Missives from the Frozen Tundra

2010-05-13T18:50:00.003-06:00

The Last Month and a Half…

...has not been easy.

One Monday I got laid off from the "ridiculous job"--the one that paid less than I made 31 years ago. They couldn't afford the "administrative overhead." Kind of scary considering how little it paid and how few hours I worked. But I miss it. I was getting good Dreamweaver experience, but probably more important was that it provided some structure to my Life in Limbo. A place a went a couple hours a day and saw the same people.

The next Monday, (April 5th) I had to put Eddie-Small-Devil-Kitty to sleep. Out of the blue, on Easter Sunday, he went into acute kidney failure. The vets said there was no hope and the kindest thing to do was to not prolong his suffering. I'm the one suffering now. He was my constant furry companion for 14 years—the longest I've lived with "anyone" as an adult. Sometimes in these last 2 years of endless financial struggle, he was the only one, only thing that made me smile or laugh on any given day.

Well, there's the guy that I've been seeing for the past year and some months who brings a lot of joy and fun to my life, albeit only once a week and the occasional weekend getaway. And there's my most wonderful writing group who have become my friends over the course of meeting weekly for the past couple of years.

So if you don't want to buy my loft (see a couple posts ago), you can always buy some wonderful vintage thing you can't do without on Ebay or Etsy. My wonderful mom gave me a bunch of her 1950s tablecloths, most of which I sold on Ebay but have a few on Etsy, and that's what paid part of the mortgage this month.

2010-05-06T13:41:00.002-06:00

Latest Publications

The Truth About The Fact: International Journal of Literary Nonfiction accepted my memoir piece "Walking Away" and will publish it in the Spring 2010, Volume V Number I issue.

And from YourTango, a piece I wrote about why I've chosen not to have kids or get married. They always choose the name for the piece and then I have to somehow say it in a thousand words. No easy feat. I've written a couple of others for them under a pen name.

2010-03-24T12:36:00.002-06:00

This is my loft. Wanna buy it? The real estate agent's contact info is at the end!

2010-03-22T17:34:00.013-06:00

My Loft is on the Market

MLS link: Though here are some pics.

Doubt anyone has ever bought a place after seeing it on a blog, but one never knows.

2010-02-03T16:43:00.005-07:00

I Swear I'm Going to Update Regularly

1. I hereby swear to blog on a more regular basis. I'm incredibly resistant to, it but everybody keeps telling me I "need" to for one reason or another. Last night even my current sweetie told me I "should" update my blog more frequently. Should is a dirty word in his book and he's not fond of telling anyone what to do, so the fact that he used "should," means I "should" listen.

2. I have not yet listed my place because I haven't had time to clean my loft like so it looks like nobody actually lives here--difficult when I do live here. But worse, it's hard to make surfaces shine when the water stains whatever it touches. Yes, really. Calcium and other minerals, I'm told. When I do list it, I'll post the video my sweetie shot for me.

2. Built my first website (for my neighbor) and uploaded it last night. http://www.santafehikingguide.com/
If you need a hiking guide, I can vouch for Doug!

3. I'm now writing under a pen name for cash for a website. I never thought I wouldn't use my own name but I have more freedom to write about "touchy subjects" and not worried about being Googled. I have 3 other part-time jobs as well and am about to keel over face first into the sandy desert soil.

4. I'm in the third semester of a graphic/web design degree. I don't know if I'll finish if I sell this place, but I got most the hard classes out of the way (Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver) the first two semesters.

2009-12-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

Wanna Buy a Loft Pt. 2

I took my loft off the market last June after I got an offer 25 grand less than I paid for it nearly 2 years before. By last spring, I had gone back to school for a 2-yr graphic design degree (clearly the BA and MFA are useless here) so I decided to stay. Figured I could live on student loans, unemployment, the contract work that comes my way, and eBay. Of course this means that I work at one thing or another from the moment I wake up till shortly before I fall into bed.

I have again decided to put the loft back on the market in February or March and see what happens this year. I think the straw that broke the camel's back: I accepted a part time editing job that pays 50 cents less an hour to start than I made 31 years ago and about 18 dollars less an hour than my last fulltime job. (For ABQ, the pay is not particularly low.)

