the mini-series of urbanity: my tiny window to the world seen through my stoop

What she got out of it was the world can be seen from her stoop. For the duration of half a burrito, swimming in extra green sauce with avocado her favorite green stuff, and the reminiscence of an ice coffee slurped through a straw sitting next to one of her closest friends, she had seen more and a lot in the last few moments. She and her sit together their bodies curve the shape of the stairs both residing on the 4th step, the top. Legs outstretched and covered by additional jackets for the breeze of a san francisco evening has begun. They sit perched in their own picture window to ebb and flow of urban life.

A man and woman walked by with in unison towards valencia to the right. The man carrying a surf board. The woman carrying a overstuffed bag. Next three runners in varying heights and in varying gender and a similar slender build run by. One of the girls recognize them but it is too late, they are gone. They return to the back and forth of bench time now no longer on a bench but a stoop. The catching up of life of work of love of dreams of all of it. Until the next image swirls by again. A smallish asian women with a pack of yap dogs start going crazy upon seeing another breed. She stands still with the barking mob mentality until they pass. Owner of other breed and friend laugh at the ferocious brawl. Small creatures barking like it might be their last. Then the roommate of one of the girls comes out of the house to talk of lost cats and happy hours pending and birthdays to celebrate. And then she is gone.

There is then space to just watch and see the glisten of the sun as it begins to dive to to the depths of the earth. The light is diagonal on top of the building makes the pastel painted projects look new. She and her look to the left and see a man, a man who looks at them and makes eye contact but not in a checking you out kind of fashion, eyes that are waiting to do something. And she turns to her and glance away. There is a pop. And a look to the left and there stand the shortish man around manhood stabs the tire again. The air releases out. He never looks at them again. And runs around the corner. What to do when you see a man pop tires of a family who parked not but a few minutes earlier? Random. Or not. What to do? When someone has a knife and long gone? Pause. A man and woman walks by the woman with a guitar the electric variety hugging her hip.

Until a car double parks light pulsing in and out until one, two, three women walk the red carpet home. Two of the three dressed in vibrance of colors of wigs of high heels and intoxicated in laughter. Two drag queens her neighbors are home. And in as the sun sets and the burrito foil is wrapped and as the two stand up again what she got out of it the world could be seen from her stoop. A few steps outside her home. She could sit there and observe it all. And how quickly she can turn around and open the door and go back inside. Deciding again when to come and sit and observe the picture window of her own making. Her own show of urbanity.

flashback: guess who is coming to dinner: round dos

so my brother didn't bring home another cougar but i revisited this piece and did some flip and flopping for a writers conference app and i thought i'd bring you a new version. this was a fav on a blog and in my class the first time around so let's hope you like the changes. i took into consideration questions such as how can the reader know what you look like kate in comparison? (unless you know me) or what did you parents think?- them being born agains made it all the more interesting. sorry i haven't been posting regularly the end of grad school and the end of the school year caught up with me. i am going to get back to my more regular posts! i promise! thanks as always for stopping by and your support.

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. 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 three to four 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 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.

The older sister. Me. Melting in this fancy hotel couch. Mental music plays of why me and fuck my life on repeat. I want to take my brother under this wing to shelter him from this storm of his undoing. I helped raise him for God sakes don’t I get to partake in the all-important role of badgering him and providing unsolicited advice as all parents do. I was once upon a time a child raising a child – a mother role left to a motherless child, me then, and me now.

As we sit next to each other- we are the polar opposites of femininity, of womanhood. My skin is pale and pasty from the fog and mist of winter reality against her fake and bake orange. My body parts all real. My breasts still perky even over the age of thirty without a doctor’s help or assistance, but my lips are fine markers of lines. And no personal trainer to perfectly sculpt me. My dark hair dyed only to hide the gray of an early grayer and it is done up because I didn’t wash it and barely brush it.

