What to do with the Time

         
               Go to work.  Keep going to work.  Except for that one time you only made it half the day, and just

had to go home cause your head was too small for your brain, and your arms felt like evergreen branches weighed down by the snow.  You missed snow a lot.  How back home it would send a spear through the noise, outside and in.  Conform around you, and sometimes bury you.  The rain is more opinionated, chatters on endlessly and doesn't care about what you were planning on doing. It wears you down and insists on its own way.   Go home that one day, bitch about the rain, but be sure to go back.

Drink.  A little most times, a lot some times.   When you drink too much you become like the rain.

Take up running.  Run against your will.  Run up Burnside then back.  Not as fast as you can.  Not yet.  Run to not-running-songs and wonder why that had never occurred to you before.  This is your first time running in years and it only takes a half an hour to feel pushed to a limit.  Stop for now and imagine your limit being set further for next time.  Return home and stretch your muscles.  Feel conflicted about how good you feel now, a little looser, a little guilty.  Still thinking about Him, but not in a scatter-shot frantic way any longer. A controlled burn.

Shower.  Clean the kitchen.  Actually put away the dishes. Move objects and clean underneath them instead of the usual around.  Then clean the bathroom a little.  Put your jackets on hangers.

Find that book you actually want to read after reading six samples on your kindle.  Remember the last time you read that author. Remember the hard bed that came with the room you rented when you first came to chatty drunk rain town.  The darkness that came so early back then, and feeling like you should have felt in high school. Safe in a house of people who wanted you around, near a phone that friends would call you on. A boyfriend who liked you more than you liked him, who did things how you wanted him to. Bought you presents, too many presents, brought you flowers, drugs, gave you strep throat and stupidly brought you pizza.  Was nice, but you didn't want him.  Didn't have that thing, that thing that the ones you extend your love to have.  They withhold and withhold, and you give your reckless abandon to them. Not to boys who do it right on paper.  Not to boys who love like you love.  Recall  cramming in chapters before someone picked you up to go dancing.  You bought two copies of the book, one to send to Him, did he get it?  Wait, did you send it?  Did he have a girlfriend then?  She probably didn't appreciate some fangirl sending him gifts of pulitzer literature.  Vaguely recall asking him years later if he got the book, and him not recalling getting it.  Read now.  Read until you feel like writing.

Eat dinner. Ha-ha. Just kidding.

Write.  Write non-required writing for the first time in over a year.  Make sure to get the good one liners in before you forget them.   Face your writer self.  That girl who is punched in the eyes with black eyeliner, who wears a beanie cap and hates you for cramming her in writer shaped closet inside of you for a year and also for selling her doc martins.   Look at her. She pretends she doesn't want to talk to you for a minute, but you buy her a drink and she sluttily gives up everything to you, like she always does.

      Decide you're maybe not going to give up on the things you told Him you were gonna do before he left.  Some of those things were actually good ideas, and not just desperate empty promises to make yourself look interesting to Him again.  Decide to take a step toward doing one of those things next week.

Think about painting something.  Maybe a landscape for the first time.  Put a Bob Ross dvd on the top of your Netflix queue.  Decide to paint resentful trees, suspicious squirrels, jealous shrubs and deceitful pine cones
 Go to bed.  Do not think about when he came home after being away for three weeks for work last summer. Do not think about the things he said while you were on top.  Do not think about  his left hand on your right hip, the hip that had softened with the extra weight you put on that spring, don't remember looking down at his hand on your hip when he said, "You are the one I am going to marry."  DON'T REMEMBER THAT OKAY?!?!

Do all the stuff that would have made Him stay with you if you had been doing them all along.

drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was Bri

i decided the next day that i was going to say something really rude and cutting to Brian if he ended up leaving portland without seeing me. "no excuses, you were right across the street," was the general line of thought. i was actually kind of amped to tell him that he was out. part of me wanted him to leave without saying anything, so i could finally have a rightful excuse to make him feel bad without looking like a weepy, emotional chick (which i am). but the other part of me did not want to feel that rejection, in fact i couldnt conceive of it. that would be a blow to the very lower gutty wuts quadrant.

i thought i was going to get a chance to say the dialog that was running through my head late that nite. i imagined him txting me or calling and saying, "sorry, it was so crazy while i was out there, sorry i didnt get a chance to see you."
and i would say, "you know what brian? no. you were across the street from me. across. the. street. you don't have an excuse. this just so clearly illustrates what you really think about me. and apparently that isnt much. no. no. no, brian, youre out."

how sweet that would have been.

*beep*
1:28 am
new message brian: i'm at doug fir drinkin.
me: i did that last night.
brian: last night is not tonite.
me: you are right about that.
brian: i'm gonna be at the jupiter in 15 min.
me: good for you
brian: yeah.
me: what do you want?
brian: same thing you want.
me: oh, really? to be treated like a lady or at least a friend you respect? to get asked out for drinks at a reasonable hour, not at the last minute like some cheap ass trick?
(take that!)
brian: i always want to be treated like a true lady. and no one said anything about last minute.

Damn his oily, always quick and clever hide!
me: uh huh.

i rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. i had taken part of a klonopin but wasnt terribly sleepy. just blank. thinking clearly, but feeling little.

"...i said hey, babe, take on walk on the wild side...said haaaay babe..."
thats my ringtone.
brian.

"hello?"
"Laney," i recognized his tone, it was his 'what the hell is going on with you?' tone.
"What. is going on?"
i sat in silence, the hum of no one talking on a phone in my left ear. i wanted to say so much. whats going on? i remember when you would walk ten salt lake city blocks at high noon in the summer just for a chance to see me for ten minutes while my husband was at work. now twenty yards is too much of an effort.

i just sighed.
"youre just mad about friday, well if you had any idea how fucked up i was you wouldnt be so pissed."

"noooo brian, thats not,"
"yes it is, youre just mad that i couldnt tell you what bar i was at."