31 years ago I was 16 and hadn't even graduated high school yet. I now have 31 years of solid experience and 2 degrees and this is what I can find in Albuquerque. I think it will be an interesting job and will give me a little of the science background I need, but clearly this is not going to pay the mortgage in the long run. (I bought a place I could afford on what I used to make and I'll never see that salary again in ABQ.) Even in a good economy, little in the private sector pays anything. What does pay (military, government, government contractors) I generally don't have the background for.

Bottom line: I can hold out longer. I can finish the 2-yr degree, but why delay the inevitable? When I sell, I'll head back to Minneapolis where I have friends and family (and can live rent-free for a few months), where there's a thriving writing and arts community (where the weather nearly killed me the first time around), where I can find a job. The economy may be such that I won't get my dream job, but at least I know I can find one that will pay the rent. Yes, rent. I'm never buying again!

2009-03-29T09:27:00.003-06:00

Wanna Buy a Loft?

So much for good intentions. Apparently I'm not much of a blogger--or even a reader of blogs. My neighbor often asks me, "Did you read my blog today?"--as if this is something I do on a regular basis. I don't. I usually just say, "No," but what I'm thinking is a little more lengthy: You've never read a thing I've written to my knowledge--though I've read some of your stuff--and seem generally uninterested in my writing, so why am I going to read your blog? And anyway, we run into each other and chat nearly every day so I don't need to read it, do I?

At any rate, I've been busy selling of all my possessions--and my neighbor, Kathie's (not the neighbor of the first paragraph) stuff too--on eBay since my loft is for sale, and I'm under the "unclutter" directive. (My seller name is Mnwritergal if you have a burning desire to buy things.)

Yeah, that's the point of this blog entry. Do ya wanna buy a loft? If so, go to the EDOSpaces website. Mine is the one on Tijeras Ave, Unit 412. (And no, I do not want to sell it myself rather than paying Tim's comission. I'm always mystified that everyone thinks that you--that's the general "you"--should be up for and able to do absolutely anything, whether you know a thing about it or not. Kind of like how in ABQ and editing job pays $8.50 an hour at the University of New Mexico and only requires a GED. And I got a BA and MFA...why? And what message is UNM sending about education? Something like: Come pay a fortune for an education that you don't need because even we only pay starvation wages and don't give a flying fuck about education. I should not be surprised. New Mexico is the fourth LEAST educated state in the nation, though you'd think at least the educators would value education. Guess not.)

2009-01-31T11:10:00.002-07:00

On Blogging

Last week I went to lunch with my neighbor Kathie. We were sitting in Blackbird Buvette (one of my favorite eateries) on Central in downtown Albuquerque and she said, "You're a writer. Why don't you blog?"

I told her that I had a blog but that I only used it for pieces of mine that had come in print but weren't on the web. I finished by saying, "Blogging is self-indulgent."

She rolled her eyes.

I said what I always say: Anyone can blog. At least when somebody accepts your piece in a lit journal—even if they pay little or nothing—at least there's agreement that you're worth the ink and paper, which in lit journal land really says something. "If you blog, you don't get taken seriously as a writer," I said.

"Famous writers blog," she replied.

"I'm not famous."

"You never know what might come of it."

I wasn't sure what could possibly come of it, but I suppose I had at least set the blog up with a "who knows?" attitude. Some years after I discovered I was actually Googleable, I figured I might as well "promote" myself in a way that took little effort. But I still couldn't fathom why anyone would want to read my unedited musings, despite the fact that people (eBayers) have sent me hundreds of e-mails over the years about how funny my Terms of Service (TOS) essay was and how they loved all the Eddie-Small-Devil-Kitty cat updates at the end.

Still, I have resisted. Until now. But I'm resistant even as I'm writing this. And here's one good reason: A couple of days ago I was telling someone that if you have a Myspace or Facebook page, (I don't) employers can find you. Even if your profile is perfectly respectable, what about your million "friends," half of whom you may not even know? What if a potential employer clicks on said friend and is taken to a profile that is offensive? (I found an ex's profile the day after we broke up and was mortified by his supposed "friends"—all women over the age of fifty with little education and a penchant for posting what bordered on cartoon porn. What did that say about him? Or me—that I had associated with this tacky person?)

