Dr. Scarfinger or: How I Learned to Stop Fighting and Tolerate 2014

I have a habit of hurting myself in the same places.

I'm not even being metaphorical. I mean like, my foot. I've broken my right foot twice. And now I've fucked up my stupid right pinkie finger. Again.

The first time was at Gwendy Pagan's ninth birthday party. I always felt out of place at birthday parties when I was a kid. I was uneasy around children so fully inhabiting their own childishness. It was a skill I didn't acquire until my twenties.

Gwendy's family lived in graduate student housing on the UMass campus, buildings that have long since been torn down, buildings my memory continues to superimpose on the landscape. There are these holograms of our past, things we never get used to not seeing.

There was a row of single-story garages across from the apartments, built into the hill somewhat, enough to entice children to climb onto their corrugated-metal roofs, if those children were so inclined. I, of course, was not, but I was equally unwilling to be the only able-bodied fourth grader left on solid ground. I was the last to climb up, however, and the only one to slice her pinkie finger open on the edge of the roof. So I was also the first one off the roof, the first one back into the house, the only one in the bathroom with Gwendy while she poured hydrogen peroxide over my finger, her giggling as I despaired over the bubbles, both of us shushing the other while we wiped my blood off the tile before her mother noticed.

It left a tiny scar. It's been more than twenty years, I haven't seen Gwendy in at least fifteen, and you can barely see the scar unless you're looking for it. I look for it sometimes. It's nice to have a physical link to a memory. Of course, I have a new one now. Thanks to Wednesday night.

Hasn't 2014 been an absolute bear so far? I figured we were due some reprieve after the strangeness that was 2013, but no. I wasn't even that scared of February this year, I went into with my head high, and then...it was like a month of bombs going off around me. I got through fine, but Jesus, the casualties.

So Wednesday. It was late and I hadn't eaten, hadn't made Thursday's lunch. Sometimes it gets past 10pm and I abandon responsibility, but Wednesday, I said: 'No. Handle your business.' Business step one? Dishes. There weren't a lot, but I washed a bowl and a spoon, some forks and a mug, and then my favorite wine glass, a stemless number from a wine tour this summer.

You know, now that I think of it, I do remember knocking it over in the sink that morning, hearing it bang loudly into a mug. But it didn't look broken, and I was in a hurry, so I forgot. It was the last thing I needed to wash.

You never remember the immediacies. One minute I was humming some Beyonce, hands gloved with soap suds, the next minute the sink was full of blood. Why the hell do your fingers bleed so much?

I have lovely friends, to whom I probably undersold the nature of the injury by neglecting to mention that I could see my tendons and shit, and who advised me to splint and wrap it. Since my first aid supplies consist of a dusty package of wisdom-tooth-removal gauze and a miniature tube of off-brand Neosporin with the cap missing, I was pretty impressed with the Q-tip and Scotch tape bandage I jerry-rigged together. And I slept fine. But when I woke up on Thursday morning, I a) was dismayed it was not Friday, b) spent 15 minutes cutting the tape-gauze-swab tenting off my finger, and c) could still see my fucking tendons. So I went to the hospital.

I don't like hospitals. I assume no one like, really does, but they honestly upset me. The nakedness of the experience is too much. People come in on stretchers and I just shut down. I feel complex emotions, and this deep, overwhelming, simultaneous desire to smother them all. But I didn't have too many choices. I considered just powering through with butterfly bandages and gauze, daydreamed about the resulting mean-ass scar I'd tell people was the result of a particularly gnarly bar fight - but nothing scares the vain of heart* more than the possibility of gangrene. I can walk to Georgetown Hospital from my house in eight minutes. Also, I might have mentioned - tendons. Visible tendons.

Whenever I go to an emergency room, I am irritatingly polite, because it's never been a real emergency. I always look for something more appropriate, like a 'Moderately Uncomfortable Triage Lounge' because hi, my finger is just fucked up. It's not like I'm missing my finger. So I apologize my way through all the intake stuff, which is awkward. Especially considering everyone who looked at my finger was like 'Oh..hhh' in that way where people are trying to be nonchalant, but are really thinking 'Bitch, those are your tendons."

Also, it's a teaching hospital - which I HELLA SUPPORT - but I'll admit it's not entirely heartening when your student doctor literally doesn't know where the band-aids are. It was her first day in that particular ER, which, I mean, that happens! And she was mostly super competent and lovely, but there were still moments when I was like 'okay, can that supervising lady doctor take over because I am not convinced you've ever seen thread before.' And that, people, is a lesson in the power of confidence. Or at least projected confidence. Listen, I have NO IDEA how to heal people. All my faith is in you. So if you're projecting "Oh, I got this', I'll assume you've got that. Even if you're like, randomly sewing my other fingers together, I'll likely rationalize 'they are probably on some holistic wellness tip'. You can do anything. Just please don't act nervous. Because then I get nervous. And then I have an anxiety attack. Because of course I do.

I didn't realize what was happening at first. I assumed it was a reaction to the numbing medication, despite the fact that I've never had a reaction to medication in my entire life**, despite the fact I recognized these feelings: the nauseau, the sudden cold sweating, the impending swoon. "Is it normal if I feel like I have to throw up?" I asked, trying to ignore the big green globby gumdrops dancing across my field of vision, the gold fireworks, the descending panic. "I don't know," she said. Not the answer I was looking for. "Is it okay if I run to the bathroom for a minute?" I asked, because that seemed way politer than ralphing in the trash can behind her. "I don't know. Let me check." Also, not the answer I sought, but I heard her supervisor say 'of course' from the other side of the curtain and I took off down the hall. Of course, this was mid wound-irrigation, so I took off trailing bloody water down my arm and onto the floor, every single event another weepy, diluted version of an emergency.

