Cigarettes: A Love Story
or, how much I love that which I cannot have.
So beautiful and slim and full of desire is a cigarette. I never had one until at age 18 I fell for a boy in an MTSU dorm named Alan who smoked Sampoerna cloves. Every time I kissed him he tasted wonderful, sweet and smoky and spicy. It was around this same time that I began to drink. I think it was Alan who gave me my first clove, but it might as well have been Tracey Grandmaison, or any of those other people whom I've lost touch with over the years. In any event, we all smoked cloves, because it was the early 90's, and we were all very alternative, and when you ran with an alternative crowd in the 90's smoking cloves was still a Very Hip Thing To Do. By the late 90's smoking cloves was a little embarrassing, because a lot of uncool teens had picked it up. By then you were hip if you knew about bendes, these flavored things you smoked that were from India. I think they're still around. I never tried them. When I do still smoke, I sneak furtive cloves, a little embarrassed because they're so out of style. But I can't help it. I love clove cigarettes.
I was hooked on regular cigarettes very briefly in the summer I had my first apartment. Tracey knew these people who were looking for a roomie, and even though I knew none of them I signed on the lease. My roomies all smoked like chimneys. Jeremy and Rodney were amateur drag queens, and I think Rodney in particular lived off of diet coke and Winston Light 100's. I did have, officially, one other roomie, an anorexic/bulimic borderline transgender lesbian named Hope. She signed the lease and slept in the apartment maybe twice, although I did come home one afternoon in June to find her binging on all my groceries. I was the token straight. Both Jeremy and I were still in our teens, and became good friends for a short time before I moved back into the dorms and Jeremy left college altogether. I heard he was in Nashville some years ago, but never managed to find him again.
Which is all too bad, because we did a killer lip-sync version of "Sunset Boulevard", with Jeremy as Norma and me as Joe. But that's another story.
Anyhow, that summer I learned to love cigarettes. I bummed them all the time, paying back the roomies with food. And then came the fateful day when I went with one of the guys to the Discount Tobacco Outlet to buy cartons, and I thought, "Hey, I might as well start picking up my own." But I didn't. Probably because right then I happened to look up and see a woman 9 months pregnant buying her family's stock of cartons to take home. Here this heavily pregnant redneck woman was, just loaded down with four or five different jumbo cartons of discount cigarettes. Her toddler son was playing with packs in a dump bin near the register, running his little hands through the multi-colored off brands. In proud Southern tradition, he was shirtless, shoeless, and a little grubby.
I put my thought of smoking regularly away. And I've managed to resist since then. Mostly. Except -
God, I love a cigarette. When I'm stressed and wound up, it's just soothing. I tend to keep a secret pack of cloves in the fridge or freezer and pull one out from time to time. I smoke them so infrequently that to keep the pack anywhere but the fridge would just mean most of them would go stale, unsmokable after the third or fourth cancer-causing stick. I'll smoke when I'm drinking sometimes too, and in grad school it wasn't unusual to see me standing with the smokers on a fine night when I was skinned again, waiting on a check, trying to figure out how to juggle 3 jobs and the education I loved so much. Some times there was nothing finer in Boston than sitting on my fire escape and blowing smoke into the wind while I wrote. Other times - the last semester times especially - I would deny myself the pleasure in order to try to keep from becoming addicted again. I'd pace my little hallway between the bathroom and the common room, sweating, *wanting* a cigarette so badly my mouth tasted like ashes anyway, but refusing to go buy a pack. Smoking stains your teeth, smoking hurts your throat, smoking is bad for your skin, but oh, just one taste. Please. But no.
When I moved back south the temptation was especially strong in the first few months. Some of my relatives smoke, and in a show of solidarity I'd join in. I was stressed and unemployed and living with my cousins. So I smoked once or twice a week, so what? It's expensive, that's what. And eventually my drive to live on my own was greater than my need to buy cigarettes. I avoided the habit again.
Now I work at a job where smoking would actually be a positive career move of sorts. My division boss is a smoker, and when she breaks she smokes with another division boss. Recently my supervisor seems to have relapsed into smoking as well, the result of family stress or as a shrewd career move I'll never ask her. But there's definitely a smoker's club where I work, and yeah, friends up north, it's all women. Sometimes my work is so stressful I want to smoke too. But I still don't. If I can make it through grad school and family crisis without becoming a habitual smoker, I can make it through anything.
