kerouac says

hmm. there was a post yesterday. i swear.

the only important part of it was my mentioning how grateful i am that on a CD of love songs that make him think of me, my boyfriend included these lyrics:

like a pizza in the rain
no one wants to take you home
but i love you just the same
my little wild thing.

today, i saw a correspondent on the news whose name is balbina hwang. i think it is probably kind of ignorant of me to think this is funny, since if i lived in a more integrated society where lots of people i met everyday were named balbina, i wouldn't laugh. but i did. i laughed almost as hard as i did when laura told me during easter mass that she recognized the lector reading the word of god because she was also the super cheery weather lady from channel thirteen.

the monkey has found a temp assignment as a personal assistant to somebody important at ralph lauren. he is making twelve dollars an hour. sascha, the male model who came in to try on two jackets yesterday, made a $3,000 flat fee. i tell the monkey: i would pay this sascha three thousand dollars to leave us alone so i can kiss your stomach for an hour.

oh, sun. here it comes.

it is godawful beautiful today. drink afternoon beer beautiful. can we have class outside today?

i spent the weekend in a car with newlyweds. i am tired of not being in the place where the man i want to smother with love-shavings is. the newlyweds can shove it up their collective, bound-for-life nostrils.

i am convinced most of the time that the people whose approval i covet most do not like me best. i'm amazed that this bothers me so greatly. what am i, fourteen? still. maybe the van full of contended lovers who could actually touch each others' knees had something to do with it.

overall, i love my life best.

partnership must be one of the biggest grab bags in existence. these continual soft tests . . . mostly sweet ones, mostly less tests than agreements, but sometimes . . . sometimes you take sixty percent of the resistance.

the difference, i suppose, is whether or not you feel relieved after. at least that's the difference so far. i have never ended an evening with this one feeling like the wrongness, the eventual failure is staring me in the face.

so, a morning of unreasonableness. as the monkey said in a note later, sick of it. waiting for magic phone times and flights to arrive and not saying goodbye until the perfect moment hummingbirds through. i wonder if i'm not a little sick of it myself.

i think: even if i weren't sure by other means, i would be noticing what a terrible drain it is to doubt. i am interested in providing a nice bed for the joy fairy to come and have her kittens in. if i'm tired, tired and sure, i am even more tired of the drag that the what ifs put on our momentum. today, it is easy to say, oh, please. please. let's just get on with the happiness and leave the rest of this here on the curb. you know you want to.

happier than i've ever been.

last night i was all . . . oh, swamped by fears and idgies and crawly spiders of doubt, the kind that are generated in the poison part of the brain, the part where the neurosis tumor strains at its chains. and after thinking that i'd said something that sounded like yes without meaning to, and then realizing i must have actually meant it and it was a happy accident, i had to say it on purpose and mean it and i hesitated, i felt like not doing it. the spiders were all over me.

and today, i heard some words that completely turned me around. you don't have to get a haircut! you don't have to change your shoes! you don't have to put the seat down! you don't have to eat prosciutto! miles and piles of you, unadulterated you! how petty it is to let the stupidfear crawl on the best thing you've ever had? good god in heaven, when you know, you know. what are you waiting for? how many thunderbolts? the biggest, the glowingest, the overpowering part is the joy. doubt is dog doo that hitched a ride on your shoe.

get off your maryjanes, little piglet. this love is not a spun-sugar rose. drool all over it and mash your face in. this is nourishment.

last week, the monkey got hired to do some play readings out in canarsie. the theatre he temped for does some artists-in-schools stuff there, which culminates in readings of plays that the kids have written. he was required to convincingly deliver the line:


you come preachin that shit in the hook, you get slice up, b.


and his character's name was Bimbo Peeps.


i wonder if i've got what it takes to play canarsie.

i almost forgot that i wanted to share about the story the monkey told me about peeing his snowsuit when he was eight years old, thinking it would just, you know, absorb, but it ran all the way into his left boot. he walked all the way home with his older brothers and then stashed the snowsuit in the hamper, at which point it ceased to exist for him until his oldest brother Mike found it and began to taunt him with his pee-soaked sock, and some of the sock got into his mouth and poor eight year old monkey thought he was going to die, because somewhere he'd gotten the idea that if bodily waste re-entered the body, you . . . i dunno, died.

poor eight year old. little pee guy. i love him.