The Conditional Tense

The Conditional Tense

You can disappear over the weekend, and I have an ego big enough to convince myself that I made you up. In fact, I am so jaded, that I will have to convince myself that I didn’t make you up, boys that look better than movie stars don’t drink wine on my living room floor. Those boys are posing for pictures, living in hotels, and never have time to spend with one person at a time. Je voudrais que toi restiez….(I want(conditional tense verb) you(informal) to stay(figurative/literal verb?) a jamais. (Forever: my greatest fear deepest desire) First thing to do is to wake up on my floor, and to think that I may have done this before, this is where I woke up the morning after, evidence everywhere, a record making pointless noise, pfft, pfft, pffft, four empty bottles of wine, quatre bouteilles vides (four bottles(noun) empty(future simple certainty)
I will write you into one of my stories, that is a surefire way to make you fictional for real, because all my characters are too good looking and too cool, I wouldn't know these people in real life and if I did they wouldn't be my friends, you will fit right in. The story will begin with a guy who looks just like you. Entre (enter verb) Homme hyperbeau (Man of hyperbolic beauty (adjective) ) A boy with a name like Jack, something simple but uncommon, therefore, cool, will be holding a glass of wine, he will take a sip and a drop will run from the corner of his mouth, like a drop of blood, and he will look like one of those movie vampires that are so fashionable right now. My character, a thinner version of myself with better skin and thicker hair, will admire how you try to catch the trickle with your tongue. Je Verrais (I would see; conditional verb) My character would say something controversial and impossibly witty, I will just put in quotation marks till I can think of something that doesnt sound too contrived " " she says, but your character's response will come easily and effortlessly, and the words will tumble languidly out of your mouth, probably how you would reply if you were real. You'd get very passionate about your position on the matter (insert matter here) and you'll gesticulate wildly, your hair will shake loose, wirey silver stands glinting like stars through a forest of dark trees. Graying at twenty-one, now you are really starting to sound like a literary character. I will grab the back of your head, my hand cushioned by all of your hair that is probably not going to recede (see fiction, in real life I get asked out by guys who are prematurely balding, and I say yes because I don't want to admit that I am turned off by sparse hair on a shiny scalp, in real life I am this shallow, but in my stories, I don't have to be, cause you look so young and lush) and I will halt your words with my mouth pressed hard on yours. We will be listening to Twilight Galaxy by Metric, and the best part of the song will swell up in my heart, I'm all right now come on baby
I've seen all the demons that you've got
If you're not all right now, come on baby, I'll pick you up and take you where you want
Anywhere you want
and I will be very happy that we are kissing while that song is saying what I won't say to you, or wish you would say to me. I will reconsider the song for my story later, and deem Metric a bit too obscure and choose something safer for my readers like, I'm on Fire by Bruce Springsteen, Sometimes its like someone took a knife baby, edgy and dull
and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul You will kiss me back and it will feel good and satisfy a craving deep and insistent, this kiss will be the first cigarette after a transatlantic flight, the one where you drop your bags on the concrete and light up 19 feet and 11 inches away from the "no smoking within 20 feet" sign. only you can cool my desire
I'm on fire
Yeah, a nice safe Boss reference, I can picture fiction me having that record on vinyl. My character will remove an expensive jacket made of buttery soft leather, and your character will peel layers of clothes off my slight body, and my gleaming hardwood floors will have a temporary carpeting of designer clothes as I do the same to your character. The thought will cross my mind that in literature nobody cares about reading the labels on peoples clothes, and I will consider making this story into a movie script. That way I won't have to try to explain how attractive we are and how adept at dressing and undressing we are, people who read books hate that stuff anyway. My character won't wonder if this means anything to you, the thought won't cross her mind to ask you if this means that you like me too and want to be my boyfriend. She won't desperately hope that you are exploring the geography of her body to memorize the routes, not to just pass through. That's too hard for her to say in French, so, enlever(remove, very present tense verb with future tense consequences) mes vetements (my clothes).
Je veux toi (I want you) she'll say hotly into your ear,
from the darkness your foreign language response will emerge, my character hasn't been to Spain or Russia or where ever your response is coming from, but she knows it amounts to "I want you, You are sexy," and she will say, ne(don't) m'a(you me) jamias(never) lacher (let go) (never let me go) and since anything sounds sexy if its breathy enough, she will beg, S'il tu plait (please) S'il ....tu.... plait and she will stretch each word out. In the movie version, white text will be the only thing covering our naked bodies, a sheet of sexy bilingual back and forth. Now this is where I am going to bury you in pure fiction. In the morning you won't leave. You will linger, and suggest breakfast at the hotel across the street. My character won't have to think of any ways to tempt you to stay, you won't search for you phone or be in a rush to get dressed, you won't jingle your keys in your pocket when you do finally put your pants on. We will take a shower together, I will say that I like you, (Je t'aime, I like you informal, I love you depending on context) and you won't say, "Yeah, I know, but I have a girlfriend," and I will not have to say, "Yeah, I know, okay? I was just saying it cause its true alright?" You'll lift my chin gently as beads of water spray into our eyes, and you'll say, "Je t'aime aussi, (I like you as well, love you depending on context, present tense, not conditional)"

