short stories

"As I sat in a dark smokey bar last night, sipping Glogg and listening to the Smiths play from the Juke box in the corner, I couldn't help but let my mind drift to an old friend and wonder how he might be all these years later.

Carl was one of my few friends in high school, and possibly the only one I liked. he wrote poetry endlessly, played guitar in a prolific band, spoke of Keats like he was God, and worshipped Morissey. We were both wierd and awkward, but as I sat on the fringe of cool, too geeky to be accepted, he endeared himself to every social group in school, his own wierdness a charming novelty. Everyone wanted to know what Carl was listening to, what he was reading, what movies he was in to. He was our 'cool' thermometer, and for about a year in high school, in carl's mind, nothing was cooler than me.

It was my first taste of being a muse. Carl's poems were about me, his songs about me, his philosophy on love based on our relationship. And for the sake of Carl's art, it was absolutely essential that our relationship be kept as embiguous and vague as possible. If either one of us broke our unspoken rule and explicitly expressed our feelings, the spell would be broken and Carl might never write again. So I nursed crushes on other people, dated other guys, and Carl wrote tortured love songs and passed poems to me in class about the growing loss of youth and the torment of my "affairs." "I've met them there, " he wrote in one, "your mystery loves, in restless dreams. I've seen them before in your lovesick eyes."

I never spoke to him after graduation, but I kept all his letters and poems and mixed tapes. I don't know why. I suppose, buried somewhere in his all his romanticized seventeen-year-old trying and trying, are little kernels I recognized as truths. and besides that, when might I ever have anyone write to me again:

'I dreamt of you the other night
as a sphere of glowing light
with sedated lips, I pressed to kiss
the strangest twist upon your lips'

In the first week of April of our senior year, we took a class trip to London. I felt like exploring the city alone and so shrugged off any invitations to join classmates on jaunts around town. One afternoon, as I was walking around West End, looking for intersting people to have a drink with, I ran right into Carl stepping out of a Taco Bell.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm trying to find out where Morissey lives. Or even Robert Smith. If I can find one of them, then my trip will be complete."

"Right," I answered. "Maybe we should go get a drink."

We ducked into a pub and had pint after pint of beer, listening to The Smiths play from a juke box in a corner. We talked about writing and our futures and what we wanted to do with our lives. We talked about relationships and whether we'd ever find happiness in love. Carl suspected the day he'd find happiness is the day he'd stop writing. It was the unspoken understanding we shared, the tension that sat between us.

Now eleven years later, I wonder. what is he listening to? what is he reading? what movies does he watch? who's his muse now, and did he ever let love destroy him?"

-Wendy in the Windy City

long ago
the delicate tangles of his hair
covered the emptiness of my hand



would you like to hear it again?

from December 2004

"My "love life" has had a really rough time this year. It makes me question how I feel about my own sexuality, my desires, my necessities, and most of my opinions have changed dramatically.

Adrienne Rich says that we need to "insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives." When I first read this a few weeks ago I thought that she was crazy. I had always believed this. I knew that some people thought love and friendship were more important but I never had. School and 4-H was always more important than family holidays or school dances. When I was much younger drawing, dancing, and reading always came before playing barbies or going to birthday parties. I don't think it was something that I was told to do either. Mom at least showed me through example. She took me to work with her and let me live with my sister for a few months while she found a new job and a new house in a new state. Work was clearly necessary. Friendship and family less so. Very little time was spent amongst friends outside of school or child care. Relatives were seen if they came to visit me or on the more prominant holidays. Work on the other hand was a constant companion.

In high school I went through a period where I tried to make love and friendship more present in my daily life. I would try to go out to lunch every day. I would push for Friday and Saturday night activities. I considered a summer night a failure if I didn't spend at least an hour with 3 or more friends. My boyfriend became a constant presence. I saw him as another job, another responsibility. I wasn't just supportive I was actively pursuing solutions to his probems and strifes. Friends and love were treated like work. Though I loved my boyfriend and loved my friends they still came second and third to work.