Fast forward to that afternoon. I was on phone interview number two with a place in Chicago (God, I hope I get that job) and the man interviewing me said, "Do you have a blog?" The question came out of the blue, but at least I'm quick on my feet and told him what I used the blog for. "Because I'm Googling you now," he said.

I don't know if he later read what's posted here or not or whether it will have any impact on whether or not I get the face-to-face interview in Chicago. But in a way, it made me want to delete the whole damn blog because I write memoir and essay and what I write about is something that would probably never come up in years of working for a particular employer.

It didn't at my last job. Nobody ever said they Googled me (which doesn't mean they didn't) and in six years, I only ever went beyond saying, "Yeah, I've been published" to more than a couple people. And I didn't think anyone at work would be curious enough to type in my name to Google's search bar.

That has changed. Recently a casual friend of mine made a comment about something I had never mentioned. When I asked him how he knew such an odd fact, he said he had Googled me (and read Family Stories.) He worried that Googling me might be strange, but it isn't. Not anymore. I just hope the ramifications of my being Googleable are positive rather than negative, especially when it comes to getting a job.

2008-08-03T11:45:00.009-06:00

2008-07-25T13:53:00.002-06:00

This was published last March but is not online so here it is.

Jewish Hair

"Is your hair naturally curly?" my Doctor asked in her lilting Caribbean accent, while holding up my eyelid and shining a light in my eye.

Had I known how often people would ask me this question over the course of my forty years, I might have kept a running tally. I arbitrarily decided that this was the one thousand and fifty-fifth time I'd been asked and resolved to start keeping track. I wondered why nobody ever asks the smooth-haired people, "Is your hair naturally straight?"

"Yes," I said.

"You just wash it and brush it every day and it does that?"

She hit my knee with the rubber "reflex tester." My leg jumped. I felt a little funny having this conversation while sitting in my white paper gown on the examination table during my yearly physical, but I said, "Uh-huh. And then I try to gel it into submission."

What I didn't tell her is that after years of trying to tame my hair, I've discovered the secret: I don't wash it every day (though I do wet it down to wash yesterday's gel out) and I only brush it a couple of times a week. I discovered this secret quite by accident. I was running late for class—though I suspect my lit students would have been happy to miss my diatribe about Sylvia Plath co-opting the Holocaust and using it to illustrate her own personal pain in the poem "Daddy"—and only had time to get my hair wet, gel, and scrunch.

Later that day, my friend (and fellow Jew) Rox said, "Your hair looks really good today. Did you do something different?"

"I didn't brush it," I whispered, sure the God of Hair and Hygiene would strike me dead.

"I never brush mine. I just finger-comb it, slather on the gel and hope it doesn't look like the burning bush."

"Why doesn't anyone make special hair products for us?" I asked.

"Yeah, it could be called "Jew-do goo."

My hair has always been an "issue." Until the age of five it was, curly, and blond. Then it turned dark brown and started to frizz and fro. My mother's solution was to hack it all off (I'm still bitter about all the years I was forced to walk around with my hair in the shape of a giant mushroom cloud). She claims I looked cute with short hair but I suspect she got tired of doing battle with me and the hair brush—my hair tangled easily and I used to scream as she tried to comb through it. Had I been born in the nineties instead of the sixties, she probably would have steered my hair toward the dreadlock route. We'd've both been a lot happier.

But that's water under the bridge. Or hair down the drain. At any rate, when I was fourteen I told my mother I was not cutting it ever again, and for the next twenty years wore it long and frizzy. Once again, had I been born in a different era, say the early fifties instead of the early sixties, I would have made the perfect hippie. Instead, born ten years too late, I just looked like a throw-back. During high school in the mid- to late seventies, the popular girls wore their hair in the feathered Farrah Fawcett flip. I had enough hair for three girls and it was never going to mold itself into WASP hair, though I did try—once. My aunt blew-dry it straight for me, (it took an hour) but I didn't recognize the person in the mirror and got afraid. It would be thirty years before I tried that again, and it was just as scary.