But do love a cigarette. A black-wrappered clove. I love to roll the smoke around my mouth and feel the rush after a few puffs. The settling effect it has on me. I love the way cloves taste, like my first college boyfriend, like I'm still 18 and skinny and a little invincible. And I want one right now. I'll always want a cigarette just a little bit. A delicious, nerve claming cigarette. I haven't had one in months and months and oh, how I'll always love them, and hide them, and covet them from others.
But really, they're not meant for me.
Monday, March 15, 2004
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Watching the sunflowers grow
Last Sunday morning I put some seeds into potting soil. Dill, catnip, marigolds (the properly tall ones), and more sunflowers than I could possible need. I planted the seeds in random makeshift starters - the cut-off bottom of a two-liter, old bowls I never liked anyway, heavy-duty cardboard boxes I can cut up once the seedlings take off. The seeds have been getting days of sunlight and nights indoors to keep them safe. By Thursday night the first sunflower had popped up, their heads still heavy with the casings of their former shells. Yesterday the marigolds came up. Today I'm hoping for evidence of dill, at least. The herbs will take longer, because the plants are so small, I suppose. By Easter, they should all be big enough to put in the ground.
I love watching sunflowers grow. They're so dramatic, they grow so fast, almost like slow animals, rearranging the dirt around them as they go. It's tempting to help the seedlings break through, but I know better; this pushing, this beginning hard part they need to do for themselves so they can build strong stalks. The sunflowers will all be around six feet tall, and I hope their heavy heads attract the songbirds. But we'll see.
Right after I got the seeds in the ground, The Republican called me and we had this huge "relationship" talk. It's sort of on hold until he visits next weekend, but of course I'm full of anxiety. You can't help these little things, right at the beginning. Pull the shells off the top of those seedlings and the plant won't grow. The light will be too harsh for the leaves not yet ready for sun, it'll shrivel up and die. Or in trying to get the seed shells off, you could accidentally pull the whole sprout out of the ground, and without roots to hold things together, the seedling is nothing.
I worry I've planted things too early. I worry that we're pushing around the wrong sort of dirt. But I only worry a little because - and this is a horrible thing to write but I'll write it anyway - I've done all this before. Many times. And I know what it's like to love somebody, or some town, or some thing, and to not get to be with that thing or place or person for the rest of your life. I know that people can be the best thing that ever happened to you, and still not be the person or place you end up with.
I loved Boston. I couldn't afford to stay. I've loved a few men who were good men but had lives to lead that didn't include me. On occasion, I've been the one to break it off. I've got places to go and things to do. Usually, when someone wants to talk about the future, it's the beginning of the end. The only thing you can really do in life is make your own plans and be confident that your decisions are, by and large, the right ones.
And that's life. I loved my cat, Mr. Puck; he isn't around anymore. I loved him as much as anybody could while we were together. But fate's a bitch, you know? The great loves of my life - and there have been a few - goddamn, did I love them. I've seen the reflection of grandchildren in a few sets of brown eyes. But my life and the lives of those owning the brown eyes had radically different versions of our own futures.
So when the Republican comes to me and says "I want to talk about the future", I cringe a little. Then I go out on the back porch, sit with Titania in my lap, and smoke while I watch my seedlings grow. Damn little plants. As soon as they establish themselves, things will just get harder. I'll transplant them. A lot of the sunflowers will need to be tied to stakes for support. There will be weeds and insects and hard rains. It takes so much work, just to get something to grow.
Last Sunday morning I put some seeds into potting soil. Dill, catnip, marigolds (the properly tall ones), and more sunflowers than I could possible need. I planted the seeds in random makeshift starters - the cut-off bottom of a two-liter, old bowls I never liked anyway, heavy-duty cardboard boxes I can cut up once the seedlings take off. The seeds have been getting days of sunlight and nights indoors to keep them safe. By Thursday night the first sunflower had popped up, their heads still heavy with the casings of their former shells. Yesterday the marigolds came up. Today I'm hoping for evidence of dill, at least. The herbs will take longer, because the plants are so small, I suppose. By Easter, they should all be big enough to put in the ground.
