Clean Dry Shiny

It's back to posting some videos. They have been piling up and I gotta do something with them. Thank you for none of your comments. Nothing like a little encouragement!

Don't we all aim to be clean, dry and shiny? At least some of the time? OK and the rest of the time dirty, wet and dull will do. Aram composed the music to these last two videos. Huzzah!

Here too.

Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee

Please note: I will be registering for gifts shortly. Meanwhile, allow me to introduce Cecil.

Or try me.

Witch one is me?

You know I am running out of things to say, when I start blogging about my dreams. But I woke up this morning and it took me a good five minutes before it started to come to me. I dreamt it had rained. I dreamt I woke up to a leaking apartment. There were puddles on the carpet, mold coming through in large black rings on the wall, and a roof that looked as if it were about to cave in. Maybe it was the episode of Lost I watched last night or maybe it was the collection of short stories I am reading about food, or maybe it was just the momentous amount of laundry I have been washing, drying and folding.

In my dream I was distressed. My apartment had finally become my home. I enjoyed no more than to lounge in its bath, cook in its kitchen, lie down on its carpet and stare at its stucco ceiling. I had laid claim to the space: taking down the proletarian supplied Venetian blinds and putting up the three-weekends-to-complete-curtain-project sewn by none other. I had changed the direction in which the refrigerator door opened, I installed a hanging pot rack, I frosted the window panes in the front door for privacy.

A home. The hearth. My little nest. The place where I repose. Where I wake up Sunday mornings, make coffee and get back in to bed to read. Where I can pull back the curtains and sit on the couch and enjoy the light poring in, the blue sky above my head, the birds freaking out in the trees just outside. At this point I would hate to move. After all the letting go of stuff—years accumulated—so that I could finally fit into this postage-stamp space, after all the living in boxes, things spread out between two cities, after all the shuttling between places, the driving hither and forth, the nomadic it's only temporary until I find my own place existence, I have finally arrived. And I'm not about to let a little crack in the surface kick me out.

Forgive me father

Smart Girl from To-Do List

I prolly spend more time thinking (and writing and oh, imagining) about relationship stuff than I should. I should prolly be out doing more important things like volunteering at the old folks home, reading the political articles in The New Yorker instead of skipping them, and repairing familial relationships instead of starting and stopping new ones with strangers. I should prolly quit obsessing about why the last man I dated did not fall in love with me. I should prolly quit flirting with the any and all online suitors who approach me. I should prolly I should prolly I should prolly.

This is not really a post. This is a PostSecret. Only it's more complicated than would fit on a postcard and I really should, ahem, write something even if I am dog tired, my eyeballs aflame, my knees wobbly and my face raw from razor burn.

I once dated a man. He was a man and not at all a boy and for that I was eternally grateful. It was not at all that long ago, although, its memory yellows from age each passing day. I once dated a man and not unlike me, he was a man who kept lists. He had a little notebook or two or three and in no particular order wrote lists both banal and weighty.

And ladies and gentleman, I liked to look through these notebooks.

They were everyday lists and I wanted to know the everyday man. At least, that's what I told myself. Groceries to buy, bills to pay, measurements, addresses, shorthanded ideas that yet remain locked in his mind. And they were scattered about, on the kitchen table, impromptu lists scratched onto receipts, scraps of paper that fluttered to the floor when I picked up my bags or brought in the groceries.

They charmed me. All of them. I tried to ascertain which were written before me and which after me. There were lists of books and movies many of which I had recommended. If they were written into the notebooks, they never made any kind of chronological sense. As a book, from beginning to end, they read like a puzzle.

And then I stumbled upon a list. It was a list about me. Sort of a pro and con list if you will. It was, like most of his lists, a short list. A mere five or six items. I never understood its formula. There was a check next to makes me feel wanted and I can't quite remember the other something like fun! There was no check next to communication or creativity. There was an awkward phrase about the ability (mine or his?) to evolve sexually for which I received no check as well. I couldn't tell if he had written the list the day before or months prior. I didn't know if the checks were like extra bonus points or if he really thought I was completely devoid of creativity. Whatever it meant, it was painfully clear to me I had not passed this particular test. I had only gotten two out of six check marks. And in the dozen or so little words written in blue ink onto the lined notebook paper, this archipelago of words scattered across the blank page, I read the story of our relationship in its entirety. And this story did not, as it turns out, have a happy ending.