I've heard that our bodies change every seven years. I'd like to add, so does hair. Around my mid-thirties, it started to shrink into curls, though the curls don't spring straight from my head; first two inches of gentle wave and then curl. The higher the humidity, the bigger the hair, the tighter the curl. I thought maybe my move to Minnesota from California when I was is my mid-30s was responsible, but happily this is not the case. When I visit my parents in the dry desert hell that is called Arizona, it still curls. When I visit my friends in Northern California—land of just-right humidity, it still curls. I'm coming up on the next seven year change, and I'm desperately hoping the curl stays.

For good or bad, my hair has always defined me, made me stand out. In the WASP world, people never forget me because they always remember the hair—hair that old ladies, old hippies, and African American men, in particular, want to touch. Sometimes they ask first; Sometimes they announce their intentions: "I just gotta touch your hair." And sometimes, with no warning, I'll feel a stranger's hands in my hair. The look on my face (shock, I imagine) usually prompts a sheepish look from the feeler, and an apology followed by words along the lines of, "I couldn't help it. I just had to."

It's a bit of a mystery how hair can hold such power over people, but I, too, have often had the urge to run my fingers through a stranger's hair that I find especially appealing—usually a man's hair in any combination of black, long, silky, curly, corn-rowed, or dreadlocked.

I love my hair now. Love the way it bounces when I walk. Love the weight of it, the lush thickness. And it seems only right that after years of envying the smooth-haired women that they now envy me.

2008-02-20T14:06:00.006-07:00

"Jewish Hair" was recently published in Poetica

I had a Flash fiction piece accepted for a book anthology "Blink Again" that will be published by Spout Press.

The ironic thing is that my "Terms of Service" essay on my Ebay listing garners me more attention than anything I've ever written.

2007-08-03T12:34:00.002-06:00

My essay "Nonfiction Nightmares" is included in the latest Cup of Comfort for Writers anthology, which should be out shortly.

I really should change the name of this "blog," now that I'm in Albuquerque, which, BTW, is ten times better than living in Minneapolis!

2007-02-05T17:14:00.001-07:00

Passing Through - This piece was accepted...oh, around five years ago (and I wrote it around seven years ago) and it just got published in Pennsylvania English. As you might guess, someplace that takes five years to get their act together doesn't have the piece online—just hard copy—so here it is.

Passing Through

I'm rarely happy here but sometimes I'm at peace. I'm most at peace when I'm driving. Anywhere.

Twice a week I make the forty-five minute trek from my lover Mark's house in Hastings back to my apartment in Minneapolis. I leave his place around two in the morning—after a year, we still don't spend the night. I pull out of his gravel driveway onto a dirt road that turns into pavement and passes through the three blocks of Main Street. Hulking buildings from the early 1900's stand dark and still. Old-fashioned streetlights shine on empty sidewalks. Not a car or person in sight, and I feel as if I'm the only living being on earth tonight. Main Street turns into a long, dark county road with no light save that of the moon. I drive through the middle of nowhere, hurtling through the night at eighty miles an hour. Halfway suspended between here and there. I like that feeling.

I pull into my parking lot not far from my apartment in the Loring Park neighborhood. I get out of the car and start walking into the quiet night. Quiet but not still. The wind always blows here, especially down the wind tunnel of Oak Grove Street. I walk with my face upturned. Yellow squares of lights against the dark background of buildings. Who else is still up? Who else knows the power of the night?

The next day I call Mark and tell him what happened on the drive home. Something always does. Another policeman pulling me over for driving too fast. A car driving the wrong way in reverse, in the middle of Highway 94, going back to fetch his passenger who is wandering by the side of the road.

But more often I talk about nature or the weather. The natural world looks different in Minnesota, larger somehow. And weather happens here. I'm not used to that.

"You should have seen the moon!" I tell him. "It was this huge orange ball just hanging there, low in the sky!"

