i am hungry

Appetite. The first thing I thought was I am not hungry. I just want to have sex. I am sitting in a coffeeshop surrounded by other worker bees on their computers, click clack, click clack. But my fellow worker bees are leaving little to the imagination with the average age of 60 and more salt and pepper than not. I need to start working at another coffeeshop asap. And all I can think about is getting laid. I am smiling now because this is funny to me. Not that I am feeling it but I am writing it and someone else might be reading this. Reading this. Like now. But I keep going. Keep going.

My sexual appetite comes in waves- but once I hit a week or two-week mark when I have been used to the regular. Regular rendezvous. Then I get the itch. Then I am hungry. But it always surprises me because I can hold out. I have held out. I didn’t have sex until I was in my early twenties. There have been times in my life where I have held out for months, months 6 or more. Not because of lack of opportunities but because because I didn’t want to deal, deal with the casual, causality of the casual. So I hold out, have held out for something that mattered more. I sometimes I wonder that the desire is strengthened with the regularity of it. You get used to it like the cup of coffee or the beer after work. It becomes habit. A release. A release unlike the yoga or the acupuncture or just talking with a friend. It’ just different. I wonder if my appetite might be to do to fasting for so long. So long. I abstained from sex, the true act of it, for many years, many years. Maybe the appetite is based on suppression that since I held out for long then and have in recent years that I deserve it when I want it.

So last night when N read his story, story aloud, about not having a condom on a camping trip, I remembered more than once when I wished I would have had a condom, or if he would have had a condom. And usually that was when my appetite had grew too intense after 6 plus month hiatus or it was with someone, someone in which the tension, sexual and other wise, had been building, been building, more and more over years, years, years. So when this happens, happened. There is the moment of the look, the desire, the going for it, then the breaking, the pausing, the oh shit. What to do? A run to a store, a ransack of the house, a creative option. It’s hard when it’s right there, the buffet, but there will be no eating, the appetite too great to abstain. But born again you have become. So you vow, vow each time, that you might plan ahead. You buy condoms for you are a modern woman, but to carry them on your person, carry them on your person, just in emergencies, just in case, just in case I get too hungry. Can I do it? For a while after a unsuccesful search at a hotel at a wedding for a condom, I thought about it, and did it. The condoms were there. But I never used them. By putting them there, in my purse, maybe it stopped the possibility for me to go out and eat. Eat again. Because I am hungry.

getting rid of that damn dress

The last time I wore this dress, I threw up. The last time I wore this dress, I graduated from college. The last time I wore this dress, my grandfather died. The last time I wore this dress, was a first date. The last time I wore this dress, it ripped up the seam at work and I had to fix it with safety pins as not show everyone my ass. The last time I wore this dress, was when it was finally was fixed. It was out of style and I had to throw it away. But this dress had been with me through it all-through the barfing, celebrations, one of my most intense sadness of despair-simply put beginning and ends. So how did I give this dress up?

I actually didn’t for a while. I brought it with me from Boston, to New York, to DC and back to California. I couldn’t get rid of it. Rid of it until my friend looked at me and said come on Kate it’s time. You have a million other dresses. It’s time to let this one go. Letting go. I’m not too good at it at all. This dress was my best friend and companion and although ripped and unable to wear it- we had just been through too much, too much -to let it go. Letting go. I am a pack rat of the worst kind. I collect things that have memories, everything from dresses, to cards, to movie stubs from years ago, to old photographs, to anything that reminds me of someone, someone I once cared about. I have shoeboxes upon shoeboxes of memories. I keep things that are broken because a boyfriend gave them to me. Because this person I once loved gave me it. I can’t let go.

Letting go of the object, is letting go of them. Which makes me feel like a failure. It makes me sad in a terrible way. So I hoard things, I hoard people, I hoard the memories of them because although I might see the reality of how it all ended up, this idealist, this dreamer doesn’t want the regular material things, she wants things that mean something. Like this dress. This dress that got me through. This person that got me through.

When I did this I knew, it’s not about the dresses, or movie stubs, just like it’s not about those other people. It’s about me. It’s about me. It’s about me. Me being unable to deal with endings. Me not being able to deal with closure. Me not being able to deal with goodbye and meaning it. Meaning it. Meaning it in a way that I don’t hope you come back. Come back ever. There is always a piece of me that wants that person to walk, walk in the crosswalk right in front of me in between the asian woman, and blind man, and large dog walking towards me now.

Because the truth is I always look in front of me for the face of a familiar past shared. The anticipation of the possibility warms me. Warms me enough to remember, remember why. Why this is happening. Because once someone leaves, I can’t help but remember her. And wonder where she is. Where is she? And if she might, just might be walking towards me. Right now. Would she recognize her own daughter’s face- a face changed from a teenager to a grown woman? Her own eyes replicated in mine. I guess I am always looking around, waiting for her to come back, come back home.

don’t give your number to bouncers

Once upon a time, on a birthday far away from today, I gave my number to a bouncer. Now most women know there are certain men to avoid in the game and labyrinth of dating. They include: musicians, bouncers, bartenders, professional athletes, cops, djs and the military. I don’t heed or pay any attention to any of those rules because I like breaking rules. I don’t prescribe to the bible of dating, the hasty generalizations of love and labor, the he’s just not into you bullshit. But maybe, maybe I should. I actually think I might have dated all the no-no’s minus the professional athlete but the night is young- there is still time.

So back to this bouncer, I gave this bouncer my number. I remember thinking he was smart. I remember thinking I was sad over my most recent disaster of a relationship. I remember thinking he wouldn’t call. He did. He did the next day. Which is not the typical bad boy style of course. So when he left the number on my answering machine, before everyone held a technical device on their person, I called him, called him back. Just to hear a restaurant on the other end asking me if I wanted to make a reservation. So this might have been the sign. Who calls you and leaves you a wrong number? Probably not a soulmate. Probably not.

But he called again and it was an oversight of an area code, the 408. So we began the dance of dating. Not so successfully at the beginning but something about my move across the country away from him, but most importantly away from the only life I’d known in CA, made him seem like the one. The one. So there were talks of important things like figuring out where to live, graduate school, the m word, and the ring. He told me when he looked at me you thought of the m word. I had no clue what the m word meant but as it got stuck in his throat he said marriage. I think he was drunk when he first said it. Woo I feel special.

This love affair, this love affair promptly ended when I got into graduate school and he didn’t. This wouldn’t be the first time my ambitions-educational and otherwise-got in the way of love. There wouldn’t be a layover where we both would land. I was sad but then I knew, knew there was something about this bouncer, this bouncer just didn’t seem right, his eyes didn’t stay too still, he never really made me the most important part of his life. So with time, I realized this love affair was a young one, a young one that would have never gotten me through the gray hair and the grandchildren. So I continued on my quest for the soulmate. My true soulmate.