A date to end all dates

Desiree Holman, Breath Holes

My date arrived at my door early Saturday morning. He arrived dripping wet, having just swam across the Pacific to reach my door. I handed him a towel, and he, in return, handed me an orchid. No ordinary orchid, this orchid flowered only once, took twenty years to mature, and bloomed for exactly twenty seconds. Let's just say, his timing was impeccable!

We watched as the precious flower bloomed and then withered and then produced an intolerable smell. Without batting an eye, or in this case, his long lustrous lashes which, he assures me, he has never tinted nor curled, he tossed the once-precious orchid over his shoulder. Toweling himself off, he waltzed through my doors, and caught me unawares as he grabbed me by the waist to a 4/4 polka. I nearly slammed the door in the face of the German polka band that trooped in behind him. Stepping on his toes—and those of all seven members of the band—he graciously allowed me to sit out on the 5th polka. But, oh, they were a lively bunch! And dancing together in my small New York-style studio, they sure lifted my spirits—even as they knocked over my dead grandmother's Hummel figurines bequeathed to me on her deathbed.

The polka band took a rest on my fold-out sofa bed—politely taking their shoes off as per my request—and my date preceded to the kitchen where he had plans to wow me with the culinary secrets of his Armenian-Mexican ancestors. Again his elaborate preparations, the three crates of cooking utensils, and the bags and bags of groceries—along with the sudden appearance of his ninety-year old Armenian grandmother—impressed me greatly. After an hour or so, he took time out from the rolling of the grape leaves and the crushing of the pomegranate seeds, to court me in the bathroom—now the only room in my apartment in which there was enough room for us to sit. Delicately taking my foot into his hands—and dexterously maneuvering around the toilet bowl—he gave me the most exquisite foot massage of my life! Too bad when the accordion player swung open the door to use the bathroom, he gave my date a concussion which forced him to lay low for a bit.

While the rest of us ate and his grandmother told the most entertaining dirty limericks—albeit in another language—my date reposed in the bath tub. By midnight, we thought we ought to check in on him...

Dreams deferred

Show me the child at 7 and I will show you the man.

I've been watching the 7-Up series (that BBC documentary series that followed a variety of wee Brits from differing social classes every seven years) in preparation for the latest release, 49-Up. Who was I at seven? I don't remember much. It wasn't one of those break out years. I was in second grade. I had had the same teacher Mrs. Chase, for first and second. Second grade felt safe. Felt like I was getting into the swing of things. It was in second grade that I realized I would be in school for a long, long time. Six more years here and then four years after that. It felt unfathomable. It was the same time I began to grapple with the concept of forever. It would keep me up at night. At night, I always slept with the my door cracked open, the light from the hallway shining in. I lulled myself to sleep with the sounds of late-night television. It was comforting: a muffled laugh track, Johnny Carson fading into the distance. Just as I was about to drift away the thought would come to me: what happens when you die? The answers the nuns gave never satisfied. Heaven seemed nice enough. But nice enough for an eternity seemed like hell. Time would just go on and on. There was nothing before it and nothing behind it. I would hold out for as long as I could and then I would hear myself screaming, MOOOOOOMMMM!

It was our ritual.
What happens after you die?
You go to heaven.
And then what happens?
You are with your loved ones: your father, your grandmother, me.
And then what?
And then you are happy. You do what you want. You don't think about time. You look down at earth.
And then what?
That's it. You're in heaven forever.
What happens after forever?
Forever never ends. It just keeps going on.

I tried to imagine it. I tried to imagine being seven forever. Or doing something I really liked like swimming forever. I tried to imagine the longest amount of time I could and then doubling that and then doubling that. It made me uncomfortable. Like practicing my scales. It made me feel scared and nauseous at the same time. Whether it was heaven or a cold plot of dirt made no difference in my mind.