It wasn't just our looks, which left us on opposite sides of the line drawn so regularly in womanhood. There was more. The more part never stopped pushing my limits of needing prescription freedom or needed to regress into the fetal. 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 sings in a high pitch.

Shoot me. Please take me to my dead place. Whatever I did universe, God, Buddha, 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 spew, “If you make them any bigger, you are going to fall the fuck over.” Aloud. Not in my head. She laughed her uncomfortable laugh. Can I vote her off the island of my genetics? 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? I can barely avoid my eyes from glancing there. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else.

She liked to flash her goodies to all. Even to my family. She wore a nighty around my uncles and parent’s homes, homes against their own judgment they welcomed her in, and didn’t pause for one moment to evaluate the appropriateness of it all. Here is a tip- black lace and silk and seeing the top of your thighs or maybe your thong not so good for the family visits especially not the first one.

The cougar didn't just advertise she took it to the next level. With my brother as a willing participant of course. While we try to act “normal” around the wildlife dating my brother, she and my brother cuddle like teenagers so much my parents had to intervene. See my parents- my father and stepmother are born again Christians so they are not really down for making out or semi-dry humping on their couch. In their home, they require a prayer before meals and the four minute discussion/lecture entitled: Why don’t you go to Church as part of their list of duties as Christians. “I don’t want to be speeding up around in heaven and not see you,” preaches ever so subtly my father. My father has given himself a timeout in his bedroom listening to his peace of blaring Fox news and flying airplanes on his computer. As my brother and the cougar rest on each other’s bodies upon the coldness of the leather sharing a square reserved for one. My stepmom has to request backup from my father to deal with their inappropriateness; my father yells from down the hall, annoyance reverberated against the walls of our family home.

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. 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 deported from Africa and you are notified by the Drudge Report and Huffington Post not your next of kin. The cliff notes on my brother are as follows: this isn’t the first stunt he has pulled- and it most defintiely won't be his last. I am in shock. In shock about myself. Why am I as surprised as much as I was at his first attempt at oppositional defiance disorder?

The surprise of me, his mini-mother, is fueling the fire of this rebellion. I want to protect him. I want him to be okay. I want to know my attempt at motherhood was not failed. Even if it was a result of circumstances beyond my control that I became his mother. And as this visit ends, something changes inside of me. I grew distaste of course for OC woman with fake tits who are orange, but also I need to let go and realize the shock will keep happening. If it isn’t a cougar, it will be something else and it will be soon.

So next year, next Thanksgiving, I’m going to my local coffee shop or nursing home or senior center or maybe I’ll just make a house visit to Hef’s mansion and really take it up a notch. I mean I might not be the girl next-door kind of girl material- me being a brunette and all and don’t forget with no silicone or saline to call my own. Hey it is worth a try. I hope to find my own boyfriend to borrow, to rent, to fall in love with and to take home. He might be 70 or 80, but it’s my turn to be the talk of my family.

in the middle of it: my own reality tv show of two lovers reunited

i am back! i finished a year of grad school and my relationship with the library made it impossible to post and write. but i broke up with the library but sadly we might get back together sooner than i would like. here is piece about me being able to see lovers reunite and i just couldn't move and had to listen and write. enjoy! all my thanks, always!

In the middle of it. I am the middle of a conversation of reunited lovers after twenty years. I find myself by the happenstance, the providence, the fate of life. I am not either said lover. Just a bystander who can't move from this seat. Stuck here. Because what will happen next seems like it might be too good to actually move. Scene begins as: man walks in start of beard sprouting, motorcycle helmet in hand, he glances at me and gives me a half soft smile. He finds a seat behind me. A moment or two pass. And then she walks in. In the business causal attire of work. Full of movement and talking. He raises up to meet her. Embracing her around her shoulders. I just never thought I'd see you again. In person. He confesses. In quickness she responds guess you have been giving that a lot of thought. And I'm in. In the middle of this. Because what will happen next is what movies are made of. Not the kind you can rent old school at the video store or netflix or hulu. No the real life of reuniting. I must watch. And see.

