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24 April 2009 : Tiny graces
My insurance guy retired recently, a fact I discovered when I got a phone call from my New Insurance Guy about some papers that I needed to sign. On the phone, after his delightfully man-voiced spiel about I CAN SAVE YOU MONEY PLEASE GOD LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY Oh by the way do you need homeowner's coverage? he casually mentioned it. By the way, Gary's retired, did you know?
Why no, I did not. I kind of assumed you were Gary's overly enthusiastic new intern. But okay.
Most people, I know, aren't particularly attached to their insurance guys, but most people have not spent the entirety of their driving years being insured by Gary. To clarify, Gary is an old Army buddy of my dad's. Gary was not only the guy who paid for my rental car, but one of the guys who'd drink beer in the garage, one of the guys whose daughters I played with on the front lawn while the sun faded in the distance and our parents laughed inside.
Every time I had an accident or a ticket, my phone would ring a predictable three days later, and on the other end, you guessed it, was Gary: Lindsay Marie, what on earth were you thinking?
So to be fair, I pretty much had the best insurance guy in the whole entire world. And finding out that he had retired and my business had been handed to some stranger (well, arguably, considering that his office was just down the way in a town of 4000 people (when I called for directions today I got "Oh, sure, hon, just come north two blocks from the Harvest Market!")) was a little depressing. End of an era depressing.
But change comes, and men get older and want to play golf instead of selling insurance policies, so I accepted what was given me and drove up to my hometown today to sign a new policy (one that, indeed, is saving me a ridiculous amount of money) and to meet Gary's replacement, a man with whom I have no history.
Or so I thought. Until I mentioned my disappointment over the loss of Gary (and yet another connection to my long gone dad), and New Insurance Guy kind of looked at me anew, head cocked to the side, and said "Wait, who's your dad?"
The second the name crossed my lips the response was in the air, sunshine and daffodils and furry puppies everywhere. "Sure!" New Insurance Guy said, "Sure! He was the readiness NCO here at the armory - I served under him until 1992. He was such a good guy." He shakes his head. "So you're Bob's girl. I never would have guessed." Truthfully, I look so much like my mother I may as well have never had a second DNA donor.
Turns out, my New Insurance Guy is...an old Army buddy of my dad's. And no, he's no Gary, but you take what you get, right? Lemons, lemonade, and suddenly someone who knows that you're Bob's girl, an identity you used to shine up every day and wear proudly like a badge, an identity you haven't worn in so many years that it's no longer contoured to your body.
I'll go ahead and take the New Insurance Guy, and his smiling reminder that I'm still that little dark haired girl with the palm tree obsession who held Daddy's hand whenever possible and was known around town as Bob's girl. Yeah, I'll take it.
posted by lindsay at 21:35 :: 0 comments
11 October 2008 : After the Revolution (Glib, people, GLIB)
Without going into details, I'll go ahead and tell you two things that are important in my life.
One, my friends and I are slowly preparing ourselves for survival after the downfall of civilization (the phrase "every animal has enough brains to tan it's own hide," has almost lost meaning due to repetition here at the Dorchester).
Two, most of my friends and I are obsessed with post-apocalyptic fiction in both book and movie form. Especially if the apocalypse came in the form of zombies or viruses (re: 28 Days Later - ARE YOU KIDDING? A VIRUS THAT CAUSES THE APOCALYPSE BY TURNING PEOPLE INTO ZOMBIES? This is the greatest movie ever made).
This is all just background information so that I could tell you all that my friend Snakes had a dream the other night in which the apocalypse came in zombie form.
And what did he and I (and I think Jenny) do?
We perched in the window drinking beer, poking our heads out on occasion, watching the ruckus and shooting the zombies. Protecting our land as it were. Snakes taught me proper rifle technique, and the best way to target a lurching zombie, and then we saluted one another with clinking beer bottles and good cheer.
I can't WAIT for the end.
posted by lindsay at 20:24 :: 6 comments
27 September 2008 : A Lot Like a Thing You Believe In
It has been my good grace recently to pretty much consistently come out on top. In fact, I think I should maybe stop bargaining, because I'm always getting more than I ask for and as much as I can appreciate good fortune, maybe I should leave some for the rest of y'all. I've recently inherited a place to crash in Bloomington, which in itself doesn't make for freestanding joy, Bloomington not being anywhere close to the list on which I secret away my favorite cities. But what it has, being home to one of the largest universities in the country, is a better music scene than the city I call home. Now that I have a place to crash, I can pop down there on weekends to see shows without worrying about driving home late, tired, under the influence.
I've missed shows. And I'm not talking about Verizon Wireless Music Center 10$ Coors Light two football fields away from the stage shows, I'm talking ratty little indie shows where everyone bobs unconsciously to the music, where the concrete floors are unfinished, where even when there are only two people in the audience the bands show up in old minivans and play to the empty room before retiring dirty and sweaty to the floor of whatever living room they can find.
When the Irving Theatre closed its doors last fall, I was bereft - through the two years it was open, the owners graciously allowed me to work the door and concessions in exchange for seeing all the shows for free (it so pays to have friends in the right places). The kind of musical camaraderie I experienced there is still unparalleled, and I doubt I'll ever find it again.
Last night in Bloomington I found a little bit of that again. The club was centered around youth, and aside from someone's parents, I was the oldest person in the room by maybe 5 years. No one was there save a group of giggling teenagers, the staff, the bands, and me. Though I hate that everyone had gone home to the debate by the time the last band (the entire reason I was there) hit the stage, they charmed their way into my heart with a beautiful, terrible cacophony of sound that left me alternately hugging my knees tight to my chest and grinning from ear to ear.
Sometimes, especially at the Irving, where it was my delightful responsibility to wristband the musicians, I'd get so caught up in the delirium of New and Interesting People! I'd forget about the music entirely.
It was nice to sit and let it just wash over me.
I am not a musician. I don't hear technicalities in songs the way that some musicians I know, and I consider myself lucky for that: I get to delight in a key change or a particularly hard break or a perfectly plinked note falling like water from a keyboard without distraction, and I get to fall in love with things as they are, completely whole.
But beyond this musical rediscovery of myself, which has been waxing and waning for the last few months in a way I can't quite catch the tail of, was something else: some kind of hope for the future, for the world.
The third band to play was a girl and a boy with one acoustic guitar. They might have been sixteen, maybe. They broke away from the group of awkward, adorable teenagers who had been in and out of the staff room all night, clearly fixtures at this particular venue that among other things, is a gathering place for the youngsters, to climb nervously onto the stage and play a video they'd made themselves. When they stepped up to microphones, they were all elbows and angles, giggling through their nerves, and played a short set of acoustic songs, the girl's voice high and clear, their harmonies wavering but true to tone.
I was charmed. To borrow a phrase from someone else, their palpable awkwardness was a sight to behold, and it was so obvious that in a couple of years they'll throw high school out the window and become something amazing.