When I was seven I received my first communion. I remember wearing a frill-less eyelet dress when all the other girls got petticoats and frills. I remember taking it very seriously. I remember rehearsing how to walk down the aisle. I remember holding my hands together very carefully. I remember learning how to do the rosary. I remember my Miniature Stories of the Saints. I still have it.

When I was seven my grandmother got sick. My mother was her only daughter and it meant I never saw my mom anymore. She lived at the hospital and I lived at the babysitters. When I did go to the hospital I did not recognize my grandmother. When she came out she had to wear a wig and she still did not look like my grandmother. I overheard conversations about wounds and infections and surgeries. I remember my mother on the phone a lot. Frustrated, exhausted and, above all, sad.

At seven I was quiet. I lived inside my head. I did not need a lot of attention. I was not used to big families. I was not used to being around other kids. I wanted to be a martyr. I loved to read about the saints. I wanted God to accept me. I wanted to make my mother happy. I wanted to please my teachers. I wanted to be good.

I am not sure how different I am. I no longer want to be a saint. And I no longer believe in heaven. But the thought of eternity still humbles me. And sometimes, I am still afraid of the dark.

Getting to know you

Val Britton, Ways to navigate through what we've built and what we've destroyed

How do you put together all those disparate pieces to make a whole? We talk on the phone and I try to imagine what he looks like listening to me: is he sitting down at the kitchen table or lying down on the couch? Does he doodle abesentmindedly? Do his fingers drum in front of him? From what he shares, I try to make sense of it all: a father who has died, a brother who is six years older, college in Boston, time spent in Santa Cruz. I fit together a timeline in my head and then realize it's all wrong: it was two years ago he left Boston, the pet dog is actually a labroador. I wonder if he does the same. I picture a man explaining himself over the phone, over the miles of distance between us and the image I have is soft, shifting and elusive.

A woman once wrote that there is a difference between being honest and telling. Where honesty is pure, telling expects results. It's true. There is an agreement between the teller and the tellee. There is a bond. Listen to me and your rewards will be bountiful! The gift of friendship, the promise of concern, the hope of caring. They are, at worst, Hallmark sentiments. But at best, they are all we really need.

My National Lampoon Style Family Camping Trip

a covey of quail
a cast of hawks
a gang of turkey
a murder of crows

These my friends, were only a few of the cast of characters from last weekend's camping trip. We might add to that list: Swedish Death Metal couple, Frisbee golf throwing enthusiasts, poker-playing-while-Classic-Rock-listening-and-Jack-Daniels-drinking neighbors, angry fisherpeoples without any fish and exactly one meandering tarantula.

This was a camping trip 35 years in the making for never had the entire family camped together. I arrived two hours after my dad who was in the process of thoroughly staking down his tent. Even though he had gotten explicit directions from my sister not to stake down his tent until she had arrived and even though the ground was hard enough to tap dance on, none of this deterred him from battening down the hatches. He excitedly showed me all his new and unnecessary purchases: an Eddie Bauer blanket, a shiny red hatchet, a foldable cot, an inflatable mattress, a suitcase-sized bag of batteries, enough snacks to feed the local middle school, an assortment of lures, rods and bait and, most importantly, a tent purchased for my birthday. In the flurry of product and the disposal of packaging I asked him where his sleeping bag was. Oops! I could tell from the way he was ignoring me that he was starting to have one of his panic attacks. We better call my sister before she leaves. Dad, are you gonna call her? Dad? He continued to stand face flushed, sweat beading on his forehead. I stopped bothering him and sat down to wade it out.

No sooner had I collapsed into the collapsible Sports Mega Chair™ recently purchased from REI, than I recieved a sharp blow to the knee. What the? A fluorescent Frisbee lay on the ground beside me, it's owner conspicuously absent. As I sat rubbing my knee and writhing in pain and as my dad, now awoken to his senses, dialed my sister, the Frisbee-wielding maniac jogged over to apologize. Yeah, your site's right next to the course. Come tomorrow this place is gonna be a sea of Frisbee golf players. It's a pretty serious sport. He jogged off from whence he came, a backback full of colored Frisbees whats significance remained a mystery to me, in tow.