I love watching sunflowers grow. They're so dramatic, they grow so fast, almost like slow animals, rearranging the dirt around them as they go. It's tempting to help the seedlings break through, but I know better; this pushing, this beginning hard part they need to do for themselves so they can build strong stalks. The sunflowers will all be around six feet tall, and I hope their heavy heads attract the songbirds. But we'll see.
Right after I got the seeds in the ground, The Republican called me and we had this huge "relationship" talk. It's sort of on hold until he visits next weekend, but of course I'm full of anxiety. You can't help these little things, right at the beginning. Pull the shells off the top of those seedlings and the plant won't grow. The light will be too harsh for the leaves not yet ready for sun, it'll shrivel up and die. Or in trying to get the seed shells off, you could accidentally pull the whole sprout out of the ground, and without roots to hold things together, the seedling is nothing.
I worry I've planted things too early. I worry that we're pushing around the wrong sort of dirt. But I only worry a little because - and this is a horrible thing to write but I'll write it anyway - I've done all this before. Many times. And I know what it's like to love somebody, or some town, or some thing, and to not get to be with that thing or place or person for the rest of your life. I know that people can be the best thing that ever happened to you, and still not be the person or place you end up with.
I loved Boston. I couldn't afford to stay. I've loved a few men who were good men but had lives to lead that didn't include me. On occasion, I've been the one to break it off. I've got places to go and things to do. Usually, when someone wants to talk about the future, it's the beginning of the end. The only thing you can really do in life is make your own plans and be confident that your decisions are, by and large, the right ones.
And that's life. I loved my cat, Mr. Puck; he isn't around anymore. I loved him as much as anybody could while we were together. But fate's a bitch, you know? The great loves of my life - and there have been a few - goddamn, did I love them. I've seen the reflection of grandchildren in a few sets of brown eyes. But my life and the lives of those owning the brown eyes had radically different versions of our own futures.
So when the Republican comes to me and says "I want to talk about the future", I cringe a little. Then I go out on the back porch, sit with Titania in my lap, and smoke while I watch my seedlings grow. Damn little plants. As soon as they establish themselves, things will just get harder. I'll transplant them. A lot of the sunflowers will need to be tied to stakes for support. There will be weeds and insects and hard rains. It takes so much work, just to get something to grow.
Saturday, March 06, 2004
That special feeling
There's a physical feeling I get that's attached to happiness. It's a tingling around the back of my neck, a certain lightness of being I feel when walking in the sunshine. I've had this feeling nearly all week , and I've realized what triggers the tingling, the physical sensation of happiness for me: it's the muscles in my back and shoulders relaxing. When I'm really happy, the muscles in my neck release their strained crunch.
I am happy. Here's a few reasons why:
I have a job that can be horribly stressful, but I have been reassured that the job is mine and some of my heavier gripes were repeated to me when I bumped into a co-worker on the train one morning this week. And I realized that my gripes weren't just mine alone, but part of everyone's there - and oh, this person had been working there for over four years! So if this person had the same gripes and was getting the same sort of stresses - well, I must be OK. So I feel a lot more secure in my job after the past week. A few people have made the effort lately to let me know things will be fine there, too. I needed that reassurance to get comfortable.
I have a guy who loves me. That can be sort of intimidating at times. I have finally realized that he loves me after months of him telling me so. He talks about me to other people. He tells other people that he loves me. I suppose I must always have external proof, eh?
I live in the most beautiful neighborhood in the best city. About a block from me is a big old house with deep beds of daffodils in bloom. On either side of their walk they have daffodils in beds about six feet deep and five feet wide. It's like a little field in bloom. Every day I walk through three blocks of park to get to and from the train. And yesterday afternoon I sat down in the park, which hasn't been mown in a bit, and I was surrounded by dandelions and violets and lots of the other little weedy flowers that I love. The sun was shining and there were children in the park and I know how lucky I am.
My roomies and I are all sympatico. This house functions as a unit. That's a wonderful thing.
I look forward to walks every day through my neighborhood of bungalows to Little 5, where I might eat a sandwich and read in the sunshine. I do miss you though; come visit.