I was fine, of course. I didn't even throw up, just coughed dramatically and took some deep breaths behind a locked door. Sometimes that's all you need. When I got back, they gave me water in a plastic cup marked with measurements, and the supervising doctor patted my arm and offered consolance so sweet and completely rational that I was actually offended for a minute. I'm not afraid of pain, I'm not afraid of needles, nothing scares me less than my own blood, I'm the toughest. Then the student doctor got to work tentatively shoving a curved instrument through my finger and it all happened again. This time I just sweat in silence and fended off the swoon, and fifteen minutes later I had Frankenstein tracks curling towards my palm, compliments on my nail polish, and permission to leave. Try to leave, anyway.

I could not get out of the fucking hospital. None of the exits took me to a reasonable point of departure. I wanted a main entry, some circular drive where there might be cabs. I kept finding myself in employee parking lots. Finally, I was like 'fuck it' and decided to make my way to the road through the parking lot. It looked like those edges met. Of course, they did not. The parking lot was about four feet below grade, getting up would require a hoist and a scrape, actions I don't relish, even without a busted hand. But it snowed on Monday, and it's been cold, so like a frozen ladder from heaven - there was a snowbank, exactly the height of the sidewalk. Perfection.

I'm from New England, so I've essentially been climbing snowbanks since I could wear a snowsuit. Even if you hate snow, climbing banks of the stuff is just fun as hell. You'd think, then, that I'd remember the particular physics of snowbanks in March, when the temperature is above freezing. Their tendency to give suddenly underneath you, like when, say, you've reached the top and are shifting your weight to your left leg so as to hop onto the sidewalk. In those circumstances, the snow beneath your left leg tends to...disappear. Your leg along with it, plunging all the way to the ground. Just your left leg, though. Your right foot will still be firmly planted on top of the snowbank, leaving your right knee somewhere around your ear. This will of course happen in full view of everyone on the street and the sidewalk, including the small horde of people waiting to cross the intersection. In that moment, you may make a few choked sobbing sounds before you begin to laugh uncontrollably, wriggle yourself out of the hole in the snow, belly-crawl onto the sidewalk, and hide behind a bush to finish laughing and wipe the snow off your tights. That's what I did, anyway.

And it was then, half-concealed behind some shrubbery, pretending two dozen people hadn't just watched me perform impromptu frozen circus yoga, that I gave up. Okay, 2014, I get it, you've proved your point. You're tougher than me, and there's nothing I can do about it. Big deal. 2015 will be here before you know it, and I'll still be here, new battle lines and all***.

So here it is, my newest scar, down the street from the Pagan birthday slice, and right around the corner from the dish-washing wound I incurred this summer in Maine. Our last morning, I cut the side of the same stupid pinkie with a knife hidden deep in the oatmeal colored sink suds, literally an hour before we left. We drove to Kyle's parents' house and I taped it back together with some incredibly effective Star Wars band-aids I found in the medicine cabinet. That one didn't scar.

Not everything does, I suppose.



*Or Deadwood super fans, is gangrene even a thing anymore?
** My mom later confirmed it was probably a reaction to the medication.
***Also, maybe I am just fucking terrible at climbing on stuff.

A Post Apocalyptic Year In Review

"That's all right. I like to have my heart broken." - Kurt Vonnegut

***

"Getting my heart broken was one of the best things that ever happened to me."

I said that to a friend last night. We were standing in the kitchen, talking about boys*. Technically, I was crouching in front of the fridge, trying to find a spot to shove the broccoli, so she didn't see my face. I'd had the thought before, but I'd never said it out loud. And I'm glad it was a weirdly semi-private moment of revelation, just me staring down some hummus and a giant rogue beet, because it almost bowled me over, how true it was. I didn't say it to comfort, or provide perspective. I said it because it was goddamn true. I don't think I could have made it through the last twelve months otherwise.

It's a storm at first, of course, and you're just one tiny person alone on the open ocean, in a terribly leaky raft. In the dark. Shit looks pretty dire. It's like all the scary parts of 'The Odyssey', but with cheaper wine. It's fine, though. You'll get through it. Because you can get through anything, you know. And once the sky clears, and the churning stops, there's a gratitude: I didn't know I could do that. A clarity: you can see again. It looks different, everything's been rearranged, this new landscape is totally unfamiliar, but all these new things: caves and craters, majestic gnarly trees along the shoreline, sea boulders baked in the sun - they've been there all along. All this upheaval has simply allowed them to reveal themselves. Get acquainted. Explore it all. You'll only get better for it.
Here's what I found:

Tardy Hardy: Sometime in April, while scrambling to make an early morning appointment in Brooklyn, I realized my perpetual lateness (understand that I am referring to not only PERPETUAL tardiness, but also, in many cases, extremely exaggerated tardiness. Sometimes I show up literally hours late for shit, and no one is surprised) was a primarily a twisted attempt at keeping a stranglehold on youth. Via staggering immaturity. That it was sort of complete bullshit to be all 'Oh, I just don't understand how clocks work' (WHAT? I know! I SERIOUSLY SAY SHIT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME) while actually never having missed a flight in my life**. Including morning flights. And those early morning appointments in Brooklyn. Because I apparently do understand levels of consequences, and if I can navigate those, I can probably figure out rudimentary time management, right? All this dallying to way-beyond-the-last-minute, followed by tizzies and scrambling was just ME creating unnecessary hoops to jump through, with the sole purpose of making myself crazy, because youthful people are harried and crazy, and old people are calm and boring. Then I was like 'LOOK AT THAT CRAZY TRAIN OF ILLOGIC, YOU PROBABLY DON'T HAVE TO PUT MUCH EXTRA EFFORT INTO KEEPING THINGS NUTTY AROUND HERE, ALSO, WHY ARE YOU YELLING, THERE IS NO REASON TO YELL. CALM DOWN.'