Within minutes our neighbors cranked up their radio. Man, I love this song! a voice barked. To one of Classic Rock's unarguably most shining moments, our neighbors sang along to some Lynrd Skynrd: Ooooh that smell. Can't you smell that smell. They were well into the Coors and, at four, were beginning elaborate 'cue preparations. Case, hey, there's a tarantula. My dad voice was calm. What? He pointed to the ground—the ground right next to our tents—as the biggest and hairiest arachnid I have ever seen ambled by. As the tarantula rounded the corner, I noticed a series of holes in the ground. Another Frisbee-wielding maniac, backpack hanging off his shoulder, jogged by. Oh, yeah, a tarantula. He's early. They usually don't come out until October. I inquired if the hillside holes had perhaps anything to do with their housing. Yeah, they burrow in holes just like those. But don't worry, they're harmless. Not only was our campsite in the middle of a treacherous Frisbee fly zone, but we had parked it on top of a row of tarantula condominiums. We better not tell my sister.

We were, as it turns out, camping not only with our family but with about a hundred other families, many of them in recreational vehicles, some of them with generators, all of them with way too much stuff and most hoping to have the kind of outdoor experience where neither they nor their offspring were ever bored, remained relatively clean, and were always safe from danger. Danger being any experience in nature without the right Coleman endorsed product.

The thing is that my family is fun. We crack jokes. We out-crass one another. We make do with what the good lord has pawned off on us. When my sister and brother-in-law arrive, dinner is well into the making. Although it takes over an hour for our kabobs cook, and although the spicy papadums I brought make everyone choke, we sit by the fire and season our coats with the smell that proves we have been "camping".

Our neighbors smoke a bong and begin a game of cards. Steve Miller. Joe Cocker. And of course Fleetwood Mac. They argue about the hands: two pair totally beats three-of-a-kind, they incorrectly call games: dude, let's play texas hold up. And then, they get really really mad at each other. Scary mad.

Quit calling my hand.
You got a flush and you don't even see it.
This is my hand. I'll play it how I want to play it.
You can't even count your cards. You have a flush!
Do YOU wanna play this hand?

This goes on forever. The smart or smart-er one keep calling the dumber one's hands. At least, we think, they are entertaining.

How long have you been playing this game?!
I play every Friday. For five years.

It's a shocking discovery. They seem to barely know the rules. Midnight fast approaches and they show no sign of retiring. My sister has brought earplugs enough for everyone and, at this point, we eagerly accept her handouts like free posters at a BoysIIMen concert. Earplugs in place, Thermarest underneath me, and flashlight beside me, I sleep though the night. The following night, however, will make this night look like a relaxing day at Burke Williams.

New York conversations

I have a friend in New York who is one of those telephone friends. We can talk for hours about the most random things, but it is a disembodied relationship. I haven't seen him for years, even though I sometimes find myself back east. Well, we have our own complicated history and one or the other always threatens to come out for a visit. There have been some near visits: a note scrawled on the porch, a voicemail retrieved a few hours too late, an apology after the fact. Sometimes the absurdity of it hits me. And I just have to laugh. If I were to write a screenplay (and totally fictionalize the conversation) here is what one would read like.

He: Not many people know this about me, but I used to have a collection of stuffed animals-

She: Laughing. Do you realize how funny that sounds? Laughing some more. I mean, didn't we all?

He: Well, I was really into them. I had, like, an army of them. And I was really into being equitable.

She: Equitable?

He: Like, I rotated each night who got to sleep next to me. I didn't want any of them to feel left out. And then when I was in 6th grade I started having friends come over. And they'd throw them around. Kinda make fun of me. But there was nothing I could do. Like, I had to just go along with it. Cuz I needed the friends. And then one time we moved and my stepmom just through them out. All of them.

She: Parents are always doing that. She prolly thought you were too old or didn't think boys should play with stuffed animals.

He: Yeah, but she never said anything like that. I mean, they were just gone. She never liked me. I think it was her way of getting back at me.