And so it begins. The man waits as she orders. She refuses his offer to buy her coffee. She talks at a rapid pace to all those around her, a co-worker, the barista, and even me when I get up for a moment. He sits waiting patiently. To sit across from her again. And then she returns to the seat. They are behind me so all I can hear is their words now. No facial expression or movements. The NPR radio show of love affairs lost. And found.

She begins. And talks and gives the synopsis of her life the last years. Fast and furious and the gentlemen rarely speaks. He tries to give her a morsel of him. But she refuses. The bio of places she has lived. The CV of jobs she has acquired. The snapshot of starting her witty yoga site and her current job. He takes the pause as an opening, when I was shooting those kids. My own eyes crinkle. Oh he is a photographer. And then it gets interesting when the job interview pauses and real life begins.

It begins in a story where she realizes her sister set him up with someone after they broke up. I can't believe she did that. I am still going to talk to her about it. Years past not mattering. Are you single? The nod happens but I can't see behind me just in the pause in the back and forth. Next to the discussion of marriage and kids. Have you done it? Will you do it? Conversations of years had before. And had again. She never married and never wanting kids. Until now maybe. I would shit my pants every time I thought a serious boyfriend would want to get married. I would freak out around the holidays. I am not a commitphobe, but scared. Him marrying a woman due to the realities of immigration. I did get married. But it wasn't a real marriage. We treated it as dating plus legality. And more words in between until he said we treated it as a real marriage. Everything was great expect the one part that always worked with everyone else. The sex. I thought she would come around. I thought she would open up.

And as I listen and write down on my napkin my only piece of paper a great on the fly notebook. I can't help but think what happens next. Next for them. In this talking. In this reuniting. In this thing called love. But although I am in the middle of it, I got to get up and go. To do what I have to do. In the middle of their thing, I needed to move on to mine. And in watching them. I find faith and remember my own lost loves. Reuniting doesn't mean happily ever after but it fixes the space broken in disconnection. I walk away and feel lucky to have seen. Someone else's reality. In remembering my own.

one of my first loves until me and running broke up

Blowing off steam. Blowing off steam has been my newest favorite pastime. I spent many good years of my life running and swimming and doing it for fun but mostly within the confines of team and invitations and flip turned into a baton hand off until I reached adulthood. I loved sports. I loved the ability to feel freedom in the pounding against my legs as I sped up at the end of every run. My father had taught me this trick that even after a jog you run fast and hard at the end. And believe you me it came in handy in the races of life both competitive or not. The wheels of myself going more quickly and feeling as if they might give out but on the brink of letting go- the freedom of speed- the freedom of myself. That I could get it anytime I needed it. And running. Running became a way to pound out the discomfort of adolescence and the way I spent my afternoons for many years of my life. And it helped that I was good at it. Not the best of the best but good enough to be choose for the relays and to place.

But somewhere in my relationship with running we became distant in our feelings towards one another. I dreaded doing it. And did it. Only for that scholarship. I didn't feel freedom anymore. When I put on those shoes to run- I felt dread. Dread for being awake so early. Dread for not being able sleep in. And dread for the practice I'd have to later that day. Running became a job. And the chore of it sucked the pleasure and flying from my bones and muscles and left was the feeling of contempt. Contempt I had for one of my first loves of my life. We had changed. We both had. So after my final season of my running career, I did what anyone would do or so I thought. I gave up exercise. I took up drinking and partying and smoking and being an undergraduate like everyone else. Reverse psychology on myself didn't work as I planned. Me and running broke up and she didn't come after me when she saw the back of my body sway back and forth surrounded by friends and the smoke of ways to forget her.