Then I remembered that I like being really calm and I sort of hate young people. That a hundred times in the last six months I've said "You could not pay me to relive my twenties" and meant it all the way down to my core***. That my constant commitment to unreliability is not proving anything to anyone. That it's actually pretty selfish. Not that I've actually done anything about this, but it was a new perspective to consider: I can hang on to my immaturity as long as I'd like****. It will leave my youth in the dust. And I get to be completely calm about it.

Puff Puff Pass: Related, I quit smoking. Considering I will basically hold you down and slather you in sunscreen if you so much as think about exposing your bare face to a UV ray, it started feeling hypocritical to be so actively contributing to my own dermal wrinkling*. It's the same misguided immaturity bullshit. Again, my rampant disrespect for my own little lung sacs is not proving anything to anyone. No one cares. Why does this need to be part of my identity? Because when I got down to it, that was the whole attachment: 'This is something I do'. That's an ivy-and-vines way of thinking: such a nice contrast at first, a highlight to the whole, some lovely organic decoration that will, if left unchecked, eventually obscure everything underneath. That will, eventually, tear apart the very thing it's anchored to. Cut it off, man. There's nothing to be scared of. You're still you under there. So, yeah. I quit smoking. Cigarettes**.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N, In the Summertime: That was my mother's personal jingle for summer vacations when I was a kid. She'd start singing it before we even pulled out of the driveway, before we'd even packed up the car. She was so excited. My mother is not exactly the emotionally effusive sort, so it just kind of radiated out of her, this sincere joy. On the highway, my brother and I would cast semi-withering glances at each other across the backseat: Calm down, lady. We are not even close to there yet.

It wasn't until this year, this grindy year of work travel, emotional mountain climbing, coupled with the steadily amplifying atmospheric DC grime, and the undeniable reality that I am getting fucking OLD and all this shit tires me out in ways no one adequately prepares you for... Of course we did not understand my mother's elation back then, I'm pretty sure I only have the most basic comprehension of it now, considering she was like, a full-time nurse with two full-time children and car payments and shit, and I take pictures of pretty houses, and am responsible for solely my astonishingly well-behaved dog. I have a SmarTrip card. That like, never has money on it. And yet - the weeks leading up to vacation were like the first three weeks of December when you still believe in Santa. I might be old now, but I can still recognize that sort of anticipation, the kind that oozes all through you, drips over your heart like honey.

And goddamn if it wasn't one of the best vacations I've ever had. I have a habit of tempering my expectations, lest I be disappointed by the end result, but I didn't here, and I'm glad - because I wasn't. Fuck man, Maine. That whole 'Vacationland' motto is NOT hyperbole. I've been to Maine before, I've loved Maine before, but not like this. This was like a balm. In the kayak, collecting mussels off the rocks, water so blue it was black in places, cold like only ancient things can be, I told Kyle: "Whatever is wrong with me, this makes better." It is a simple thing to say, a tremendous thing to realize. And it's inside me now, I can go back any time I want.

Later that week, after midnight, sitting around a table with two of my favorite people in the world, I laughed so hard I cried (for a variety of reasons), so hard I had to get up and leave the table. I walked the five steps to the bathroom, slid my spine down along the door frame until I was laughing and crying on the linoleum, sitting and rocking and laughing and crying and eventually just straight up crying, these pure love tears, straight from this well of joy I can't always get to on my own. I wish I'd thought to taste them at the time - I know it's impossible, but part of me believes they wouldn't even have been salty. Then I pulled myself together and rejoined the boys at the table. We went outside and sat on the dock and watched for fireworks - there were fireworks almost every night that week, like exclamation points, like confetti, like even the sky was as happy as we were and had to let us know. We were quiet, and we sat in a row, and looked up at the stars until we almost fell asleep.

So I get it, Momma. I get the song now.

Love you guys.



*'Standing in Kitchens, Talking About Boys' is an alternate working subtitle for 'The Katie Neuner Story'.
** ...because I got there too late. I've never missed a flight because I got there too late. I have missed two flights due to distractions in the airport bar. Statistically, this is sort of amazing.
***Unless we're talking about a LOT of money, and only my late twenties. What? I've got loans, bitches.
****Boom Pow Surprise! That probably wasn't the conclusion you were hoping for. Whatever, it's honest. 

* Remember that early 90s PSA where these girls get their friend to quit by appealing to her vanity and crumpling up a photo of her face? That works, PSA people! It just takes like, 16 years.
**The caveat to this being: if I lose any of this hard-earned smoky vocal seasoning, I will suck down packs of Parliaments until it returns. I mean, duh, it was sort of the whole point. That, and being able to duck out of any social interaction whenever I got bored.

Pay My Automo' Bills?

I talk with my friends about lots of things: love, family, books, other friends, music, food, dumb shit you've done, dive bars, vacations, and of course, money. Inevitably, someone says something like "I might have to dip into my savings," and I'm like "What the hell is that seven dollars going to save you from?" And then it's like, 'Oh, man, I am super fucking poor.'

I mean, no, of course I'm not actually poor, I realize what a great situation I do, in all reality, have, with my job and roof and groceries and health insurance. I also realize I got myself here all on my own: it's my swirly little signature on all those student loan papers, and it was 100% my own decision to walk away from any sort of stable, lucrative career path. So it's more like...luxury poor. Something I should feel bad complaining about.

I've never been good with money. I am an alarmingly impulsive person, which means that everything makes sense in the moment. I figured those two conditions would reverse themselves with time, but that does not appear to be the case. I've also always been of the opinion that faced with a choice between having fun, and not having fun, you should probably go ahead and see what's behind Door Number Fun, because we're not here for that long, man, and you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. You could! People get hit by buses every day. 

