the world war ii memorial
and the washington monument

the monument's reflection in the potomac
through the cherry blossoms

and the cherry trees in bloom

this was a matlock project. learn about that here.

love is like communism

i think i've mentioned this before, but for the purpose of this post, you get to read it again ... i attended three different third grade classes at three different schools in a six month period. the first was taught by a woman who ended up becoming my favorite teacher. the third was taught by someone so unmemorable that i couldn't tell you if that teacher was a man or a woman.

the second ...

that one was taught at a catholic school by a sour-faced, plain and unremarkable woman. the only concrete memory i have of her is that she wore the black and white headpiece of a nun's habit atop her straight, chin-length, dry, dirty blonde hair.

my mother says this teacher placed me in a cardboard box.

i've no memory of this. i can, however, recall feeling segregated.

i can also recall the day we'd made valentines for our classmates. first we decorated those plain brown paper lunch bags and placed them on our desks. these were for the valentines we received.

and then we made valentines (or filled in the to/from on our storebought ones) for our classmates.

i remember that my peers' bags were stuffed with cards.

i remember that mine was not. in fact, mine was practically (if not) empty.

thirty years have passed since this.

and i feel as unlovable now as i did then.

i suppose that's my fault.

i love me. i do. so it's not that. it's that i can't believe a man i find attractive could love me. why should i?

twice in my life i've found the courage to say, in no uncertain terms, how i felt for a man. the first time was january second, nineteen ninety-nine. i'd driven from houston to austin to have lunch with a friend whom i'd known since i was ten. i was twenty-five at the time. i thought enough of our friendship, felt comfortable enough with him that i thought i could talk with him about what i felt and thought and not damage things. i suppose i should've known better. i was scared shitless of the consequences, good or bad, but i'd never really had the courage to be so direct about my feelings before.

he was not thrilled. in fact, he was quite upset with me. he'd been strumming his guitar when i'd said, after finally finding the gumption to spit it out, that i thought i might be in love with him.

there's a whole lot of possibility in that statement. a whole lot.

thought and might are a helluva lot different from know and am. but of course, he didn't take it that way.

his fingers fell over the strings in a way that created this jarring cacophony.

i said, i probably shouldn't have said that.

he just sat there, saying nothing.

i said something about how i definitely shouldn't have said that and muttered something about needing a cigarette and bolted for the door. he hated that i smoked, so when i was at his place, i left my smokes and lighter in my car. i sat there in the driver's seat, with the door ajar, one foot on the floorboard and the other on the concrete of his driveway, chain-smoking.

after a minute or so he'd come out to stand by my car, one arm resting on the top of the door. he looked down on me and berated me for what seemed to be a half hour at least. he couldn't understand why i would say that. he'd thought i'd learned by now it was better not to say that. we were friends. nothing more. i was never to mention it again.

i cried the whole way back. when i got to the intersection of highway two-ninety and f.m. twenty-nine-twenty, i realized i didn't want to go home to an empty apartment and couldn't go to my parents, so i drove north to huntsville and spent the night with my younger brother and his friends. i cried some more.

and in doing so, i wrecked two friendships -- the one he and i'd had and the one he'd had with my brother. so quite a bit of damage, that.

i went back to my apartment the next day. in my mail was a card from his mother, wishing me a happy new year and hoping it had gotten off to a good start. i cried some more.

the second was almost three years later, which is actually a surprise to me because the years between the first incident and the second? it felt as though twice that many years had passed.

i can't remember the date, which is odd, really, because i can tell you, even now, pretty much every date that this boy and i had seen each other. but this particular date escapes me.

we were sitting at his breakfast table in his apartment, having dinner -- pork and asparagus. i don't like pork. he'd volunteered to cook dinner for me, which was nice, but he hadn't asked what i wanted. which i guess was fair in the end, because when i cooked dinner for him the following week, i didn't ask what he would like. i made what i could cook well enough -- penne a la vodka. i did, however, know that he had a fondness for capers, so i found an appetizer that had those in the recipe and made that.

anyway. we were dining, and i'd gotten quiet. i was happy, though. really happy. it was a good quiet. i was just sitting there, thinking happy thoughts. a rarity for me.

he asked what i was thinking about.

i remembered that afternoon from the first incident, how it had gone so badly. you probably wouldn't want to hear it, i said.

he smiled at me and said that he did.

and i, being the ever hopeful girl that i am, the one who's been too much the coward for much of her life, the one who's always saying the wrong thing, said something similar to what i'd said three years before.

i can't remember it verbatim. kind of strange, really. i can't remember the date or the phrasing.

i can remember that his expression changed from one of amusement to wariness. of course, it did. i'd just ruined a perfectly good evening.