She: I had this Snoopy doll. It was all ratty. I used to chew on it's nose so all the stuffing was coming out. And then one day my mom said she was going to give it a bath. And then she came back and said he fell apart in the wash. I got a new Snoopy. After a while, it became my Snoopy. But then months later I found the old Snoopy in the closet. There he was. And he was fine! Years later, I am still trying to piece it together. Why would she do that? There must be so many stories out there like that. There must be so many stuffed-animal mysteries still waiting to be solved.

What is it about parents who think they can make executive decisions like that? Like finding an exact replica of the guppy that died, lying about an embarrassing stuffed animal, or insisting the twelve-year old boy stop playing with his Baby Mary Jane? We all have our shameful secrets. Kids just wear theirs on their sleeve.

May I borrow a light?

Fire. Heat, light and flame. Always a crowd pleaser. Entire festivals devoted to its name. It ignites. It burns. It undulates. It changes the air around us. It melts. It warms. It cooks. It kills. It casts its spell on us. We know how to start it but not always how to put it out. Soot, smoke, and ash. We sing about it. We use it in ritual, in death, on a birthday cake in celebration. Friction, flint, and spark. We use it to talk about love, about passion, about sex. We do not know all of its alchemic powers.

Our world began in fire. Our myths explain that we stole it from the Gods. It is said that because of our need to contain fire, we built our first homes around it. Indeed, we have spent a good portion of our history trying to control it. Firearms, fireworks, firefly. Some would say it protects, some would argue it destroys. We associate it with the devil himself. There is no end to the power, to the mystique we give it. We are drawn to it. As a family, as a community, as the couple lying on the bearskin rug. It the heart of our home. It is the center of our belly. It is the beast in our loins.

Mesmerizing you

I had composed an entire post in my head last night when tossing and turning in bed, listening to the lonesome whistle of the train blow, but, of course, I lost it now. I am pretty sure it was damn profound, though, and arguably would have changed your life.

Instead, I offer up this video. I could watch the tide rise and fall on this walkway forever. It'd be a great place to do some timelapse and I pledge to come back with one.

I am going away from the computer this weekend, away from work, away from my house, away, away.

TEFKAFE

TEFKAFE enjoying a cupcake

Favorite Ex has responded that he does not, in fact, appreciate his moniker. When asked why he did not like to be referred to as Favorite Ex, he could not put a name to it, other than to repeat I don't like it over and over. He also took offense to being quoted in the blog. He would like it to be known that he does not believe he ever used the word zingers in conversation with me whether by telephone, email, text message, instant message or in person.

I showed Favorite Ex—who will now be referred to as The Ex Formerly Known As Favorite Ex—a first draft of my creative non-fiction piece for the Modern Love column. Not surprisingly, TEFKAFE was unencouraging. Sex and the City and Oprahesque were two unkind phrases I heard. In fact, if you are a woman and a writer, there is possibly nothing more damaging one can hear other than possibly invoking the name of Bridget Jones and her goddamn diary. I guess TEFKAFE did not understand the non-fiction aspect of the piece as he kept saying things like that never happened!, you did that? and I can't imagine him saying that. TEFKAFE has always been a tough critic, but at least he read it from beginning to end and I guess that's saying something. Just not sure what.

Speaking of TEFKAFE, he is coming out for a visit next month. And bringing his new girlfriend. Supposedly, they're mad for each other, or some such nonsense and for the first time since, well, since we stopped going out, I will have to share his presence with another. Sure, I am happy for him, and yes, it's about time (six years!) and I bet she is wonderful (he has great taste in women), but, I am just not sure I am up to the challenge. You know, what with being recently d-i-v-o-r-c-e(d) and all. It's bad enough I hardly ever get to see him since he lives on the opposite coast and now instead of hunting down obscure Chinese Islamic food in the Sunset with me, he's going to be busy giving her a tourist's welcome to his old stomping ground.

At least I know for the week or so he's around I'll eat well. I'll probably see some good movies. I'll snort out loud and choke on whatever I happen to be eating/drinking. I'll walk a lot. I'll get into 3 or 4 heated arguments. I'll damn him at least once. And then, as soon as he leaves, I'll be checking Jet Blue for flights back east.