There's a physical feeling I get that's attached to happiness. It's a tingling around the back of my neck, a certain lightness of being I feel when walking in the sunshine. I've had this feeling nearly all week , and I've realized what triggers the tingling, the physical sensation of happiness for me: it's the muscles in my back and shoulders relaxing. When I'm really happy, the muscles in my neck release their strained crunch.
I am happy. Here's a few reasons why:
I have a job that can be horribly stressful, but I have been reassured that the job is mine and some of my heavier gripes were repeated to me when I bumped into a co-worker on the train one morning this week. And I realized that my gripes weren't just mine alone, but part of everyone's there - and oh, this person had been working there for over four years! So if this person had the same gripes and was getting the same sort of stresses - well, I must be OK. So I feel a lot more secure in my job after the past week. A few people have made the effort lately to let me know things will be fine there, too. I needed that reassurance to get comfortable.
I have a guy who loves me. That can be sort of intimidating at times. I have finally realized that he loves me after months of him telling me so. He talks about me to other people. He tells other people that he loves me. I suppose I must always have external proof, eh?
I live in the most beautiful neighborhood in the best city. About a block from me is a big old house with deep beds of daffodils in bloom. On either side of their walk they have daffodils in beds about six feet deep and five feet wide. It's like a little field in bloom. Every day I walk through three blocks of park to get to and from the train. And yesterday afternoon I sat down in the park, which hasn't been mown in a bit, and I was surrounded by dandelions and violets and lots of the other little weedy flowers that I love. The sun was shining and there were children in the park and I know how lucky I am.
My roomies and I are all sympatico. This house functions as a unit. That's a wonderful thing.
I look forward to walks every day through my neighborhood of bungalows to Little 5, where I might eat a sandwich and read in the sunshine. I do miss you though; come visit.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
lull
Andrew Bird
being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone
so i go a little overboard but hang on to the hull
while i'm airbrushing fantasy art on a life
that's really kind of dull
oh, i'm in a lull
i'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems
moderation itself can be a kind of extreme
so i joined the congregation
i joined the softball team
i went in for my confirmation
where incense looks like steam
i start conjugating proverbs
where once there were nouns
this whole damn rhyme scheme's starting to get me down
oh, i'm in a lull
i'm in a lull
being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone
i'm rambling on rather self consciously
while i'm stirring these condiments into my tea
and i think i'm so lame
i bet i think this song's about me
don't i don't i don't i ?
i'm in a lull
Andrew Bird
being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone
so i go a little overboard but hang on to the hull
while i'm airbrushing fantasy art on a life
that's really kind of dull
oh, i'm in a lull
i'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems
moderation itself can be a kind of extreme
so i joined the congregation
i joined the softball team
i went in for my confirmation
where incense looks like steam
i start conjugating proverbs
where once there were nouns
this whole damn rhyme scheme's starting to get me down
oh, i'm in a lull
i'm in a lull
being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone
i'm rambling on rather self consciously
while i'm stirring these condiments into my tea
and i think i'm so lame
i bet i think this song's about me
don't i don't i don't i ?
i'm in a lull
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
It's Spring
Spring is here!
YaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!
Good lord, winter is long and depressing. But luckily I live in a region where Spring starts roughly around March 1st. The crocuses are up, there are pink roses in bloom, and little wildflowers in my new backyard. It's too warm to walk around in a jacket, even if the March wind makes you want one. Thank goodness, the cold is over. My eyes are a little sticky and I've got my annual Spring head crud, but who cares! IT'S SPRING!! Everyone I know should be glad I at least have the inhibition of clothes about me. Because some times the compulsion to walk around naked really does make itself present, and I have to hold myself back.
Atlanta is hashing out the gay marriage issue in their statehouse lately. After defeating a "defense of marriage" bill Friday, the Christian coalition had a rally downtown yesterday to protest...something. I'm not really sure what they were protesting, but that's OK, because they weren't sure either. They were plenty angry, that's for sure. I stayed away because I heard Ralph Reed might be there, and if there's anything I'm nearly phobic about, it's Ralph Reed. Seriously, the hairs on my arm stand up just typing his name. I honestly believe he's representative of everything evil in the world. The man is creepy. He's like the Witch-King of the conservative movement. It pains me that he lives here in the state that I love, casting his shadow over the city of my heart.