When he told me he was getting married on a myspace message before facebook got popular. I thought wow- seriously- this is how we tell people about big life decisions. Is this where we tell people of our marriages, our divorces, our diseases, our cancer, or hey I got laid last night? I wondered why he told me. Why I needed to know? The funny thing is he thought I had beaten him to marriage. Beat him to marriage- like there is a race I am part of no one told me that the first who lands a ring, a date, a venue, a caterer and a marriage wins. Game of life on fast forward, on speed dial. Sure, right. How about who gets divorced first- it that part of the game too?

So years later when I looked down at my phone and saw that 408 with a text message, it wasn’t entirely a surprise. Writing me things about memories shared between us. Some were really faint for me. He married the next person he dated, I didn’t. I’m in Boston and thought of you or I’m in Healdsburg or I don’t know. I guess the topper is when he wrote, wrote me once and said I’m in the city without my wife, I want a drink, one drink and nothing else. Nothing else. I’m sure. I would rather sit with you, me, and your wife in a overheated sterile white room with no alcoholic freedom in sight with a strange beeping noise that won’t stop then every sit next to you again alone. Alone again. Now the greatest part of all this is he isn’t my husband, he isn’t my problem, and his wandering eyes aren’t inherited as mine.

Now I am left with annoying messages from someone I wish I could say fuck off to. But I don’t respond. Moral of this story to add to the trials and tribulations of dating and the interactions between the opposite sexes- is if you give a bouncer your number, he might just might call you, and if he does he might never stop. Ever. If it’s a risk you are willing to take, good luck. Good luck. If I had one thing to say, I would ask him to lose my number. Actually, I’ll say it now, please lose my number.

tell me/us your story- call for guestbloggers

so a lot of folks have been giving me their thoughts and stories (some i'm involved in & others not)- i am asking if anyone might want to share their stories here. all i ask is that they are true. i thought it might be fun to have some guestbloggers. so tell me, tell me if you want to share your embarrassing story, your story of grandeur, whatever it is, i'll take it as long as you are willing to bare your soul.

have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

phone to the afterlife

A death in San Francisco. A death in San Francisco. The strange thing about death is sometimes the tragedy of it, the impact of it depends who it is and how it happened. It’s like the details, the pauses, the moments surrounding the end matter, somehow. I didn’t understand death, the reason it is so hard to stomach until someone I was close to died. I realized then the finality of it all was the hardest part. It might be the only final, end, true end in our world. Nothing is forever but forever can change. Relationships can dissolve but then become one. Jobs can be lost and gain. Divorces can be remarriages to the same person you divorced in the first place. You can change your mind. He can change your mind. But death. There is no going back on death. And maybe the inability to go back, to have it on your own terms makes it so hard.

When my grandfather died, he almost died in San Francisco but he died in Santa Rosa. They transferred him because it was time to go home. He said to me the last time I spoke to him over the phone, “I’m leaving tomorrow.” And he did leave. He left early that next morning. What surprised me most when I felt the first pang of the death, the end, was that not everyone could feel what was happening inside of me. That I was just expected to move on and get over it because he was old or it was his time. But all I wanted to hear was I was sorry. Sorry for your loss. Not a get over montage of the typical move on, move on –why so I can make you feel better?

So the fact that I am mourning, mourning a man, a man who picked me up when I was sick at school, would take my dinner orders while he sang around his home, my 2^nd home. A man who called his wife my grandmother his bride. A man who would yell mail call and I would run to see what was in the mail even though it never was for me. A man who in the early am when I was a child he would pretend to be some type of funny monster as I cuddled into the womb of my grandmother in their bed. He would put his shirt over his head and until I pushed his stomach, he would make strange and funny noises. A man who drove me to college my first day. A man who wrote his last check to me. The death, the death didn’t matter but the end of a life. A life that had impacted me had. So when people are touched by the stories of losing another. It might be, might be because they remember how it is to lose someone they love, they love forever. If only I had a phone to the afterlife, I’d be fine. To hear his booming voice in my ear again, just once, just once, just once.

flying tampons

Trailhead. Trailhead. As I walked up the hill, the hills of the city, it felt as if I was walking up a trail. My calves are burning, my ass is tightening, it doesn’t matter, how many hills I walk up- it’s always the same. Always the same. It’s hard work every time. Every time it is hard work. But once you get up to the top, and while you are thankful for the workout without the confines of the gym, you get to the top and the burn- the inability to talk while walking all worth it. I walk everyday in my own trails in my own urban jungle I call home.

Sometimes I get too daring. Too bold. And think I can carry tons of groceries including a variety of beer up hill. Up hill. In one bag. I forget how easy it is to walk down the hill empty handed but to return to the incline with a bag in hand, a busting bag with the hairy eyeball beer and bock, and avocados, and peers, and humus, and crackers, and kombucha. It’s heavy. But my own guilt of the bay area forced me into the one bag. The one bag. Until. Until I am walking up the hill realizing this idea once profound is now not so much. I am walking up the incline and clenching the brown bag, switching back and forth between sides. My biceps ache- yoga helps but not enough. I am walking through the crosswalk on a sleepy street in Noe Valley when my favorite chapstick, my favorite flies out of my blue vintage purse like it has wings onto the pavement. I am not sure how I can pick it up while balancing the bag. How to do it? So I see two men right in front of me, greeting each other, they are friends, they seem friendly. So I ask do you mind picking up that chapstick, no problem. It’s now in my hand. I thought this was a good idea until I started walking up the hill. Walking up the hill.

I walk a few steps onto the next incline when not one but two tampons fly out of my purse. This fucking, so cute, so vintage, so not useful purse, I need some zippers. So the two men gentlemen are about to pick up the tampons and I can’t let them for some reason. Don’t pick those up. I say. They are tampons. I can’t believe I’m even saying this aloud. Why am I talking? I should have left them and kept going. Wow they seem so small I didn’t know they came that small. Oh they are OBs. Oh shit. Shut up Kate, shut up. Do you want us to help you? We don’t mind helping you with your bag. I am bending over picking up the tampons I couldn’t leave behind. No, I am okay. Still talking out loud, I am pretty much too embarrassed and bright red so I am going to keep walking. Walking up the hill. Up the hill. Home.

the safety of the tree swing

Ask me if I care. Ask me if I care. When I have to listen to the self important bs about how the sky is crashing down over the simplest things. Simplest things. I say often in my head or aloud if you want real problems I can give you some of mine. It’s the people who talk too loud, loud enough for you to hear, how they are experiencing the biggest problem of their lives. But when you are finally prompted to listen, listen to the words, ready for something big, something worth hearing. Ears perked, my own inner dialogue on pause. Then with the wonderful climax, kind of nothing, like I don’t know how to deal with my roommate who eats my food or deal with my insurance for my dog or something kind of vanilla and not so exciting.