The week(end) in pictures

The Artist and I went to as many garage sales as was feasible this weekend. We visit one geographic area at a time and this weekend was allocated for none other than the new sleepy town in which I live. What you learn about a town from it's garage sales is astonishing. OK, well, surprising in any case. And what did I learn about my new sleepy town from this weekend's garage sales? I live in a town where someone will not only try to sell a bar of Irish Spring for $.50. not only try to sell half-used bottles of nail polish for $.25, but try to sell a perfectly good box of tampons—ok, maybe opened and ok, maybe used a couple and then cleverly taped the box shut—for an undisclosed price.

I made a pact with myself to make it to the Beltline Railyard this weekend. What's the Beltline Railyard, you might ask? It's 22 acres of railyard that's been abandoned by the railroad company that once owned it and is in some kind of legal limbo with the city who would like very much to purchase it. And what that means to us, is that it is an undeveloped wasteland slowly being reclaimed by nature, smack dab in the middle of the city. And what that means to me, is that it is an interesting place to explore. Now 22 acres is not a lot. You can't really get lost in it. But the only beings I encountered on my entire walk was a confused raccoon and some kids at the adjoining park yelling at me to not graffiti (I wasn't). Because it was dusk and the light was perfect, I snapped, like, a bizillion pictures. What could be more photogenic than rusting metal with pampa grass growing through it, all cast in an orange-y dramatic light? Besides the busted-up shopping carts, the dumped car batteries, and enough railroad ties to line your driveway, the highlights included an old demolition derby car covered in graffiti with a few cement blocks thrown on top for good measure. But the real find of the day was a metal sign, the colors reminiscent of a pepsi can, squashed into a perfectly wonderful hemisphere of sculpture, now adorning the walls of my new apartment.

Which takes us to Sunday. And a walk through the local coastal marsh. As one of my I-have-a-million-different-projects-I-am-working-on experiments, I have taken a vow, an oath, to ask one stranger, one question every day. Today's dialogue went something like this:
me: Is that a catfish?
him: Catfish. 22 inch!
me: Wow. You caught that right here?
him: Yes. Right here. 22 inch!
We were both impressed. (Photo not provided.)

Which brings us to Sunday afternoon. The day the Matthew Barney exhibit closed and the day everyone and their mother (including me) opted to (finally) check it out. I skipped the exhibit itself to stand in line for sixty minutes for the one hundred and forty five minute film that had an entirety of five lines of dialogue. I can't really say it was enjoyable, but then that is not why one goes to see a Matthew Barney film (even if this one features wifey Bjork.) You see a Matthew Barney film so that you have something to talk about. But since I went alone, I had to wait until exiting to call my friend in New York, who it turns out hadn't even seen it. All I can say is that it made me want to each sushi and gave me a headache (although the coffee and empty stomach could, chances are, have more to do with the headache than Bjork's score.)

Which closes my weekend with: the phone conversation. I told Favorite Ex that I was trying to write a creative non-fiction piece for the NYTimes Modern Love column as per The New Friend From Residency's suggestion. I told him that what I was writing about was Ex Numero 4. Not, as I had thought when I began writing, Numero 5. He asked if he was to be included. To which I replied no, I didn't really go back that far.

C'mon, he said, you can cough up a coupla zingers about us.
I can't even think of any.
There's gotta be something.
It's a 1200 word article! And I am writing about break-ups. Ours was nothing!
I want our relationship to be immortalized in print!
Well, you did have that annoying habit whenever you came over of pointing out all the things that you thought belonged to you. Like six years later.
That's perfect. Work it in.

Sorry Favorite Ex, you are another story entirely.

I didn't

JIMMIE DURHAM
The flower of the death of loneliness

This morning the light was all shiny in my apartment. The place felt like home. I made coffee and sat on my couch and looked around. Saturday. I didn't have a plan. I could do whatever I wanted. Whenever I wanted. I read. I made breakfast. I debated going to the gym. I did some dishes. I watered the plants. I stayed in the same clothes in which I had slept.