I didn't miss her. I didn't care about her. And I kept my relationships with my new and more exciting friends until one day I woke up and realized. Something was missing. The blowing off the steam. Could never be replaced in alcoholic binge drinking that left me more clueless than I began and apologetic and hurting the next day. Smoking could only be cool for so long and soon the honeymoon wore off and I was addicted. Me the athlete addicted to cigarettes. Blowing off the steam- I needed it.

I needed the release and freedom of the movement of my feet faster and harder and longer than I thought I could. I needed the pound of my chest in and out and rattling me to let go and learn again. I needed the sweat pouring down my face and head and limbs with my reddish face to remind me. That I am athlete and the blowing off the steam has always been my freedom. So I didn't call up running. I decided to try something new someone who would give me everything I had before because I was too scared to run. And that is how I found yoga. Yoga became my new love giving me what I needed in a new way. Until. One day I would find myself when I needed it most after a hard day of hearing others pains of life from the adolescents at school that I did the only thing I could and laced my shoes up and ran. Again.

the man in the trench coat with sunglasses branishing a blue bucket and a pint glass

hello all, this is written from the prompt poison when i saw a man walk into a coffee shop that caught my eye. enjoy! and all my thanks as always.

Poison. It was hard to know what was the man's poison as he entered the cafe door first opening the hard wooden framed glass and then the thin screen to step into the room. It was hard to know what the man's poison had been or would be. There he stood as my eyes shoot him a look up and down-the look of junior high in adulthood moves across my face. I am judging him. I am laughing at him. In my head. There stands a man in a full black trench coat that reaches to the end of his calves and sunglasses that never moved from the position on his face-on his nose resting there. In one hand he has an oversized blue bucket and in the other a pint glass. What was this man's poison? What had willed him to dress in all black and bring in his accessories of a bucket and a pint glass? Was he coming in from a long night gone terribly wrong or right? Was he mourning the loss of something? Was he there to fix something? Was he on his way to fight crime branishing a bucket and a pint glass?

This man is why I love this city. You never know what you will see. Weird here is just plan normal and weird anywhere else would never turn a head here. I stare at this man and watch him interact with the barista as if he is wearing the uniform of his sunday best or workout clothes. He acts normal. For this is normal for him.

I can't help but wonder about him so much that when he leaves my inquisitive mind that can't be held still goes to the barista, a man with an unkept beginning of a beard, a v neck shirt with a small hole on the top, and a longish torso and wide shoulders of masculinity. What's with the dude and the bucket and the pint glass? He smiles and his eyes lighten as he throat reverberates in laughter. Oh he comes in that outfit everyday- and he always has that pint glass. That pint glass he stole from us. I try to get it back every time. But even when I take it away from him. He leaves with it. Not sure how. When I'm not looking. It is weird I don't take a plate from a restaurant and bring it back when I return. And the bucket- I offer. He extends- he is always working on something and sometimes its a bucket or something else. He comes in everyday. Everyday in that trench coat and glasses caressing the pint glass.

And that is where asking makes sense. I have no idea what this guy is made of- I have no idea his poison. But what I do know is he brought me and barista and others the free entertainment of uniqueness. And that I like to drink. Daily. With or without a pint glass in hand.

trying on online dating for size

hello all,

thanks so much for your support and your kind words along this journey of writing. i am truly inspired and humbled by the ways you can connect with words. all my thanks, always. this is about me trying online dating on for size. i still haven't left the dressing room.

Trying it on for size. I decided to try it on for size. Not in the I want to buy it and wear it everyday kind of trying on. More like the tentative look at the item. This isn't really my style. I say inside my head. But it looks interesting. Maybe I should just try it on for size.

I decided to try it on for size. Online dating. It's been a week. It's not really my style. I am a more organic-not hippy variety-let things happen kind of lady. But after some deliberating and listening to others who have done it and the fact that the applicants I have seen too lately haven't been very promising. I decided to try it on for size. But before I stepped into the dressing room, before I got into the line to hand my clothes to the attendant, I decided it had to be for fun. It had to be for material. Writing. And if something came out of it great. And if nothing did. It had to be okay too. I am an anticipator kind of woman- I get expectations in my mind so before I tried on this new way of dating and interacting and the creating of the perception of what others would want to see of me. I paused. And when I walked inside the room to try it on. It was just me and the mirror.

