were right, about everything, and that you will never, ever know why or what’s been lost. He unlocks a room in his own heart for me to wait until the tide recedes, wait until the frost is gone, wait until I can wait no more at which time you will be standing in front of me, having understood, having recognized what’s lost and mounted a search to reclaim it, but by then you will not even recognize me, what with my left on my right and my face turned inward.

you were right about the end

it didn’t make a difference

everything I can remember I remember wrong


In speaking with my friend last night she tells me that he wants me to be a vacation. He wants it to be always fun and exciting, always new and thrilling, always rightnowrightnow and never next week. She says that everyone loves going on vacation, but at some point you have to go home.

She’s right, and that breaks my heart. I cannot possibly be a vacation all the time, Alexi stop spleening me. Even when I’m on vacation I’m not a vacation. I am not even a summer cabin. I’m Helm’s Deep; a solid fortress of constant battle and unyielding defense. I’m not a waterfall, I’m the Mariana Trench. Neither flitting nor fleeting, but rooted and unmoving. I wish as much as you do that I was a strapless dress rather than a suit of armor, but I’m not, and I never will be. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. I used to be proud of myself, for having developed these skills and assembling this arsenal and earning my merit badge in Damage Control. I am not proud of that any more, no more than I would be proud of my Herkimer Battle Jitney on a jaunty little road trip. It just won’t work because it’s just not right. And it doesn’t have to be Just Right, but you do have to actually want it. The distance between Wanting It and Not Wanting To Be Without It is significant. It’s the difference between right and left. So close there, so maddeningly close at the intersection, but ultimately insurmountable. The ridiculously cliché feeling that we’d die without each other is meaningless without an attendant desire to actually be WITH each other. They seem so similar. They seem like brothers. They look like such big, strong hands, don’t they.

i don't care if i ever get back

Tony Gwynn's nickname is Mr. San Diego. When we built the new park everyone said that the name of the street it sits on, which was not there before, should be Tony Gwynn Drive. So it is. We put a statue of him in the entryway, without asking. Tony Gwynn spent his entire career with the Padres, his entire career. That does not happen, ever. Does it, Jorge Posada. But in all the years he spent with the Padres, he only made more than four million dollars in a single season seven times. If you know anything about sports then you know that this number is retch-inducingly low. If you know anything about baseball then you know about Tony Gwynn, and why that number is even lower than it sounds. In his twenty years in San Diego, he was the NL batting champion 8 times, an All-Star 15 times, earned five Gold Gloves, retired with more than 3100 hits, and with the exception of his first year in baseball he never batted below .309 in any season. Never once. What this means is that Tony Gwynn was also one of the greatest players in baseball. At four million or less per season. His induction into the Hall of Fame was 13 votes short of unanimous, which is insane. In-Sane. He is also a philanthropist and coach that has been married to the same woman for a hundred years, and who now coaches his son's college team in a stadium named after him. Mr. San Diego.

I have three bats with Tony Gwynn's signature on them. One is from the game in which he earned his 3oooth hit (at which time, as he rounded the base, he received a hug from the first base umpire. An umpire, hugging a player, during a game. Unheard of, before or since.). I don't even remember which games the other two are from, but they sit all in a row in my room, daring an intruder to mess with me or Tony. I have two gloves with his name on them, and I have an entire bookshelf of memorabilia with his name and face and accolades all over it. Tony Gwynn, a constant presence in a life I no longer live, waving to me from a place I can no longer even see in my memory. But together for years, walking leisurely toward events that may or may not be life-changing, may or may not be record-breaking, may or may not be edited all to hell in the books years down the road. He's one of the great heroes of my life, and it has nothing to do with what a phenomenal athlete he is.

When I lived in San Diego, and the Padres were the worst team in baseball (and they always were), I would go to a game at the stadium two or three times a week. They played in a stadium, not a ballpark, because they borrowed the Chargers field in the absence of their own. Why would they have their own park; they're the worst team in baseball. So we went to games at the stadium, until after the 1998 season that saw them swept majestically by the Yankees (fuck you, Scott Brosius) in a disastrous World Series that cost them not one single fan. That year was amazing. That run was...wrenching. People actually had heart attacks, watching those games, it was that riveting. But before that, there was nothing good coming out of that team. We didn't win. We didn't gloat. We barely even showed up. But at least it was sunny.

It was always sunny, and always baseball. There was a game, though, that was not sunny, and was not good. We had been trounced upon for six disgusting innings, we had the stretch, then came back out to get slapped around some more, when it started to rain. At this time in their history, the Padres did not have many fans. We would pay five dollars for a nosebleed ticket and then go sit behind home plate, because there was just no one else there. Seventy thousand seats for three thousand fans. We couldn't do anything right. And then it started raining. Of course it did not rain enough to stop the game, because it rarely rains that much in San Diego and when it does, it's during the off-season. So, empty stadium, in the rain, having our hearts handed to us in a bag once again, and Tony Gwynn was batting. He walked up and hit a triple, which was fumbled by the opposing outfielder, which allowed Tony to turn it into a run. As he rounded third base, on his way to score this meaningless run in this stupid game in front of almost no one, as he came around the base, he high-fived the third base coach. I'm headed home, Tim, high-five this run cause we're still playing baseball. High five. Celebrate this hit, and this run, even though no one is watching and we're all soaking wet and I'm forty years old and I'm the greatest player in the history of this team and I still live in the house I grew up in, because if I played for the money I'd be playing somewhere else. I just hit a fucking home run, and I'm going to be happy.