All this past experience me has driven me to pursue a lifelong companion rather than a husband. I no longer desire a white knight or sex. I want someone who I can talk to. I want someone I can work with. Romantic love is fine and dandy, but it's impractical. This may seem cowardly or escapist. I seem to be avoiding the negatives of romantic love such as hard, time-consuming emotions and stresses. I recognize that being twitterpated is fun but beign genuinely interested in what someone has to say, using someone else's ideas to help change and improve my own, as well as arguing passionately is what I truely desire. I don't understand those who don't want these things.

I try to understand those who's personal quest is romantic love but it's very difficult for me. I don't understand why they would value that. I can accept that it's their choice. I'm not going to tell them not to feel that way but it's a struggle to keep from rolling my eyes at their proclamations of love. Emotional intimacy, though it sounds just as pretentious and ridiculous as romantic love, is more more important. Emotional intimacy resembles work. One has to work hard to discover another person's emotional topography as well as to create and express their own feelings. Emotional intimacy demands constant attention and many, many post-it notes.

And that's all I have to say about that."

-"Jenny"

"nahnahnahnahnah..."

I make up idioms that don't work a lot. Hitler often comes up inappropriately when I babble. But I NEVER babble, I only rant and chatter. I made a to-do list two days ago, and haven't done anything on it. It is posted on my bulletin board and, although beautifully scribed, it taunts me.

I wish I didn't have to work, because WORKING=PERGATORY. People file and scan things in hell, I am sure. I'd rather do something quirky and quick than tedious and laborious, I'm discovering. I don't have the gene that makes levelling lines a pleasing exercise. Forcing myself to concentrate on a screen rapes it of all its eye candy.

I met this weird middle aged guy named Jeff at volunteering today. He looked like that actor that played the retarded salesman in that award winning made-for-TV movie. He was wearing a gaudy yellow bow tie. He was TOO FRIENDLY.

falling . . . asleep . . .

WoAOoo.

P.s. Hey Lucas, I'm sorry I didn't go to Blockbuster to say heeeyo on Sunday! Life has been rather talkative and hectic of late, as I'm sure you could have guessed. But I'll call you later in the week so you can give me all the flourescent lights and efficient-cute-blockbuster-coworker-girl lowdowns.

Travail Famille Patrie (etat francais).

I'm listening to Prabir online and diddling with stuff on my desk. Six dimes fit perfectly around the circumference of a franc. I have palmfuls of old coins on my desk from when this Russian (Czech?) gentleman visited my elementary school class and gave us a bunch of change from his wallet. Well... was pressured into forking it over by (us) small child robbers. I like to seal letters with wax embedded with foreign coins. It's sad that they always fall off though.

Megan and I aren't going dancing tonight, but it's ok because I am feeling increasingly more tired as the more. I. think.

I only got 6.5 hours of sleep last night.
No matter how little sleep I get, I can never manage to beat you, Carey.

Hmm so I would write a letter to Drew right now, but I'm afraid I'm out of stationary and thus out of luck. I could go all artsy and write it on the back of one of Huntsy's articles though....

*yawns groggily*

Mmm it's really dark outside, but you can still see the trees so I'm in the jungle. It looks like the cover of Heart of Darkness, and remembering this makes my brain connections feel really pathetic and useless. I remember lots of things day to day that don't make sense when I retell them, which is bothersome.

As David Sedaris says, "What she thought about while looking at the waves was a complete mystery, yet you could tell that these thoughts pleased her, and that she liked herself better while thinking them."

I am very much like this. Looking around makes me think of awesome things that make ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to people later, because I lack sleep and am incoherant and they are not "with it." But nevertheless I entertain myself constantly. This is good, because I am often happy and amused when solitary.

And it is important to have the ability to be happy when you are alone.