It felt like the same kind of hope I understand when my family gathers, watching my nephew in all his sweaty, soft skinned toddlerness, and I sit back breathless, knowing that something is right in the world if there are children in it who are loved so purely and so completely.
There are kids, there are kids who are not smoking weed or taking guns to seventh grade, there are kids who like art and like music, who create things that are worth appreciating. There are kids who are polite, who have futures, whose minds are focused on more than sex, or defiance, or deviance. There are kids who are being taken care of, kids who know love.
In light of the political and financial themes of the last few weeks, it was nice to stop worrying about the future for a second, nice to stop thinking about all the things I need to learn in order to survive the breakdown of the lives we know, and just be awash in the inevitable continuation of humanity.
Yeah, I liked that.
(P.S. The band I went to see last night was Detroit's The Silent Years, who came very highly recommended to me by two other bands I dearly love, These United States and, of course, The Scourge of the Sea, all three of whose discographies you'll go purchase if you know what's good for you. I was not disappointed.)
posted by lindsay at 14:25 :: 1 comments
25 September 2008 : During which I make an art form out of parenthesis and run on sentences
A couple of weeks ago, I walked past a cardboard box in my spare bedroom, and it (or something in it - lately my suspicions have fallen on my drafting ruler (why do I have a drafting ruler?) as the likeliest suspect) got very, very angry.
I was only upstairs for a few moments, long enough to pee and put on a sweater before I returned to the courtyard where Jen, Pal and I were doing that thing where we sit outside and talk until the sun goes down and we realize we've spent another evening accomplishing little more than giggling.
When I came back downstairs, proclaiming, "I cut my leg in half," I wasn't kidding, and when I reminded them to be grateful that I'd stopped taking blood thinners a week before, I SO wasn't kidding. They both gaped at my leg, unable to process their own reactions though I was to the point of giggling, and I sat down with cotton pads and a bottle of the best thing ever to lick my wounds. Metaphorically.
Also, I'm not kidding about that whole best thing ever. I know most of you are lucky enough to not be nearly so hairy as I am (have I ever mentioned the sideburns? and the mustache? and the beard? and the SIDEBURNS?), but if you've ever been (god forbid) facially waxed or, my new favorite thing: threaded by sweet indian women who give your eyebrows the most perfect god-intended arch possible, then you should probably know about this shit. Not only does it numb you, but say goodbye to ingrown hairs and/or pimples that last until all the hair grows back, so what was the point anyway?
Now, two days ago I sat in my doctor's office (and yesterday again in the ultrasound room), apologizing profusely to doctor (and ultrasound tech) about my current state of lower extremity hirsuteness, my doctor who has a tendency to say the most awesome things said, "Did you have bone surgery without telling me?"
I explained the situation, and he said, "You know in a fair fight, I would have bet on you, but you did not win." This of course, does not translate, because I can in no way describe to you the frowning state of perplexed with which he uttered this statement, in his dignified gold-rims leg fondling way (though it really has nothing on that time when I was taking two different antibiotics and he gestured, open palmed and with great valor, to his nether regions and said, "I have to ask...are you having any, uh...yeast...issues?").
I'm telling you this because there's a reason for the knee-high swampgrass on my legs, which is that I save up my shaving for special situations, because my sensitive skin scoffs at razors and lotions and makes me miserable if I expose it to more than air or sunlight in any given month, and one of those special situations is tomorrow. I'm going to visit the kind of friend for whom you make sure to shave your legs (even though said friend does not reciprocate), and I'm pretty pumped about seeing just how gnarly the mess on my leg is going to be.
You know, once you can actually see it.
I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I like scars. I like scars because they're proof that you've lived through something, and having lived through something just recommends you as a better person. Maybe that's short sighted or naive of me, but I'm pretty sure there's a gentleman on the other side of the world somewhere who once conned me out of my clothes by showing me the bullet scars on his back (this after even his charming Aussie accent couldn't make "I'll trade you a backrub for a backrub," less lame).
And yeah, when I go visit this friend tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that showing him the mess on my leg (which, to be honest, is sort of a hallmark of our relationship, and now that I think about it, both of us have sustained some pretty nasty injuries in the time we've known each other, and really, maybe I should find a better hallmark) is going to be exactly what we need to break the tension during that part of the evening where we feel like we ought to at least have an excuse to take our pants off.
posted by lindsay at 17:12 :: 0 comments
20 July 2007 : top o' the morning to you.
the small boy is disarmingly full of joy, bounding up and down the steps. i have a tiny soft puppy in my arms.
i hand the dog over. "his name's samuel sullivan. he's irish."
seriously, is this kid seven?
he says, "is that a real permanent tattoo? how do they get the color to stay there?"
i tell him very seriously, "they poke you with a needle, so the ink on it goes underneath your skin."
he sucks in air, distraught for me. the sound of skinned knees. "does it hurt?"
"sure it does. but not that bad."
"let me see, the stars." i turn my arm to show him the underside. he runs a finger along it so gently i catch my breath. "you're kind of like a rockstar," he tells me.
i'm shocked by this contact, by this small, unknown, warm body. his trust and curiosity. i understand for a moment why people like children.
then he gathers up the puppy and goes bounding off to his friends, breathless, telling them about the needles and the ink, grinning to beat the band. i've promised to come back and visit. in his eyes, i see the distance to kentucky stretching out like the great plains. he's still young enough to believe, he hasn't yet learned what lies ahead.
it's only been an hour since i watched his mother smoke a cigarette without her hands, before she was patted down and escorted handcuffs and all into the back of a brown sherrif's wagon. the policemen gathered and scowled, holding the gate open for me while i collected my mail. it's not the first time.
i'm sorry, kid. i don't know what else to do.
just please promise me you'll keep the grin.
posted by lindsay at 13:38 :: 0 comments
20 May 2007 : chuck and ellery sing the blues
kentucky and i understand one another.
the drive in on thursday morning was perfect. it was cool and sunny, northern kentucky all rolling green hillsides and verdant valleys. the first half hour of my trip i ran alongside a babbling, stone filled creek.
once i hit the interstate, i began seeing signs. wild turkey distillery, next right. kentucky bourbon trail, next right.
lexington has a very specific sort of charm. driving in, i could have been on the west side of indianapolis but there was something distinctly foreign. faint accents, men who always hold the door for you, the knowledge that anywhere you go they'll understand if you order everything on your plate drowned in sausage gravy.
but after two days, some pbr in the parking lot of transylvania university, three hours solid of driving around calling every number on every for rent sign in the city, backup telling me "you want this neighborhood," or "you won't feel safe here," there was nothing.
beautiful apartments, there were a few. exposed brick walls, original pine floors, 12 foot ceilings - i saw it all. one was utterly affordable, ridiculously huge, gorgeous beyond belief. then came the warning "you can't live here. it's too shady."