oh, back. i'm back.

i wallowed in the goodness like a piglet in filth. i can't believe the continued satisfaction that comes from being where we can touch each other. i even got a dumb airplane cold, and . . . still. i mean, who wants to get out of bed? i met friends, we walked around the neighborhood, i spoke spanish in the bakery. more than anything, i belong there. the monkey's stage manager even offered to get me an audition for the off-broadway company she works for. we ran around manhattan making a headshot for me from one of the proofs i had framed for the monkey, and then i waltzed into my first new york audition.

yesterday, i got called back. ha. hello, off-broadway. nice to see you.

leaving left a torn place behind, and now i'm suffering the remnants of this respiratory thing and a bed that is one person too empty. it's melodramatic, but it suddenly seems very clear why people desire to be bound together so seriously it requires a sacrament. he is beautiful straight through to the other side.

also, on saturday i made challah french toast and we ate it all and then sat on the couch until he turned to me and said, "want some ice cream?"

yes.

here, rehearsals are starting on the new project. and they're nice. it's nice to be treated like a grown up. even if the one who got the part i was angling for is the girl Shitheel fell in love with after he broke me. whatever, not her fault. it's going to be fun, laid off and unbusy like i am. this the life.

and these are the days. apply liberally to all surfaces and revel as appropriate.

yesterday, someone found this blog by googling for:


won't you or 16 can you turn to a mermaid


it took me a long time to remember writing about the mermaid pictures (see march 7 in the archives--"not even past."--i'd link it, but apparently blogger doesn't like macs. sad.)

day three:

him: i don't know what to wear to this thing. what should i wear to this thing? (pause.) are these pants making me look kind of gay?

her: if you're concerned about the perception of gayness, perhaps you should rethink how many flavors of shower gel are in that there bathroom.

him: i've explained the shower gel. it has to do--

her and him: . . . with moooood.

her: i know.

him: are you ever getting out of bed?

her: no. i have airplane cold, and think of how many times i had to go to work while you were lying in *my* bed. also, to pass as a psuedo-gay guy, you really need to learn about ironing your pants.

him: (throws balled up t-shirt at her) oh, whoops.

her: (taking t-shirt under the covers) i'm rubbing this t-shirt all over my swimsuit area.

him: hey.

her: sorry. is having cooch on your shirt going to blow this whole pretend-faggy thing you're brewing?


i don't care if i never leave, never leave, never leave. we had more fun this morning than i had in college, in toto. i have a precious, healthy, whole-wheat style desire growing where i didn't know desire could live.

i have this feeling that all my life i asked for too little, even though enough turned out to be enormously smaller and simpler than i'd anticipated.

oh, big city. sometimes the red eye is fine, and i think: why do people not like to fly at night while sleeping? last night was not one of those sometimes. there was a man a few rows back who coughed so much that i started to hurt for him, and one half of the lesbian couple sharing my seat row was mistakenly called "sir" by the flight attendant guy who passed out the lorna doones.

i'd like to thank you, lord almighty up above. new york: i've missed you, too.

it's really my last day. my last day job day. i am Last Day Girl.

the night that i got laid off, i slept-walked (sleep walked?) again. this happened a few months ago for the first time since high school. i don't really go anywhere, i just get up (usually during a nap), take something out of the fridge and go back to bed. i don't normally remember it until i see the thing i took out of the fridge sweating on the coffee table. can of diet coke, jar of peanut butter.

but monday night, after getting back from rehearsal and a beer, i tumbled into bed after checking the deadbolt and turning off the hall light--and then sat up completely awake at two thirty, in my bed, because the light had suddenly gone on. it was the hall light, which completely illuminates the bedroom when you leave the door open, and which i had turned off right before going to bed. i walked out, and sure enough, the switch had been flipped. i even called out to see if there were anyone else in the apartment who could have done it, but of course, i was alone. i guess i must have done it and then gone back to bed and woken up there.

alone and wide, widest awake. i couldn't sleep for three hours. weird. i hope this isn't going to start happening again.

but the part where i don't have to go to work? i hope that is the start of a long, happy trend.

the monkey's temp job ends today, too, so on saturday i'm flying out for a week of blissful, mutual joblessness. the first rule of rock is?

never stop rocking.

spiral dita is the least afraid.

you know what i thought of? if i could invent an apparatus that caused you to work your abs while achieving the magic of physical self-love, i'd be rich.