i said something about how i knew he wouldn't want to hear it. he replied that it was too soon. and i'd said something schmaltzy about it not being an obligation. the rest of the evening went well enough.

the relationship did not.

that was nine years ago.

i haven't met a man who's compelled me to feel that way since.

but i keep hoping.

silly me.

that woman i mentioned in a previous post, the one who educates me about current events and politics? the last time we met, we were talking about communism and how it's founded on this grand idea that eventually, if people were to adhere to its principles, a communistic society would evolve into this abundant, idyllic realm.

the thing is, that ideal is never realized.

love, for me, is like communism. it's a beautiful, grand, marvelous thing ... in theory. and yes, i'm aware it's a flawed thing. it's beauty and grandeur and marvelousness exist despite this. but the reality, for me, is horribly sad and depressing, and i am impoverished.

and yet, i keep hoping, keep believing that something good will come of all this. i keep thinking someday, somewhere, there's a guy with whom i'll wanna be who's not gonna balk at the prospect of being with me.

alex and rosie

the tenth book is cecelia ahern's love, rosie.

i'd said in the previous post that there would be moments you'd want to hurl that book. you'll want to hurl this one, too. with a lot more force and frequency.

because alex and rosie ... their story spans more than four decades. they are two of the most infuriating, exasperating, idiotic characters ever conceived.

but they're so cute!

the other thing i like about this book is that the whole thing is written in dialogue, beginning as the notes they write to each other in miss big nose bad breath casey's class and progressing to instant messages and emails, if not to each other then to their friends about one another. makes for a very quick read.

from: alex
to: rosie
subject: my theory

yes, i must, and you will read it. okay, if i had invited you to my tenth birthday party then brian the whine wouldn't have been invited. if brian hadn't gone then he wouldn't have thrown pizza all over jamie's sleeping bag, and if he hadn't done that and completely ruined my party then you and i wouldn't have hated him so much. if you and i hadn't hated him so much then you wouldn't have had to drink so much in order to be able to accompany him to the debs. if you hadn't done that ... well ... perhaps you wouldn't have been quite so drunk, and your darling little katie wouldn't have been born. therefore i did you a favor!
and that, rosie dunne, is my theory.

from: rosie
to: alex
subject: my theory

very clever, alex, very, very clever. but you needn't have gone that far back to accept responsibility for katie. here's my theory.
had i not been stood up by you at the debs, i wouldn't have had to go with brian the whine at all. had you showed up at the airport that day our lives could have turned out very differently.

from: alex
to: rosie
subject: life

yeah, that's something i'm beginning to wonder about.

henry and clare

next up is the time traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger. where the other books took me a matter of a few hours to read, this one took me about a month. it's long. it's hard. there will be times you will want to hurl the thing across the room. there are passages that you will wish weren't in there. it's another example of cinema fucking up a great idea. so don't judge it on the crap you might have seen in a theater, because that was the worst adaption i've ever seen. ever. but i LOVE this book. SO MUCH. it is perhaps the coolest story i've read.

it's hard being left behind. i wait for henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. it's hard for me to be the one who stays.

i keep myself busy. i take walks. i work until i'm tired. i watch the wind play with trash that's been under the snow all winter. everything seems simple until you think about it. why is love intensified by absence?

. . .

it's ironic, really. all my pleasures are homey ones: armchair splendor, the sedate excitements of domesticity. all i ask for are humble delights. a mystery novel in bed, the smell of clare's long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under clare's breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked ... and clare, always clare. clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. clare's low voice in my ear often.

i hate to be where she is not, when she is not. and yet, i am always going, and she cannot follow.

. . .

henry and i have very different ways of looking at houses. i walk through slowly, consider the woodwork, the appliances, ask questions about the furnace, check for water damage in the basement. henry just walks directly to the back of the house, peers out the back window, and shakes his head at me ... i finally find it a month and twenty or so houses later. it's on ainslie, in lincoln square, a red brick bungalow built in nineteen twenty-six. carol pops open the key box and wrestles with the lock, and as the door opens i have an overwhelming sensation of something fitting ... i walk right through to the back window, peer out at the backyard, and there's my future studio, and there's the grape arbor, and as i turn carol looks at me inquisitively, and i say, 'we'll buy it.'

she is more than a bit surprised. 'don't you want to see the rest of the house? what about your husband?'

'oh, he's already seen it. but yeah, sure, let's see the house.'