come august 1, after all, the bicycle will become my primary method of transport - partly to save me from the weight of the university's hefty parking fees.
so i left town without a lease or anything to guarantee i'd have a place to go, knowing i'd have to make another trip and the pickings could be even slimmer.
then the phone call, 80 minutes into my 2 hour trip back. "you'll want to see it this weekend," jim said, "it's going to go fast. i'll show it to you before we advertise it." i hemmed and hawed and complained and groaned, and then slipped my shoes on and drove back to lexington the next day, fearing this was only going to be another shithole apartment for too much money.
so worth it. jim, whose gruff southern accent and chatty cathy tendencies led me over the phone to believe he would be aging, in cowboy boots, and gentlemanly as hell. jim was young, friendly and oh so entertaining. the apartment, it's currently occupied by chuck and ellery. when we arrived they were sitting in their living room playing bluegrass (banjos everywhere!). "come in," they said, "look around, do whatever, we don't care." jim sat while i wandered, the five men in the living room talking politics while i turned on the shower to check water pressure and climbed out the window of ellery's bedroom for the view from the fire escape.
an hour and a half - perhaps the longest apartment showing on record. i am sold. it has nothing that i've been looking for. it's small, third floor, carpeted, with only a few windows. across the street there's a small fraternity house with a couch on the front lawn (during the hunt for signs, backup said, "yeah write this one down - you definitely want to live here, across the street from the lawn couch."). the ceilings are kind of low and the bedrooms are miniscule. but something about the open staircase, the hexagon shape of the living room, the door that leads to open air off the front of the house (and perhaps a little bit the washer and dryer) has won me over. i'm in love with this completely strange, architecturally anomalous apartment.
it's a half mile from work, less than a half mile from the anthropology building.
chuck and ellery are sad to be moving out, but their misfortune is my outrageous luck. i'm as set as i'm gonna get - introduced, apartmented and ready for the show.
posted by lindsay at 18:19 :: 1 comments
07 November 2006 : excerpts.
"you wanna like, go to taco bell later and talk about math or something?"
freaking charming.
posted by lindsay at 23:10 :: 2 comments
01 November 2006 : on the way.
it was an absurdly normal moment, but momentous in its association.
i stood outside tapping ashes from my cigarette on a busy street downtown and looked up to the darkening blue of a fall evening to see fire falling from the sky.
the reasons i left california and returned here are numerous and complex, but one stands out fresh and clean and simple amid the confusion that i still haven't quite worked out.
a crisp morning in late september, colder than it should have been. we hopped into the cab of his truck and headed south. he could have carried the entire world on his shoulders, they were that broad.
the cd player didn't work so well but it didn't much matter because neither did the muffler. i bathed my face in sunshine and wished he would let me smoke, wished that i weren't too polite to light up without permission.
instead i watched middle america fly by, beautifully austere under the blue sky - cinderblock buildings and empty fields and machines whose origins and purposes i wouldn't venture to guess. we sent jokes back and forth affectionately through indianapolis and into cincinnati, past florence and lexington and on into tennessee.
he drove recklessly 30 miles over the speed limit, passing blind on mountain roads and braking without warning. i loved it. i wore the danger of the day on my sleeve. our destination was remote, peaceful, but it was the getting there that mattered. we got stopped in traffic near pigeon forge so he pulled a u over the median and we stopped for lunch at an unremarkable chuck wagon of a restaurant, barbecue so spicy it made me choke.
somewhere we passed a huge factory in the middle of nowhere, smokestacks spilling white stains against the afternoon, the emptiness of the surrounding countryside only emphasizing the smells and sounds of human innovation. his gaze wandered and i followed it, forgetting about the road ahead and his foot heavy on the gas pedal. he was entranced, and so was i entranced.
he didn't look at me, i'd never seen him shy before. three years later i wouldn't call it shy - just the uncertainty of a little boy incapable of naming his wonder. "i just get all excited when i see something so...industrial. i love industry."
he was a little bit hank rearden, a little bit hank kimball, and entirely charming. i held back my delight and let him have his moment, but i would never forget how his eyes shone over something so simple as a factory.
we arrived in one piece.
tonight i was startled into this memory when it dawned on me that the sky was not raining fire but it was only the product of a man perched tenuously on an exposed beam three stories up, sanding down metal and making sparks drip onto the dirt below him like water.
i put my cigarette out and made my way inside, a little warmer for the recollection of that perfect fall day, fresh home in the midwest and still afraid of occupying space in the world.
it's the inconsequential moments that comprise the bulk of beauty. if i wore a hat, i would have tipped it - to the evening, to the construction, to the life that's been built here in indianapolis.
posted by lindsay at 23:26 :: 0 comments
16 October 2006 : more than corn.
the surreality of tonight was such that i'm not sure i can describe it.
i went to see a friend of mine play a random open mic show at a tiny nothing of a bar in noblesville, of all places.
this is strange for a multitude of reasons. first, it's sunday and i've been in a good mood all day. second, it's sunday and i was actually out of the house after 8pm. third, it was noblesville.
let me set the scene for you. noblesville, indiana sits on the cusp. it has a good hospital and a starbucks or two, but it has yet to really be affected by indianapolis' crazed urban sprawl. noblesville is still backwater, good ol' boy, warsh yer socks in the crick farmin' country indiana.
and yet, at ten on a sunday night, some hick bar in some hick town in central indiana produced (along with a delightful homebrewed stout that i enjoyed immensely) the following things in succession:
one sincerely amazing bluegrass band with a banjo player whose fingers moved so fast they blurred and some sort of freaking genius boy wonder of a mandolin player (who had obviously come straight from the farm). i grinned and hooted and tapped my feet and wished so hard that there was a man in that bar who would ask me to dance (if only i had some cowboy boots).
one skinny white kid in sweatpants who busted out with some of the most incredible beatboxing i've ever heard. included in his set were blind melon's no rain, don't worry be happy, and the theme song from inspector gadget.
and just when i absolutely thought it couldn't get any better, this guy happened. if you clicked that link, ignore the songs that are posted, because they sound nothing like what i heard tonight. he came on last and had time for all of two songs, but two was enough. i stopped breathing as soon as he opened his mouth and didn't start again until he was finished. when i had enough oxygen to again become aware of my surroundings, i had wrung my hands bloodless and squeezed my legs so tightly together that my thigh muscles were aching. to put it blatantly, the man's voice made my pants place want to run and hide. it turned me inside out and left me completely helpless.
i almost didn't go out tonight.
i got lucky, man. tonight made me realize how grateful i am that music has made a bold return to my life. tonight made me remember that people are still capable of surprising me, and how much i love it when they do.
you totally don't have to be on a coast for this.
posted by lindsay at 00:07 :: 0 comments
30 July 2006 : from where i came.
return to these moments, find in them space that leaves you aching. you should have known.