How awesome is Tony Gwynn. Nothing gets him down, even though I'm sure things get him down. He does his best and plays his hardest, even when no one is watching. He celebrates each victory, even when that victory comes in the middle of a loss that is just one more speedbump to the other team. I remember thinking that this was the difference between me and my husband, right there on the field. My husband was a Yankee fan, and the Yankees always win. They always, always win. They don't know how to lose, and they don't know how to win with grace. They do not care about the things that get you where you are, they only care that you end up on top. They don't care where you came from or what it took to scratch your way to the starting lineup, they care only that when you are in stripes, you are winning. Win, win, win. And only win.

I don't care about winning. I don't care about applause. I do not care if we ever figure this shit out in the end, because I don't care about the end. When the end comes, it will mean only that things have ended. I don't want the end to come, ever. I want to take practice swings and field grounders and run full-tilt at a wall that I know is fifteen feet in front of me and absolutely, under no circumstances, give myself enough room to stop. I want to smash into the wall and come up with the ball in my glove, hat on the ground, in the middle of a game I know I can't win, but that I am going to give my best to anyway. I want to not hold my starting pitcher to three innings in the hope that three games from now it will make a difference. I don't want to do any of that. I want to celebrate the things that are going on now, right now, this minute. I was really happy when we were wandering around looking for TVs. I really, really enjoyed that midnight milkshake trip. I loved that moment where we were trying to get around the bus and the horse truck was there, that was a very good moment. Every single moment that I can appreciate, I want to know it at the time and not put it in a box labeled Something Bigger, Something More. This is, of course, how you end up being the losingest team in baseball, but it is also how you end up, years later, when the end does come, not caring so much that the end has come because it was never about the end, it was only about the time. At the time. With the time we have. And the hell of it for me has always been that I am looking at this alone, even with someone else I am having this experience by myself, because for whoever it has ever been, it is always about something else, the bigger, the more. I think I have come to a point where that doesn't matter to me. Currently, he does not care about these things, but I do. He does not catalogue our efforts, only our wins. He does not look back on the at-bats, only at the season and that, right there, is where we lose each other. But when the end does come, I will end up ahead anyway, because I will have had a thousand victories, and he will have one loss. In an age where everything is falling apart, it is incomprehensible to me that we would not hold on to the things that are given to us, and appreciate them for the treasures they are. People, and feelings, and experiences and thoughts and realizations that can't come from anywhere else, they are a gift. And even when I'm losing in the freezing rain, high fucking five.

meet me on the equinox

meet me halfway


I have never been cave diving. I've watched videos and movies and read books and stories, and once spoke with a girl who stated that she can squeeze through anything her cheekbones can get through. That is a horrifying thought to me. The movies are stunning, and the idea is fascinating. I would never do it in my life, and sometimes just the thought of it is enough to stop me breathing for a moment.

When cave divers are...cave diving, there is a particular rule of engagement that they do not break under any circumstances. When they have used one third of the oxygen in their tank, they have to turn around. No matter where they are or what they're looking at, no matter that you have been following that previosuly-believed-to-be-extinct aquatic wonder for two miles, no matter that you are thirty feet from the entrance to a space that no human being has seen in the history of the Universe, you have to go back when you have used one third of your oxygen. Not one half. This is because regardless of what you encountered on the way there, you have no idea what's waiting for you on the way back.

You have no idea. There is no possible way for you to know that the path you cleared for yourself in order to reach the point you're at will still be available to you when you abandon your forward progress. The tunnels that were clear of obstacles when you set out on your journey may be solid walls of rock when you encounter them on your return. That wall of plant life that you gasped over on your way down may be a a clutching, grasping bastion with your death written in its pretty, pretty pages. You just can't possibly know what the road out is going to look like, so in order to increase your odds of surviving it you must assume that you will expend twice as much of your reserves retreating as you did advancing. You need to know that you will survive the way out, even if it means you leave that thing you want before you're ready by half.

I know that I'm not ready to give up chasing the thing that I want. I'm not. I don't think it's necessary, and I don't think it's time. I would swim toward that thing until I died, though, because self-preservation has never been my strong suit. Historically. If I have any air left I will spend it in the pursuit of this thing, and then I'll die. Which is why I am not, this time, and high five to all of us that are making that decision. You have to stop while you can. You have to. Your reserves have reached that mark, and you still have to get back to where you can breathe on your own. You don't know what it's going to be like. You don't know what's waiting for you, ahead of you in the unfamiliar landscape that you just, just came through. Because it's going to be different on the way out than it was on the way in. The things you loved will eat your brain. The songs you adored will steal your heart. The places you made your own will be your enemies and you don't know how long that's going to last, how long it will take until you can safely see your way out. Because even seeing your way out is not enough. You have to make it, you have to be sure, and you have to have sufficient reserves stored before you can go back looking for that fish, for that room, for that thing you wanted so badly that almost killed you. You have to wait.