. . .

henry walks out of the building looking unhappy, and suddenly he cries out, and he's gone. i jump out of the car and run over the spot where henry was, just an instant ago, but of course there's just a pile of clothing there, now. i gather everything up and stand for a few heartbeats in the middle of the street, and as i stand there i see a man's face looking down at me from a window on the third floor. then he disappears. i walk back to the car and get in, and sit staring at henry's light blue shirt and black pants, wondering if there's any point in staying here. i've got brideshead revisited in my purse, so i decide to hang around for a while in case henry reappears soon. as i turn to find the book i see a red-haired man running toward the car. he stops at the passenger door and peers in at me. this must be kendrick. i flip the lock, and he climbs into the car, and then he doesn't know what to say.

'hello,' i say. 'you must be david kendrick. i'm clare detamble.'

'yes--' he's completely flustered. 'yes, yes. your husband--'

'just vanished in broad daylight.'

'yes!'

'you seem surprised.'

'well--'

'didn't he tell you? he does that.'

adam and tasha

okay. so now we're back in the fiction section of the store. yay! this next book is called straight talking by jane green.

but could i ever look at adam and see a greek god? shit, i don't think i'll think about that one just at the moment. i think i'll just pour myself another glass of wine and wait for the doorbell.

when it eventually rings i walk very slowly to the front door, and after i open it i see it isn't this terrible thing on the doorstep. it's adam, my old, reliable adam ...

he gives me a hug, and suddenly he feels different. it's not just adam anymore. it's a man, a man i could be having a relationship with, and i move my hand slightly on his back, just checking, just feeling what there is underneath, what his body might feel like.

'can i get you a drink?' i feel ridiculous, like a hostess inviting a stranger into her home, and yet the easy intimacy we've always shared seems to have disappeared, and adam feels much like a stranger ...

he looks down at his glass and then back at me. 'i've missed you.'

'i know. i've missed you, too.' i have. desperately. all the times those stupid little things, or funny little things have happened at work, i've picked up the phone to call adam, to make him laugh, and just as i've picked up the receiver, i've remembered, and it's been awful ...

'why am i here, tash?' he's not looking at me as he says this, and my heart goes out to him. he looks like a little boy, scared, unsure, and i just want to put my arms around him and cuddle his fears away. but do i want to make love with him? let's not think about that just yet.

'this has been the most impossible three weeks of my life, ad. jesus, this was harder than the run up to my bloody degree, so firstly i want to say thank you for causing all this misery.'

he smiles, and i think he senses it's all going to be okay.

'i love you, ad. you know that. i'm not in love with you, but maybe it could work. i don't know, but i suppose there's only one way to find out, so i guess,' i pause, not quite knowing how to say it, 'i guess the answer to your question is yes.'

'what was the question?' he's smiling broadly now, all the nervousness disappeared.

'i don't know, but yes, i'd like to give it a go.'

'give what a go?' he's teasing me now because he can see i'm still a bit awkward.

'give us a go.' there. i said it. the dreaded us, and you know what? it doesn't sound nearly as bad once it's out there. in fact it sounds quite nice ...

i know the kiss is coming. the kiss is coming. shit, the kiss is nearly upon us. what am i going to do? but when adam bends his head down he's still smiling, and he very slowly kisses me on the lips then sits back, smiling some more, and just looks at me.

'how was that?'

'okay,' i'm nodding my head. 'it was really okay.'

and he bends his head again, and we kiss again, for longer this time, but no tongues, all right? then he sits back and looks at me some more.

'are you sure about this?' he asks.

'nope. i'm not sure at all, but we can do it again just to find out?'

this time he kisses me for a lot longer ... and i think, jesus where in the hell did adam learn to be so good at this? ... and you know what? it's bloody nice, this is.

clayton and whitney

oh, i do so like it when an author pairs up two incredibly headstrong folks, as judith mcnaught does in pretty much all of her novels. the best example of this is whitney, my love.

i know. it's a lame title. and it's typical smut. but i think you're gonna like these two.

'he doesn't care about the money, but he hates to admit he lost. he's never learned how to accept defeat.'

clayton laid down his knife and fork, preparing to give stephen the brutal setdown he'd earned hours before, but whitney, taking stephen's cue, immediately drew off clayton's fire. 'how strange you should say that,' she said to stephen, looking genuinely amazed. 'i have found that your brother accepts defeat without even putting up the slightest struggle. why, faced with the tiniest discouragement, he simply gives up and--'

clayton's open hand slammed down on the table with a crash that made the dishes dance. he surged to his feet, a muscle leaping furiously along the taut line of his jaw. 'miss stone and i have something to say to each other which is best said in private.' he gritted out the words, flinging his napkin down on the table and jerked whitney's chair back. 'get up!' he snapped in a low, terrible voice when whitney remained frozen in her seat. his hand clamped down painfully on her forearm, and whitney rose unsteadily ... 

clayton hauled her halfway across the room, which was lined with books, recessed behind richly carved arches of polished oak, then flung her arm away and stalked to the fireplace. turning, he regarded her with a look of undiluted loathing, while he visibly strove to bring his rampaging temper under control. suddenly his voice slashed through the silence. 'you have exactly two minutes to explain the purpose of this unexpected and unwelcome visit of yours. at the end of that time, i will escort you to your carriage and make your excuses to my mother and brother.'

whitney drew a tortured breath, knowing that if he saw her fear now he would use it against her. 'the purpose of my visit?' she said in a small, distracted voice, her mind frantically counting off the passing seconds. 'i -- i would have thought by now it was obvious.'