"it's the convienence that kills you," he said, nodding sagely. he leaned back, eyeing me and rubbing the exposed pouch of his stomach.
he's always been able to disarm me with a sentence; not always because he is right, but because he is always righteous. pretty impressive when you're covered in tattoos and coughing up black from the smelter. makes rules and breaks them nearly simultaneously, but something about him convinces you of steadfast will.
he was talking about the contents of his refrigerator: chocolate milk, vodka, an economy pack of hot dogs, baked beans. that unfortunate potbelly.
convienence is the watchword, if you think about it. mcdonald's is far easier than the preparation and consequences of a well-balanced, home cooked meal. but i've come to discover that comfort zones are inherently dangerous. wallowing in sadness makes you more sad, breeds self loathing, and eventually wears so thin you couldn't even wear it on the red carpet. i've been waiting for something (or someone, really) to come along and add a little excitement to this life, but i ought to be able to do that on my own.
despite that, i've come to terms with some of the things i'll never do or be - it's been difficult, especially since i have to see them so close and in 3D. but shaking off 23 years of training in watchfulness and caution is no easy task. i'd even venture so far as impossible.
i will always be afraid of new situations. i might delight, but there is never a foreign moment without a little tweak deep behind my sternum.
his ideas about the dangers of convienence were merely a way to pass the time. he doesn't worry, he's so solely existent that sometimes it hurts to look at him. if you'd met him, you'd know what i mean - there's too much focus, too much concentration, no blurred edges. he has something to say about everything, swaggers into any situation unprepared and full of an inordinate amount of chutzpah. its really very buddhist, the way he lives his life - consequence has never entered the equation, only action permeates his view of the world.
how my parents spawned two such different creatures, i'll never know. to guess would be to delve into a family history so long, deep and painful that i'd emerge covered in bruises and drying blood, with no answers and wrung hands. in common we have vanity and a pesky tobacco addiction, but it comes to a screeching halt as soon as you step out the back door of our shared childhood home.
he was talking about drinking and driving, women spending the night, being non-union in an industrial world.
i had more sincere considerations for the direction of our conversation, but the lazy sunday afternoon had no patience for my existential dilemma.
posted by lindsay at 20:09 :: 1 comments
22 June 2006 : things to steal
cigarettes
matches
postcards
wineglasses
song lyrics
cheat codes
gimmicks
hearts
posted by lindsay at 02:34 :: 5 comments
21 November 2005 : the card attached
i got a phone call from the end of the world tonight.
every second of it was a delight. i don't know if i have ever been so charmed.
the man on the other end was just drunk enough to say all the things we've stopped saying since we started the transition from childhood to adulthood.
i love you, i miss you. we are separate now, he said. we forget about each other.
its amazing, the kind of clarity you can find at the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey.
we do forget about each other; i am forgetting about him every day.
every time i say, there is no one here. there is no one who will hug me, or tell me i'm beautiful, or share my bed.
i'm always wrong, even if i don't know it. i have him.
geographically, i told him, we may be separate. after all, he was at the end of the world tonight.
but what is that really? geography, i mean. when we do find time for each other, nothing has changed. i still have no room around him for shame or embarrassment, i have no room for hiding. he is one whose gaze will never make me feel lesser.
i am always carrying around the consequences of having known him; the confidences of having been allowed to be a part of his life. all the effects of walking into a dirty chinese restaurant at exactly the right moment on a warm fall evening.
i didn't have to be drunk to tell him that we're still the same people and that there is no replacement and absolutely no loss.
certainty, i have. at least about this one thing, and at least for tonight.
(thank you for being a friend)
posted by lindsay at 23:09 :: 0 comments
10 December 2004 : in the life.
7:30 am, walgreens, indianapolis.
i am contemplating life on burgess avenue, life at cherry tree plaza, wondering exactly how tired i can get, and how long we can live like this before we kill each other. i am sad because i missed america's next top model the previous night.
the woman who works the cash register in the early mornings is my favorite. every time i come in, she tells me how pretty i am, and how good i smell, and what great style i have. i prefer to assume she does not share this with every customer.
she knows i am headed for the cooler section, for the 99 cent liter bottles of randomly flavored water. i'm trying every flavor, slowly though, because some mornings you have a triple shot mocha, and everything else seems superfluous.
i notice batteries. i need batteries. so i grab them and at the counter, she says, 'i really like your sweater. you're so cute. these batteries are on sale for 4.99.'
'yes,' i say. 'But its been my experience that duracell lasts longer, so i think i'll just stick with the ones i've got.'
'What are you using them for?'
pause. the simple lie command center in my brain doesn't open until at least 8 am. i stand there so long trying to think of something for which i might plausibly be using batteries in such a way as to be concerned for their lifespan. thirty seconds at least. at which point, my mouth is sort of opening and closing like i'm a fish, and she looks away.
then she looks back, strengthened by a deep breath, and with a sad, sad smile says, 'a portable cd player?' as gently as you can imagine.
'yeah,' i say. 'for my discman.' i pay, i leave, i wonder if she has an accurate picture in her mind now as to the size and dimension of my inability to lie. if she's thinking that it's about six inches long, fleshy pink, with four different settings and an appendage shaped like a serpent - well, she's totally right.
the orange flavored spring water at walgreens tastes like mcdonald's 'orange drink,' and is now totally my new favorite thing.
posted by lindsay at 23:38 :: 0 comments
01 August 2004 : nouveau fiction for the recent 20-something
in response to getting my head spun on wednesday night, i did some thinking.
i prefer to stay illusioned, i've decided.
i'm officially breaking up with 'delusion snores, sleep with reality.'
reality falls asleep as soon as he gets off, see. and then i go home and sit on the edge of my bed wondering what the hell is wrong with me. i let my guard down long enough to be violently reminded of why that guard was set up in the first place. that's what gets me down, most of the time. the shattering of those carefully cut windows.
anyway, sometimes when it gets really bad, i think to myself, 'stop pretending. you're never going to be [insert adjective such as beautiful, desirable, or cool here].'
somehow, (and fortunately) my head stubbornly insists that i am, indeed, all of those things and more.
of course, my stubborn head also insists that "no, really, bon jovi is good," and also that my parents used to drive a green cadillac, a fact which my mother vehemently denies. but i remember sitting bitch, sunburned and windblown with an ice cream cone, on the green leather seat of that green caddy.
so sometimes i decide, HEY. STOP KIDDING YOURSELF. and then i decide, if you didn't make these things up in your head, you wouldn't get disappointed when they turn out to be false everywhere else. but self improvement is a waste of time unless its concentrated solely within, as a means to better self. you know, as opposed to making self look better in order to impress other people. and since i've yet to master useful self improvement (i fight with myself daily over whether or not its possible to change in any way not superficial), i think i'm just gonna sit here with my thighs sticking to the seat.
you know, living on a prayer.
posted by lindsay at 23:44 :: 0 comments
My insurance guy retired recently, a fact I discovered when I got a phone call from my New Insurance Guy about some papers that I needed to sign. On the phone, after his delightfully man-voiced spiel about I CAN SAVE YOU MONEY PLEASE GOD LET ME SAVE YOU MONEY Oh by the way do you need homeowner's coverage? he casually mentioned it. By the way, Gary's retired, did you know?