Mutual Amnesia

“If I cut it like that you’ll lose all this,” Jonny grasped a small sheet of my hair between his index and middle fingers. “I told you I cut it myself with kitchen scissors, what the hell do I know, Jonny?”
He had been cutting my hair for almost eight years now, his hesitance and requests for permission and direction hurt my feelings. “You do realize that you have been doing this since I was seventeen? Stop acting like you are cutting a strangers hair,” I said, shoulders slumped, my head sticking out of a nylon cape, I could see myself in the reflection of the window, I looked like I was wearing a garbage bag. “Well, how do you want it to look?” He tousled my hair,
“Make me look like a rich lady,” “Fine, but you’re going to have to do it differently from now on, and you know you have about a year till all this bleached, damaged hair grows out,” again he asked permission, but had already begun cutting while he said this. "However, this part, " He gripped my bangs, "is bouncy and beautiful, I can't wait till its all grown." "Its not fair, I look like a drowned rat,"
"I think you are the one that insisted on blue hair for four years, Courtney,"
Earlier that day I had been idly flicking through a thick stack of old pictures, each glossy photo making a gentle clicking sound as they were separated, sheet by sheet. I saw myself age before my eyes, a sliver of shocking blue peeking out of my bangs spread throughout my hair slowly, then rapidly, like a glinting, beautiful, azure cancer. I tended after the blue, mixing together several shades of neon dye, perfecting the ratios, applying it religiously every other day. There was a distinct difference between myself and the other blue haired freaks, mine was so specific and vivid, there were times that I had to take off my pants to be reminded that it wasn't my natural color. "I thought I would keep it forever," slivers of hair fell and tickled my face.
"I remember that, it was nice for a time, but I like this better,"
"I was just tired of being a caricature of myself, do you remember Tweeder? I mentioned dying it once, and he said, 'Courtney! You can't, you are your blue hair," I bristled a little and rolled my right shoulder back quickly, a tuft of hair slid to the floor. "It never occurred to me that I could be defined by hair dye I bought at Hot Topic,”
“Forget that,” Jonny coughed dryly, “but it was always kind of amusing to find strands of blue hair on my pillow after you left, or sticking to the bathroom wall.”
I was accustomed to the sight of blue hair caked into my brush, my bathroom looking like a Pollack painting, but I couldn’t help imagining how foreign the spider web fine strands of my Technicolor hair must have looked clinging to someone else’s porcelain. “Sometimes I still expect people to stare at me, and approach me with asinine comments, but now I don’t stick out,” I wondered if anyone would have noticed me at all during those four years if I had kept with a more traditional color.
“ Huh, sorta harder to be noticed without a blazing blue crown of glory,” Jonny blew tersely, directly into eyes to clear away errant hair. “I broke up with Mica,”
“You told me, but you sounded drunk, what happened?”
“ So I met a kid,” I felt out of breath already,
“Like a child?” “Practically, he’s only a few years younger, but he makes me feel like my boyfriends must have felt when I was fresh on the scene,”
“How did they feel?” Jonny was always one to ask more questions rather than assume he knew what you meant.
“I dunno, too wise, like a kid who discovered Santa Clause was actually your parents earlier than he would have liked to,”
“Okay,” Snip. Snip. “I guess I haven’t been surprised by anything in such a long time, the older I get the more I find myself finishing other’s sentences in my head, and guessing how ‘this’ll end…’ But Jonny, this kid knocked the wind out of me, and was totally unexpected,” I took a breath, and looked at my chipped toenails. “Like Jonny, he makes me feel predatory and feral,”
“Hah! Good lord,” “Which I don’t think is a good look on me, but for the first time in about a year I could feel my blood running through my body,”
“I guess you have seemed a little listless,” “Come on, you know when you’re life feels like a movie, like when you were nineteen and love didn’t seem like some ridiculous notion that you are rapidly growing to resent? You know? I never thought my life could feel cinematic again, I thought Nick was the last time that would ever happen to me.” I felt inarticulate and cliché, my eyes groped a box of Camel Lights, and saliva surged, hot and salty underneath my tongue. “I know what you mean, there were times where I thought I would never have that feeling again, it happened again, but not the last couple of times,” I recalled his last few girlfriends, and how crushed they would be to hear him say this. How crushed I would be. And guilty for feeling the same way about my last few boyfriends. “But what about Mica?” he said. “Yes, so, the other night, I invited this kid over for some wine, and to share music from our Ipods, God, you know when you were a kid and your mom was on the phone, you know, a long conversation with one of her sisters or something? And you needed to tell her something desperately, but there seemed to be no pause in her conversation?” Jonny liked this and visibly remembered a similar situation, his laugh trilled like a bird’s. “Yeah, so when she finally got off the phone your palms were sweaty and you couldn’t tell her what you needed to fast enough?”
“Oh yeah,”
“That’s what it has felt like not kissing him all this time.” “Hah!” “After a few drinks I assaulted him with one of those ‘fling your arms around his neck’ kisses, like they do in the old movies after someone comes home from war, where their faces are pressed against each other super hard, but they arent opening their mouths,” I could smell the kid’s wet coat and smoky breath, and saw Gable kissing a starlet in a scratchy black and white world. “Christ Courtney, next you’re gonna tell me you were standing outside in the rain,” I smiled widely and bit my lower lip, “Naw, it was in fog so thick you couldn’t see ten feet in front of you.” “Oh for the love of God,” Jonny stopped cutting my hair and rubbed his eyes vigorously. He removed the cape and shook it out, “Go to a mirror and do not touch your hair.” I marched to the bathroom, I stood on my tiptoes and took in my reflection, new haircuts always seem like artificial limbs, not quite part of me.
“I love it Jonny!” I yelled across the apartment. “Okay, Now you can touch it.” I scratched my scalp quickly, fluffing my hair, and running my fingers through it, there was a satisfying feeling when the ends of my hair stopped blunt, and premature. “So, you and the kid are lost in a moonlit wooded glen, kissing in the fog, then an obscure indie song swells in the background…” “Oh shut up,” I peeled away a strand of hair that had dried to the corner of my mouth, “We hung out till six in the morning, I mean, the conversation was effortless, we listened to music, drank ourselves silly, Lord, he reminded me of me when I was his age and was so unselfconscious and resilient, if I had fangs I would have bitten his neck and drained him of that quality,” my lungs felt hot and I wished I hadn’t been so drunk that night, this was just part of what I could remember, I felt like I was having lunch with someone who was talking loudly to me, while a conversation peppered with my name was happening two tables over. “And then?” Jonny’s scissors dangled haughtily from his knuckles.
“And then,” I swallowed, “I woke up not passed out on the floor, but slumped over, sitting upright, TV blaring,” I looked at Jonny, and even though this was supposed to be the climax of my story, I could sense him slipping, fine sand that I was trying to move across the beach clenched in my hands. “Mica was sleeping on my bed,” Jonny paused, “Wait, why?” “ Ya know how you give someone your key thinking they will never use it? Well he decides he doesn’t want to go back across town when he got off work, so, yeah, he just came over.” “Oh shit,” He tilted backward, slightly, as if he were drunk. “So, all day, He doesn’t let on a bit, I smell like another man…I mean, at least I am fairly certain, and there is evidence everywhere, have you ever tried to keep your heart quiet?” “What?” He opened my closet, grabbed the broom and began to sweep, lifting corners of carpet, he laughed then looked up from his crouched position, “ever notice how hair can be so sexy and beautiful, but once it touches the floor it’s disgusting?” “Yeah, like Jell-o, once that stuff falls to the floor…anyway, like has your heart ever beaten so hard you thought it might incriminate you? Dude, he had to have felt it vibrating through the couch.”
“Ha,” he brushed the dusty hair into a circle. “Yeah, so, He made me Mac ‘N Cheese, and he’s in the kitchen for a really long time, so I go to check on him. He is standing with his arms crossed, and I ask him if he wants to watch a movie, and he says, ‘No,’ and I ask him why not, and he says, ‘Do you think I am stupid?’ and I tell him of course not, and then he says, ‘Yeah right. What? I am supposed to ignore six bottles of wine in your garbage?’ and I said, ‘Well, why would that be a problem?’ and he said, ‘Oh yeah, sure, what the hell Courtney? Your place is a wreck, the bed is a mess and you aren’t even in it. Come on,’ then he said maybe we should break up,” “Okay,” my floor was clean now. “I told him I was sorry, and then he left.”
“Well I could tell you weren’t that into him anyway, I mean,” “Do you think I am bad, Jonny?” “What do you mean?” “You know, for this?” “Well, its not like..” “And for what we did?” “Come on, it was clear you were just filling the gaps, and shit, I mean, fuck Courtney, you never just wait for the right time, you just press, and push and force things to happen too quickly.” I remembered the fourth of July morning where I found myself alone, sticky and humid, on his bed, I peered through his bedroom window and saw him in his backyard, yellow with buttery sunshine highlighting his shoulders and darkening his face. I walked lightly down the stairs, trying to be elegant and delicate, despite a head that felt heavy and urgent. The stone path was already warm, and my bare feet were comforted and welcomed . The memory of me being completely nude outdoors seemed preposterous to me now that it was so cold outside. I could still feel what his cotton shirt, damp with sweat, felt like against my nipples and stomach as I hugged him. I stood in his garden, naked and unashamed. Jonny handed me a purple, heavy tomato. It smelled like being forced to pull weeds in my mother’s garden as a child. It was veiny and I half expected it to beat like a human heart. Jonny broke the pristine silence, “Tomatoes used to be called poison apples.” I squeezed the tomato lightly. “Apples eh?” I smirked and took a bite, the skin was tense against my teeth then gave way, and burst in my mouth, fleshy and savage. Acid pulp overflowed and trickled down my jaw and settled between my breasts, watercolor lines of seeds and juice. “The tomatoes you buy at the store are ripened prematurely with gas, they are green tomatoes that are turned red through a chemical process.” I shivered, barefoot again, my apartment floor a stark contrast to the welcoming stones of July. “Jonny?” “Yeah?” “You’re right, I wasn’t about him, I mean, not head over heels at least. And even though Mica was pissed I could tell he had been looking for an excuse for a long time, I think we were just together out of convenience, and this kid, I mean, yeah, this kid, I felt reawakened by him, but where the hell could it go? I mean, I guess its not like he and I are gonna take long weekenders or jet to Paris, and I’m not going to give him my key, or Christ, can you imagine him introducing me to his family? Even without the blue hair, I’m stamped with tattoos, and reek of a closet filled with bones, and Hells gonna freeze right over before he meets my…” The words came out like someone opening the door to a jam-packed closet. “Courtney!” “Jonny?” “Yes Courtney,” “You think its gonna work for me?” Jonny silenced his sigh politely, “Work how?” “With a guy? Think someone’s gonna get me?” “Courtney…” He breathed my name. “Like, that it won‘t be complicated all the damn time, and I will find the person for me?” “Courtney,” He put his coat on, “either someone is gonna love you or they won’t.” The words, icy and true, made it hard to maintain nonchalance, the air in my apartment was replaced with the absence of love. I laughed, loud and hollow. “Jeeeeeesus, typical me, ‘Hey Courtney, can you make it more melodramatic?’” I mocked myself.
“Hey, well I have to meet someone for dinner, I will see ya when those bangs start poking you in the eyes.” He hugged me and his coat was cold and starchy. I went outside after I heard his car pull away. I sat on the fire escape, the wet bars made my ass feel cold, it sorta pissed me off. I settled in and hugged my knees to my chest. I saw fog collecting at the top of the mountain in the distance. I thought of the last time I drove through fog, In a frozen desert, in a Saturn with shot transmission, I couldn’t get out of fourth gear. I was terrified. It turned out to be a Zen experience on amphetamines, my adrenaline competed with a soothing acceptance of my own mortality. A voice in my head kept repeating, ‘just drive for as far as you can see, then when you can see some more, drive for as far as you can see…’ then, eventually I was home.