I looked at the reflection as I wrote down words, not too many, some funny, others not, just enough not too many to go upon the screen of me. It is hard to know what to tell on this medium. It is so much easy to talk in person. And see another's face as you speak words. To know if they shake their head in unison with you or not. Then the pictures. Which pictures to choose? Fun ones of course. Unique. And of course I had to look good in them. Not the boring typical head shots. No cutting off a significant others arm. 3 I choose. One-when I am dancing and you can't see the details of my face (risky- maybe), one in a wonder woman outfit- top half only- in glasses and one in a tight dress that I found at forever 21 even though I am way past that.

And then the moment of truth when I stood in front of that mirror and pulled down the clothing past my head to see and send. And wait. Trying it on for size is letting me see what is next. And what will happen. Its putting something on that is new to take a risk and say what if I wore this. Out of this room. And surprisingly it was easy. There was attention, and ims, and ask out for dates and messages and it was fun on the rainy afternoon. I found myself laughing at comments or saying oh no out loud at looking at profiles. It was easier then I thought to stand in that mirror and try it on. But now what would be next.

Next. For all that attention. I haven’t made the next step of finalizing anything. Of seeing anyone beyond this room. For after I signed up on that day, I haven't had time, I haven't made time. There might be something about walking out of this room inside to the outside world in this new look to see what happens next which really scares me. Scares me in a way that I keep just looking in the mirror, turning different directions to find the perfect view.

my grandmother still tucks me when she visits me in my dreams

The place where she felt the most comfortable was in a bed. A small twin bed next to another in a room where the cars say a quick hello and goodbye as they travel up and down the street. The comforter was dated probably from the 70's near the time of her birth and there was a starchy feel to it. But underneath-no underneath-there were sheets and blankets touched by fabric softener. The softness of a night light illuminated the room even when she reached adulthood. You need to be able to find the bathroom, her grandmother told her. 


 But the best part of this room, this room away from home was what would happen before she would sleep into the morn. You see she would be tucked in by her grandmother- even when its expiration date of adulthood- had occurred. The talking and the love of warmth of someone tucking you in. I was able to have that gift into my mid 20s. My grandmother, my mother figure since my early days of elementary school, she tucked me in . And never did I feel so loved. Never did I feel so comfortable. I learned from her how to love and care and have strength in caring for someone. You could be both motherly and feminine and have strength to stand up for yourself and others. Her fire became mine. Her height mine as well.

I had forgotten about the feel of her hands against the side of my body pushing the blankets perfectly to hold my body into comfort, into love, until I dreamt of it. The other night, I was again in that guest room, my borrowed room, and there she was tucking me in. I felt the warmth of her as I opened my eyes to daylight and felt her touch my side as the dream fading and I felt as if she was still there, comforting me. Fear started and then relief. Don't be scared. I told myself. For those who have loved us and left us not because they wanted to but because they had to-sometimes come back. Come back. In memories. And in dreams.

And I can't help but think that my most comforting moments of my life were delivered to me again by the woman I love and miss so much. A sign. A message. And comfort that can still extend through time. And distance. And death. Her comfort, her love, her example of strength and care lives and breathes inside of me. The dream is just a reminder of the comfort that lives on beyond the confines of life and death. I can't help but think she visited me to remind me, remind me before my birthday, that I am still comforted by her and she, she stills lives inside of me-in memories and in traits and in sayings. As I look down at my fingers and look at her mother's ring with one stone for each one of her children- my uncle, my aunt, my aunt, my father-and the the cladding ring, I can't help but think she is with me now. She gave me gifts and now she is watching to see what I will do with them.