A few years ago, I was walking down Newbury Street, talking to my dad on the phone. It was January, and I'd just gotten out of work. It was dark, but warmer than I expected, and the lights along the sidewalks were on, and twinkling, and sometimes Boston at night in the winter is just exactly the way a city is supposed to look. I was on my way to see the Roots (and  ?uestlove DJ set!!!), and everything was perfectly right with my world, if just for that moment. And my dad said:.  "You know, it's something I've always admired about you. No matter what's happening in your life, you always manage to have a good time." Which seemed like an odd thing to say, but I get the juxtaposition now: I couldn't have afforded a meal in of any of those Back Bay restaurants that Tuesday night, because I'd spent all my money on concert tickets and a new dress. And I wasn't concerned in the slightest.

Because really, what should I have done that evening? Sat home and ate soup and watched television until a reasonable bedtime? I will always remember that show, that night, the music, my friends, and yes, the dress I wore. I have scores and scores of these memories: nights when I did not do the responsible thing, and in a thousand tiny ways that have all added up: I am so much better for it.

There's all kinds of odd happiness on this track: I don't get paid much, but my job is relatively easy and rather pleasant and I get to walk around and look at old buildings, which is one of my forms of therapy. I get to write all the time, and no one really cares how late I am in the mornings (a source of not-insignificant strife at my last job). My apartment is hilariously broke-down in a lot of ways, but there's a ton of space and a porch and Baylor likes it, and though I never would have guessed it, I've grown to love my neighborhood a little.

That's not to say there aren't days - LOTS of days - where I'm like 'this paycheck-to-paycheck nonsense needs to STOP, you need to get your shit together and get an adult-paying job and an apartment where the doorknobs aren't constantly falling off and maybe a car. At least a bed frame!' So then I look for jobs, and there either aren't any, or aren't any that pay substantially more. Or, like today, I find one that does pay really well, and I'm probably super qualified, but it's in Alexandria. I GoogledMapped that shit, and the trip takes over an hour and involves a bus AND a train. The tiny, rational adult part of me is like 'Come on, Katie, you could do --' then the part of me that inhabits my actual reality is like 'OH HELL THE FUCK NO' and I close the browser window in disgust.

Then I think 'maybe I should marry a rich old dude, or something, just to have someone take care of me'. And both the rational-adult and actual-reality parts of me take a pause to fully consider this, because I'm lazy and that sounds sort of cool. And maybe it would make my dad worry less. Then actual-reality points out that I'd be really unhappy, dependent on someone else like that. Also, that's gross. Rational-adult part chimes in 'plus, you're like, 31 now, so the dude would probably have to be REALLY OLD.' Double gross.

So I guess...luxury poor it is, for right now. Have as much fun as you can, make the best memories, and appreciate the freedoms you do have, how lucky you actually, truly are. Oh, and look both ways when you cross the street. Those city buses do not play.

ps: That said, anyone who knows a really awesome, non-gross rich old dude....we can talk, is all I'm saying.

On Commitment, Or: Why Thresholds are Kind of My Jam

Today was a bit of a ride. My birthday dresses were delivered by UPS in theory, but not in practice. Missing packages! I worked myself up into a bit of a tizzy. By the time I acknowledged there was nothing I could do right then, I was later than usual, and I had to take a cab. Wisconsin was a dead zone, and it started to rain, the kind that doesn't quite validate your umbrella. I was grouchy all over. But then I had this amazing cab driver - he knew all this history about the Circles in DC. He told me Dupont has eleven traffic lights. I opened the window a smidge and let the water sprinkle in. It was cooling things down. Later that afternoon I lost my wallet, but someone called me to give it back before I even noticed it was gone. I had to stay late at work, but a friend texted to tell me they'd taken Baylor on a walk, and dropped a present off at my house. And even that was bittersweet - that friend is moving away this weekend. 

Last night, he had a goodbye happy hour in Georgetown. I came from work, recovering-from-frazzled - I was far less sweaty-looking than I'd feared. We talked about his move, and then he asked me "So how much longer are you staying here?" It was a smirk, but a fair one. I've been talking about leaving since I got here. 

I left Boston because I panicked. That's literally all there is to it. My friends lives were changing in all these profound, mature ways, and I suddenly felt light years from everyone, pitched overboard in outerspace, watching their rocketship tail lights speed away. I'd wave, floating, in the dark. 

DC was close enough, people I loved lived there. I ran right to the edge and jumped: It was time to go, and now. Boston was All Wrong. Once you find the first reason to leave, a hundred others line up right behind it. 

How long after I got here before I decided it was time to find another place? This one wasn't perfect enough, either? Two months? Four? This happens to me a lot. 

I've always been more comfortable with one foot out the door.  I am never in a job, a class, a house, a city, a party before I start looking for the next new to jump into. I love knowing that I'm going somewhere, that whatever's next, I can't even imagine yet. I like being in control of my own surprises. 

That's the romantic take on it, anyway. There's other ways to analyze the situation: I cannot handle commitment. In the face of so many choices (what we might call 'life') I freeze. I am afraid of making the wrong decision. I'm afraid of making the right decision, and have it not feel like enough. In an earthquake, they tell you to stand in a doorway. Sometimes I feel like I've lived my life under a doorframe, I have never trusted the earth not to open up and swallow me whole. 

Except...life just happens to you anyway. The threshold is not a safety net, that framing will not protect you. And that's a good thing.

I know that those last few months were filled with fear, and dread, and anxiety. Burning everything to the ground and starting from ash is not without it's discomforts. But what I really remember are the last weeks in East Somerville, those enchanted nights before spring rolls over for summer, sitting out on the stoop with cheap booze, staying up too late making each other laugh, watching cop car lights flash across Broadway, playing rock-paper-scissors in our socks for no prize at all. 

I remember summer in Quincy, every night on the back porch with the dogs, walking home from someone's house down the middle of an empty street, night bugs humming, feeling more like 16 than I maybe ever had - that sense that the world is giant, but can wrap itself so small around you, that there are a million ways to be protected. 

I was saying goodbye to people I loved more than anything, and I know I cried, and took long walks by myself through places I'd want to remember: Goodbye Beacon Hill, Goodbye Bay Village, Goodbye Fort Point, goodbye to all of these spaces, these buildings that had never failed to calm me down, that had always been there when I needed them. 