this morning, there were people trying to tear down a statue of saddam hussein in baghdad. i felt a little like birds-in-the-chest, when i turned it on while i was brushing my teeth and suddenly it kind of looked like the war was over. it's not, but. for a second i got glad when i thought it was.

here, things are only a little slimy. i had to spend yesterday in conversation with the manager who gave me the news on monday. she'd let me know that my contract would only be extended for two more weeks, but that i'd get paid whether i worked those two weeks or not. after sleeping on it, i came to the inevitable conclusion that i would rather fly to see the monkey for two weeks than come in to work. which caused a flurry of office visits, after which the news came down: the offer was wrong. no severance at all--rather, two weeks' notice.

boss: well. see, i misunderstood. i thought i was approved to offer you that because one of your colleauges who was also laid off is getting two paid weeks in lieu of notice. because she's very. . . emotional, and if we let her back in the building, we think she'll make trouble.

me: are you serious?

boss: well.

me: so, i have to work the next two weeks?

boss: well. yes. and also, we hear you were telling people that you were offered two week's pay in lieu of notice.

me: i was offered that. was it supposed to be a secret?

boss: well. we're going to need your help in dispelling that rumor. could you just say out loud that you were wrong about that, in everyone's hearing?

me: are you serious?

boss: well.

me: you want me to manufacture a false conversation in my cubicle so that my neighbors will hear that i'm not getting extra pay?

boss: well. yes. and in return, we're prepared to actually give you a week's pay in lieu of notice, which no one else is getting, but you can't say that part out loud.


corporate america, you astound me.

well.

so, i'm back in the office for two days, cleaning out files and preparing a "ramp-up set" for whoever takes over.

i'm giddy like a school girl. honestly, this could hardly have happened better. i have time off before all the rehearsals start hitting heavy, and i'll get unemployment (everyone tells me this will work fine, this unemployment thing, and i'm trusting them) into the time i'll be in new york, so this may even be a financial blessing.

sadly, will lose easy internet access, so . . . things may be a little spotty as i'm having to truck my laptop to kinko's to log on. but i'm still here, baby. i'm still here. my biggest worry is how to get all my personal email and beginnings of novels off this computer.

yee and ha. like holden said, sleep tight, ya dayjob morons.

oh. well, here we go.

i just got laid off and have to leave the office.

um, see you later, i guess.

i was wondering if my boyfriend stories make people stomach-sick. i heard myself start too many sentences last night with "chris [verb that chris does] . . ."

that said, he was on the phone with me yesterday when this very sweet small brown neighborhood dog was hit by a car while i was watching out the window. and also when i came home from watching _the hours_ and had cry face and needed to talk in the dumb shaky voice about what would happen if my genes revolted again and there was another crappy insane time. late last night we talked a third time, and i filled him in about the stuff i'd learned about the scotland trip at the dinner meeting he missed, and . . . he said this thing that i didn't know was what i was scared about until he said the thing that took the fear away. three-point shot.

i didn't do anything i meant to this weekend. but a friend did point out to me that there have been updates on one of my favorite sites:

this is serious art.

last night at one of those convivial post-show drinky times, someone asked me that "are you sticking around?" question. we all know what it means. are you here for good, or are you moving away to seek greater fame and fortune/follow your bliss/be a fool? people have been asking it for a while, since the best one moved away and i started thinking about it, and now that the monkey has left for new yorker pastures, i guess folks in the know are even more curious. i said, "it's on the table."

i'm not entirely sure why i'm reluctant to cop to moving away, now that it's certain. i suppose i think people here will begin to dismiss me as soon as they know, and i'd like my old life to live on as long as i'm here. as right as this decision is, it's not like i won't miss the party i'm leaving behind. someone told me he'd like to work with me again, and while he's no broadway producer, he *is* a cut above in this small town, and . . . i realized i wanted to eat my cake and then also say, yes, we will work together next year.

not going to happen. but in the largest sense, i don't mind.

we bought our airline tickets yesterday. buying plane tickets makes me feel like a superhero.