Once someone told me I didn’t understand, that this woman, this woman he had been involved with has ruined his life. Ruined his life. I guess what struck me then, as it strikes me now, is how can you let someone ruin your life. How melodramatic, how not grounded in reality. Ask me if I care. Because I have had people who I could sit and say have ruined my life. No, you don’t understand. But these people, these people didn’t ruin my life because I wouldn’t let them. Not my mother, not my brother, not my former loves or former friends. Because you decide what will kill you and the imperfection of these people and relationships have not led to my own feelings of a complete ending. The feeling someone is ruining your life.

I guess I decided a long time ago, that I would never let anyone ruin my life. Maybe when I was 5 or 6 and my parents amidst one of the legendary battles- I decided, I decided to not sit on the sidelines, but stand up, stand up, and get involved. Stand in the middle between the two halves of me, me standing in the middle of the two parts coming together into me. Their everlasting connection, their child, their kindergarten child begging from them to stop. Ask me if I care. I guess I decided that I could let them ruin their relationship. But they wouldn’t ruin me. I would stand there and not let us, let our family be ruined. Because be ruined, ruined would mean the end.

As I stood there, all those times, pleading for the hope and desire of us to stay as one. I watched as my dream fell away, as I found safety on my tree swing in my front yard, or looking out my picture window my dad had made me in my closet because I was scared, scared of witches late at night. As I watched the dream fall away, I knew it was okay, I wasn’t ruined. If I could survive the ruin of my family, I could survive anything. Anything at all. Ask me if I care. I do. I still do.

anatomy lesson of the worst kind

So you know the first time a man officially, officially asks you to live with him, you think it will mean something, you think it will matter. So when a man, a man I had only knew for a few weeks, a man I had met on the streets of the Upper West Side while he was working, working construction, asked me, asked me to move in with him, I was moved. Not moved in my world stood still, or my heart skipped a beat, but more like my stomach turned and my lovely dessert with chocolate always chocolate lost its flavor. We were sitting across the table from each other, in a tight intimate table at Café Lalo, famous for you’ve got mail. I always loved this time, dessert, and would rush through dinner just for the sweets. And now, I wish dessert time was over. Immediately. With his New Yorkesque accent, he says, so you can live with me and cook and clean and you won’t have to pay rent.

Mind you I currently was living on the Upper West Side, on Central Park West, an address most people would kill for, an address someone might give up a limb or an appendage over like a toe or a finger. I was there not because of my own connections not because of my own family but I was a dog walker for a cute little Tibetan terrier. The same terrier that helped me meet men in New York, the way I had met this man. So he wants me to move to Westchester, to his shitty one bedroom apartment and leave New York, and my home a 10-minute subway ride from my grad school. The only price I’d pay other than leaving Manhattan, my view of Central Park, being right next to school and all my friends is cooking and cleaning. And I’m not even good at cleaning. I would have failed miserably as 1950’s housewife. This is not the life I dreamt for myself as a child in the 1980’s and then in 2005, there had to be something better. My grandmother and great-grandmother’s realities are not mine. Truth be told it would have made more sense if he cooked and cleaned and I was the breadwinner. But some guys just don’t get it.

Sad thing is I still saw him. Because I give things a try even when I should let them die. So when we slept together, I figured I might as well see what I was signing up for in the realm of dating not the living together part. I had a rude awakening. Now I am all for talking, I am pretty verbal in my everyday life, almost every aspect of my life- I even talk in my sleep- anyone who knows me can attest to this, but during sex not so much. In my over verbal life, I slow it down during this time. So when he began to repeatedly let me know what was going on between us, down there- my cock, your pussy, my c, your p, my c, your p. What is going on? Why is the guy giving me a play by play? I am in shock. This had never happened. Even though I am what I would consider a sexual novice in the amount of partners I’d had at this point- this can’t be normal. It isn’t. Either this guy watched too much porn or needs to let himself know what’s going on, because it’s doing nothing for me. Nothing at all. It continues my c, your p, my c, your p. Over and over again. I just want it to stop. Stop. This is an anatomy lesson of the worst kind. My c, your p, my c, your p. So needless to say that between the pitiful attempts at asks for cohabitation and sex, it is over between us. If I had to do it again I would have been more bold than not returning his calls, I would have told him thanks but no thanks me and my educated vagina are finding somewhere else to call home. But if he would cook and clean and not talk out of turn, maybe just maybe this would work out just fine.

sending the irish and love to haiti

i just wanted to give a shout out to erin o'donnell who is currently in haiti putting her money where her mouth is and her skills as a talented RN to use at a children's hospital, hope hospital. i want to show her my support & share her good work with you. thanks for the inspiration and the laughter! oh and also helping my friend's brother when she accidently stabbed him in the hand while here in the states;) saving lives in big and small ways. . . all my love.

where I stood-teardrops dry quickly in the sun

i wrote this a year ago and it was the first piece i performed on stage- i got some laughs and didn't die of embarrassment for standing up and saying my own words aloud- enjoy!


What has been left behind, a few mismatched promises of socks, a what ifs pair of boxers, boxer briefs, a photograph of a moment in music chosen for me, a love letter of a proper mix cd, disappointment of a pair of scrubs, a free forgotten yelp chapstick. The things left behind have been from my former loves, the temporary choices I made, chances I took, check that off my growing checklist, fruition into the present of the shoe box of missed opportunities. A small space. I always tried my hardest, it wasn’t never enough or too much. Tenacity and determination. I still haven’t given up, I probably should. I have thrown the majority of the contexts away at least for now. Discarded but still present inside of me.

I recently slipped off the iceberg of falling in love with the wrong man, once again. Saved from the repeated love affair by the budos band heart triangle- afro soul by a bunch of white dudes fashioned with staten island accents. I stood in the same exact spot where we all met (me, him, and his x-girlfriend) exactly one week later my thank you note to her unneeded- it all looked different with the lights on. Twitter this. Questionable hygiene, he didn’t shower enough, or brush his teeth without making his gums bleed. His front tooth slightly broken yellowish annoyed me when I looked upon it. Every time he smiled, I saw it, I decided to look at his nose distracted by a stray hair up to his eyes instead it warmed me for a moment, it was all a distraction. His fabulously unique underwear once had skid marks- I pretended not to see. He was the perpetual epitome of me dating beneath my potential, a trademark that I should have been denied ownership of, US Patent Office please take it back.

Once he returned to me after a two-week absence of my choice, he was sleeping with multiple people, I wasn’t, I wasn’t okay with sharing, pre-school revisited. He returned to me in whirlwind of second chances in the ultimate coolness of a band tour not as a member but the sound guy straggling on chasing the importance of the eyes of others, unbearable lightness of being defined into his reality, becoming my reality, one set of eyes could never be enough. One set of eyes can never be enough. How about this- try and be interesting. He stopped the tour van full of stinking and talented mostly dorky men outside my house, the J train started to honk- he was blocking the tracks. I wasn’t impressed.