Fandangle

Fandangle

“You go stand outside in that costume for five minutes and if you can tell me its not too cold you can wear it.” My mother struck matches one by one, they made a sound like bike tires on gravel against the brail sides of the matchbox. She didn’t glance up at me once while she deliberately lit the dusty black candles from a box marked “Halloween.” They had hardened rivulets wax on the sides from being lit the year before, like licorice bark on candy trees. I stood in front of her in a polyester ballerinas outfit, a hand-me-down from one of my cousins. The pink leotard had faded to nearly white, and only at the seams could you tell what color it may have looked when my cousin had worn in ten years earlier. The taffeta tutu hung limply at my sides, a mere filmy suggestion of the perky tutu that the ballerina in my music box wore. The crowning achievement of this outfit was a sequined headband with colorful sticks pointing skyward, a few florescent whiskers indicated former glorious plumage. I resembled a retired chorus girl, standing in front of a bartender trying to convince him that I was once a headliner. I felt beautiful.
“Oh, I feel fine, its not cold at all,”
My mother opened the front door, bowed and made a grand sweeping gesture, inviting me to step outside as renegade orange leaves whirled inside to lay their brittle skeletons to rest in a warm corner of our living room. My confident stride became rigid almost instantaneously, I held myself instinctually, and then immediately set my arms firmly to my sides. “I feel very warm actually,”
My mother burst into peels of laughter that rattled our single pane windows. I looked down at my flat ballet shoes, I could feel the texture of cement under my feet, I curled my little toes against the chill. The only thing keeping me warm was the red rage I felt toward my mother for being right. “Sorry Bea, maybe if we lived in California,” my mother wiped away a tear as I stormed passed her avoiding her laughter like hail that rained down on me.
“Bea! It’s supposed to snow, we’ll find you something warm to wear.” “No we won’t!” I objected from the hallway where I crouched over a heating vent that made my tutu float and flutter around me, I imagined trick-or-treating on a sidewalk of heating vents. That would show my mom. “Fine, then you won’t be trick-or-treating this year,”
“No!” “Well, its your choice, a warmer costume or no candy. We’ll just give all the candy to Lester,”
I stood up, the thought of my dad coming home holding my baby brother in his bumble bee costume, spring antennae on his head with little gold Styrofoam balls attached, nodding at me sarcastically, while his plastic pumpkin overflowed with candy lit a green fuse of jealousy within me. “Fine, Ima go watch Bugs Bunny.” I hugged my knees to my chest and examined my pink tights, loving and resenting them at once, why couldn’t they just toughen up and resist the cold for my sake? Something must take the blame for the humiliation I was sure to endure. I turned my gaze back to Elmer Fudd as he walked off a cliff, gravity not affecting him till he looked down, I made a mental note to try that over our window well later. “Bea! Come try on your costume!” I padded into the living room and found my mother sitting amongst a circle of glitter, and ribbons. She held up a snow suit adorned with colorful scarves and feather boas. My heart sunk, and I knew then that any blame my pink tights were to take my for humiliation this evening would be transferred to my mother. “What am I?” I pleaded in front of the three sided mirror in my mother’s bedroom. She fastened several clip on earrings to my coat sleeves and collar. “You’re a Fandangle!” Three versions of whatever the hell a Fandangle was stood dejectedly before me. Costume jewelry haphazardly affixed, paisley scarves strangled my torso and arms. The only light in mother’s room rested on her vintage 1920’s pine vanity, the dark wood paneling on her walls coupled with the subdued lighting made the poor Fandangle look like she had been covered in rubber cement, rolled in a gypsy’s closet then thrown in the back of an old timey circus car. I fought back stinging tears. “Here’s the best part Bea, you can still wear the headband from your ballerina costume!” It was a small consolation, but it made it easier not to cry. Until she wriggled a wool ski cap on my head, yarn pom-poms flailed at my shoulders. She stretched the headband over the woolen dunce cap, the once magnificent sequins winked at me viciously in the dim reflection. “Trick-er-treat!”
I begrudgingly joined the chorus of children at my neighbor’s front step. My parents stood behind me holding my little brother. I eyed the other children’s costumes, they all look so dignified in cotton candy princess dresses, an enchanting curtain of lace hanging from tip of a dignified pointy cap, the superhero outfits with clearly marked insignia’s on their chest, those children would not have to answer any questions tonight. “Oh my! What do we have here? A princess… Uh-oh! Its Batman!” I peered at the living room through the lady’s legs. Examining other people’s houses was a pleasure that took me by surprise every year, I didn’t look forward to it only because the anticipation of it was overshadowed with costume concerns each year. I admired the matching floral couches that the lady’s laughing family sat on. “And what are you?” the lady chirped as she peered over the enormous aluminum bowl she held.
“She’s a Fandangle!” my mother answered for me. “Oh, yes, a Fandangle! Well, here you go Fandangle girl!”
I frowned at the lady as she dropped each candy into my plastic bag, one by one they made a rustling sound against the multitude of Tootsie Rolls that seemed to multiply like the mop in Fantasia. I made a point to frown at each adult that pretended to know what a Fandangle was, I feared if I smiled they would think that I put the outfit together myself. Heaven forbid, if I were to be pitied it was for not being able to be a princess instead of a Fandangle, not for wanting to be a Fan-damn-dangle in the first place. My mother was very fond of nonsense words to explain away things she didn’t have the answers to, or to articulate feelings she didn’t have words for, she called my dad “lug butt”, and when revealing a birthday cake she would sing, “La-duh-da-dah!” When another perplexed neighbor in bunny slippers with graying chins from dirty floors asked what a Fandangle was my mother said,
“Oh, you know, she has doo-dads and sequin powers,” my mother thought she would win me with “sequin powers” , but all I had at that moment on a stranger’s wet porch was “glower power.” All of the women handing out candy loved to indulge my mother, making a showy production in front of me pretending to recognize the word and congratulate me on such a great representation of this creature. The smell of hot wax and raw pumpkins greeted my nose upon returning home. However much I adored the jack-o-lanterns, I always made a point to not look so closely at them at the end of the night, their teeth receding and faces puckering, they made me sad, in the same way Christmas tree’s the day after Christmas would come to make me sad later. “Lester! Stay away! See this line? These are my candies!” Lester giggled while my dad sorted through his candy, pretending it was the most candy he had seen in his entire life. I organized mine into piles of desirability and made plans for my Halloween costume for the next year.