"That's nice."

He doesn't want to know more. He doesn't like to reveal himself through words. If he gave too much of himself away, how would he get it back? So what I don't say is that when I saw that massive moon, I laughed out loud and then I cried. Sean, the one who would have loved that moon has passed through my life on the way to somewhere I have never been.

* * *

When people ask, "Where are you from?" I say, "Berkeley."

"Berkeley? Berkeley! What are you doing in Minnesota?"

"I'm passing through."

But they want to know more. I recite my response.

"I'm a traveler."

But they always ask, "Where else have you been?"

"I've lived in Israel…"

"Israel? Israel! What was it like? Why did you move there?"

I say, "I'm Jewish." Which I think says it concisely.

But I'm not talking to fellow Jews, and they look puzzled.

So I answer their second question instead, which seems to satisfy them. I pick out and recite another one of my memorized responses.

"In Israel, you become inured to the threat of violence; I kept house for an Israeli couple in return for food and lodging. One day I was cleaning up after a large dinner party when I heard a knock at the door. A man stood before me. He said there had been a bomb threat and we had to evacuate the building. I remember standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the windows of our third floor apartment, wondering when I could go back in and finish cleaning. I wasn't worried about the possibility of being blown up; I didn't think about what might happen if all my worldly goods, and more importantly, my passport were blasted to bits; I was worried about getting the dishes done."

What I don't tell them is what it's like to live in a country where the overwhelming majority were the same religion as me—Jewish. They live in Christian America. They know what it's like to belong.

But I didn't stay in Israel, because I was just passing through.

* * *

I'm always on the way to somewhere else, most comfortable when life is in a state of flux and I don't have to wholeheartedly commit myself to anything, anyone, or anyplace. Yet I didn't pass through childhood easily. I trudged. And waited. I was waiting to be pretty and popular. I was waiting for things to be different.

"You were such a good child," I can hear my mother say.

Of course I was. Ugly, shy children don't want to draw attention to themselves.

But how could anyone help but notice my nine-year-old self decked out in a polyester pantsuit my mother insisted was adorable. It was bad enough that the brown bell-bottom pants floated above my ankles, but the shirt was the real sight to behold. It was brown, with long orange sleeves, and smack dab in the middle was a large orange appliquéd pumpkin.

Of course, one must not discount my slightly buck-teeth and The Nose.

When I was ten, I told my parents I wanted braces and a nose job. I knew I would have a different life if only I looked like the person I was inside. I pleaded with them in my nasal voice. Said I couldn't breathe. Dad understood. He had his nose fixed when he was twelve—deviated septum. Besides, so many Jewish girls get nose jobs for their Bats Mitzvahs, that my request didn't seem unusual. I got the braces when I was twelve and the nose job the summer I was fourteen, going on fifteen.

"We'll just give you something to relax you," the nurse said, shooting morphine into my IV. "You have to be awake for this procedure, otherwise you could choke on the blood and die."

My memory does not fail me. She really said that.

When I came back to school people said things like, "You look great! You got your hair cut, right?"

I couldn't believe that people didn't notice that The Nose—the horrible nose I had always been teased about—was gone. But it didn't matter. They thought I looked good. Yes, The Nose was gone. Or so I thought.

My school locker was right next to Angus'. Angus was a tiny, pale boy. Freckled and bespectacled. A few days after school started and we were shoving books into our lockers, I noticed him staring at me.

"You look like Barbara Streisand," he said innocently.

Poor Angus. It's hard to clearly recall a memory born in the red haze of pure rage, but I see clearly my hands pinning his shoulders against the locker, the fear on his face, and his little feet dangling a foot from solid earth.

"Don't you ever say that to me again," I hissed, my new nose just a hair's breadth away from his.

The surgeon had resculpted my nose but it was up to me to carve out a new life. And I had no idea how to do it. When I looked in the mirror, I still saw The Nose superimposed on The New Me. I still carried myself as an ugly, shy girl who didn't belong anywhere.

* * *

"Where else have you lived?"

"I've lived in Brazil…"

"Brazil? Brazil! What was it like? Why did you move there?"