I was so sad, but that's not the place I go to first. I go to Maine, the beach at night, us all deciding that the sky looked like velvet shot through with stars. I go to the Common, on Friday evening, a little circle of us spread out on sweaters and suitcoats, buzzed after Sweetwater, watching the sun go down behind the Hancock Building, the sky turning purple, then indigo. 

Was it because I was leaving, because I was already straddling the threshold...did I appreciate it more? These memories come easy, a tide of love I can feel in my chest. Because I've had one foot out the door on DC for so long, will I remember it like that, too? The nights on stoops, up too late with too much wine, talking about boys and playing with lighters. Blackout parties, (legitimate!) happy hours, the sweet strangeness of living in a neighborhood, a place where I stop and talk to people I know on the street, the oddity of living in a place I feel safe walking the dog late at night. 

This is not to justify my fear of commitment. I recognize there is tremendous value in regularity, responsibility, attachment. Maybe this is just to say: there's a silver lining to everything. Even structurally compromised door frames. 

So a Girl Walks Onto a Beach...

That week I spent at my aunt and uncle's place on the beach this spring meant more than I realized at the time. But I guess that's true for everything lately.

I've been staying in Scituate since before I was born. It's where my mother was living when she met my father. It's where I learned I was hopeless at driving a boat. It's where my parents stayed when they were shuttling between PEI and Florida, those few magic years. It's the only place in the world where my brother and I have our heights measured along a wall, inside the closet door of one of the upstairs bedrooms. It's the last place I saw my aunt Clare. 

But this spring was the first time I'd ever stayed there alone. I have a tricky relationship with staying alone as is, even more so in a place infused with family, memories from every year of my life flooding around every corner. Not that I felt completely 'alone'...although 'haunted' is a bad word for what it was. More like someone else was there when I was not, checking in to make sure things were going alright, sitting up, keeping watch downstairs at night when I slept. Not in a creepy way. In a 'smoking cigarettes at the dining room table and contemplating the night' kind of way. I don't know. Irish voodoo. I also don't know why my ghosts smoke cigarettes, or why I find this comforting. Probably more voodoo. 

I didn't plan to be there by myself much. The week before my stay, my mother remembered that there would be no cable, no internet. That part of town would be half-empty, all those dark shuttered houses along the water. And me all by myself. I made contingency plans for sleepovers in Quincy, Boston, Groton; felt lucky to be welcome so many places. 

Though when I got there, the strangest thing happened: I liked it. I didn't want to be gone. I wanted to be there with the memories and the smells and the sounds. I wanted to be an adult in this childhood place, to have to remember to bring keys for doors that had never been locked to me, to come home in the dark to a place that has been lit for me for so long, that first night, I didn't even know where to find the switches. 

I thought I would be scared. I wasn't scared. 

The moon was moving towards full that week, and it rained most days. At night, I would zip myself into a pile of hoodies and walk Bay along the beach, me with my blue plastic Solo cup of boxed wine, feeling like the coolest mom in the world - 'Welcome to the end of the Earth and all its smells! You may have it all to yourself, puppydog'. The moon lit up the water and I could watch Bay run all the way to where the sand meets the rocks, becomes impassable, without losing sight of him. He'd wait for me to meet him out there, then we'd turn and walk back along the packed sand, him trotting a few paces ahead of me, stopping occasionally to root through small piles of rubbery seaweed with his nose. 

On one of our last mornings, the sun finally came out, but it was windy and the beach was still empty. I was wearing a heavy jacket I didn't need, but my leggings were too thin. I was convincing my body to call it a draw on this one, stop being so cold, when I was distracted by something lying in the sand a few feet ahead. (Distracted by Shiny Things, the Katie Neuner Story) It was a rock. Just a rock, sure, somewhat tear-shaped, small enough to fit inside my hand. But it was also a beautiful rock, the most beautiful rock: opaque, purely white, what magic clouds look like when you ride on them, I'm sure. It was, without a doubt, the specialest rock on that beach. It made me remember being a little girl, caring so much about seashells. So I picked it up, and put in my pocket. For good luck. I figured it had to be good luck. 

This was all a few months ago, but I've kept the rock with me, even transferring it from purse to purse, just to have it nearby. Good luck, you know. Every so often I want to show it to someone, but as soon as I'm halfway into it, I realize I'm a crazy lady pulling fucking rocks out of my purse and talking at people about them, and that's not a gun I need to jump. Also, it just never seemed as...special, as it did the moment I picked it up. I swear, when I saw it on that beach - it was like a magnet. 

I came across the rock again this morning, digging through my purse in search of...who knows, I always forget what I'm looking for as soon as I start. But there it was, the rock, and I took it out and turned it over in my hands. It's dingy, now, from being buried in the traumatic chaos of my purse for four months, covered in ink and pencil, gummy with spilled lip gloss, tiny flecks of tobacco rubbed into its sides. And I thought: I probably need to bring this rock back to the beach. 

It's not that this rock has lost its magic. It is not less special than that morning in April when I found it. It just wasn't supposed to leave. It was not intended to live in a dark sac of cloth, banged up against Altoid tins, rolling around and scratching up the ipod. A rock is not designed to conform to your life. It's a fucking rock. And it belongs somewhere. I guess it's our job to figure out how to live amongst the rocks, in between those places where they belong. 

There are lessons in here I haven't quite learned yet. 

On Heartbreak

I've been sitting on this one for a long time. I was actually mostly out of the woods by the time I wrote it - these emotions are so last season - but I didn't have the guts to post it, and then it felt like it had been too long...but the Olympics ended yesterday? And I am like, legitimately sad about it. Sad enough that it reminded me of this. I know - I care way too much about the Olympics. Anyway - people much smarter than me have said that to write well you have to write bravely. Consider this splitting the difference. (Note, DAD: this was a long time ago! I'm totally okay now! Promise! I just left it in the present tense for effect.)
....