This is going to be a hard year for me, politically. While I respect John Kerry, I have no love for him. I wish I thought John Edwards could win, because I like him so much. My dream ticket is Edwards/Mosley-Braun. Which has a snowball's chance in hell right now.
I'm on a creative tear right now, because of the weather or hormones or stimulation of creative friends. I'm on a writing jag, one so productive that I stayed late at work yesterday without meaning too.
Life is good. Let's party.
Spring is here!
YaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!
Good lord, winter is long and depressing. But luckily I live in a region where Spring starts roughly around March 1st. The crocuses are up, there are pink roses in bloom, and little wildflowers in my new backyard. It's too warm to walk around in a jacket, even if the March wind makes you want one. Thank goodness, the cold is over. My eyes are a little sticky and I've got my annual Spring head crud, but who cares! IT'S SPRING!! Everyone I know should be glad I at least have the inhibition of clothes about me. Because some times the compulsion to walk around naked really does make itself present, and I have to hold myself back.
Atlanta is hashing out the gay marriage issue in their statehouse lately. After defeating a "defense of marriage" bill Friday, the Christian coalition had a rally downtown yesterday to protest...something. I'm not really sure what they were protesting, but that's OK, because they weren't sure either. They were plenty angry, that's for sure. I stayed away because I heard Ralph Reed might be there, and if there's anything I'm nearly phobic about, it's Ralph Reed. Seriously, the hairs on my arm stand up just typing his name. I honestly believe he's representative of everything evil in the world. The man is creepy. He's like the Witch-King of the conservative movement. It pains me that he lives here in the state that I love, casting his shadow over the city of my heart.
This is going to be a hard year for me, politically. While I respect John Kerry, I have no love for him. I wish I thought John Edwards could win, because I like him so much. My dream ticket is Edwards/Mosley-Braun. Which has a snowball's chance in hell right now.
I'm on a creative tear right now, because of the weather or hormones or stimulation of creative friends. I'm on a writing jag, one so productive that I stayed late at work yesterday without meaning too.
Life is good. Let's party.
Friday, February 27, 2004
The new philosophy
in three main parts
1) For me, the whole world boils down to this:
What will you do, and refuse to do, to please the people you love?
Anyway. So.
2)My biology will eventually undo all my ambition.
My job is so stressful that at the end of every week I can't believe I made it through again, and every Monday I sort of have this heaving feeling of: "Well, here I go. I can do this. I can make a difference. I just have to make it through another week."
And, miracles of miracles, four days later it's Friday, and I'm free.
My feminist philosophy is constantly undermined by the never-ending references to women who have left my field to be full time moms, and the sick, nauseous feeling I get whenever I realise that the second I get pregnant, I too am doomed to leave my rewarding, demanding, stressful job for a much more rewarding life...where someone will throw up on me daily and I'll lack financial independance. I want this more than anything else in the world, like some sick invention of William Moulton-Marston, a woman wanting to be free by asking for more imprisonment.
3)I am done with snow. Forever.
We got our once a year snow here in Atlanta this week. You could see the grass sticking up through it but that didn't stop the little kids who live all around me from trying to sled. Out in the park they ran their little plastic discs up and down the hillside. But the friction and wieght of their sleds melted the thin crust of pricipitation, meaning that after their fun the hillside was nothing but a mess of muddy streaks by early afternoon.
I resented even this thin crust of snow despite the joy that it brought so many others, which led me to realise: I really am never going to move. So no big appointement to NARA for me, no on to the Smithsonian or back to Harvard or even away to UCLA. I really love Atlanta, and the South. My own native cell structure has undermined me.
And the sick thing is, I don't even mind.
in three main parts
1) For me, the whole world boils down to this:
What will you do, and refuse to do, to please the people you love?
Anyway. So.
2)My biology will eventually undo all my ambition.
My job is so stressful that at the end of every week I can't believe I made it through again, and every Monday I sort of have this heaving feeling of: "Well, here I go. I can do this. I can make a difference. I just have to make it through another week."
And, miracles of miracles, four days later it's Friday, and I'm free.