Omit myself

Omission
He didn’t pick me up from the airport this time, even though I picked him up last time. I wasn’t there to see him anyway, but after a really strained moment waking up next to his friend at four in the afternoon, the sun already setting, I thought it might be a good time to pretend I wanted my space. I dialed his number and held the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I continued to get dressed.
“What up man?” I pretended that I always talked to other guys while putting my pants on.
“Yeahman, lemme see,” I pulled the phone aside,
“Casey, do you know where Joe Slaughter’s house is?”
“Yeah,” he was stuffing his wallet in his back pocket.
“Cool dude, I’ll be there in a few minutes…aight, bye.”
The sun was setting somewhere, but the grey sky diffused the light, making it seem like it was coming from no direction in particular.
“Do you need the address?”
He was driving fast, spraying slush onto the windows of his car,
“No, I’ve been there before.”
I felt like it was a stupid question, they had gone to Canada together, of course he has been to his house before, but I didn’t want the drive to be totally silent. My heart was pounding, I wanted to ask if he wanted me to come over to his house later that night, but my throat felt tight and I knew my voice would shake when I asked, which it did.
“Yeah, just call me later and I’ll see if I can come get you,”
“Cool, is this his house?”
“Mmmhmm,”
I gathered my backpack and makeup case, it didn’t occur to me till then that there was less of a reason for him to get me later if I brought my clothes and makeup with me. But I couldn’t pretend to forget them now.
“Mmmmkay, do you wanna come say Hi to Joe?”
“No, just tell him I said Hi,”
I twisted toward him in my seat, my hand on the door handle, waiting for him to lean over and kiss me,
“Alright…then, I will text you later, thanks for the ride.”
He kept both hands on the steering wheel, and pressed his lips together,
“ Yeah, have fun.”
I waved from the doorstep as Joe opened the door,
“What up girl?”
I dropped my luggage by the front door, there was an eleven foot Christmas tree in the foyer, there were at least three-hundred and fifty Hallmark ornaments crowding the front of the tree, each fifteen dollar bauble jockeying for attention. I thought they were incredibly tacky, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that the tree’s holiday outfit cost at least a couple grand.
“What up playa? Where is everyone?”
“Oh they aren’t gonna be here for a few hours,”
“I am hung-to-the-over man, Casey had to go to work right after we woke up, would it be weird if I took a shower here?”
“Go for it girl,”
It took me five minutes to figure out how turn on the shower, once I got it running I took the opportunity to answer the call of nature that had been unanswered for two days. I can never take a shit at the house of a guy I like, I become too aware that it takes more time to do that than it does to take a pee, so I take even longer, and then I get gun shy and can’t go at all. I was really glad to have the shower as an excuse to take as long as I needed. I hate showering at other peoples houses, at my house I have face wash, bar soap, shaving cream, shampoo and conditioner, wash cloths and almost anything else one may need to get clean. There is almost always a distinct absence of anything other than running water in other peoples houses. Just some sickly sweet body wash that makes me smell like fruity body odor, and a near empty bottle of shampoo. No wash cloth. The hot water brought some of the booze out of my skin, and washed it down the drain, my hangover lightened a bit. When I got out of the shower my hair felt squeaky and tangled. After a year of complaining about Portland humidity causing me to have marathon bad hair days, I realized that I had learned to work with it, and now the desert air was sucking my hair’s will to live. I rummaged through the bathroom drawers and found a comb to tear through my hair. I got dressed in the steamy bathroom, my jeans struggled to pull up over my legs as they clung to my wet skin. Forty minutes later I left the bathroom looking like a girl who hadn’t been rode hard and put away wet.
“I’m hungry,”
“Well, we have food, what do you want?”
“What do you have?”
I followed him to the basement, he opened a door to a dark pantry insulated with the Costco dried foods section. The cement floor froze my feet.
“Mac and Cheese! I want Mac and Cheese, Joe!” There were at least fifty blue and orange boxes, lined up like they were on display.
Joe laughed, “That’s what you want?”
I don’t know why it tasted better when it was made with his mother’s Williams and Sonoma pot, brand name margarine, on a stove top with bright red computerized circles of heat instead of coils that smelled funny when they became hot, but it did.
Joe didn’t seem to mind that I rested my head on his lap while we watched Children of Men on a television so big and clear it looked like I could stick my hand right through the screen, and a sound system that made it sound like the bullets in the movie were rushing past my ears. He rested his hand on the crook of my waist tentatively, as if he was poised to take it away if I showed any sign of discomfort.
“Man, this is a great movie, I didn’t think you would like serious movies like this,” I said to his knees.
“This is one of my favorite movies,” he said, and I felt his hand become heavier on my side.
The doorbell rang in the middle of the movie, and he turned on the lights before he went upstairs to answer it. The lights broke the spell and dashed the secret hope I had that nobody would show up for the party, and we could just stay in the dark basement movie room, with cold feet all night. I hadn’t anticipated hoping for that at all. Laughter tumbled down the stairs and echoed through the long hallway and was followed by Joe and four other guys I had known back when I used to go to bars in Salt Lake. One of the guys set down an eighteen pack of Heineken, tore open the cardboard and exposed the green bottles, shining, gold caps glimmering, the sort of Christmas ornaments I could appreciate.
“Want one?” a guy named Jonathan asked me as he popped the cap off, and it fell silently to the thick carpet that I was nervously burying my toes in.
“Hell yeah,” the beer smelled more like beer than beer usually does, I took a sip and watched Joe slither on his stomach underneath the television to hook up the cable. The TV was black and silent, then there was color and noise, men in underwear with bloody noses and rosy ribs fought in a cage for the next two hours, while the guys cheered and reminisced about past fights.
“There is a party on second south,” Jonathan said.
“Right on! Rachel, you ready to go?”
It was ten o’clock and I still hadn’t heard anything from Casey, my stomach tightened. “Sure,” I sent a text message to Casey telling him that I was being dragged to a party, hoping he would offer to “rescue” me. I didn’t hear back till we were halfway downtown, he said he wasn’t so sure about the weather, and didn’t feel too good about driving.
The snow had begun to fall during a cigarette break during the fight, but it thinned out the closer we got to the city. I told him it was letting up, and he said he’d let me know.
The party was crowded and humid with the breath of many drunk kids, we brought beer, Joe and I stood sentinel at the table we set the case on, protecting our property. The noise made it hard to keep a casual distance from anyone and try to tell someone something in confidence. Joe put his arm around my waist and pulled me close to him so he could whisper to me instructions to steal other peoples beers, and hide our own in my purse, the physical closeness a necessity because of the noise. Yet, his arm stayed wrapped around me even when he was talking to other people.
“Have you met Rachel Lamb?” he said as he drew me closer to him,
“This chick is awesome, she’s like the girl version of me!”
After my fourth beer, hair of the dog just became dog, and that day’s hangover would become tomorrow’s. The noise my phone didn’t make when it was supposed to notify me that Casey was ready to come get me became quieter and further away. When Joe laughed at things I said, and the sound closed the gap in my heart, the distance between me and him, the thoughts of wanting to be back with Casey that I held between us like a piece of paper between our bodies slipped away, and fell to the floor, becoming muddy with beer and dirt from peoples wet shoes.