For most of my life, I didn't really believe in heartbreak. People get upset when things are over, sure, but let's not blow it out of proportion with hyperbole and vaguely Victorian medicalesque nonsense. You're sad. Deal with it. (I'm sure most of you see where this is going.)

I'll admit now, I did have the tiniest feeling, deep down, that an experience that seemingly universal probably had some foundation in truth. It must have happened to someone, sometime, somewhere. I just thought it had to be huge. You cheated on me with your secretary after I had all your babies! I gave you my bone marrow! And my youth! You know. Like 'Waiting to Exhale'. Or that really sad Dixie Chicks song from their first album. Oh, don't pretend like you don't know the one I'm talking about.

I didn't realize how small it could be: I am not where you are. I love you, but. A dozen tiny truths. I guess it only takes one kind of heartbreak to recognize all the others.

I'm not so great with feelings. I would prefer we not talk about my own. Yours? Are healthy and valid and we can discuss them all day and all night. I want to hear the deepest darkest stuff that you've never told anyone. I want to tell you how beautiful and wonderful and human and okay it all is. Because it is. But me? No, really. You don't want to hear about any of that.

But here I am, with all these feelings, and I don't know where to put any of them. This would probably be better suited to a journal, but I try to be honest here; I might as well tell you what I've learned.

What I've learned: There are good things and bad things about heartbreak.

The Bad Things:

Crying. There is so much crying! Even in the morning, when everything should be fine! The day is fresh, bitches! But I'm randomly crying too hard to make eyeliner work and I NEED TO BRIGHTEN THESE WHITES UP, GODDAMNIT. Or everyone will think that I'm stoned. Which... I'm so sad, okay! No judging.

Insecurity. If I were better, everything else would be, too. Negative self-thought takes on a heightened, vicious intensity that I wish I didn't remember. Those, fun, constant reminders that I will never be pretty, skinny, funny, smart, clever, kind, whatever, whatever, whatever enough, and this is just one more example. Dear kk, you will never be enough, so sorry. Go ahead and cry some more.

Drinking. I was drinking a lot, kids. I like my grapes as it is, right, but this is a lot. As someone with an acute family history of alcoholism, I try to pay attention to the amount I drink, and when I drink, and where I drink, and, most importantly, why I drink. The why is pretty clear here. The good news is that I'm mostly drinking wine, at home, after work. One of the very few times I've appreciated my 9-to-5: I have to hold it together. If I were already living the bohemian writer's life of my dreams, I'd be spending all day in my gothic-monstrous bed, leaving only to replace the box of wine when the bladder's drained, or to stew myself in tears (and more wine) in my giant clawfoot bathtub, or to go outside and throw the fruit of my lemon tree against the wall. Fuck lemonade.

Stress and It's Hormonal By-Products. Look at this stress! Fantasy-Me is down in my garden throwing fucking lemons against a wall! I love lemons, what am I doing! Combine that with a stress-atrophied-appetite (a week of watermelon salad for dinner?), and you get...a period clocking in well over a week late. Oh yeah, THAT was fun.

Anger. I'm angry. And I hate it so much. I'm sure it's not unique to me, and I'm willing to bet it's a pretty common female thing: this deep, soul-core level of discomfort with being angry.  I would turn anger anywhere but out. Self-destruction is eminently appealing. It's actually my default mechanism.Which, brings me to:

The Good Things:

I Am So Much Better Than I Used To Be. I'm not quite wired correctly, and that default set to 'self-destruct' is the trickiest of my electrical misfirings. It goes a little something like this: get handed a disappointment, swallow every feeling, emotion, all the real things, pack those down. Now, go seek validation from people who don't care about you while poisoning yourself as quickly and thoroughly as possible. In the face of every decision, make the one that will, in the end, hurt you the most. Frame it like you're having fun, like you're happy, like this is what you want, because you're a 'free spirit*' who lives on their own terms! Ignore that everyone who knows more than three facts about you can see through that bullshit entirely. In fact, ignore those people, those ones who know you and actually give a shit about you. They're not going to be any help with this.

That didn't happen this time. This time...I talked about it. This time I stayed home and thought about it, about me, about life, about how so often the things we want, immediately, now, are not the things we most need, are not things we'd know how to handle if they were handed to us. This time I didn't run for strangers to tell me things I wanted to hear, I didn't black out to forget the things I didn't. And that may seem like old hat for those of you who've figured out how to process your emotions without wanting to tear your own skin off, but it's huge for me. So how'd I get here? I have no idea, really. But I try to remember the following:

Long Walks and Deep Breaths. I've mentioned this favorite trinket from Pops's Cabinet of Curiosities and Coping Methods. There is nothing you do not feel - if not better, at least more settled - about after a long walk. I rely on this to the point where I don't understand how anyone's able to think if they don't walk around, by themselves, for at least an hour a day. Seriously, get a dog, and just do this. (I suppose you don't need the dog, but it helps, trust me.)

Love...Kinda Fixes Everything. So, so fucking tragically cheesy, but it's true. I don't mean 'Romantic Love' because that noise is bullshit, clearly, but as Virginia Woolf said (oh yeah, I am going to quote V.Woolf in an essay with 'heartbreak' in the title. Vaginal checkmate!) "Love has a thousand shapes." So try them all on. Push aside the anger and the stress and the sad, and you are - I promise you - still capable of tremendous, limitless love. Apply that shit to everything like a balm. Love what you're going through, love what you're learning, love all the people who come into your life, and love them no less when they go away. And don't forget yourself. Even if you don't want to, because maybe part of you even likes wallowing in the shit, because you deserve that! It's your RIGHT to feel like a bag of run-over kiwi fruit: just the happiest, sunniest little treat until BAM, and it's pathetic, squishy guts are splattered all over the road. But if you just love everything instead, you realize...