I say, "My boyfriend, Marco, was Brazilian."

But they want to know more so I oblige. "What stands out for me most is how important appearances are in Brazil. On social occasions you must try to leave at least three times (kissing everybody with each leave-taking attempt) before actually getting out the door an hour or two after you first stated your intention to go. Twelve kisses per person. Since everyone travels in packs, each social occasion requires puckering your lips and planting them on at least six different cheeks. Seventy-two kisses. Whether you want to or not. Whether you are serious about leaving or not."

"What else?" they ask.

"Brazilians and Americans are very different. But when Marco was living in the states, he did what most seasoned travelers do—acculturated. When he lived in California, Marco treated me like an independent woman, so I was culture-shocked silly when I moved to Brazil, and Marco turned into a sexist stranger. The first thing he'd do when he came home from work was flop down on the couch and say, 'Sweetie, bring me a beer.' He expected me to wait on him but he also expected someone (a woman) to wait on me."

"One night he came home quite pleased with himself. 'Sweetie! I got you a maid!' If anyone needed a maid, it was me. I thanked him for his thoughtfulness. 'She's expensive because she can read and write a little. I thought that was important. In case your Portuguese isn't good enough to explain things, I can leave her a note.'"

"My Portuguese was good enough but we did have communication problems. Meals were typically included in the arrangement so on the days she worked, I made lunch. But I could never get her to stop work and come to the table to eat. She ate while she ironed; she ate while she folded clothes. After two weeks of this I finally brought the problem to Marco's attention. 'What is it? Am I not saying it right?' I asked him."

"You asked the maid to sit at the table with you?" He was quietly horrified and amazed. "Sweetie, the maid never eats with her employer."

"Finally I told the maid, strange food, strange ways. Come sit at the table for lunch. And she did."

"Marco and I had to pretend we were married because in a Catholic country, living together is a sin. His family knew we weren't actually married but everyone else believed we were." But I didn't stay there because I was just passing through.

What I don't say is how much I missed Marco kissing me and calling me passao. "passion," in English. I don't say that I still have the wedding ring in a small black box in my dresser drawer.

* * *

I left Berkeley at sunset and began the long drive to Minnesota. I wound through the thickly forested mountains of California. My mouth fell open when I saw the lights of Reno, Nevada. Millions of them, gaudy against the night sky. Past miles and miles of salt flats in Utah, I pressed on through the high desert of Wyoming—horrified to still see snow on May 5th. Drove 110 miles per hour all the way across Nebraska. I recall almost nothing of Iowa. I had never seen such flat, wide-open land—hadn't remembered such places existed. But driving through them, I'd have occasional flashes of memory of the marathon road trips I took with my family when I was a kid. Just snapshots—looking over my father's shoulder as we drove through Rapid City, South Dakota, and seeing the red needle hovering at 100 miles an hour, the indoor swimming pool in a hotel, swimming—outside—during a lightning storm in Kanab, Utah. Still, I was struck dumb by the desolation of Nebraska. I drove fast through Iowa telling myself Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa may have been utterly inhospitable but that Minnesota would be a bastion of civilization.

It's civilized all right, so stultifyingly nice that I long for a rude convenience store clerk who doesn't speak English as his first language. I long for a dark swarthy person annoyed at the idea of having to serve me, who says little. Instead I get a perky blond person, syrupy sweet, "ya betcha's" littering her speech.

* * *

"Where else have you lived?"

"I've lived in Italy…"

When people say "Italy? Italy! What was it like? Why did you move there?"

I tell them, "My best friend Sue picked me up at the airport. The first words out of her mouth were, 'Let's go to Italy.'

'Spain,' I replied.

'Italy!'

'Spain!'

'If you don't go to Italy with me, I won't go alone,' she said.

'Let's go to Italy.'"

Still, they want to know more. "I taught English there like I did in Brazil. I didn't like Italy much."

"Why not?"

I find myself reluctant to condemn half the population of a country, but I do it anyway. "It was the men. One day I was walking down the street, looking very American in a flannel shirt, denim skirt and cowboy boots. A man yelled from across the street, 'How much do you cost?' I was groped daily on the Metro. And my roommate's friend nearly raped me."