'it is not obvious!'

'i've come to -- to explain why i said what i did to you at the banquet. you see,' she said, stammering in her haste to finish in the minutes he'd allotted her, 'earlier at the church, i thought we -- you and i -- still had an agreement, and--'

clayton's eyes raked contemptuously over her. 'we have no agreement,' he said scathingly. 'it's over. done with. it should never have begun! the betrothal was an insane idea, and i curse the day i thought of it.'

sick with failure and defeat, whitney dug her nails into the flesh of her palms and shook her head in denial. 'it never had a chance to begin because i wouldn't let it.'

'your two minutes are almost up.'

'clayton, please listen to me!' she cried desperately. 'you -- you told me a long time ago that you wanted me to come to you willingly, that you didn't want a cold, unwilling wife.'

'and?' he demanded furiously.

whitney's voice shook. 'and i am here. willingly.'

james and georgina

i think the first smut book i read was johanna lindsey's gentle rogue. and no, i didn't choose it because it's smut. i chose it because i like the malory family. they're some pretty cool folks.

georgina: 'i had to leave england.'

james: 'were you in trouble?'

'no, i just couldn't stand it there another day.'

'then why didn't you leave in the customary fashion, by purchasing your passage?'

'because the only ships crossing the atlantic were english.'

'i imagine that's supposed to make sense. give me a moment, and i might figure it out ... then again, i might not. what the deuce is wrong with english ships?'

she frowned at him. 'you wouldn't find anything wrong with them, but i happen to despise all things english' ...

he grinned, then chuckled. 'i'm beginning to see the light, george. you wouldn't happen to be one of those hotheaded americans, would you? that would certainly account for the accent i haven't been able to place.'

'and what if i am?' she demanded defensively.

'why, i'd consider locking you up, of course. safest place for people who like to start wars so much.'

byron and kate

i've been dreading this post. mostly because i had to run through my list to see just how many stories i could include by this one author and it turns out i can only do one or two depending on whether i include a work by another author.

and because the next two (or three) authors' works are classified as romance novels rather than chick lit, i'm a little wary of including them.

but only a little.

because i love them.

i've loved them longer than almost every book i've read, save for the love i have for thomas harris' silence of the lambs and red dragon. i know. odd, right? that i would mention his works and follow that up with nora roberts' stuff.

that i would love anything so grotesque and grim, really, is bizarre considering i can't even stomach the thought of listening to michael jackson's thriller or watching the monster squad (a film in which a young boy and his friends take on dracula, frankenstein, wolfman and a bunch of other heebie jeebies). a kiddie flick scares me, okay? that's how much of a sissy i am.

anyway ...

so yeah. nora.

it's been a while since she's written anything i've loved. but back in the day, when i should've been reading faulkner, fitzgerald, hemingway, shakespeare and steinbeck, i was reading smut. voraciously. and usually it was written by her.

back in the day, she was a pretty good storyteller.

so picking one (and it will be one ... i've decided) of her stories which i like better than all the others is kind of a feat.

but because it's my blog, and therefore the rules can be bent a little, i'm going to cheat and do a trilogy. hah! because technically, it can be purchased in one volume. (so really, the cheating's not so bad.)

it's called lovers and dreamers.

it's about margo, kate and laura and their boys, joshua, byron and michael.

since three snippets would make this a hella long post and since of those three couples' tales, kate and byron's story is my favorite, you get a bit from the second story, holding the dream.

'something wrong with your lunch?'

she glanced over, and the hand she had pressed protectively against her stomach fisted as byron slide into the chair that tydings had vacated. 'are you on dining room detail? i thought the brass stayed up in the lofty regions of the penthouse.'

'oh, we mingle with the lower floors occasionally.' he signaled to a waitress. he'd been watching kate for ten minutes. she had sat completely still, staring out of the window, her meal untouched, her eyes dark and miserable. 'the chicken bisque,' he ordered. 'two.'

'i don't want anything.'

'i hate to eat alone,' he said smoothly, as the waitress cleared the dishes. 'you can always play with it like you did your salad. if you're not feeling well, the bisque should perk you up.'