also, because i promised myself i'd write it down:

i dreamed i was in this house, and there was a tiny monkey (and as i'm writing this, i'm realizing that "monkey" in my usual context means someone specific--thanks, doctor freud--but in this case, the monkey was actually a monkey). the monkey was one of those kinds of monkeys that have some human traits, because i recall that having sex with the monkey later (again with the thanks, sigmund) was a definite possibility. it was my job to look after the monkey, which was hard because he was scampering all over and the treehouse we were in had big gaps between the walls and roof, and around the windows, so he could totally have squeezed out into the outside world and not come back (ahem. perhaps he was headed to new york to follow his dreams). i tried to leash him, but he was too smart for that. he got out for a little bit, and i asked my father if he didn't ever get tired of our friends offloading their monkey on us and expecting me to take care of him. it was hot--like, the kind of weather you could live in a poorly weatherproofed treehouse in--and all of the colors were oranges and golds and caramel colors. then, badness started to happen. some giant, huge asian guy--like a sumo wrestler, but in normal clothes--was pushing against the door, demanding that i give him the monkey. i refused, even though i had just called the monkey a pain in my ass, because after all, we were kind of a pair and taking care of the monkey was my job. also, the huge guy was very threatening, in a thug/gestapo kind of way. he did not mean any good. i was holding the door against his force, saying in a faux-rational voice that if he would just step away, i would go find the monkey and give him up (which of course i wouldn't do; it was only a ploy), but huge guy didn't buy it. the dream faded out with my pushing all my weight against the cracking door and kind of knowing it wouldn't work.

i guess this dream is a lot less mysterious once i recognize the monkey connection. nemmind. but also, last night i had my recurring dream that my dad has taken me skiing and i'm wearing all the wrong clothes.

last week i was in target, and . . . i love target, because target has everything. target has pictures frames that are non-stupid and that i would put on my walls. they have bookshelves, vaccuums and car wax. they also have a very spartan and . . . kind of fifties-era health and beauty department. which means you can't by astroglide there. you can at the drugstore by my house, so i thought maybe in this more enlightened era you could buy good lube anywhere. not so. all they really have at target is lube masquerading as feminine moisturizer. so, i figured--as long as i'm going to have to buy K-Y jelly instead of the real, good, industrial stuff . . . i mean, why pay more?

yeah. i bought target-brand lube.

so, back when the monkey moved to the big city, i realized we were in for some time apart. i didn't think that was such a fun thing, especially with us being pretty new and all, but i also knew that leaving town was a very, very important thing to him--his desire to live somewhere else was the first ostensible, articulated reason for his divorce and became kind of a figurehead for everything that wasn't right back here. plus, nothing says "on your own now" faster than having to manage moving your life to new york all by yourself. and as for me, i had shit to do back here, and i hadn't been planning to move to new york until the summer anyway, and a small voice was saying maybe it's okay to give this a little time. i figured it would be best for both of us if we knew he had successfully navigated life on his own and wasn't hopping from divorce decree to a dumb-looking dependence on a new love.

then he left, and i realized that for all the good-on-paper-ness of us having a little time to test all these feelings, it was also not completely necessary. this wasn't the minor kind of feeling that warrants best caution. this was the best kind of thing that warrants smarts, bravery and common sense. i realized that the time apart we were in for might cause a whole lot of sadness, and might be its own pressure on things. then i got cast in something back here, which meant the time apart was definitely real. then i got cast in another thing back here, and the time apart almost doubled. both jobs were too good to say no to; one was even kind of a once-in-a-lifetime deal. so i said yes, but i felt extremely bad about being the person who pushed off the date we'd be together again. seven months is a lot more than four, especially when it's dawning on you that while you are both perfectly capable of living on your own, it does not hold a fucking candle to being together. i wondered, which is really smarter? always being on the tiptoe side of sensible, or realizing what's worth breaking the rules for?

still. the heart knew it was wrong to say no to good work. so we kept it up, and the monkey gave me pep talks about how seven months wasn't that long. i was struck by two apparently opposite but equally valid truths: it was wrong to give up the jobs, and also wrong to spend seven months apart. conundrum.

two days ago, the monkey made the sound of one hand clapping. today, he was cast in my once-in-a-lifetime project--meaning the incredible opportunity is happening for him, too, and also that the seven months apart is shrunk back to four. this is a first for me: do what you think is right, even when it's hard enough that it seems it might be wrong, and . . . somehow, the opposites come together. it probably doesn't work this way all the time, but for now, i'm stunned. it's a distinctly wonderful precedent.

if you're in scotland in august, look out. we're coming.