My feminist philosophy is constantly undermined by the never-ending references to women who have left my field to be full time moms, and the sick, nauseous feeling I get whenever I realise that the second I get pregnant, I too am doomed to leave my rewarding, demanding, stressful job for a much more rewarding life...where someone will throw up on me daily and I'll lack financial independance. I want this more than anything else in the world, like some sick invention of William Moulton-Marston, a woman wanting to be free by asking for more imprisonment.
3)I am done with snow. Forever.
We got our once a year snow here in Atlanta this week. You could see the grass sticking up through it but that didn't stop the little kids who live all around me from trying to sled. Out in the park they ran their little plastic discs up and down the hillside. But the friction and wieght of their sleds melted the thin crust of pricipitation, meaning that after their fun the hillside was nothing but a mess of muddy streaks by early afternoon.
I resented even this thin crust of snow despite the joy that it brought so many others, which led me to realise: I really am never going to move. So no big appointement to NARA for me, no on to the Smithsonian or back to Harvard or even away to UCLA. I really love Atlanta, and the South. My own native cell structure has undermined me.
And the sick thing is, I don't even mind.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
The truth is, I'm just impatient and a little greedy.
In the past six weeks I’ve had visits from Jeff, The Republican, Devon, Kati and Michael. And every single time one of my friends was in Atlanta to hang out, it was bitterly cold. I’m not lying about the nice weather; it’s 65 degrees today and we’ll get even warmer tomorrow. I feel so bad that it was cold when all of these people visited. Kati and Michael especially suffered; after long dark months in Chicago, they came to town just last weekend…right in the middle of the coldest temperatures Atlanta’s likely to have all year.
I didn’t get to hang with Kati and Michael as much as I would have liked, but then they were busy on a working retreat. They were also a good hour away from me, out near Stone Mountain. But I did get one fun Monday night in the Waffle House with Kati and Michael. Michael, as usual, did not eat. He sipped hot chocolate while Kati had pie and I ate dinner. I was exhausted beyond all belief after a week in South Carolina and a not-up-for-discussion trip to Nashville.
Kati and Michael look great. They were rested and Michael had changed, you could see it in his eyes and posture. He has some facial hair now, which fosters the type of look you expect from new professors trying to look older than their students. It works on him. Kati looked well but starved for the familiar. I wanted to put her in my rental car and drive her away from her current job for a bit. She was squirrelly like I am when I need to go on a long walk away from everything for awhile.
We couldn’t talk as long as I’d like, but we talked as long as I could without falling asleep in the Stone Mountain Waffle House. And that had to be enough. I am still pissed that my Christmas presents to them have been lost in the mail, because I put a lot of thought into their boxes and now those boxes are just gone, disappeared into the US mail system’s crazy maze of lost things. That or a postal carrier somewhere is having a little party with chocolates, Garam Marsala, pesto sauce, star anise and herbal teas.
We gossiped about as much as we could. Kati asked about Devon, Michael asked after The Republican. I need to go to Chicago. I also need to go to Boston, but Aral has a problem with e-mailing me back, so I suppose Chicago might be up first. Unless Aral needs help moving, in which case I’m off to Boston. I don’t know. I should buy lots of plane tickets: one for Skeet to get here from Nashville for his birthday, one for me to visit Chicago, one for my sister to Savannah, one for me to visit my aunt in Texas, one for my Grandmother to come visit, and then…I could give all the frequent flyer miles to The Republican. Because I am now an addict when it comes to The Republican’s attentions.
Love is another addiction, just like the copper-gold box of dark chocolates he gave me for Valentine’s day, or the monster shows we watched Sunday, curled in his living room under warm blankets. For Lent, I’m giving up on half my phone calls to him. Calling The Republican is like drinking; I want to do it, and it might make me a little giddy, but afterwards there’s a hollow knawing on my insides. I shouldn’t have. This is too much. I can’t handle the way this makes me feel. I don’t know how to deal. I hate dating more than anything in the entire world, and the only thing worse than dating is not dating at all. The masculine objects of my true affections always tear me up in a million little ways. This is at least the fourth time I’ve been through this; you’d think I’d learn by now. But I never do. I can’t help myself. They just…smell good. And now I’m off on a tangent.