Sharing my passion to superficial ears never divulging below the surface, the idea of me is better than the reality. Listening to his passion, “this music is so ironic”. Like a well weathered student trying to connect to his world I listened to the lyrics and came back with my thoughts. So do you think this ironic because question mark. . .he couldn’t comment, I hadn’t given it that much thought. Careless in words, inconsiderate in actions, forethought is now my afterthought. Signs all there, red flags aflapping, I still gave it a chance.

It’s not too late. My reluctance to speak- I didn’t want to hear it reverberate in my own ears. Shaking my eardrums awake. This was a man who wanted to date more than just me and successfully did. How could he? But I still wanted to see the goodness that existed in him, between us, inside of me. So much I ignored so much, too much. This aftermath exposed my own desperation to connect with another in a momentary companionship. Yes, he didn’t beat me or verbally abuse me but is that the only type of abuse that leaves the bruising- forgotten fruit, makeup cannot cover. One of your last requests was for me to use your real name if I ever told the tale of you- all the eyes in the world can never make you feel alive. We don’t all get what we want.

The desperation of failed attempts, the weight of things not working out too heavy, the chemistry can’t keep happening, propelled me into dating this man. We do not say what we want not because we do not know, but instead we are scared what it might sound like aloud.

He wanted a women who was younger, less confident, quieter, he wanted to be the funniest, the smartest, he wanted the control- 1950’s relationship roles not left behind in recent history. I want someone who can return a library book. What I wanted, what I want, all depends on where I stood or if I am still standing, standing on that box.

I am.

dear god, it’s me, kate. please send me breasts.

Puberty. Puberty just really was miserable, wasn’t it? I remember being embarrassed when I started to get hair, hair in strange places but with no mother figure to show me the way I became confused what do, how do it? How do you ask your stepmom or your grandma about shaving your legs or your armpits or anywhere else for that matter? Even though the hair was growing, one actually two things weren’t my breasts. I desperately, desperately wanted boobs more than anything. I remember sticking out my chest as a child trying to look like Brooke Shields- little did I know she didn’t have much to speak of herself. I would check out my other female family members weighing the possibilities that their genetics might be mine. I would stuff my bra for fun around the house. I even tried I must-I must increase my bust exercises. I think I even stuffed my bra with shoulder pads for a dance- I guess I was too scared to actually make the purchase of the padded bra. Like the acknowledgment in that purchase would mean they would never grow. I prayed to God every night to send me some womanhood so I could be like everyone else. So I would be liked. So guys would like me. Little did I know that these precious endowments would be the least of my worries in getting guys to like me.

When I was in jr. high- it seemed like guys only liked girls with breasts and guess what I didn’t have any. So when your are in math class, math class and one of the infamous cool kids, cool kids in jr. high didn’t always make it successfully to be popular in high school. He says in front of 40 set of eyes, 40 sets of eyes, I was in public school of course, why is your chest as flat as your back? Part of me died. I hadn’t even started my period yet you stupid idiot. My ability to be strong was weakened and dulled by thoughts of others and being liked and not standing out. Because at my junior high if you didn’t smile and look pretty at everyone you might get your face slammed into a locker. No joke. It was a scary place. At only 5 ft and 90lbs I didn’t have much wiggle room. So what I wish I would have said, was something about how no one knew what kind of manhood he had in his pants- no one could judge him, judge him for his shortcomings, why don’t you pull it out for everyone to see or something like that I would have said. I would have kicked his ass. I would have told him he was asshole. Instead I sat there with a room full of laughter on my account, the tears falling on the inside.

So this comment, those words why is your chest as flat as your back stayed with me for years and I referred to myself as flat chested. Flat chested even after my breasts grew to an ample perky C. Until one day someone said, you aren’t flat Kate what are you talking about? What was I talking about? Why had I let such a loser have effect on my self-esteem? So years later, years later after I was done with college and in the midst of grad school, I saw this boy now a supposed man at a bar in our hometown. He was bloated fat from the love of the beer, and living in his mother’s home and had never left the confines of our childhood suburban bubble. With some wonderful liquor courage, I told him what he had said to me- why is your chest as flat as your back. His response, he looked me up and down and said well it’s not true now is it and within an hour asked me to go home with him, to his mother’s place. I passed. This time the only humiliation was his and I was the one laughing.

i must confess

assignment: 3 images from your image notebook chosen before the assignment of a confession letter was assigned. 3 images: Jelly Bellys, Pink lines across a blue sky, Mud. 10 minutes later this is what i came up with.

Dear Dad,

I must confess this, it is something I have never told anyone before or if I did I had forgotten. When I was younger, my brother, your son was pretty awfully behaved. Well to be honest, he still is. Still, he broke things. He peed on light bulbs, he flushed apples down toilets, he hit me with his plastic baseball bat, he ransacked my room. So when I broke the answering machine, I broke the answering machine. I told you that he did it. I knew because he much younger he would get away with it, but he didn’t. He got in trouble, but not too much.

I want to confess this that once when you and P went on vacation without me, I threw a huge high school party at your house, the M section house with the cream carpets. Mud tracked its way in. But I cleaned. You never found out. The cops came, but couldn’t figure out which house it was so they never found out either. I did it because you went on a family vacation when I was going away to college and I was pissed.

This one you probably already know. The time on New Year’s Eve when I had only Jelly Bellys for dinner and found refuge in the bar, I wasn’t pushed down, but I blacked out and fell on my face. Almost breaking my nose.

I must confess that sometimes I wish you were different. I wish your strength from your past would be with you today, always. I wish you weren’t depressed or sad. I wish you would tell me about my mother. I wish you would tell me about you. Without saying your stomach hurts or going to take a nap. I want you to be happy. I must confess I fear your death. I look up at the sky with pink lines against the blueness of dusk the light reflecting on my face and I think, I think about what it would be like to tell you this. How would it make me feel to speak the truth.

the questionnaire to my heart

this is inspired by nancy's version of jeopardy and nanni, my partner in crime.

It could be worse, you could be me. I think this thought crosses a mind at least once in a while. Admitting to the overwhelming place, when you say can I get out of this? To yourself, in a serious tone. No one can hear but you. You can hear it. For it’s like a scream from someone running away from a mugger or a newborn who can’t be comforted. It’s pretty uncomfortable. So what do you do with this? What do you do this feeling? I laugh. Humor has been my solitude as long as I can remember. If you laugh about something it hurts less, it just does.

So at the bar I’m sitting with my friend and we are going over a questionnaire we could give men before they date us. If you have issues with alcohol, cocaine, keeping your dick in your pants, keeping a job, spitting inappropriately, or in a band- please check yes and return the questionnaire. Good luck with your life.

We laugh and keep on going. How about this- when I say I might touch you with hands that might have touched something sticky like a pastry or champagne or chocolate- what do you think? We keep on coming up with scenarios of our own lives, our own love lives to somehow not repeat our mistakes. So how about this- how often do you brush your teeth? A) Daily. B) When I feel like. C) What’s a toothbrush?