Why no, I did not. I kind of assumed you were Gary's overly enthusiastic new intern. But okay.
Most people, I know, aren't particularly attached to their insurance guys, but most people have not spent the entirety of their driving years being insured by Gary. To clarify, Gary is an old Army buddy of my dad's. Gary was not only the guy who paid for my rental car, but one of the guys who'd drink beer in the garage, one of the guys whose daughters I played with on the front lawn while the sun faded in the distance and our parents laughed inside.
Every time I had an accident or a ticket, my phone would ring a predictable three days later, and on the other end, you guessed it, was Gary: Lindsay Marie, what on earth were you thinking?
So to be fair, I pretty much had the best insurance guy in the whole entire world. And finding out that he had retired and my business had been handed to some stranger (well, arguably, considering that his office was just down the way in a town of 4000 people (when I called for directions today I got "Oh, sure, hon, just come north two blocks from the Harvest Market!")) was a little depressing. End of an era depressing.
But change comes, and men get older and want to play golf instead of selling insurance policies, so I accepted what was given me and drove up to my hometown today to sign a new policy (one that, indeed, is saving me a ridiculous amount of money) and to meet Gary's replacement, a man with whom I have no history.
Or so I thought. Until I mentioned my disappointment over the loss of Gary (and yet another connection to my long gone dad), and New Insurance Guy kind of looked at me anew, head cocked to the side, and said "Wait, who's your dad?"
The second the name crossed my lips the response was in the air, sunshine and daffodils and furry puppies everywhere. "Sure!" New Insurance Guy said, "Sure! He was the readiness NCO here at the armory - I served under him until 1992. He was such a good guy." He shakes his head. "So you're Bob's girl. I never would have guessed." Truthfully, I look so much like my mother I may as well have never had a second DNA donor.
Turns out, my New Insurance Guy is...an old Army buddy of my dad's. And no, he's no Gary, but you take what you get, right? Lemons, lemonade, and suddenly someone who knows that you're Bob's girl, an identity you used to shine up every day and wear proudly like a badge, an identity you haven't worn in so many years that it's no longer contoured to your body.
I'll go ahead and take the New Insurance Guy, and his smiling reminder that I'm still that little dark haired girl with the palm tree obsession who held Daddy's hand whenever possible and was known around town as Bob's girl. Yeah, I'll take it.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 21:35 :: 0 comments
11 October 2008 : After the Revolution (Glib, people, GLIB)
Without going into details, I'll go ahead and tell you two things that are important in my life.
One, my friends and I are slowly preparing ourselves for survival after the downfall of civilization (the phrase "every animal has enough brains to tan it's own hide," has almost lost meaning due to repetition here at the Dorchester).
Two, most of my friends and I are obsessed with post-apocalyptic fiction in both book and movie form. Especially if the apocalypse came in the form of zombies or viruses (re: 28 Days Later - ARE YOU KIDDING? A VIRUS THAT CAUSES THE APOCALYPSE BY TURNING PEOPLE INTO ZOMBIES? This is the greatest movie ever made).
This is all just background information so that I could tell you all that my friend Snakes had a dream the other night in which the apocalypse came in zombie form.
And what did he and I (and I think Jenny) do?
We perched in the window drinking beer, poking our heads out on occasion, watching the ruckus and shooting the zombies. Protecting our land as it were. Snakes taught me proper rifle technique, and the best way to target a lurching zombie, and then we saluted one another with clinking beer bottles and good cheer.
I can't WAIT for the end.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 20:24 :: 6 comments
27 September 2008 : A Lot Like a Thing You Believe In
It has been my good grace recently to pretty much consistently come out on top. In fact, I think I should maybe stop bargaining, because I'm always getting more than I ask for and as much as I can appreciate good fortune, maybe I should leave some for the rest of y'all. I've recently inherited a place to crash in Bloomington, which in itself doesn't make for freestanding joy, Bloomington not being anywhere close to the list on which I secret away my favorite cities. But what it has, being home to one of the largest universities in the country, is a better music scene than the city I call home. Now that I have a place to crash, I can pop down there on weekends to see shows without worrying about driving home late, tired, under the influence.
I've missed shows. And I'm not talking about Verizon Wireless Music Center 10$ Coors Light two football fields away from the stage shows, I'm talking ratty little indie shows where everyone bobs unconsciously to the music, where the concrete floors are unfinished, where even when there are only two people in the audience the bands show up in old minivans and play to the empty room before retiring dirty and sweaty to the floor of whatever living room they can find.
When the Irving Theatre closed its doors last fall, I was bereft - through the two years it was open, the owners graciously allowed me to work the door and concessions in exchange for seeing all the shows for free (it so pays to have friends in the right places). The kind of musical camaraderie I experienced there is still unparalleled, and I doubt I'll ever find it again.
Last night in Bloomington I found a little bit of that again. The club was centered around youth, and aside from someone's parents, I was the oldest person in the room by maybe 5 years. No one was there save a group of giggling teenagers, the staff, the bands, and me. Though I hate that everyone had gone home to the debate by the time the last band (the entire reason I was there) hit the stage, they charmed their way into my heart with a beautiful, terrible cacophony of sound that left me alternately hugging my knees tight to my chest and grinning from ear to ear.
Sometimes, especially at the Irving, where it was my delightful responsibility to wristband the musicians, I'd get so caught up in the delirium of New and Interesting People! I'd forget about the music entirely.
It was nice to sit and let it just wash over me.
I am not a musician. I don't hear technicalities in songs the way that some musicians I know, and I consider myself lucky for that: I get to delight in a key change or a particularly hard break or a perfectly plinked note falling like water from a keyboard without distraction, and I get to fall in love with things as they are, completely whole.
But beyond this musical rediscovery of myself, which has been waxing and waning for the last few months in a way I can't quite catch the tail of, was something else: some kind of hope for the future, for the world.
The third band to play was a girl and a boy with one acoustic guitar. They might have been sixteen, maybe. They broke away from the group of awkward, adorable teenagers who had been in and out of the staff room all night, clearly fixtures at this particular venue that among other things, is a gathering place for the youngsters, to climb nervously onto the stage and play a video they'd made themselves. When they stepped up to microphones, they were all elbows and angles, giggling through their nerves, and played a short set of acoustic songs, the girl's voice high and clear, their harmonies wavering but true to tone.
I was charmed. To borrow a phrase from someone else, their palpable awkwardness was a sight to behold, and it was so obvious that in a couple of years they'll throw high school out the window and become something amazing.
