EJ's Word House

ball of purple yarn's trailing end
sweaty bandanna from that run
didn't quite make it into the clothes basket
plant upended

sneakers peeking up from piles
of exams to grade
bills to file

my CD cases splayed open
one ibuprofen
on shore leave from some historic pocket
stands rust-colored and alone
on edge

next to the overflowing basket of doo dads and gee gaws
atop some mailing
close to the prescription bottle
by a glove
beside the candle

can't walk across the room
in the dark
and expect not to fall

my thoughts are no different

ideas everywhere
thoughts pulled out of drawers
and left

like a tornado went through
or a toddler

Did any of you grow up in the era of the Rice Purity Test? I realize that there are other purity tests and can imagine that this particular bit of high school social hazing may have been in vogue long before or after the period I am thinking of. However, I am referencing the early nineties when students would take the test at parties or surreptitiously in the back of classrooms (oooooh!) and an individual's score would be reported quickly (though who knows how accurately) up the gossip chain and become the immediate topic of heated lunchtime debate.

As with everything even remotely sexual in our society low scores (meaning the subject had performed --answered yes to-- most of the items on the test) were both awe-inspiring and scandalous.
Who has that much free time?
How did they get alone to do it?
Isn't that disgusting? I think that's disgusting
Oh my gosh! She's such a slut! --No she's not. Shut up! --No, you shut up!

And as with anything even remotely controversial in this society there were the predictable opinion-factions: the bandwagon, the antithesists, the intellectualizers and, at least in my home town, those who find x offensive or invalid not for any factual fault or flaw but because it is not equal or inclusive enough. That's right, according to that last group the Rice Purity Test (RPT) may indeed be an excellent measure of the purity (whatever the hell that is) of any individual but we will never know because the questions seem too slanted towards heterosexuals.

I woke up this morning thinking about the RPT and with some concern that I might score rather low. I took from this that I may have trespassed against my own morality which has led me to wonder why?, how? and what to do about that.

My sex-life is, if I am being generous, episodic. My imagination of my potential sex-life on the other hand is rigorous, regular and ribald. I fantasize floridly and I have enjoyed (more than I think my sex should admit) some friendly groping (by known parties) that seems to have blossomed with the spring weather. I don't think that any of these individual, miniscule improprieties make me a bad person or even sex obsessed. The human body is a magnificent object and the desires to touch and be touched are part of all our instincts, yet at some point yesterday I crossed the line. I think it was the phone call with a potential blind date who, for all his good qualities, I was only wondering if he would have certain...talents and when I could justify going to bed with him. And as I reflect here I am coming to understand that it's not my craving for sex that disturbs me --to each their appetites, live and let live-- it's the fact that I was operating (if only mentally) with no regard for another person's humanity and disrespecting their identity as a  whole being. And perhaps, more importantly, it seems like my impulses could lead me to make a bad decision (or several). I don't like that latter part one bit. But I am strangely relieved that this isn't about some moral high ground.

Cheers!

Oh and please go pleasure someone on my behalf would you (yes, someone includes yourself).

I was standing in an ice cream store with a friend last week when he started a conversation about wishes. I don't think he was taking the topic as seriously as I was and we got into an argument --for several reasons-- but I'm sure in part because I don't believe in wishes. 

I don't mean you shouldn't hold a great thought in your mind when you blow out your birthday candles, nor is this a matter of feeling that wishes don't come true. Quite to the contrary, I think that wishes often come true, usually through hard work, perseverance, benefaction or luck. But none of those satisfy the passive, instantaneous, genie's snap that wishing connotes.

Many people wish for things that are well within their reach --"I wish I had more money", "I wish I knew how to do speak Swedish", "I wish that girl would talk to me". A second job, less time watching baseball and a trip to the public library, or a simple hello can make all those wishes come true. And if someone makes those sacrifices, those lifestyle changes, or that commitment of will, suddenly, that longed for ideal is not a wish anymore it's a goal. Goals are met (or not) mostly on the diligence of the goal setter. So wishing in that case is superfluous.

Some people wish for things that simply aren't possible. While I do understand the poignant expressions --"I wish Jean was still alive" or "I wish you hadn't done that". Despite the phrasing those are actually expressions of regret. And any other "impossible dream" that a person might wistfully sigh for would (in my book anyway) fall under that vaguely threatening maxim parents like to trot out to "Be careful what you wish for." For example, my friend wished that he could eat as much of anything he wanted all the time and not have to worry about his weight. Well to a certain extent one can. Depending on what you eat, you just have to work out a lot. But let's go the wish route and assume that his metabolism could magically be that way. Can anyone else see this unfolding into a Disney movie with an Aesop's style moral catch? With a metabolism like that wouldn't you be hungry all the time? What if you lost your job because all you could do was eat to keep up with your raging metabolism? Etc. Curious, that I have enough imagination to project the real world flaws in this existence but not enough to bend reality to the ideal.

All that said I do occasionally wish, with heartfelt desire, for impossible things: Almost daily, I am able to slip into my conversation a sincere interest in either the ability or the technology to teleport. I still regret the fact that my brother elected to get married on the same day as my best friend (I wish he hadn't done that). Today was one of those days of an idle, but intended, wish for something currently outside of human existence (at least as I know it).