When I say that members of my family might be accident prone, a little crazy, please give me 4 words that come into your head. How long has it been since your last relationship? If it is within 3 months, thanks for your time, but your work here is done. Was your last girlfriend more than 5 years younger than you? Do you think making fireworks is a good hobby choice? If I told you I have stabbed someone, would you be worried? A) If it was on purpose. B) It’s okay if was your brother. C) Let’s not do steak dinners for awhile. Big, fake tits....your feelings. Do you think it is appropriate to discuss important issues liking us breaking up or you getting married to your new girlfriend via any networking site- myspace, facebook, or linked in even gmail for that matter?

It keeps going and going and we are laughing and laughing. And my friend turns to me and says thank God I have you, because at least there is someone else out there like me, so I don’t feel alone. Not feeling alone. Not feeling like the worst is being you. That’s the whole point- so if this exercise or any other like it might seem self-deprecating, or relaying on my defense mechanisms, or it might be hurtful to me. I don’t really care. Because when I laugh, I let go, I connect with someone else over the pain and the disappointment of it all. And if laughing makes me feel lighter, makes it feel better to be me than not than who really cares. It could be worse, you could be me.

The train flew by and all I could think was how beautiful it is right now. I’m not laughing, but by laughing I am surviving. Surviving this moment. This day. Survive so that I can truly live. Live free from the thoughts that it is terrible to be me. Laughing allows for me not to despair in the bad timing, or layoffs, or breakups, or late fees, or running late, or that parking ticket, or tripping over nothing on the street, or of slipping and falling. It keeps from my heart breaking into two. Making fun of yourself is the best way to keep from falling over.

magic tricks

Magic. He asked me if I entertained people by doing magic tricks. No I said, by telling stories. Oh, you are a writer. I hesitantly said yes. Magic, magical tricks, the questions we are asked at bars waiting to get our beers.

I have always remembered, believing I had extraordinary powers. That I had the ability to will something to happen. I would sit and concentrate and try to see if I could move something. Nothing ever shifted but my eyes, my eyes around the room. I would try and put my two index fingers together to stop time. Magic. Magical gifts. It never worked. It turned out I wasn’t a character in a sitcom, I wasn’t Evie.

Magic, believing in magic is freeing even if you can’t actually do it. Not on a stage, not supernaturally, but maybe there is magic of a moment, a connection, a run to the bus stop just in time. The moment I think of someone and they call. The fact that someone can look at me and stop time. For that moment can be magic. I think so.

I love discussing magical powers with the kids. The magic of Y’s dreams of being an author and a veterinarian and maybe a lawyer and teacher too. I tell K to put out his power hand while he is running or when he gets out of the bath he becomes invisible naked boy. He runs around the house performing tricks and saving lives and afterwards his smile beaming from ear to ear. Maybe we shouldn’t tell Mom and Dad and Y about this. About these magical powers. He has a squint of happiness in his eyes, powerful, powers he thinks he has.

I wish I could bottle up the belief in magic and sell it. We all need more of it. Magic. I might be a fool for believing in everyday magic but I don’t really care. Because if you open your eyes really open your eyes you will see magic around you so you might not be able to levitate or voodoo your x-boyfriend or his new girlfriend and they actually feel it. But does that matter really? Magic the belief in it means more the ability to perform tricks. So if that man at the bar was to ask me again if I perform magic tricks today, today if he asked, I would say yes, yes of course. Everyday and promptly walk away.

guess who is coming to dinner: cougar style

What do you do when your brother tells you, he is dating someone closer to your age, someone closer to the age of your stepmother, and also your father? You have two choices after the surprise falls out of you again, to either, 1) throw judgment out the window or 2) judge, judge, and judge some more. Well I wish I could say I did one, but that just isn’t part of my older sister makeup. I still want to protect my brother even if he doesn’t think he needs it. Like my parents still try to tell me things as I walk out the door, don’t forget your coat it’s raining. So I opted for two, plus some lectures later, and to get through some herbal sedatives, lots of herbal sedatives. If I knew what I had in store, I would have gone to the doctor and begged for some prescription freedom. Lesson learned.

All I see is 3 to 4 inch heels, well manicured feet, jeans with sequins on the bottom and little on the rear just to make sure you are paying attention, they glisten in the light of the hotel bar against our overpriced champagne. Then the boobs, huge obtrusive boobs, cleavage that makes Pamela Anderson stalkers even swoon. No it keeps going when I see her face. Her face is covered in makeup, makeup like you used to wear when you couldn’t be comfortable in your own skin. That was when I was 15. She is 42. Very tan skin, almost too tan, and hair her hair is perfectly done, almost bleached but still shockingly pretty. Not one knot, not one hair out of place. The OC embodied in one woman is sitting next to me, next to me as my brother introduces her to me and introduces me to her. My younger brother, my brother is 20 years her junior. She tells me as she speaks with her half-British half-Laguna Hills dialect about her surgeries, I have had two boob jobs, my ears pinned back, a nose job. Holy fuck, I just met you 5 minutes ago I think. If I had all that work done, I hope I would be hotter. More unique. Less Barbie, more exotic. Later she worked up to the important things when we had known each other a little longer like 24 hours or something. Have you had your boobs done? They are very nice. Excuse me. No they are real. Well I’m thinking of getting mine done again, she says. Shoot me. Please take me to my dead place. Whatever I did universe, God, in my former life please, please forgive me. I will do whatever penance required, live more simply, be kinder to my neighbor, get rid of material possessions-just make this lady go away. I say, if you make them any bigger, you are going to fall the fuck over. She laughed her uncomfortable laugh.

In the car when I was stuck with the two, the longest ride as of yet, they would googly eye each other in the rear view mirror. I love you, no I love you more. Then argue. Then talk about marriage. All the while my brother lecturing me about my love life. I either need to get a therapist for the ride next time or some serious medication. She wore a nighty around my uncles and parent’s homes, homes against their own judgment they welcomed her in, and she didn’t pause for one moment to evaluate the appropriateness of it all. This lady is making me seem conservative.At my parent’s home, she and my brother cuddle like teenagers so much my parents had to intervene. As she wears her juicy couture suit when our family goes on a hike, still showing too much, that zipper too low. It is her standard look. The cleavage. I am much younger than her telling her she should cover up to meet my parents, my family. This is a joke of the worst kind. She tells us how she renamed herself. Renamed herself? Because too many women in the salon, too many women in the salon had her name. Is anything about this woman real? Anything at all? What does my brother see in her but her boobs her huge boobs, maybe, I’m not sure. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

No one tells you how to deal with this, no one writes books about what happens when your brother or son brings home a cougar, or any of my brother's antics for that matter. Maybe I should write one. It would include the following topics in the series: How to deal with your brother when he brings home a cougar, or becomes part of the conservative movement and is on the O’Reilly Factor before he can drive or gets departed from Africa? So next year, next Thanksgiving, I’m going to my local coffee shop or nursing home or senior center and finding my own boyfriend to borrow, to rent, to fall in love with and to take home. He might be 70-but it’s my turn to be the talk of my family.