It felt like the same kind of hope I understand when my family gathers, watching my nephew in all his sweaty, soft skinned toddlerness, and I sit back breathless, knowing that something is right in the world if there are children in it who are loved so purely and so completely.
There are kids, there are kids who are not smoking weed or taking guns to seventh grade, there are kids who like art and like music, who create things that are worth appreciating. There are kids who are polite, who have futures, whose minds are focused on more than sex, or defiance, or deviance. There are kids who are being taken care of, kids who know love.
In light of the political and financial themes of the last few weeks, it was nice to stop worrying about the future for a second, nice to stop thinking about all the things I need to learn in order to survive the breakdown of the lives we know, and just be awash in the inevitable continuation of humanity.
Yeah, I liked that.
(P.S. The band I went to see last night was Detroit's The Silent Years, who came very highly recommended to me by two other bands I dearly love, These United States and, of course, The Scourge of the Sea, all three of whose discographies you'll go purchase if you know what's good for you. I was not disappointed.)
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 14:25 :: 1 comments
25 September 2008 : During which I make an art form out of parenthesis and run on sentences
A couple of weeks ago, I walked past a cardboard box in my spare bedroom, and it (or something in it - lately my suspicions have fallen on my drafting ruler (why do I have a drafting ruler?) as the likeliest suspect) got very, very angry.
I was only upstairs for a few moments, long enough to pee and put on a sweater before I returned to the courtyard where Jen, Pal and I were doing that thing where we sit outside and talk until the sun goes down and we realize we've spent another evening accomplishing little more than giggling.
When I came back downstairs, proclaiming, "I cut my leg in half," I wasn't kidding, and when I reminded them to be grateful that I'd stopped taking blood thinners a week before, I SO wasn't kidding. They both gaped at my leg, unable to process their own reactions though I was to the point of giggling, and I sat down with cotton pads and a bottle of the best thing ever to lick my wounds. Metaphorically.
Also, I'm not kidding about that whole best thing ever. I know most of you are lucky enough to not be nearly so hairy as I am (have I ever mentioned the sideburns? and the mustache? and the beard? and the SIDEBURNS?), but if you've ever been (god forbid) facially waxed or, my new favorite thing: threaded by sweet indian women who give your eyebrows the most perfect god-intended arch possible, then you should probably know about this shit. Not only does it numb you, but say goodbye to ingrown hairs and/or pimples that last until all the hair grows back, so what was the point anyway?
Now, two days ago I sat in my doctor's office (and yesterday again in the ultrasound room), apologizing profusely to doctor (and ultrasound tech) about my current state of lower extremity hirsuteness, my doctor who has a tendency to say the most awesome things said, "Did you have bone surgery without telling me?"
I explained the situation, and he said, "You know in a fair fight, I would have bet on you, but you did not win." This of course, does not translate, because I can in no way describe to you the frowning state of perplexed with which he uttered this statement, in his dignified gold-rims leg fondling way (though it really has nothing on that time when I was taking two different antibiotics and he gestured, open palmed and with great valor, to his nether regions and said, "I have to ask...are you having any, uh...yeast...issues?").
I'm telling you this because there's a reason for the knee-high swampgrass on my legs, which is that I save up my shaving for special situations, because my sensitive skin scoffs at razors and lotions and makes me miserable if I expose it to more than air or sunlight in any given month, and one of those special situations is tomorrow. I'm going to visit the kind of friend for whom you make sure to shave your legs (even though said friend does not reciprocate), and I'm pretty pumped about seeing just how gnarly the mess on my leg is going to be.
You know, once you can actually see it.
I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I like scars. I like scars because they're proof that you've lived through something, and having lived through something just recommends you as a better person. Maybe that's short sighted or naive of me, but I'm pretty sure there's a gentleman on the other side of the world somewhere who once conned me out of my clothes by showing me the bullet scars on his back (this after even his charming Aussie accent couldn't make "I'll trade you a backrub for a backrub," less lame).
And yeah, when I go visit this friend tomorrow, I'm pretty sure that showing him the mess on my leg (which, to be honest, is sort of a hallmark of our relationship, and now that I think about it, both of us have sustained some pretty nasty injuries in the time we've known each other, and really, maybe I should find a better hallmark) is going to be exactly what we need to break the tension during that part of the evening where we feel like we ought to at least have an excuse to take our pants off.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 17:12 :: 0 comments
20 July 2007 : top o' the morning to you.
the small boy is disarmingly full of joy, bounding up and down the steps. i have a tiny soft puppy in my arms.
i hand the dog over. "his name's samuel sullivan. he's irish."
seriously, is this kid seven?
he says, "is that a real permanent tattoo? how do they get the color to stay there?"
i tell him very seriously, "they poke you with a needle, so the ink on it goes underneath your skin."
he sucks in air, distraught for me. the sound of skinned knees. "does it hurt?"
"sure it does. but not that bad."
"let me see, the stars." i turn my arm to show him the underside. he runs a finger along it so gently i catch my breath. "you're kind of like a rockstar," he tells me.
i'm shocked by this contact, by this small, unknown, warm body. his trust and curiosity. i understand for a moment why people like children.
then he gathers up the puppy and goes bounding off to his friends, breathless, telling them about the needles and the ink, grinning to beat the band. i've promised to come back and visit. in his eyes, i see the distance to kentucky stretching out like the great plains. he's still young enough to believe, he hasn't yet learned what lies ahead.
it's only been an hour since i watched his mother smoke a cigarette without her hands, before she was patted down and escorted handcuffs and all into the back of a brown sherrif's wagon. the policemen gathered and scowled, holding the gate open for me while i collected my mail. it's not the first time.
i'm sorry, kid. i don't know what else to do.
just please promise me you'll keep the grin.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 13:38 :: 0 comments
20 May 2007 : chuck and ellery sing the blues
kentucky and i understand one another.
the drive in on thursday morning was perfect. it was cool and sunny, northern kentucky all rolling green hillsides and verdant valleys. the first half hour of my trip i ran alongside a babbling, stone filled creek.
once i hit the interstate, i began seeing signs. wild turkey distillery, next right. kentucky bourbon trail, next right.
lexington has a very specific sort of charm. driving in, i could have been on the west side of indianapolis but there was something distinctly foreign. faint accents, men who always hold the door for you, the knowledge that anywhere you go they'll understand if you order everything on your plate drowned in sausage gravy.
but after two days, some pbr in the parking lot of transylvania university, three hours solid of driving around calling every number on every for rent sign in the city, backup telling me "you want this neighborhood," or "you won't feel safe here," there was nothing.
beautiful apartments, there were a few. exposed brick walls, original pine floors, 12 foot ceilings - i saw it all. one was utterly affordable, ridiculously huge, gorgeous beyond belief. then came the warning "you can't live here. it's too shady."
come august 1, after all, the bicycle will become my primary method of transport - partly to save me from the weight of the university's hefty parking fees.