I wished that I did not have to go home. I don't mean regret over having to visit relatives and such, rather I pictured being able to leave work and instead of getting in a car and driving I would just ascend a staircase formed out of solid air to my cloud-loft apartment that automatically existed in space-time wherever I needed it --most of the time right above work, on the weekends likely over Central Square in Cambridge. I loved this idea until it occurred to me that it sounded a tiny bit like being dead which is not on my wish list at all at the current moment. I suppose the real world version would be to have an endless supply of energy and just go from activity to activity and never have to sleep thus never have to be at home. Crank anyone? And we all saw how pleasant that looked.

I have achieved much of what I desire in this life. The rest I am actively working on. Impossible isn't in my vocabulary but just in case, wish me luck.

The sun blared out with burlesque boldness, no longer reticent behind its veil of clouds.
The woman on the street in front of me waved her dollar bill in the air. "This is for you," she told the homeless woman in the lawn chair outside the Starbucks(R). "No, I don't need a paper. I already have one."
Under this exchange I felt a familiar, urgent chugging and looked up into the broad, high, red face of fire truck idling in the taxi stand, dropping off two responders to respond to the scene.
Murmuring witnesses and curious passers-by, figure-eighted around each other trying to catch a glimpse of the man on the ground. Red pants and carefully tied, well-worn, brown leather shoes. He was in a fetal position, dazed but breathing, saliva pooling beneath him. He was an older man and disabled.
I always lose my breath when I see such pageants. And it takes me a while to find it again --caught in my chest, wrapped around a tiny sob, or fanning my fluttering heart.
The sun soaked right through my clothes as I stood waiting to cross the street, feeling through my shoes where the pavement is textured for the blind. My back was to the fallen man and his rescuers. My prayers ravelled out to intertwine with his fate.

I got chilly sitting in the park,
between the iced coffee and the breeze.
I tried to beat the rain home, and won.
Handily.

The raindrops on my notebook
were empty threats
from a rushing, busy, gray scale sky.

Indoors was uninspiring.
Dreams don't caper and play on the ceilings like they do in the heavens.

Unladylike and eager,
I crawled out on our third floor fire escape.
The buildings nearly kiss up there
and I could hear, clearer than the traffic on the road,
the upbeat life in a neighbor's apartment.

I am afraid of heights,
but giddily, hungrily so.
My stomach jumped like happy dolphins
while I sat writing out my dreams,
a few stories above the earth.

He spoke with the declarative inspiration of a born explorer,
"I'm going to go outside."
His mother's answer was distorted and far away.
"Yeah, I'm going outside," he repeated.
And he did.

He is somewhere between six and eight years old
with the big brown eyes of someone beloved.
He was closer to me than any other human being at that moment.
I smiled and said, "Hello."
He was concentrating on getting the rest of his body out of the window onto his fire escape
but he paused and answered in kind.
And righted himself like a well made ship
And clomped down the clangy metal stairs.

Upon reaching the yard, he checked out everything
with the easy-going habit of the young and the curious --
the mailbox, who's on the porch, what's behind the neighbors gate?
Once the perimeter was secure he had to check in with his personnel,
"Hello up there, " he called to me.
"Hello down there," I echoed back.

It took me until today to figure out who I am.
Thirty two years, one month,
twenty-one days, nine hours
and eighteen minutes.
Not the hare.
Not the tortoise either.

Who I am is not a person I guessed, expected or planned to be.
And that's okay.
She is going to change.
And that's okay.
At least we're together right now.

I don't have an iPod.

But I would not be existing these days if it were not for the Arctic Monkeys'  "A Certain Romance" and "Fluorescent Adolescent"

Thanks guys.

What are your travel plans for this spring/summer?

Washington, DC
Portland, OR

Wheeeeeeeee!

What role did you play in your school play?

Dancer/Cruise member - Anything Goes
Pit Band - Guys and Dolls, Pajama Game, Kiss Me Kate
Hermia - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Aunt Abby - Arsenic and Old Lace

Every other show I was a properties mistress (how I love that term) or stage crew. Ahhhh, those were the black on black with black Converse wearing days...

It's 9:16pm and I'm in bed. Not with someone and not because I'm young enough to have a bedtime.  Because I wasn't feeling so well and I wanted to snuggle down and be quiet and release my day. And dream out loud a bit.

In all my searching for what I do next with my life I have started to see the forest for the trees a little bit. I realized late this week that I spend most of my non-work time  pursuing some physical activity and trying to learn French.  The language being French is less important than how much I enjoy and prioritize that task.  And it started me thinking that I want more of what that feels like in my life. 

So I've been exploring loony ideas lately like diplomacy and peace work and mediation. 

I've discovered that I don't want my job to be my identity, I want my identity to be my job.  I want to do something that is germane to me and get paid to for it.  I enjoy problem solving, relationships and feeling a part of the world community and I love learning languages. I feel like I am old to want to pursue this professional track but...

...but nothing really. I don't know how to move from here to there. Yet. Once upon a time I didn't know how to ride a bike, drive a car, be true to myself. All this was learnable. This next path is as well.

Peace.