thanks, thanks, and more thanks!

thanks for making the first week of this blogging experience so amazing. there is nothing scarier then stepping out into the world and saying things aloud or writing them, but i have been truly humbled by the response i have received thus far. keep reading and i will do my best to keep the funny, the sad, the completely embarrassing coming your way.

most of this writing is done through free writes. i receive a prompt, a word or phrase, and write for 10 minutes each day. i have been surprised what writing has come up over the word virgin or smoking or the phrase life or death. the class is offered at the wonderful grotto- http://sfgrotto.org/ and taught by Janis Cooke Newman-http://www.janiscookenewman.com/

happy b-day to lilibeth and ross this week- strong beautiful women both i have had the privilege to say i have lived with. lili there is no old for you- remember i'll at least always be older;)

there is no crying over spilt milk

It was life or death. I say this all the time to the kids I watch. Was it life or death? Was it a small or big problem? Will you d-i-e (spelling it out)? Will you live if we do it this way? What could wait until tomorrow? It’s all about perspective and maybe it’s insensitive to play around with this concept of life and death. Its more the ability to have perspective-is this something we can live through, is this something we can figure out? So when the water or milk spills at dinner more often then not and K starts to profusely apologize, I say calmly- is this a big or small problem? He meekly answers, a small problem. But why don’t you yell at me when I do it? He asks as if I hold the answers. Because every adult is different and makes different choices but really. Maybe they just are tired or burnt out and patience left them yesterday because as caregivers there is no perfection. There can’t be. The reason I am so calm about spilling things is because I still do. I am a spiller. In the office, when I worked in one, people would be amazed if I made it through the day without my standard coffee stain somewhere on my business professional clothes of the jcrew and ann taylor and once I got a raise maybe some benetton assortment. I don’t miss those clothes. I don’t miss that life.

My father yelled at me regularly for spilling the milk- loud explosive yells and then the God Damn it or Shit or some other swear word. He would jump up and yell and sometimes slam his hand down. So I would profusely say sorry and my heart would beat, beat hard and I would feel bad. But it was just an accident. It was life or death. It felt that way. But really it was spilt milk. My dad wasn’t mad at me. He was mad at someone else or because he hated his job. So when the milk spilt he yelled at me, regularly. So I am sensitive about this spilling thing. And that might be why I stay so calm when the kids do it. There is no crying over spilt milk I say. When I see the glass getting close to their elbows as we talk over our dinner, I remind, them stay away from the splash zone. I try to make it light. It was life or death.

Spilling for me is a deal breaker. If you yell when someone makes a mistake, a real mistake, I can’t help but feel like the little girl again. I can’t help but feel like it’s life or death. So when I spilled the beer by accident more than once. More than once. Because I am a spiller. He got mad at me. But unlike the child I once was I didn’t curl up into the fetal, I apologized and tried to fix it. Something that is not mean or vile or intentional should be easily forgiven. Accidents are accidents. It was life or death only in the way we handle it.

farting & faults

What was wrong with her was her ability to fart. She farted too much. She couldn’t control the flatulence from coming out. It was a misnomer that women didn’t fart. Everyone in her family seemed to be gassy but for some reason her problem seemed worse. It has caused problems. Nighttime was really where her problem lied. At night when she was in the comfort of her own home either by herself or with friends she could let them come easily and then the laughter. She had been able to impress her guy friends with her ability so much they asked permission to tell their friends. The hard part was when she started dating someone she would have to hold them in so long, especially during a sleepover, that she would get stomach cramps. Cramps so bad that sometimes they lasted for days. She tried to figure out if it was certain foods, the typical suspects, beans, milk products, cheese to no avail. The gas kept coming. It was always a relief when the guy she would date would start farting around her. It gave her the permission to do one once in awhile. She didn’t want to show off and be better than the guy she was with.

What was wrong her was, what was wrong with her, what was wrong with her was she liked picking things. Picking her own blemishes, picking scabs, she used to pick her brother’s ears and pop his zits on his back. It was pretty gross but it was like an addiction something she couldn’t stop. It caused a problem when she got close to someone and really saw something that needed a squeeze or scratch.

What was wrong with her was she couldn’t sit still. She had to always be moving. Moving around the office. Moving around the room. Moving about the country. She couldn’t sit still because she was scared what would happen when not moving. Her mind was in constant movement- ping pong, ping pong. She had tried all the new age bullshit without a relief in sight. Yoga, meditation, acupuncture, somatic therapy. It didn’t matter. She would move around the room during yoga. Trying different peoples mats, which she found out, was a no-no. During mediation she tried, thought about her lists of things she had to do or people she had to call or about unresolved issues. Not really relaxing. During acupuncture, she tried moving but the needles forced her to the table. It felt like a twinge throughout her body. So she laid still. On the table. But her mind. Her mind kept moving.

mobster gynecologist

She once said I’m used to having a cocktail first and dimmer lights. The nurse practitioner laughed. And promptly said the dreaded words, scoot down. No, more, keep coming. While moving her fingers, collapsing into her own hand. She didn’t want to get any closer and would rather close her legs until the end of eternity. So that being said she was not excited in the least to be seeing a male gynecologist. It freaked her out. She only was going because something might be wrong with her. She couldn’t bear the thought of waiting any longer if she had the possibility of cancer in either of her lovely perky breasts or in her dear vagina. So she wasn’t waiting. These folks were her friends and friends needed answers. Okay she needed the answers. It was as if she had prepared herself in that moment the nurse practitioner told her that she needed to go the gynecologist, she braced for the worst. If it’s my breast, I’ll take a lot of pictures and walk around my house and beaches topless and then Sayonara. But the other spot, her vagina. That could be more complicated- what about cancer or future babies? The internet. She turned to the internet even though she shouldn’t have, Web MD was made to freak you out not console you.

She walked into the office with her friend, her female friend. She was too scared to go alone. First, there was the office. The office was the typical box size with the appropriate credentials hanging. They waited for him to come in. He came into the fog, into the stifle. He was her worst nightmare. He had a collar shirt unbuttoned too much, too far and she could see, it revealed not only a strong resemblance of manhood a hairy chest but chains, not one but many. Could you get more cliché, could you get more scary? Is he my doctor or a mobster? She might have just thrown up in her mouth or peed her pants, at least a little. He sits down in a cocky manner taking up a lot of space, his head turned to the right. He keeps asking her questions. He not only looks like a weird reminisce of the 1970’s but he is insensitive and an asshole. He asks her again and again, tone scathing, why don’t you know your mom’s history?. Is she dead or something? Are you adopted? So what does this growth look like? What do you think it is? She answered. He wasn’t interested in her answer but her friend’s. He looks at her friend, just her friend, and says the words, what do you think it is? You have seen it, right.