The truth is, I need Spring. I need it more than anything in the whole world. So I called up Dust, who is the vernal equinox boy, and demanded he get on with it all ready. He sighed at me the way he does when I’m being unreasonable.
“Look, I’m working on it, OK? I figure if I concentrate real hard for the next four weeks, then it’ll be ready.”
That’s not soon enough. I want Spring and I want it NOW.
“Well, you’ll just have to wait.”
He was positively intractable on the point. The next four weeks will pass like syrup for me, as I wait and wait for the ice to break, for the sun to shine on me full time, for the bulbs to show me what they’ve been working on all year. This is torture.
In the past six weeks I’ve had visits from Jeff, The Republican, Devon, Kati and Michael. And every single time one of my friends was in Atlanta to hang out, it was bitterly cold. I’m not lying about the nice weather; it’s 65 degrees today and we’ll get even warmer tomorrow. I feel so bad that it was cold when all of these people visited. Kati and Michael especially suffered; after long dark months in Chicago, they came to town just last weekend…right in the middle of the coldest temperatures Atlanta’s likely to have all year.
I didn’t get to hang with Kati and Michael as much as I would have liked, but then they were busy on a working retreat. They were also a good hour away from me, out near Stone Mountain. But I did get one fun Monday night in the Waffle House with Kati and Michael. Michael, as usual, did not eat. He sipped hot chocolate while Kati had pie and I ate dinner. I was exhausted beyond all belief after a week in South Carolina and a not-up-for-discussion trip to Nashville.
Kati and Michael look great. They were rested and Michael had changed, you could see it in his eyes and posture. He has some facial hair now, which fosters the type of look you expect from new professors trying to look older than their students. It works on him. Kati looked well but starved for the familiar. I wanted to put her in my rental car and drive her away from her current job for a bit. She was squirrelly like I am when I need to go on a long walk away from everything for awhile.
We couldn’t talk as long as I’d like, but we talked as long as I could without falling asleep in the Stone Mountain Waffle House. And that had to be enough. I am still pissed that my Christmas presents to them have been lost in the mail, because I put a lot of thought into their boxes and now those boxes are just gone, disappeared into the US mail system’s crazy maze of lost things. That or a postal carrier somewhere is having a little party with chocolates, Garam Marsala, pesto sauce, star anise and herbal teas.
We gossiped about as much as we could. Kati asked about Devon, Michael asked after The Republican. I need to go to Chicago. I also need to go to Boston, but Aral has a problem with e-mailing me back, so I suppose Chicago might be up first. Unless Aral needs help moving, in which case I’m off to Boston. I don’t know. I should buy lots of plane tickets: one for Skeet to get here from Nashville for his birthday, one for me to visit Chicago, one for my sister to Savannah, one for me to visit my aunt in Texas, one for my Grandmother to come visit, and then…I could give all the frequent flyer miles to The Republican. Because I am now an addict when it comes to The Republican’s attentions.
Love is another addiction, just like the copper-gold box of dark chocolates he gave me for Valentine’s day, or the monster shows we watched Sunday, curled in his living room under warm blankets. For Lent, I’m giving up on half my phone calls to him. Calling The Republican is like drinking; I want to do it, and it might make me a little giddy, but afterwards there’s a hollow knawing on my insides. I shouldn’t have. This is too much. I can’t handle the way this makes me feel. I don’t know how to deal. I hate dating more than anything in the entire world, and the only thing worse than dating is not dating at all. The masculine objects of my true affections always tear me up in a million little ways. This is at least the fourth time I’ve been through this; you’d think I’d learn by now. But I never do. I can’t help myself. They just…smell good. And now I’m off on a tangent.
The truth is, I need Spring. I need it more than anything in the whole world. So I called up Dust, who is the vernal equinox boy, and demanded he get on with it all ready. He sighed at me the way he does when I’m being unreasonable.
“Look, I’m working on it, OK? I figure if I concentrate real hard for the next four weeks, then it’ll be ready.”
That’s not soon enough. I want Spring and I want it NOW.
“Well, you’ll just have to wait.”
He was positively intractable on the point. The next four weeks will pass like syrup for me, as I wait and wait for the ice to break, for the sun to shine on me full time, for the bulbs to show me what they’ve been working on all year. This is torture.
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