so i left town without a lease or anything to guarantee i'd have a place to go, knowing i'd have to make another trip and the pickings could be even slimmer.
then the phone call, 80 minutes into my 2 hour trip back. "you'll want to see it this weekend," jim said, "it's going to go fast. i'll show it to you before we advertise it." i hemmed and hawed and complained and groaned, and then slipped my shoes on and drove back to lexington the next day, fearing this was only going to be another shithole apartment for too much money.
so worth it. jim, whose gruff southern accent and chatty cathy tendencies led me over the phone to believe he would be aging, in cowboy boots, and gentlemanly as hell. jim was young, friendly and oh so entertaining. the apartment, it's currently occupied by chuck and ellery. when we arrived they were sitting in their living room playing bluegrass (banjos everywhere!). "come in," they said, "look around, do whatever, we don't care." jim sat while i wandered, the five men in the living room talking politics while i turned on the shower to check water pressure and climbed out the window of ellery's bedroom for the view from the fire escape.
an hour and a half - perhaps the longest apartment showing on record. i am sold. it has nothing that i've been looking for. it's small, third floor, carpeted, with only a few windows. across the street there's a small fraternity house with a couch on the front lawn (during the hunt for signs, backup said, "yeah write this one down - you definitely want to live here, across the street from the lawn couch."). the ceilings are kind of low and the bedrooms are miniscule. but something about the open staircase, the hexagon shape of the living room, the door that leads to open air off the front of the house (and perhaps a little bit the washer and dryer) has won me over. i'm in love with this completely strange, architecturally anomalous apartment.
it's a half mile from work, less than a half mile from the anthropology building.
chuck and ellery are sad to be moving out, but their misfortune is my outrageous luck. i'm as set as i'm gonna get - introduced, apartmented and ready for the show.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure, life in the bluegrass, Two steps forward
posted by lindsay at 18:19 :: 1 comments
07 November 2006 : excerpts.
"you wanna like, go to taco bell later and talk about math or something?"
freaking charming.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 23:10 :: 2 comments
01 November 2006 : on the way.
it was an absurdly normal moment, but momentous in its association.
i stood outside tapping ashes from my cigarette on a busy street downtown and looked up to the darkening blue of a fall evening to see fire falling from the sky.
the reasons i left california and returned here are numerous and complex, but one stands out fresh and clean and simple amid the confusion that i still haven't quite worked out.
a crisp morning in late september, colder than it should have been. we hopped into the cab of his truck and headed south. he could have carried the entire world on his shoulders, they were that broad.
the cd player didn't work so well but it didn't much matter because neither did the muffler. i bathed my face in sunshine and wished he would let me smoke, wished that i weren't too polite to light up without permission.
instead i watched middle america fly by, beautifully austere under the blue sky - cinderblock buildings and empty fields and machines whose origins and purposes i wouldn't venture to guess. we sent jokes back and forth affectionately through indianapolis and into cincinnati, past florence and lexington and on into tennessee.
he drove recklessly 30 miles over the speed limit, passing blind on mountain roads and braking without warning. i loved it. i wore the danger of the day on my sleeve. our destination was remote, peaceful, but it was the getting there that mattered. we got stopped in traffic near pigeon forge so he pulled a u over the median and we stopped for lunch at an unremarkable chuck wagon of a restaurant, barbecue so spicy it made me choke.
somewhere we passed a huge factory in the middle of nowhere, smokestacks spilling white stains against the afternoon, the emptiness of the surrounding countryside only emphasizing the smells and sounds of human innovation. his gaze wandered and i followed it, forgetting about the road ahead and his foot heavy on the gas pedal. he was entranced, and so was i entranced.
he didn't look at me, i'd never seen him shy before. three years later i wouldn't call it shy - just the uncertainty of a little boy incapable of naming his wonder. "i just get all excited when i see something so...industrial. i love industry."
he was a little bit hank rearden, a little bit hank kimball, and entirely charming. i held back my delight and let him have his moment, but i would never forget how his eyes shone over something so simple as a factory.
we arrived in one piece.
tonight i was startled into this memory when it dawned on me that the sky was not raining fire but it was only the product of a man perched tenuously on an exposed beam three stories up, sanding down metal and making sparks drip onto the dirt below him like water.
i put my cigarette out and made my way inside, a little warmer for the recollection of that perfect fall day, fresh home in the midwest and still afraid of occupying space in the world.
it's the inconsequential moments that comprise the bulk of beauty. if i wore a hat, i would have tipped it - to the evening, to the construction, to the life that's been built here in indianapolis.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 23:26 :: 0 comments
16 October 2006 : more than corn.
the surreality of tonight was such that i'm not sure i can describe it.
i went to see a friend of mine play a random open mic show at a tiny nothing of a bar in noblesville, of all places.
this is strange for a multitude of reasons. first, it's sunday and i've been in a good mood all day. second, it's sunday and i was actually out of the house after 8pm. third, it was noblesville.
let me set the scene for you. noblesville, indiana sits on the cusp. it has a good hospital and a starbucks or two, but it has yet to really be affected by indianapolis' crazed urban sprawl. noblesville is still backwater, good ol' boy, warsh yer socks in the crick farmin' country indiana.
and yet, at ten on a sunday night, some hick bar in some hick town in central indiana produced (along with a delightful homebrewed stout that i enjoyed immensely) the following things in succession:
one sincerely amazing bluegrass band with a banjo player whose fingers moved so fast they blurred and some sort of freaking genius boy wonder of a mandolin player (who had obviously come straight from the farm). i grinned and hooted and tapped my feet and wished so hard that there was a man in that bar who would ask me to dance (if only i had some cowboy boots).
one skinny white kid in sweatpants who busted out with some of the most incredible beatboxing i've ever heard. included in his set were blind melon's no rain, don't worry be happy, and the theme song from inspector gadget.
and just when i absolutely thought it couldn't get any better, this guy happened. if you clicked that link, ignore the songs that are posted, because they sound nothing like what i heard tonight. he came on last and had time for all of two songs, but two was enough. i stopped breathing as soon as he opened his mouth and didn't start again until he was finished. when i had enough oxygen to again become aware of my surroundings, i had wrung my hands bloodless and squeezed my legs so tightly together that my thigh muscles were aching. to put it blatantly, the man's voice made my pants place want to run and hide. it turned me inside out and left me completely helpless.
i almost didn't go out tonight.
i got lucky, man. tonight made me realize how grateful i am that music has made a bold return to my life. tonight made me remember that people are still capable of surprising me, and how much i love it when they do.
you totally don't have to be on a coast for this.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 00:07 :: 0 comments
30 July 2006 : from where i came.
return to these moments, find in them space that leaves you aching. you should have known.