What a fucking creep. Now she wants to get the fuck out of there she doesn’t want to show this guy her world. To have to wait another 30 days almost seems unbearable. So although her instincts say no, she goes into the exam room. Because if she has cancer she wants to know today not in a month.

So the exam. A female nurse was there. The American gigolo/ her new doctor is now coming for her breasts. So it doesn’t feel like a tumor, but you’ll probably keep bothering me so I’ll get an ultra sound. Oh geez, thanks for the favor, she thinks to herself. Okay sit up. Lift your arms, up and down. Has your left breast always been a little bigger than your right? Yes, I think so she answers. He goes onto explain it’s the same with feet and hands and also balls. Oh, she says. He responds very quickly are you familiar with balls. I am not a fucking lesbian she thinks to herself. I mean shit if I could be one I would but this isn’t the price of right of sexuality. She is straight through and through.

She might die if this doesn’t get this over with. The scoot down thing is happening. Okay more, no more. She is beginning to sweat underneath the shitiness of the papereasque gown, her heart thumping, she is looking up at the ceiling, she is praying, she is counting, she is holding her own hands.

Okay, I know what this is. Come here. Sit up. To the nurse- get her a mirror. A mirror, what in God’s name makes this a Betty Friedan Vagina Monologue moment? So you see this. Yes pointing to the potential cancer. This is your hymen. Well actually half of your hymen. How is that possible?

Well let me draw you a diagram. So it seems like when you first had sex- part of the hymen didn’t collapse into the vagina. Meaning you still have half of yours. Cosmetic, for cosmetic reasons, I can remove it. But if it isn’t causing you any problems. It all trails off.

She can’t wait to get out of the room. To laugh- to scream- to drink- to celebrate. She not only would be keeping her breasts she had part of her virginity.

the messiness of sex

Virgin. Virginity. It was something to hold onto. It was something you weren’t supposed to give away. I held onto mine much longer than most. I don’t really know exactly why but one day you wake up and realize you haven’t had sex. Ever. And everyone else has. You are almost done with college. You had hoarded yourself because you saw the causalities of junior high and high school and college and you didn’t want to be a statistic. Part of me didn’t trust myself. That expression. Secretly I collected the numbers, the crushes, the beginnings, the attention, the ask outs at the bike racks of junior high becoming prom dates. But then there was the stopping point. The roadblock- you can’t cross over until. Until- until I was ready to. Ready to believe that someone loved me, loved me enough to share and show that love without leaving. Which in hindsight now seems pretty hefty. But it is still there.

So how do you give yourself or allow yourself to join in the hush hush ever-important game of sexual activity. Very slowly at first. The truth is when you hold onto the idea of perfection, finding someone to love, loving someone to do it, it’s hard to actual do. But it seems like the ideals and ideas have seemed to dissipate over time. Over time they have. I used to have sex with only people I was in love with. Today that is not the case. I still hold onto it not like I held onto my virginity but how and when I decide to do it. It is like either a drought or a monsoon with men and sex and although I tried, tried not very hard in the cafeteria line of casual sex, it ultimately doesn’t work for me. And you know what it shouldn’t. It isn’t casual. It is intimate. You are sharing yourself in an intimate way and there is no separation for me. I need real intimacy and everything else that entails. Yet there still is the biological need. That is something harder to hold onto. As I am beginning my thirties that urge and need seems stronger. Or is it just the urge and need to have someone, someone you are intimately in a relationship with. Regularly, Not sporadically. Not just when you have a too many cocktails. Not every six months. But Regularly. Regularly. I have done the gray. You know the in between the love affair and the official breakup or after the breakup and the crashing into. This last time the only thing I couldn’t say was we aren’t just sleeping together but we are going through the motions of a relationship. Motions that lead me to believe this would end differently.

The other reason causal sex can be messy other than the typical attachment possibilities, stds fun, or pregnancy at the wrong time, is the possibility of having sex with entirely boring but mostly stupid man. I tried it once. It almost killed me. I can’t fuck you if you can’t engage in a meaningful conversation. That might be why casual sex died for me. But the thing is I don’t feel like its causal even if it happens “too quickly” if we continue to date. Continuing on the path, the trajectory seems more comfortable for me. Still if it happens, when it happens. I am happy because it usually been a while. But I am worried, worried. And waiting. Waiting like I used to join the game of sex. I play. I play way differently than I used to. Sex has changed for me. Still I know how I like it best and we aren’t just talking positions.

Last night I had a dream that relationships could be as easy as the sex. The sex part has became easy but the follow through of the relationship, the relationship, a real relationship has. The type with or without definitions that makes me say I love you, I love you aloud sometimes, but I love you in my heart always. So as you held me as I cried and looked intensely and fiercely into my eyes and said, “I’m sorry Kate”, I knew that glitch meant nothing and everything all at once. I was left with what to do with your mess, your inherited mess, now our mess together.

shitboarding

Today I made the mistake of wearing Toms. It had been raining for the El Nino round 2 or 3 or something. I have lost track. I got all ballsy and decided to wear my Toms-you know the canvas ones that help you save the world and make you feel warm and fuzzy. I have four pairs. The genius behind the shoes is you help kids without having to interact to them which in our American world of quick fixes and such just makes sense. Note to self don’t wear them in the winter, I usually don’t. I broke my own rule. I had the bright idea in a winter when we have a streak of more rain flooding into our streets than in years. It had stopped for two days, I thought it was a long enough reprieve.

Years ago when I was in high school or college it rained that much. El Nino, La Nina, whatever-welcome to California you better know Spanish. All I know is I had to wear galoshes and rain jackets and use a golf umbrella that I frequently ran into people torsos and heads due to my short stature. In high school, some folks almost even threw down over that golf umbrella.

I was safe, safe until the rain held in the clouds turned from creamy whiteness on a bluish sky to black to black and the safety of my dry foundation of urbanity turned slippery and wet. I walked to the bank down hill in Toms in the pouring rain. I repeat-I walked to the bank down hill in Toms in the pouring rain. Not smart. I was trying to text while the rain poured on my phone knowing I was risking water damage to my phone and/or slipping down the hill since the Tom’s bottoms are not too water proof. Saving lives doesn’t mean effective shoes. I begin to slip- I am clenching my jaw, my back, my butt in, fighting against gravity and what surprises me most is that I am skiing in a host of dog shit. It might be new but definitely wet in the middle of the sidewalk. Shit shit shit. Let me throw in a fuck for good measure. I haven’t stepped in dog shit for years I don’t even remember the last time and now I am snowboarding in it. Fucking noe valley. You are capable of procreating post 40 and paying off your mortgage for your million plus dollar homes and believe in the importance of reducing your carbon footprint and composting but you can’t reach down to clean your precious dogs shit-that would be asking too much.

being pretty is hard work

I am in the nail salon to get a massage, it’s not like it might seem, but sometimes when I am desperate for a massage- it’s the only place to go. Yes, it’s not like the yoga studio or spa variety, but it will do. I am leaving where I was, relaxing as the woman places her fingers, elbows on my body, my knots, my war wounds of life. I can mute out the Asian dialect around me and the self-help of Oprah on the TV but not this. The only two women there are talking about the one thing I can’t here about right now, marriage. Not because I don’t believe in it, because I do. Not the typical American variety of the importance of the love being exhibited by ring size or the focus on the ceremony v. the relationship. No the part about committing to someone. But as your heart is breaking and pounding in similar motion you don’t want to hear about someone else’s happiness. I don’t desire the conversation of death, destruction, war, or famine either, no just not this. Marriage, rings, photographers, invites, exercise, losing enough weight, churches, I want to barf. I desperately believe in love and it’s possibilities, but in my own despair I have no desire to hear how someone else figured it out. I want to figure it out.