'i'm fine. i had a business lunch.' under the table she pleated her napkin in her lap. she wasn't ready to get up, wasn't sure her legs were strong enough. 'who eats at business lunches?'

'everyone.' leaning forward, he poured two glasses of mineral water. 'you look unhappy.'

'i've a client with an imbalance of passive income. that always makes me unhappy. what do you want, de witt?'

'a bowl of soup, a little conversation. you know, i developed this hobby of conversation as a child. i've never been able to break it ... i've noticed you often have a bit of trouble in that area. i'd be happy to help you, as i'm sort of a buff.'

'i don't like small talk.'

'there you are. i do ... i also have a habit of eating,' he continued. 'if you need help along those lines, i can tell you that you start by dipping your spoon into the soup.'

'i'm not hungry.'

'think of it as medicine. it might put some color back into your cheeks. you not only look unhappy, kate, you look tired, beaten down and closing in on ill.'

hoping it would shut him up, she spooned up some soup. 'boy, now i'm all perked up. it's a miracle.'

when he only smiled at her, she sighed. why did he have to sit there, acting so damn nice and making her feel like sludge?

'i'm sorry. i'm lousy company.'

'was your business meeting difficult?'

'yes, as a matter of fact.' because it was soothing, she sampled the bisque again. 'i'll deal with it.'

'why don't you tell me what you do when you're not dealing with difficult business problems.'

the headache at the edges of her consciousness wasn't backing off, but it wasn't creeping closer. 'i deal with simple business problems.'

'and when you're not dealing with business?'

she studied him narrowly, the mild, polite eyes, the easy smile. 'you are coming on to me.'

'no, i'm considering coming on to you, which is entirely different. that's why we're having a basic conversation over a bowl of soup.' his smile widened, flirted. 'it also gives you equal opportunity to consider whether or not you'd like to come on to me.'

her lips twitched before she could stop them. 'i do appreciate a man who believes in gender equality.' she also had to appreciate that for a few minutes he'd taken her mind off her troubles. that he knew it, yet didn't push the point.

'i think i'm beginning to like you, kate. you are, i believe, an acquired taste, and i've always enjoyed odd flavors.'

'wow. that's quite a statement. my heart's going pitty-pat.'

dexter and rachel

something borrowed is one of those stories i didn't like on the first read.

in fact, i was kind of put off by dexter in the end. i like my leading men to be men, not pansies, after all, and he has moments of utter pansiness (that's probably not a word, but i'm leaving it anyway) that are such a turn-off.

it's not a great story, either.

in fact, i balked at reading it originally. why? because when rachel and dex hook up, he's engaged to her best friend.

that's pretty shitty.

but for some reason, i bought it. i read it. i liked it, but not so much that i felt compelled to keep it or recommend it to anyone else.

so i wasn't going to put it in the ten-list.

and then i watched the trailer for it today, which of course made me go and buy the damned book again and read all the parts of their story i liked. turns out there were a lot of parts worth reading.

'you don't see yourself the way you are.'

i avert my eyes, focus on a spot of ink on my comforter.

he continues. 'you see yourself as very average, ordinary. and there is nothing ordinary about you, rachel.'

i can't look back at him. my face burns.

'and i know that you blush when you're embarrassed.' he smiles.

'no i don't!' i cover my face with one hand and roll my eyes.

'yes you do. you're adorable. and yet you have no idea, which is the most adorable part.'

nobody, not even my mother, has ever called me adorable.

'and you are beautiful. absolutely, stunningly beautiful in the freshest, most natural way. you look like one of those ivory girls' ...

i tell him to please stop. even though i love what he has just told me.

'it's true.'

i want to believe him ... 'whoever said i didn't want to date in law school?'

'well, you didn't, did you?  you were there to learn, not date. that was clear ... i almost asked you out, you know that?'

i laugh at this.

'it's true,' he says, sounding a little bit hurt.

i give him a dubious look.

'do you remember that time when we were studying for our torts final?'

i picture his thumb on my face, wiping away my tear. so it had meant something.

'you know exactly what i'm talking about, don't you?'

my face feels hot as i nod. 'i think so. yeah.'

'and when i asked to walk you home, you said no. shot me down.'

'i didn't shoot you down!'

'you were all business.'

'i wasn't. i just didn't think at the time ...' my voice trails off.

'yeah, and then you introduced me to darcy. i knew then that you had zero interest.'

'i just didn't think ... i didn't think you saw me that way.'

so, here's hoping that the screenwriter took all those parts that make this story good and capitalized on them while chucking all the parts that sucked.

because the trailer really does look good. but then, maybe that's just because i like the guys who are going to be in it.

george and liza

i am in love with these characters, this story. because this one made my heart gleeful and then yanked it right out of my chest. i swear. very few books have managed to evoke such emotion in me before and continue to do so.

this from ellen shanman's right before your eyes.