"it's the convienence that kills you," he said, nodding sagely. he leaned back, eyeing me and rubbing the exposed pouch of his stomach.
he's always been able to disarm me with a sentence; not always because he is right, but because he is always righteous. pretty impressive when you're covered in tattoos and coughing up black from the smelter. makes rules and breaks them nearly simultaneously, but something about him convinces you of steadfast will.
he was talking about the contents of his refrigerator: chocolate milk, vodka, an economy pack of hot dogs, baked beans. that unfortunate potbelly.
convienence is the watchword, if you think about it. mcdonald's is far easier than the preparation and consequences of a well-balanced, home cooked meal. but i've come to discover that comfort zones are inherently dangerous. wallowing in sadness makes you more sad, breeds self loathing, and eventually wears so thin you couldn't even wear it on the red carpet. i've been waiting for something (or someone, really) to come along and add a little excitement to this life, but i ought to be able to do that on my own.
despite that, i've come to terms with some of the things i'll never do or be - it's been difficult, especially since i have to see them so close and in 3D. but shaking off 23 years of training in watchfulness and caution is no easy task. i'd even venture so far as impossible.
i will always be afraid of new situations. i might delight, but there is never a foreign moment without a little tweak deep behind my sternum.
his ideas about the dangers of convienence were merely a way to pass the time. he doesn't worry, he's so solely existent that sometimes it hurts to look at him. if you'd met him, you'd know what i mean - there's too much focus, too much concentration, no blurred edges. he has something to say about everything, swaggers into any situation unprepared and full of an inordinate amount of chutzpah. its really very buddhist, the way he lives his life - consequence has never entered the equation, only action permeates his view of the world.
how my parents spawned two such different creatures, i'll never know. to guess would be to delve into a family history so long, deep and painful that i'd emerge covered in bruises and drying blood, with no answers and wrung hands. in common we have vanity and a pesky tobacco addiction, but it comes to a screeching halt as soon as you step out the back door of our shared childhood home.
he was talking about drinking and driving, women spending the night, being non-union in an industrial world.
i had more sincere considerations for the direction of our conversation, but the lazy sunday afternoon had no patience for my existential dilemma.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 20:09 :: 1 comments
22 June 2006 : things to steal
cigarettes
matches
postcards
wineglasses
song lyrics
cheat codes
gimmicks
hearts
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 02:34 :: 5 comments
21 November 2005 : the card attached
i got a phone call from the end of the world tonight.
every second of it was a delight. i don't know if i have ever been so charmed.
the man on the other end was just drunk enough to say all the things we've stopped saying since we started the transition from childhood to adulthood.
i love you, i miss you. we are separate now, he said. we forget about each other.
its amazing, the kind of clarity you can find at the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey.
we do forget about each other; i am forgetting about him every day.
every time i say, there is no one here. there is no one who will hug me, or tell me i'm beautiful, or share my bed.
i'm always wrong, even if i don't know it. i have him.
geographically, i told him, we may be separate. after all, he was at the end of the world tonight.
but what is that really? geography, i mean. when we do find time for each other, nothing has changed. i still have no room around him for shame or embarrassment, i have no room for hiding. he is one whose gaze will never make me feel lesser.
i am always carrying around the consequences of having known him; the confidences of having been allowed to be a part of his life. all the effects of walking into a dirty chinese restaurant at exactly the right moment on a warm fall evening.
i didn't have to be drunk to tell him that we're still the same people and that there is no replacement and absolutely no loss.
certainty, i have. at least about this one thing, and at least for tonight.
(thank you for being a friend)
Labels: Charmed I'm sure
posted by lindsay at 23:09 :: 0 comments
10 December 2004 : in the life.
7:30 am, walgreens, indianapolis.
i am contemplating life on burgess avenue, life at cherry tree plaza, wondering exactly how tired i can get, and how long we can live like this before we kill each other. i am sad because i missed america's next top model the previous night.
the woman who works the cash register in the early mornings is my favorite. every time i come in, she tells me how pretty i am, and how good i smell, and what great style i have. i prefer to assume she does not share this with every customer.
she knows i am headed for the cooler section, for the 99 cent liter bottles of randomly flavored water. i'm trying every flavor, slowly though, because some mornings you have a triple shot mocha, and everything else seems superfluous.
i notice batteries. i need batteries. so i grab them and at the counter, she says, 'i really like your sweater. you're so cute. these batteries are on sale for 4.99.'
'yes,' i say. 'But its been my experience that duracell lasts longer, so i think i'll just stick with the ones i've got.'
'What are you using them for?'
pause. the simple lie command center in my brain doesn't open until at least 8 am. i stand there so long trying to think of something for which i might plausibly be using batteries in such a way as to be concerned for their lifespan. thirty seconds at least. at which point, my mouth is sort of opening and closing like i'm a fish, and she looks away.
then she looks back, strengthened by a deep breath, and with a sad, sad smile says, 'a portable cd player?' as gently as you can imagine.
'yeah,' i say. 'for my discman.' i pay, i leave, i wonder if she has an accurate picture in her mind now as to the size and dimension of my inability to lie. if she's thinking that it's about six inches long, fleshy pink, with four different settings and an appendage shaped like a serpent - well, she's totally right.
the orange flavored spring water at walgreens tastes like mcdonald's 'orange drink,' and is now totally my new favorite thing.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure, on being shamelessly self involved
posted by lindsay at 23:38 :: 0 comments
01 August 2004 : nouveau fiction for the recent 20-something
in response to getting my head spun on wednesday night, i did some thinking.
i prefer to stay illusioned, i've decided.
i'm officially breaking up with 'delusion snores, sleep with reality.'
reality falls asleep as soon as he gets off, see. and then i go home and sit on the edge of my bed wondering what the hell is wrong with me. i let my guard down long enough to be violently reminded of why that guard was set up in the first place. that's what gets me down, most of the time. the shattering of those carefully cut windows.
anyway, sometimes when it gets really bad, i think to myself, 'stop pretending. you're never going to be [insert adjective such as beautiful, desirable, or cool here].'
somehow, (and fortunately) my head stubbornly insists that i am, indeed, all of those things and more.
of course, my stubborn head also insists that "no, really, bon jovi is good," and also that my parents used to drive a green cadillac, a fact which my mother vehemently denies. but i remember sitting bitch, sunburned and windblown with an ice cream cone, on the green leather seat of that green caddy.
so sometimes i decide, HEY. STOP KIDDING YOURSELF. and then i decide, if you didn't make these things up in your head, you wouldn't get disappointed when they turn out to be false everywhere else. but self improvement is a waste of time unless its concentrated solely within, as a means to better self. you know, as opposed to making self look better in order to impress other people. and since i've yet to master useful self improvement (i fight with myself daily over whether or not its possible to change in any way not superficial), i think i'm just gonna sit here with my thighs sticking to the seat.
you know, living on a prayer.
Labels: Charmed I'm sure, on being shamelessly self involved
posted by lindsay at 23:44 :: 0 comments