The cynic in me wants them to shut up. The cynic in me knows the marriage might not last. The cynic in me goes away. They are gone in the room but gone to me. I feel the pressure on my neck, it is releasing, the buzzer now ringing. Ringing. It is over.

The woman who works there is speaking to me in a loud voice almost booming, “ You are so pretty now. You look so different. You lost so much weight.”

What was I an ugly, fatso before?, I think to myself.

The woman she is working on, the one who didn’t skip a beat upon entering when asked what she needed, she said “a facelift.” She looks at me now, “You are so pretty.”

These compliments although maybe empty when you have been crying feel good. The woman’s face is weathered, she has lived. She says to me looking me in the eyes,
“Don’t marry the wrong man, I did more than once.”

And with that I am out the door. Tears brimming in my eyes. Being pretty is hard work.

smoking

Smoking. I used to hate when my mother would come into the house reeking of the smell of cigarettes. Like any good child, I frequently asked/begged her to stop. She didn’t listen. Or she pretended to. The truth is smoking and my mother’s relationship with the habit should have been the least of my worries. Her addiction to nicotine was much more bearable than her mood swings, her unpredictable behavior, the I’m your best friend then I’m your worst nightmare. There were no metal hangers scenes but there were others. There was a time she told me I would never see her again if I didn’t tell my pediatrician I wanted to live with her. In the midst of a custody battle, I thought it was true. I was eight.

So it was a surprise to me when I found myself with a cigarette in between my index and middle fingers for many years of my life. It all started the same with the typical you try it in high school around 14 and you are such a novice you don’t know how to inhale properly to I had a pack of cigarettes in my dorm room ready for an am smoke or for my typical chain smoking of drinking. Cigarettes-what I used to hate more than most things became my best friend. I was never alone. I could always be comforted. I had a pack. I smoked to celebrate. I smoked when I was drunk. I smoked when I was upset. I fucking smoked a lot. Still how did this thing about my mother become mine? It is strange that she stays with me after so much time. I know the research that a parent who smokes has a strong effect on their child’s future potential to blah, blah, blah. I was taught it was the way to cope. Even though there was a guilt I had for doing it, always. It never went away. The complexity of recreation and guilt never truly allowed me to stomach it properly. My father’s oldest friends wife once told me that she remembers my mom smoked while nursing me. Nice, I thought. It was the late 70’s; I’ll give you that but come on. Still, there was comfort in knowing that the addiction might have found its way in some of my first meals making it not entirely my fault. I eventually gave them up. I did keep an emergency pack for awhile. New years and birthdays I give myself the day off. Also, if my heart is broken. That happens more often than not.

the first one- my coffee

Coffee. It was just a cup of coffee. It was her cup of coffee. It meant the world to her. It had brought her solace for as long as she could remember. Conversations around the dinner table would continue and linger for her and her family both immediate and extended over the warmth of the cup. Her father regularly asked her and still does to brew a pot, “Kate B,” he says, “some coffee sounds good.” And before she knows it she is going through the same motions she had since she was a child. One of her first chores she could remember. It always made her feel important making that cup of coffee for her father. He takes it black. She with milk and one to two sugars depending if it is her favorite brown variety. With her grandparents, essentially her parents, who helped raise her it was the same. The bonding over that cup. Comfort in those moments relieved each day as she takes a sip. The nostalgia. It started off simply and not full of any ill intentions. She loved the smell of it and as a young child pleaded probably somewhat unmercifully until, until they let her have some. Negotiation and badgering were always her strengths. She was a determined one. Now don’t think they were bad caregivers. They merely gave her a slight splash into a warm cup of milk. But true love was formed in that first drop. Her early introduction to coffee is part of the reason why she jokes she is so short with her 5’2 and ½ stature. That half must count. It does.

First thing in the morning. Every morning. If not, the headache. The dreadful headache. She would be lethargic without it; she can’t truly function without a cup. Then in the afternoon. Then while meeting friends. Then after dinner, the commonplace of the beginning. It turned into a four cup a day or more habit. The more part happened mostly in college when she would have to force herself to stay awake to write a paper too late again. She never started early on those papers. She learned her limit the one morning, when she had consumed more cups of coffee. She awoke in the early hours of daylight to find refuge in the bathroom finding her seat on the toilet. It is a fate that no one not a college senior or a women in her thirties would like to recount, it was the dreadful explosive diarrhea. She had reached her limit, her body unable to actually absorb the amount of her love, her caffeine in a cup, rejected it in the most painful way. Okay, throwing up while shitting might have topped it. This would be the end you might think. No like any good addict, she just slowed it down a bit. Rationalized it was only because of finals, it was only because she didn’t eat enough, it was only because _______ (you can fill in the blank). It didn’t matter she wasn’t ready to check herself into a rehab or start the 12 step program. She didn’t give up that coffee then.

That wasn’t her only low point, there were others. She actually stole coffee before. It sounds somewhat ridiculous I’m sure but in the bouts of economic disarray as a graduate student in one of the most expensive cities in the country, you start to lose sense of right and wrong when you need to eat but also feed the addiction. The first time she did it, it was by accident. As she walked through Columbia’s underground labyrinth of Teachers College’s cafeteria, she had forgotten to alert the attendant that she had coffee in her tumbler. Once she realized she could get with it, she could not resist saving a dollar plus a day that she could put towards something else, anything else. The irony of going to one of the best education schools in the country and succeeding academically but failing miserably at making it financially could only be comforted by the coffee, that free cup of coffee. Everyone else she went to school with had legacies and trust funds. It just didn’t seem fair. She eventually was able to balance and juggle three part time jobs to make it work. Then she started paying for her coffee again.

So it should have came to be no surprise when her doctor told her that she needed to stop. Stop. No way. “I can only reduce”, she said. “So Kate, have you ever thought your anxiety could be exacerbated by your coffee intake?” She stopped. It was as if someone had kicked her in the stomach and everything was moving in slow motion but there is nothing she could do. She wasn’t a drug addict or an alcoholic, it was just coffee. But it was her coffee. It made sense, the signs were all there. She had overdosed, stolen to get it, denied the problem, and rationalized her behavior. She was an addict. She had to do something so she went straight to the coffee shop right after.