'so what do you do, george?' i asked.

'i'm in m'n'a. that's mergers and --'

'acquisitions, yeah, i know what it is.' i was grateful he didn't say 'consultant.' 

'of course. and you?'

'i'm a writer.'

'for whom?' he questioned.

'a playwright.'

'ah. for no one.'

'yeah, i'm having cards made.'

'so what kind of plays do you write?'

this is one of those questions i hope people will not ask in a bar because then i'll have to say something like 'well, right now i'm working on a piece about the perfect suburban widow and the way the neighborhood destroys her when she falls for the wrong man. it's a little bit ibsen, a little bit alan ball.' inevitably the other person will draw some parallel to 'desperate housewives' and i'll have to explain why that's completely off base without sounding affected and nasty.

'gee, george. i'm sure you'd much rather tell me about you. what kind of mergers do you aquire?

'point taken. so what do you actually do? for money?'

'i do administrative work.' i would not say the word 'temp' to this man.

'you temp?'

i hated him.

'what agency? we've always got temps in my office.'

so much.

and that is pretty much how the story of george and liza begins. that is what made me like it.

this is what made me love it.

'i was scared, george. i was just scared. why don't you get that?'

he looked at his shoes for a long time. i willed him to raise his eyes and look at me, but he wouldn't. i was saying it. i was saying everything i'd been unable, too afraid, to say for so long ... but he wasn't looking at me. i prayed silently. please, i thought, please, please, please ...

'sometimes,' he finally said, 'people should go with their instincts.'

'george. this is what i've been trying to tell you! my instincts were --'

'not yours.' he paused. 'mine.' he looked me in the eye for the first time. and there was a wall where i'd never seen one before.

'i don't...', i stuttered, not knowing what to say. 'i don't think i understand.' ... i opened my mouth, but i couldn't make a sound. i wanted to evaporate, to lose consciousness, to sprain my ankle so he'd have to take me to the hospital and we could start all over again and this time i wouldn't fuck it up.

but i just stood there.

he turned away.

'george...' it came out as an eerie, choked animal sob.

he stopped. he started to turn back to me. and then he changed his mind.

...

the first and last person i had wanted to see that evening was actually standing there waiting for me. i knew i had to walk past him to get out, but for a second i couldn't move. and then without even wanting them to, my legs started to carry me toward him. i stopped a few yards away.

he just stared at me.

'what are you doing here?' i asked.

'i don't know,' george said. 'i just couldn't miss it.'

'you watched?'

'you're extraordinary.'

nick and norah's infinite playlist

NOT the film. the film blows. huge, HUGE chunks. it's most assuredly one of the worst adaptations i've ever seen.

but the book ...

i LOVE the book.

even if it is teen fiction.

and there's SO much i like about this book that i could blog about it for a significant period of time, which i don't (and you don't) have, so i'll give you snippets from nick's first chapter and from norah's. because that's how it's written. nick gets one, then norah, then nick again, and back and forth, and back and forth for the whole of some near two hundred pages. it's a quickie read, but more importantly, a fun one.

there's nick, who, stupidly, is still hung up on his no-good-ex tris. and norah, who's trying to keep her friend caroline out of trouble. and there's a long night ahead of them both.

nick:

the day begins in the middle of the night. i am not paying attention to anything but the bass in my hand, the noise in my ears. dev is screaming. thom is flailing, and i am the clockwork. i am the one who takes this thing called music and lines it up with this thing called time. i am the ticking ... dev has thrown off his shirt, and thom is careening into feedback, and i am behind them. i am the generator ... it's a small room, and we're a big noise, and i am the nonqueer bassist in a queercore band who is filling the room with undertone as dev screams ... dev is wailing now, and thom is crashing, and even though my feet don't move i am traveling hard ... i throw the chords at them. i drench them in the soundwaves. i am making time so loud that they have to hear it. i am stronger than words, and i am bigger than the box i'm in, and then i see her in the crowd, and i fall apart ... here she is, and my fingers are losing their place, and my buzz is losing its edge, and everything around me goes from crying out to just plain crying.

she sees me. she can't fake surprise at seeing me here, because of course she fucking knew i'd be here. so she does a little smile thing and whispers something to the new model, and i can tell just from her expression that after they get their now-being-poured drinks they are going to come over and say hello and good show and -- could she be so stupid and cruel? -- how are you doing? and i can't stand the thought of it. i see it all unfolding, and i know i have to do something -- anything -- to stop it.

so i, this random bassist in an average queercore band, turn to this girl in flannel whom i don't even know and say:

'i know this is going to sound strange, but would you mind being my girlfriend for the next five minutes?'