“God, I’m so glad you are on my arm tonight,” he lifted a can of Bud Light in the direction of a fashionably dressed girl, who looked like she was trying to appear to be having a very good time,
“I used to go out with her, I’m glad she can see me with you tonight,”
“Want to make her jealous?”
“Yeah, how?”
I turned to face him, “Lets do a ‘Hollywood kiss,’ ya know? Like we kiss with our mouths open and pretend to be goin at it hardcore,”
“Hell yeah,” he pulled me in with one arm and held his beer out to the side with the other, I stood on my toes and crossed my wrists around his neck, I hesitated for a second, but he did not. The shape and texture of his lips felt foreign only in the way they can when you are comparing them someone you had only been kissing hours earlier. The moist empty space our mouths made when pressed together and wide open showed no activity from our tongues, but I could sense his stirring, and wanting to participate, it flicked mine, so I laughed and slid my hand to his chest.
“That’s why you are so awesome,”
“You think it worked?”
“Hah, yeah, look at her,”
The girl had turned her back to us.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, it was Casey telling me that he had been drinking and didn’t think his car would make it in the snow. I put up a quick argument, saying that it wasn’t snowing anymore. He just said sorry and that I should call him tomorrow.
“Great,” I said as I put my phone in my pocket,
“What’s wrong?”
“Casey can’t come get me, now I don’t know where I’m gonna sleep tonight.” I was leading him to offer to drive me to Casey’s house, but instead he said,
“Oh don’t worry, you can stay with me.” He grabbed my hand and led me outside to have a cigarette and to “fake” kiss some more against the concrete wall of the house. He straddled his legs around one of mine, and I could feel his pants tighten increasingly, between each stage kiss, which became less for show with each practice, I laughed, and took a drag off my cigarette.
There was no way Joe was sober on the drive home, but I told myself he wasn’t as drunk as he seemed.
“Man, I wish you would just move back here forever,”
“I know, I have so much fun when I am with you,” I was only sort of drunk, but drunk enough to have my heart swell when he played Omission by John Frusciante, a song I had thought no one else knew about, and the alcohol in my blood made it feel really significant, or maybe it just was really significant, but I couldn’t tell right then.
“You are so cool Rachel, I mean, its so easy to be around you, and you like all the things I like,” He let one hand drop off the steering wheel and rest next to mine, then he reached up and stroked his chin.
“I know, like when you came out to visit me in October, I was worried we wouldn’t have anything to talk about and it was going to be super awkward since we hadn’t hung out that much when I lived here. But instead when you left my house felt all empty, and I was sorta bummed,”
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I sorta had a dumb reason for visiting you in the first place,” he was still stroking his chin.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I mean, I came out cause I thought I was starting to like you,”
“Awe, well,”
“But when nothing happened with us I was cool with it, ‘cause we had so much fun and there wasn’t an awkward silence once,”
I breathed out quickly, a half hearted laugh, “ Yeah, and that girl Brooke kept texting you the whole time and calling you to make sure you weren’t having sex with me.”
Joe laughed, “Yeah, that girl was crazy….But I like it when you are here, I just wish that you could teleport, live there and be here with me whenever you want.”
Joe held a finger to his mouth as we walked up his driveway, I quieted my laughter after nearly falling on my ass after slipping on a patch of ice. He grasped all the keys on his chain tightly in his fist to silence them as he unlocked the door to his parents house.
“We have to be really quiet, or the dog will wake my mom up,”
I held his hand lightly as he guided me through the darkness, down the staircase to his bedroom. He turned on the TV and hurriedly turned the volume down. We ate burritos from an all-night Mexican food restaurant we had picked up on the way home, which we would both agree the next morning was a huge mistake, and we both swore we would never get so drunk where that would sound like a good idea ever again. In the light of his bedroom, it was clear by his glassy eyes, and speech that Joe had been too drunk to drive, he must have had a few shots before we left, because he seemed to be drunker now than we he started driving.
“So, should I sleep in here or on the couch?” I said when he turned off the lights.
“I don..don’t mind if you sleep in here, unless ya wanna sleep in the movie room,”
“Naw, I am no good on couches.” I turned away from him and took my pants off, I removed my shirt and took my off my bra, I saw him turn his head away quickly, then I put my shirt back on and climbed to the far edge of his bed.
I laid on my side with my back turned away from him, he turned the TV off and it was so silent. It was like the silence that happened when you were a kid at a sleepover with your best friend, when you are both stifling laughter in the dark, trying to find a right time to say goodnight, and when you finally do, the silence feels really loud. Joe turned to me and pressed his stomach against my back and held me too tightly.
“Ya know, I wouldn’t mind if you turned to face me,”
“Oh you wouldn’t?” I tried to be coy, I sighed and pretended to get sleepier. He pulled against me harder and coaxed me on my back. I tried to be limp like a person that was really half asleep. He crawled on top of my body, he was very heavy, I was embarrassed to feel him hard against my thigh a tiny bead of moisture forming on his boxers and sticking to my leg. My tipsy brain racked itself for a casual way to get out of this. He kissed me on my cheeks, and then on my mouth. Not a Hollywood kiss.
“What are you doing?” I said.
He propped himself on his arms, “I don’t know,” he said with his head turned to the side and I was glad it was silhouetted in darkness and I didn’t have to see his face. He rolled off me, but still held me close and too tight for the rest of the night.
I didn’t say anything about what happened the night before in the morning, and neither did Joe. We just spoke of our massive hangovers and then went to In-n-Out burger. When we got back to his house he turned on the Christmas tree in the movie room that as decorated with more Hallmark ornaments still, but these were all Star Wars edition. When all the lights were off the tree was beautiful, and you couldn’t tell that the ornaments were so un-Christmas-ey. We cuddled on the couch all day, both of us happy to feign amnesia about the night before. I wasn’t going to be spending Christmas in Utah, the tickets were too expensive, so I was going home to my empty apartment the next day. He offered to let me stay another night, but I told him I should probably stay my last night at my girlfriend’s place. Two blocks into the drive back to her place, he looked at me and said, “Are you sure you don’t wanna stay? Its really slick out here,”
“Well…I dunno, are you sure your car can’t make it?”
I saw Joe flash a look of concern, then disappointment at my answer, “I think it’ll be okay.”
I suddenly felt my face get hot, and I felt selfish for making him drive me to a friend I didn’t want to see that much anyway, while the roads where black with ice. I gave him a hug across the seat when he dropped me off, and he told me to have a safe trip and to let him know when I got home.
When I got home the next night I watched A Christmas Story on my couch, and my feet were cold. I was alone in my apartment, and found myself not wishing that I could warm my feet under Casey’s sheets, but instead I found myself wanting to rest my head in Joe’s lap, in the dark movie room, feet cold all night.