I felt content.
In the way a woman who can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, does.

I felt content and, for the moment, happy.
The way you do when you are single and life is just much less complicated. Much less tumultuous. The highs more even and the lows less deep. I generally go to bed at the same time, wake up around the same time. I don't plan too far into the future.

I didn't envy my friends with kids. I didn't wish to fall in love. I didn't pine for anyone.
I didn't want to talk on the telephone. I didn't care to check my email. I didn't mind being alone.
I didn't need anyone.

And, alone in my newish, smallish apartment, considering the future that lied ahead of me, and considering the obstacles I would no doubt have to face, and pondering my ability to stick to my guns, I felt pretty damn good.

The break up film

It's ironic that I first came upon the idea of The Break Up Film during my last relationship. Now that I've, ahem, broken up, it seems appropriate that I drag that idea (kicking and screaming) from the nether regions of the closet. It's a project that is near and uh, not so much dear as piercing to my heart. Perhaps you can be of some assistance.

The Pitch

We all know that breaking up is a painful process: our hearts are torn, our emotions a mess, and our lives suddenly void of meaning. After the immediate shock and the logistics of the parting, there are still the smaller issues to contend with: what to do with all the detritus of the relationship?

The Break Up Film invites people to tell the stories of these more tangible objects. Whether or not it's burning birth control pills in a beach bonfire, painstakingly labeling each artifact as if for museum curation, or consuming all existing love letters after tearing them into bite-sized pieces, we have all devised rituals to bury the pain of the relationship. There are the wreckers, the returners, the hoarders, the desperate-to-hang-on-ers, and the ones who simply walk away like a snake shedding it's skin.

How do you say goodbye?

I was going to write all about my last night in Wyoming. About my trip to the cowboy bar in Sheridan where the ice water is free, an 8 foot 4 inch long rattlesnake skin hangs behind the bar, and hundreds of cattle brands are burned into the rustic wood logs lining the bar. Where the Wurlitzer would play were they to turn off the football game on the TV, where Jim Crumbles sits at the bar, his ass close to sliding out of his pants, but his white hair as neatly braided as Willie's and where Glen Getter, age 29, claims to be an eligible bachelor as of approximately two weeks ago when he got his job pumping for Coal Bed Methane and when he finally got a place of his own.

But here I am stuck in Phoenix, en route home, having missed a connecting flight, and suddenly dreading my apartment with its boxes still unpacked, a discouraging lack of storage space and a newness I haven't yet decided if I like.

Sigh.

I guess adding to my meloncolia is the fact that I just finished a really good book and there's something so disappointing for me in that moment. The moment you close the book and realize there are no more pages, no more stories, no more time to be spent with the characters in whose lives you have just become so engrossed. The moment you have to say goodbye forever. Well, let's just say, I am getting accustomed to that moment.

Add to that the fact that I am no longer officially designated as an artist as my residency is over.

Add to that the fact that I have just left a place I really liked and really liked the way I felt there.

Add to that the fact that it's turning fall and there's all those back-to-school sales in the stores and the light's suddenly much more yellow and the air is sharp and crisp and the leaves are starting to turn and for reasons inexplicable to me, all that makes me unbearably sad.

Add to that the fact that I am returning to my normal life and I don't yet know what that is or what it means or where normal really fits into any thing in my life anyways.

How do you say goodbye? To the season, the story, the place, the person, the reasons we once thought were right?

Attracted to light

Doug and Mike Starn, Attracted to Light D

They told me I should make sure I wake up early and see the dawn before I leave. And so, this morning I did. It was all rosy glow and bambis in the alfalfa fields and big pink sun peeking through the low morning fog bank. It was crisp, clean air, the kind that makes my lips cracked and my nostrils dry enough to bleed. Sunrise is always less dramatic than sunset, but just knowing that you're one of the few witnessing it makes it pretty damn, um, well, special.

Walking around at midday, I realized I just never get sick of looking at the plains no matter how dried up and scourged it seems. All that yellow and brown, and then the place where those two colors meet. The smell of sage each time the wind stirs which, on a day like today, ain't that often. All that scrub and barbed wire and rocks so sun-baked you keep thinking you see bone. All that agony and expanse and then, like fireworks, the bluest sky above it all. I could never get sick of looking at all that distance. The worst that could happen is that I would fall in.