norah:

there are certain things a girl just knows, like that a fourth minute on a punk song is a bad, bad idea, or that no way does a jersey-boy bassist with astor place hair who wears torn-up, bleach-stained black jeans and a faded black t-shirt with orange lettering that says when i say jesus, you say christ swing down boy-boy alley; he's working the ironic punk boy-johnny cash angle too hard to be a 'mo ... just because he doesn't look like a whitesnake-relic-reject like all of your band does not automatically mean the guy's gay.

the incidental fact of his straightness doesn't mean i want to be nomo's five-minute girlfriend, like i'm some seven-eleven quick stop on his slut train. only because i am the one loser here who hadn't lost all her senses to beer, dope or hormones do i have the sense to hold back my original instinct -- to yell back 'fuck no' in response to nomo's question.

nomo is standing in front of me, blocking my view, waiting to find out if i want to be his five-minute girlfriend and looking like that lost animal who goes around asking 'are you my mother' in that kid book.

from behind him i don't see caroline, but i do see that stupid bitch, tris ... that bitch should not be in a club like this. as if her language is not enough indication, there is also the matter of her hot topic mallrat outfit: short black leather skirt with buckles up the side, mass-produced 'vintage' ramones t-shirt and piss-yellow leggings with some horrible pair of pink patent-leather shoes. she looks like a neon sign bumble-bee by way of early debbie harry rip-off.

i'm the less-than-five minute girlfriend who for one too-brief kiss fantasized about ditching this joint with him, going all the way punk with him at a fucking jazz club in the village or something. maybe i would have treated him to borscht at veselka at five in the morning. maybe i would've walked along battery park with him at sunrise ... but no, he's the type with a complex for the tris type: the big tits, the dumb giggle, the blowhard. literally.

i extract my wrist from his grip. but for some reason, instead of walking away, i pause for a moment and return my hand to his face, caressing his cheek, drawing light circles on his jaw with my index finger.

'you poor schmuck.'

and then there's this one

i'm still on a good love stories sort of kick. so the next few posts will accomodate that (and yeah, i know. i've got a whole lot of things i should be writing about instead, like project: the first, otherwise known as holy-mother-of-god-what-the-hell-were-you-thinking-and-why-haven't-you-made-a-bit-more-effort?)

anyway...

i told you what my ten favorite (for the moment) chick flicks are.

so now we'll talk about chick lit.

only there's one book i wanna share with you that isn't so lovey dovey.

why, then, am i including it here?

because it breaks my heart it's so good. it's amazing. it's the most beautifully written story i've ever read. EVER.

and it is a love story. of a sort.

it is the first of those shorts included in jhumpa lahiri's the interpreter of maladies, which was on my reading list from like five years ago. it is called a temporary matter.

here are a few snippets:

he combed through her cookbooks every afternoon, following her penciled instructions to use two teaspoons of ground coriander seeds instead of one, or red lentils instead of yellow. each of the recipes was dated, telling the first time they had eaten the dish together. april second, cauliflower with fennel. january fourteenth, chicken with almonds and sultanas. he had no memory of eating those meals, and yet they were recorded in her neat proofreader's hand.

when he heard her approach he would put away his novel and begin typing sentences. she would rest her hands on his shoulders and stare with him into the blue glow of the computer screen. 'don't work too hard,' she would say after a minute or two, and head off to bed. it was the one time in the day she sought him out, and yet he'd come to dread it. he knew it was something she forced herself to do ... for some reason, the room did not haunt him the way it haunted shoba ... he set up his desk there deliberately, partly because the room soothed him, and partly because it was a place shoba avoided.

it astonished him, her capacity to think ahead. when she used to do the shopping, the pantry was always stocked with extra bottles of olive and corn oil, depending on whether they were cooking italian or indian ... when friends dropped by, shoba would throw together meals that appeared to have taken half a day to prepare, from things she had frozen and bottled, not cheap things in tins but peppers she had marinated herself ... her labeled mason jars lined the shelves of the kitchen, in endless sealed pyramids, enough, they'd agreed, to last for their grandchildren to taste. they'd eaten it all by now ... it struck him as odd that there were no real candles in the house. that shoba hadn't prepared for such an ordinary emergency.

shukumar: the first time we went out to dinner, to the portuguese place, i forgot to tip the waiter. i went back the next morning, found out his name, left money with the manager.

shoba: you went all the way back to somerville just to tip a waiter?

i took a cab.

why did you forget to tip the waiter?

by the end of the meal i had a funny feeling that i might marry you. it must have distracted me.

and then there's this one

shobar: the first time i was alone in your apartment, i looked in your address book to see if you'd written me in. i think we'd known each other for two weeks.