It's All Going To Be Okay. Also! Cheese City up in here! This one should be printed on the bottom of a poster of a kitten hanging from a tree. Oh, that's 'Hang In There'. Either way, under the tree, the part of the poster you can't always see, is a field of wild flowers where the kitty can drop down and take a nap. Bonus points if they're poppies and the kitten gets a quick opium high for their troubles. That's what I mean, though! Like 'Ahh, fuck I'm falling out of this tree!!!! SHIT. HANG ON. FREAK OUT. Or, wait. Or -- how about I not dislocate my shoulder and just drop down here take a quick snooze in this expanse of brightly colored narcotic flower plants? Awesome.' So - just let go. 

It's all going to be okay, I promise. Somewhere there's a sunny field of sleeping kittens just waiting to give you cool drugs. Give them all hugs for me.

Loves, 
kk

And ps, go eat something. I promise a vague terror about suspected stowaways in your uterus is NOT going to make this shit better.


*I hate - hate hate hate - being called a 'free spirit'. It's dismissive. It's infantilizing. I know, nice person who is trying to give me a compliment, sort-of, that you don't mean insult here, but please, think of the tone of voice you use, what you're trying to convey when you refer to someone as a 'free-spirit' in conversation. Just because I don't care about owning a house or a car and I want to talk about your emotional health does not mean I'm a woodland sprite who lives in a magical forest in a quirked-out glitter dimension. I am a relatively wealth-poor person who lives in a city and thinks we're all just a little too divorced from our actual Selves. Some people probably don't mind at all. Just - avoid it, with me. Please. Thank you. 

Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, my parents, leaving for the hospital, asked me if I wanted 'an Andrew, or a Jessica'. I responded 'neither', and assumed the matter was settled. The next morning, when Nana informed me I had a new brother, I believe I nodded and asked what was for breakfast.

Things I remember about our first meeting: the room was yellow, there was the tiniest tube of toothpaste I'd ever seen by the sink, and the chocolate Tootsie Roll Pop I'd left in Papa's car for safekeeping melted by the the time we got back to it.

We shared a room, briefly, right after he was born. I remember waking up one night and shouting "MOM! THE BABY'S CRYING!" at the top of my lungs to indicate my displeasure, which looking back, feels almost adult. I was disappointed - in my parents, for bringing home this squealing piglet, and with the piglet itself. Late night wailing? Really, baby? Aren't we better than this? (To note, my brother was a delightful baby who slept through nights almost immediately, so this was probably one of the few nights I was inconvenienced, but I'm an asshole, so of course I remember.)

In Abington, I asked my mother what she thought he'd sound like when he talked. It seemed like it was taking forever for him to talk. He pulled my hair. He splashed in the tub. Baby brothers were not really doing it for me.

I used to charge him hourly rates for playtime. I shamelessly cheated at every game we played, stealing Monopoly money right out of his baby-banker hands, kidnapping newborn children out of his plastic car (there are no Amber Alerts in the Game of Life), quitting as soon as he threatened victory. When it was his turn to hide for hide-and-go-seek, I would sit in the living room and read, occasionally calling out 'Where are you? You've hidden so well! I might never find you!' Which, little dude shouldn't have bought any of that mess, considering he was ALWAYS hiding in the fucking hall closet.

Pretty typical evil big sister stuff, made more-than-a-smidge meaner by my brother's sheer adorableness - that was one cute little kid, all big eyes and bowl-cut, chubby-limbed, then charmingly gangled, with a heart so full of gold, goodness just radiated out of him. Years later, when anyone would laugh about my childhood cruelty, I'd claim my brother had been born too good for the world - someone had to toughen him up. Which is true, I suppose, but truer is what my father would tell us whenever we'd get into a bad row: "It's just you two. You don't have any other siblings if this goes bad. You only have each other."

And it was true. Overall, we had a pretty idyllic childhood - the kind I'm scared kids don't get anymore - bike rides to the playground, half-assed plans to sell lemonade or rocks to all the people that didn't walk down our street (we had some minor success with the lemonade, but only because we set up in the outfield of a baseball game that was about to start, and the coach bought out our supply just to get us off the field). No cable, no internet, no cell phones, remember all that? We played two-person baseball in the front yard, watched Indiana Jones movies and the same weird Stephen King miniseries over and over, invented Roller-Kickball in the playroom (Don't play this if you value your coccyx.). And it was - just us. Occasionally we wished for another one to hold the other end of the jump rope or shag fly balls, but that was about it. 

When I was 21 and he was 18, we both happened to be in relationships with people at the same college, a four hour drive away. So we drove up together. I'm not sure exactly when, but some time after perfecting a really ill duet sing-along to 'Midnight Train to Georgia', we stopped being merely brother and sister, and started being friends. I doubt I'll ever have a better one.

My brother is the reason I love hip-hop. R&B and I have a relationship that goes back lifetimes, but it was AJ that got me into hip hop. I did indeed rock the Mobb Deep mixtape he made for me until it popped, sometime in the year 2000. He introduced me to Rawkus, to Rhymesayers. When I was on my way to see Atmosphere at the House of Blues in New Orleans, he asked me who was opening. I checked and said 'Brother Ali'? My brother said "Make sure you get there in time to see him." And, sure enough...

My brother's the reason I don't have more black eyes. (Okay, the transition between these two paragraphs makes it sound like Brother Ali punched me in the face, which DID NOT HAPPEN. I just became obsessed with his music. But that made me laugh so hard, I'm keeping it like this.) This might be somewhat shocking, but I can actually (usually) catch things when you throw them at me. I can make difficult catches! This is because my brother is merciless, and has been throwing things at me for years. 

My brother made all the Real Talk live. So I've mentioned before, our dad really encouraged the talking. But Andrew made it practice. As I've also mentioned, one of the things I miss most about living together are the monthly 'let's drink all the wine in the house and rip butts and cry until 3am' nights we used to have. I mean, it was mostly talking and watching music videos, but still, my brother can make me cry faster than almost anyone, and I'd bet it works both ways. We've got all these feelings, son!