That is to say, it's been good for my heart. Poor scarred and mended heart! I have taken it out often, bloody and pulsing, to examine. I have compared it to other hearts, some with less scar tissue and others lumpy with disease. I have hurtled it onto the highway at night, wishing for it to be driven into the ground. I have shoved it under my pillow hoping that that might help me sleep. I have swallowed it, pummeled it, hidden it and retrieved it. I have foisted it onto others who have seemed sympathetic. The kind ones simply hand it back; the cruel ones, well, we know what they do with hearts. But still. It flutters. Like the moth toward the light.

The Single Girl's Guide to Staying Single

Superwife by Camille Holvoet

Decide in moment of incandescent illumination to depilate my legs. Pull out highly-recommended-self-waxing-kit-gathering-dust-in-bathroom-cabinet and precede. Legs hairy enough to confuse Diane Fossey. Warm wax as instructed, self-inflict pain as instructed, marvel at leg smoothness. After finishing one leg, realize not enough wax strips to depilate other leg. Walk around for two days with one leg hairy, one leg not. In vague kind of way, as in when at Trader Joes or in line at bank, look for wax strips. In defeat, shave other hairy-as-an-ape leg.

Spend hours, okay days, roaming aisles of dreaded Swedish manufacturer of cheap put-it-together-your-damn-self crap in search of storage solutions for new apartment one fourth size of last. Compulsively buy, sheepishly return, rinse and repeat. New apartment one-fourth-size-of-last remains in boxes because can't settle on fucking bookshelf! that won't fall apart when placed with, uh, books.

Log in to online dating site where nearly one-year old ad languishes like remaindered book on bottom shelf at back of store. Ambivalence + pain x regret=hasty retreat.

Decide in another unique moment of incandescent illumination to take moonlit walk on beach walking distance! from new apartment. Silhouetted figures engage in romance languages. Small dogs attack. Sneaker confronts tar. Fog rolls in. Rain ensues. Moon no where to be seen.

Read first book by highly-acclaimed, young (relatively), male author taking up significant amount of (now) scarce bookshelf space. Forced to look up vocabulary words at alarming rate. Alarming rate invokes feelings of ignorance, stupidity, and patheticability in reader. Read about central male character's fling with college student while professor at esteemed college. Wonder why never had such encounter when student at college. Wonder were to be professor if fling with college student would happen. Consider switching professions. Ignore unknown vocabulary words. Fall asleep with light on. Loose place in book.

Deep west

I've been immersing myself in the literature of this country. Stories and poems full of extremities, solitude, pride, the aching blue of the sky and a dark, haughty sense of humor. I can already feel my departure coming upon me and I want to let go of none of it. Every little star in the sky, I want to remember, absorb, and carry it back home. It is a place I know I will return.

Birds Too Fat To Fly by David Romtvedt

John tells Margo she is placid.
She worries he secretly means bland.
But one bright fall day she saw
a group of eagles—Golden and Bald—
feeding on a carcass. They
were like vultures, so full
they couldn't leave the ground.
They lurched up and down
the hillside relearning the lessons
of their youth. They were,
Margo told me, "Birds too fat to fly."
And laughed, "What a great phrase -
think of Trouble, Harold and Penelope
alone together on winter range
and when we go to get them,
we have to coax them in, shake
cans of oats and promise them endless
warm barns and clear fresh water
and no saddles." It's a game.
I say the sky is the sky
too blue to believe. "Come on,"
Margo sweetly taunts, " You can
do better than that." And throws me.
Cold too bitter to breathe.
Draws too deep to defend.
Erosion too aged to erase.
Grass too gone to green.
She really laughs at that last
and names the whole: "Ranching
too disastrous to deny."
But who cares -
happiness too holy to humble
and life too lovely to lose.
She puts her arms around me
and stands placidly, motionless,
whispers in my ear,"Birds
too fat to fly..."

Roadside attractions

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