shukumar: where was i?

you went to answer the telephone in the other room. it was your mother, and i figured it would be a long call. i wanted to know if you'd promoted me from the margins of your newspaper.

had i?

no, but i didn't give up on you.

this was (doubling as) a matlock project. learn about that here.

more for ms. jen (but this is all you get)

because i read a quote on a friend's page today from the film bounce that stirred another bit of nice. well, two, actually.

she'd written a post about how much she liked gwyneth paltrow. me? not so much. except for the film sliding doors. that is a cool flick. yall should see that one. i didn't mind her so much in that.

your company. the pleasure of your company. i want your input on video rentals. i stand there for hours. i can't pick anything out. i want someone to say goodnight to -- a last call of the day. 

back to san antonio. back to borders. generally, as a rule, i was on closing detail, mostly because the inventory and office supervisors had to be there during the day. the music and cafe supers usually worked mid-shifts, and i got the closes. except for tuesdays, but that wasn't so much because i sometimes wanted to go home and more because tuesday is usually a huge new release day, which meant the front tables needed to be reworked, which meant i would either be reworking them or overseeing the reworking. usually it was the former, which was fine, because that was my favorite part of my job.

but because i worked a lot of closing shifts and never really had a weekend off and because he worked nothing but first shifts and always had the weekend off, we only really got to see each other twice a week or so.

he'd asked me to call him when i'd gotten in from work. i'd thought that was kind of silly when he'd mentioned it. he'd be sleeping. i'd be exhausted and possibly cranky, depending on how work had gone.

but it ended up being kind of sweet, actually. i'd wake him up when i got home from work. he'd wake me up when he left for work. we wouldn't talk for long. maybe a minute or so. mostly because one of us would be more asleep than awake. but it did put a nice little cap on my day, that last call. i did quite like the sound of his voice.

the other?

one sunday after i'd gotten off work, we went to blockbuster and rented jay and silent bob strike back. i had never seen it. he was surprised by this.

you ever try making out while that movie was playing? it's pretty fun. i highly recommend it.

why i love bubble wrap

i'm not sure i've told you this story before. i don't think i have. one of my readers commented on a post i'd written months ago that she wanted to hear more about the boy mentioned in that post. i'd kind of tagged one of my blog challenge entries to another post -- mostly because i hadn't felt like writing about it at the time.

and then yesterday, when i wrote that bit about knowing about a guy, it kind of caused a memory of which i'm pretty fond to stir to the surface.

it comes up every now and then, usually when i need to remember the good things about love and all that crap.

so ... here is a flashback for you from many, many years ago. and no, i don't recount it because of the boy, but because of how i felt that day.

it was, all in all, a pretty good day.

it was march twenty-sixth. a tuesday. according to astrology, tuesday is my day. whatever. three days before my birthday. i was working at borders at the time, residing in san antonio. my schedule was set up so that i opened on tuesdays, which meant i got off work at five or six, had off wednesdays and thursdays and closed on fridays, which meant i went to work at three. but i'd requested off for my birthday (or borders was nice and gave us our birthdays off ... i can't remember). so i was looking forward to a three day "weekend". and i'd just started dating this guy i'd thought was pretty cool. so i was in all kinds of good spirits. anyway, it was set up this way because if i felt like going home to visit the family, i could leave on tuesday after work and come home to my apartment on friday afternoon.

but the boy talked me into staying on tuesday night and going to my parents' house on wednesday morning.

i met him at his apartment at seven or so. we hung out for half an hour, then went to jason's deli for dinner, where we drew pictures for each other on napkins in brown (mine) and black (his) crayons. and then we went to the amc theater at huebner oaks and saw ice age.

we stood in line to buy the tickets. we went inside, and i made him wait while i hid out in the women's room to recollect myself. because i was pretty overwhelmed by him. i'd never been that way about a boy before. it kind of freaked me out. so i stood there with my hands pressed to the countertop, just inside the doorway, sucking in air and glaring at my face, telling myself to calm down. a woman walked by and asked if i was alright. sure, i said. no, i thought. not so much. but i got it together and got back to the lobby.

where he was sitting on a bench, popping bubbles on a sheet of wrap. i stood there, watching him, one brow raised and my lips curved in amusement. and all the anxiety i'd felt magically disappeared. i don't know how long i stood there. it wasn't more than a minute or so. but eventually, he looked up and grinned and slowly set the wrap aside and stood.

we shared a coke. i never share coke. with anyone. and i got those little shivers you get when your hands touch. those things i'd always thought were some crazy, hokey story-telling tool to make a girl appreciate romance a bit more. those things i'd always thought were impossible.

and every time i see a roll of bubble wrap, i think of that day. of how good i'd felt in that moment.