basic math

i think i have lost and gained the same three pounds over and over. i havent been this dedicated to a diet for years. i put up pictures of me two years ago right when i kicked my ex-husband out of the house. i looked amazing, just about five or seven pounds away from being gross, where people would say, "are you okay?" which eventually happened but thats a different story. in those pictures i was just,"wow! you look great! how do you do it?"

diet coke and camel lights, suckers. and if you dont like it, get the funk out!

no alcohol on the weekdays, which has flattened my tum but has destroyed my social life considering i live in the land of the endless hangover. portland is like never never land for drinkers. the diet has made me rather reclusive, i dont want to be around people,because it usually involves food or drinking.

i am looking at a balding dude, maybe he's 25 or 33. he's at the table next to me in this coffee shop that is connected to a book shop. he is reading a graphic novel, and there is a cookie on a little white ceramic saucer. he has a bottled pineapple soda pop, a pot of coffee and a whole cup of cream. his flabby, toneless, white arms are naked, luckily his torso is sheathed in a sleeveless navy blue hanes t shirt. at first i thought he had a serious of small, faded tattoos, but upon further inspection it turns out he has a peculiar hair growth pattern. little patches all over his arms.

as he delicately nibbles his cookie, wiping the tips of his fingers gently on the paper napkin on his plate, sipping soda and cream, i find myself jealous of this chubby, probably girlfriendless guy, who might live alone, with his mom, or with a roommate that is more attractive than him and has a string of pretty girls coming in and out. no one has any expectations for this guys appearance. he isnt verging hot, so no one is saying, "god, if he would just work out he'd be bangin." and he isnt hot, so there is no speculation on whether he should be eating that cookie or not, and no envious stares thinking, "he can just eat cookies and look like that." no, if he eats cookies and cream, it doesnt matter. and when he decides to close his comic book and leave, he will probably have a double cheeseburger with fries, and a coke. then when he gets home he will probably snack on one of those costco muffins that are 700 calories. now i am not calling this poor guy a pig, not from what i have seen, like i said, he did nibble the cookie. but it doesnt matter because tomorrow he will eat 4 squares and the odd snacks and look the same everyday. nobody cares.

while i have had a this vegan "food bar", that barely counts as solid food, its like cat food taffy. and 2 cups of coffee. i am at once jittery and listless. that boy who i kissed at east end works here. he comes up to my table and places the cutest pastry next to my coffee. i sorta chuckle, because it looks so happy, all dusted with powdered sugar, its corners turned up in a philo dough smile.
"What is this?" i ask him.
he smiles broadly, "Its a chocolate croissant!" his voice is booming and excited.
"Do you want it?"
i debate whether i do or not quickly.
"No, i cant. thank you"
he didnt press the issue. but i did ask for granola with steamed soy milk. the shakes are passing.

my ex boyfriend brian was in town this last weekend. he sent me a cryptic message on facebook a few weeks ago saying, see you in three weeks. i asked him why, and when. but i didnt get a reply. after a couple of weeks i txted him and asked when he would be in town.
"friday"
okay, just to be clear, the tone that i wanted my reply to convey was jocular, not hysterical. okay? okay.

"why u comin? who u rollin with? wanna see me?"
"dont be so anxious its unattractive."

that, my friends, is called a txt slap. i was sitting next to my friend aaron, i started laughing, "oh my god, listen to what my ex just texted me," i told him what i said,
"and then he says, 'dont be so anxious its un...*SOB* attract *SOB*" i buried my head in my hands and wept heavily. NOW i was hysterical.
"Who does he think he is?!!! i am a human being! *SOB HICCUP* i have feelings, " i screamed.
i wish boots fit through cell phones. i wanted to kick him in the teeth with my docs, just like he did with his fucking txt.
"I have been in love with him since i was seventeen! aaahahahh! *snifffff* oh god! why is he so fucking meeeeeeeeean!!!"

*beeep*

i look at my phone. new message brian: "you wanna see me?"

i looked at aaron, i could see my face in the reflection of the window behind him, i look like i just came in from a mascara rain storm. "WHAT DO I EVEN SAY TO THAT?! Whiiiiiiy would he say that?"

aaron took a cigarette out of his coat, "i used to do that with all my old boyfriends, you bitch slap them with one hand, then with the other you bring them in for a hug. it really works."
yes it does. i txtd back, a totally attractive fifteen minutes later, "sure."

on friday i decided that i was going go out as if brian weren't in town. i have a tendency to hang all my hopes on one thing. i put all my eggs in one basket and usually end up with a raw, eggshelly, omlette on the sidewalk. but i have grown up a lot in the last year. not that brian has noticed, he like my older brothers, think i have discovered the fountain of youth, and spent my seventeenth year of life bathing in it. when i returned i was to remain pubescent for the rest of my life, also selfishly not telling where this glorious lagoon is located. oh, i can tell them, its in a magical shire, full of moss and mystery, right between their ears. but it doesnt matter, they wear earplugs that filter out anything valid or poignant that i say, and glasses smeared with immaturity grease that makes my every gesture awkward, gangly, and obnoxious.