My brother is the reason I accelerate into turns. I only do two driving-related things with consistent proficiency: turning, and parallel parking. My brother taught me the turning one. It's also a pretty excellent metaphor for life. If you're doing something, get in there, all the way. It may seem scary and counter-intuitive at first, but it'll make the transition a lot smoother. 

My brother got me to throw my scale out the window. He may not remember this, or realize it, but it was him. And of course, I just threw it out my bedroom window where it languished on the backyard concrete for a year, but I reserve the right to post-adolescent dramatics. It was a big deal, sort of. He would get it. I've never owned another one. 

My brother continues to remind me that people can surprise you in the most delightful ways. Watching someone grow up is the craziest, right? I mentioned this to my parents last year, and my mother noted 'Your brother is older than you now.' And it's true! He is! And it's so fucking cool! Job-and-school-and-fantastic-lady-and-awesome-dog-and-house-and-couch-that-you-bought-from-an-actual-store cool. Seriously, three years ago, this kid was consuming two Steel Reserves and half a bag of Lay's Barbecue potato chips for dinner with some regularity. He accelerated into the turn, and it's been really fun to watch.

My brother is my context. Siblings can have their own special world's - language, phrases, that weird richness of private jokes and  immediate understanding, all the way back to your soupiest childhood memories. It is the most particular kind of context. And I think it's something you only get once. Siblings know it all - where you came from, what it was like, how it made you. If I ever need to remember who I am, I have no further to look than him.

So, Andrew, on your twenty-eighth birthday: thank you for being the best baby brother a girl could've had. I am so happy Moms and Pops refused to exchange you for a new stuffed animal. Thank you for putting up with me, and my crazy, and for letting me see yours. Love you, Beets. 

Love, 

Your Big Sister

ps: I still have your 'Reasonable Doubt' CD. It is in pristine condition. I somehow snapped 'Capital Punishment' in half, though, so I owe you that.

I Love it When...

...you're randomly prowling around on Facebook, and you click on someone that you haven't checked in on in YEARS, and all of a sudden they're married and they have really cute dog, and they're on a hike or farming or something, and their spouse looks really nice and totally like someone that makes sense for them to be into, based on what you knew about them 13 years ago, and you're just like, "Ah, that is so awesome for them! Tiny, wonderful things happen to people all the time, and it's fantastic!"?

As weird as it is, and as awful as it can be, that's one of the things that I really, really like about Facebook.

It took me literally three minutes to decide if I want 'so awesome' to be capitalized (which it originally was) in italics, or bolded, because they all mean different things to me, and I really wanted to make sure it didn't read as sarcastic. And now I'm like 'do I care way to much about punctuation?'

This was the second picture of the Google Image search 'Facebook is okay sometimes.'

I Know Some People Would Rather Keep Gin In the Desk...

Quick, everybody: whatever document you're working on, just take three minutes and draw a monster on it with whatever 'Paint' feature your computer has. Seriously: a monster. Make it up. Just draw it right on there. Finished? Nice. How much better did your day just get?

.

You can use my example above as inspiration.

.

Actually I don't see why it has to be one or the other: Gin In the Desk v. Computer Assisted Doodles. Try both. I predict spectacular results. You might want to save it for Friday afternoon, though.

Great Balls of...Poop.

I was walking my dog through the park last weekend, and, halfway across the field, he stopped and took a poop. That is not strange, I realize.

After he was done, I took a plastic shopping bag out of my purse, did that thing where you make the bag like a glove and pick all the poop nuggets up out of the grass, and then turn the bag inside out so the poop is all contained inside and hope-hope-hope that you didn't get any on your hands, tied the gross little doo-doo package up, and carried it with us until we reached the trash can at the edge of the field. I realize: None of this is strange.

Except for the fact that it was. It was completely bizarre, foreign, alien. It was a tiny moment, the sort that's repeated all over the world a hundred times a second, it was not special. It is not important that I save all my plastic bags now, it is not globally relevant that I put some of those saved bags in my purse to take with me every time I take the dog out. It does not matter that I stopped to pick it up off the grass, the fact that I was the only human around to notice and still picked it all up does not make this a noteworthy event, save for this: It was huge.

It was - on a slightly different level- like the day I remembered, all on my own, that stores always stock the Q-Tips in the baby aisle, and so to avoid seething myself into an accidental brain hemorrhage, I should just look there first and bypass the cosmetics and bath aisles altogether, even though, yes, it makes SO MUCH SENSE to stock them in those places, as well.

Trivial as they might seem, those fell into the 'Watershed' category in my library of experiences. A few years ago, I would not have stopped to pick up shit when I could be reasonably sure that no one was there to judge me for my laziness, my lack of respect for shared public spaces, or my inability to get over the general ickiness factor of touching poop, even through a plastic bag. And, more importantly, I think, I don't pick up after my dog now because people will judge me if I behave otherwise. I do it because I'll be the one judging myself if I behave otherwise. Because people's kids play on that field, man, and how messed up of me is it to leave landmines of crap scattered across a field for a kid to step in, or slip on? People cut through that field on the way to the train station on the regular. Those people, many of them anyway, are going to work - work! Imagine what a terrible start to the day that would be! They'd smell like shit, and then the train would smell like shit, and then possibly their office if they hadn't realized they were the crap-carrier by that point...I could ruin the mornings of dozens of people I'll never even meet. Or, I could get the fuck over myself and pick up my dog's shit.

Growing Up is a sneaky little bastard, no? Attempt to cut him off at the pass, sure, knock yourself out. You'll run into him in the supermarket, Aisle 9, loading up on Q-Tips and Baby Powder. He's not so bad. Plus, they sell wine in the supermarket now! Take GU, go see what reds are on sale.