he did call, around seven.
"Whats uuuup son!" cheerful but non-commital, is that attractive?
"Hey, whatcha doin?" he just sounded non-commital.
"just chillin at my apartment, what are you doin?"
"just chillin in my hotel room, waiting for my friends."
"where are you staying?"
"the jupiter hotel."
i looked out my window. i could see the windows of the jupiter hotel. glowing blue.
"thats right across the street from me."
"oh really? so what are you up to tonight?"
"not much, maybe we can get together and go for a drink?"
"i have to wait for my friends but i will call you in about an hour and we can all meet up."
"cool, come outside and say hi to me."
"i have to wait in the room for them, plus i dont want to just say hi when i am gonna see you in an hour."
"i see...okay, well let me know."

i hung up, then kris texted me. "hey, what r u doin? wanna get a beer?"
yes i want to get a beer, yes i want to double book. i told him to meet me at the bar across from my apartment.
"wait, nevermind, i only have five bux and daddy needs smokes."
"i can buy daddy a beer."

kris was already sitting in my spot at the bar by the time i got there. the b-side. kris looked good as usual. he reminds me of prince, except with heavenly hessian hair, and silvery green eyes.
i bought him a pabst. i used to be all about this kid. i wanted to impress him so badly. but tonight i felt warm and comfortable with him. electric security. i told him that i was having an egsistential crisis. i told him that i have been losing sleep staying up wondering whats wrong with me and why i dont have a boyfriend. that no matter what i never seem to be worth the effort for any guy and i am always just a friend or fuck buddy. i said this, then hoped that he didnt think i was directing it towards him.

i kept plying him with alcohol. he became more animated. he listened and gave his own jaded brand of kris wisdom which was comforting. i felt close to him, and knew that he really did have love for me. which is so much better than the love he could ever give me as a boyfriend. he told me that i would find it someday, and until then enjoy the time i have with myself. trite yes. but it felt true.

pbr really loosened his inhibitions, we were laughing and telling stories. then he kissed me right at the bar. in public. so not a kris move.
"lets go smoke then find somewhere to make out." oh kris. youre the best.
we paid up and walked outside. sheets of rain hitting the ground as hard as hail. he put his arm around my waist. we crossed the street to my apartment.

i turned on pandora. we took off our clothes and made out on the couch. he put himself inside me, i wrapped my legs around him and kissed him. then the mgmt song, "kids" came on. and i turned over, he said, "i love this song." me too" i was really feeling sexy and lighthearted, he fucked me from behind matching the beat of the song...doo dooo dooo doo....take only what you neeeeeed from me....doodoo dooo...
his hands were on my hips and i put my left hand on his, and the other on the arm of the arm of the couch for leverage.

normally sex with kris is quiet and clinical. kind of like masturbation. but we were drunk enough to let ourselves pretend that it meant something more. and it was fun. i could hear him grunting, and i just yelled, "krisogodkris. kris. oh my god. FUCK!kris. oh fuck. kris."

everytime we finish, i turn over and kiss him on the mouth. like putting a stamp on a sealed envelope. not that this letter is going anywhere.

we put our clothes on and kris asked me if i was going to meet up with my friend. i told him i was waiting for a text. it was eleven-thirty. i txted brian and asked where he was.

"wasted. mushrooms. some bar in se."
"whats the name? i'll meet you."
"my penis isnt working right now."

Did i ask about your penis? jesus.

kris said he would drive me, and if i didnt get a response by the time we got to his house i could just stay with him. "who knows, you might get lucky again."

i didnt hear from brian. god. he was right across the street and couldnt bother to meet up with me before he got this hammered. classic brian.

jonny was drinking beers when we got to their house. me and kris joined in. when kris went to the bathroom i kissed jonny. then kris came out and put his arm around my waist. this was fun.

kris smoked some weed and got weird. he went to bed and told me i could join him. i got a txt from the hot boy that i had been talkin to. his name is cody btw. he said, "so im nottt gona lie i am strating to leik you alott. i jus passd up a chanse to fucck some girl cuz idont wanto mess things up wih u. thts how good ofa guy i am are you proud of me babbee?" even tho the message was replete with errors, it still gave me butterflies. i told kris i would be cabbing it back.

i called a cab and me and jonny went outside to smoke. cody called me, he was hammered but cute. my cab rolled up and i said i would call him back.

"theres my cab."
"are you meeting up with someone?" jonny asked.
"no, i'm jut going home."
jonny smiled and quickly glanced from side to side, "can i come too?"
"sure,come on."

back in my apartment, i grabbed a beer out of the fridge and asked him if he wanted to share it with me. he did. he asked about my record player and put on bob dylan.we stood next to the speakers kissing while "hurricane" played. i kiss a lot more with jonny than i do with kris. we talked and made out. and took off our clothes. i ran to my bedroom and got a condom an put on some lube to expidite things. but i guess jonny didnt think that was going to be nescessary, he put my legs on his shoulders and buried his face between them. "why do you taste like candy?" cause i'm so sweet?
i told him i didnt know we were going to be doing foreplay. me and kris never do. but i didnt say that...

we had sex on the same couch that me and kris had only an hour earlier. i am surprised it wasnt still warm. sex with jonny is much more intimate. i guess because we have known each other since i was fifteen, and there is a mutual understanding that we dig each other and perhaps even love each other. oddly enough, we didnt start doing it till about a month ago. except for once last year when i came to visit him in portland before i moved here. jonny takes sex very seriously, he is always fully immersed in the act and is really in the moment. its viceral and connected.

i couldnt help but think about cody and how i told him that i would call him when i got home. also how he was "waiting" for me, and i was getting action left and right that night. i really like him, but he is 700 miles away, and not officailly my boyfriend. i still felt guilty though, we were calling each other "baby" and "sweetie" and we were getting pretty emotionally intimate. he says his goal is to get me to move back to slc. but i decided to be as present in the moment with jonny as i could. and that guilt was a wasted emotion at this point because me and cody havent made anything official yet.

when we were done me and jonny cuddled together, and that was nice. i dont know if kris knows about me and jonny, considering that they are roommates and friends that could get a little dicey. but if he did know, clearly there is an understanding.

jonny put on his clothes, kissed me goodbye and walked home.

if youre wondering how i can sleep with two best friends alternately, let alone in the same night, its okay, i love them both.

i called cody, he didnt answer. he told me the next day he passed out right after he called me anyway.

i went to bed angry at brian. how hard was it to find out the name of the bar? if he leaves portland without seeing me, especially when we are across the damn street from each other, he is out. that little flame i hold for him is flickering as is. he has always been disapointing, but never so damn rude. or maybe he has and i have romantisized the memories. i dont know, whatever it is, something is different.

the next morning it was bright and grey. i went to doug fir for breakfast. the waitress told me to just go in.
"i should just seat myself?"
"oh, i thought you were meeting people. how many?"
"just me."
"oh." she said sheepishly, and averted her gaze.

i ordered the eggs benedict with veggie sausage. not vegan, but i couldnt help myself. i was very hungry and hungover. i had a mimosa too, little hair o the dog.

i sipped my champagne and looked out the window. i was with two guys last night, and was supposed to be with three. and yet i'm having breakfast alone? does this math add up? Laney+3 divided by 1.5 = zero? times anything by Laney and you get nothing.

Is this right?