What I don't say, is what I had to do to get out of that apartment with my clothes still on. I've never been able to bring myself to tell that story.

Not long after, I left Italy and took a two month vacation, passing through, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, England, Spain, Denmark, and probably a few countries I've forgotten.

* * *

The other day I went to see Mark. The roads are tarless now. Totally torn up. The city is doing whatever cities do. Laying pipes or wires or some such. I pulled into the alley to park my car but three gigantic piles of rocks blocked my way. He came out of the garage pushing a lawn mower. Shirtless, black cut-offs hanging loosely on his sinewy frame. He stood there, pushing his hand through his sweaty brown hair. He didn't kiss me hello. A goodbye kiss, yes—but never hello.

"Quite a pile of rocks you've got there," I said.

He did something unusual—he smiled hugely, revealing his crooked, stained teeth.

"Look at my rocks!" He pointed excitedly to a pile. "Aren't they great? I spent four hours on Tuesday collecting them, three hours Wednesday, a few hours last night too. And the best thing is they're free!" He shouted happily.

"What do you plan to do with all these rocks?"

"First I thought just a planter box. Then I thought if I got more rocks I could build a wall by this side of the house, and then I thought with a few more I could build a stone wall around the whole house."

"You have enough to build a small English cottage. I think you just like picking up those rocks."

"Well, I do. There's something spiritual about it."

Mark usually pretends to be grounded in the physical world. But I know it's not true. I've seen him standing outside at 1:00 a.m. in the middle of a thunderstorm—staring at the lightning flashing across the night sky when he didn't know I was watching. He too, exists more fully at night when daytime reality is suspended and it's safe to be ourselves. In the wee hours of the morning I lie beneath him, our legs intertwined. He raises himself up, palms flat on the bed. His long hair brushes against my skin. I open my eyes. See bliss in his smile. He opens his eyes and looks into mine. Two souls briefly touching.

2006-08-02T19:07:00.001-06:00

VFW – This was published in the Rambler a couple of months ago.

VFW

Someone is waving money at me. I serve the next drink while Jim makes kissing noises at me from across the bar and mumbles something about my beautiful eyes under his breath. Jim's friend calls me over and says, "Look at all that hair you have! It's so pretty."

Even with my hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, it's still a wild mane of thick, dark curls. About ten times as much hair as my cousin Lisa—with her short, fashionable boy-cut—who works the other end of the bar.

Still staring at my hair, he asks, "What are you? I mean, your nationality or—"

"I'm Jewish," I say.

"What does that mean exactly?"

I consider the wisdom of having a discussion about the difference between race, ethnicity, religion, and nationality with a man who's on his third whiskey and water. I look around the bar hoping somebody somewhere needs something and am saved by Charlie, who's just put an empty beer bottle on the bar.

"Another Beer of the Month, Charlie?" I ask while sliding the bottle opener out of my back pocket, popping the top, and putting the bottle on the bar in front of him.

Jim's friend yells, "Hey! Jewish Girl! C'mere!"

I walk over, stand in front of him, hands on my hips. "What?"

"Oh," he says, looking at my face. I feel my lips pressed together in a tight line. "Is it offensive for me to call you 'Jewish Girl'?"

"I'm forty years old," I say.

* * *

It was Lisa who convinced me to give bartending a try: "We need more bartenders. The tips are great." And I thought, What the hell. Isn't this what starving artists and writers do to supplement their incomes? Although I spent eight years on the wholesale side of the wine and liquor industry, I had never mixed or served a single drink. After a three-minute interview, I was hired. Two days later I hopped into my Honda and drove to Hopkins, a small blue-collar town about twenty minutes from Minneapolis, ready for my first night of work.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed an old, white-haired man patrolling the parking lot. His yellow shirt, with the VFW emblem embroidered on the left breast, marked him as an employee. When I got out of my car, he ambled over.

"You're Lisa's cousin, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm Ellen. Nice to meet you," I said, extending my hand.

"I'm Clark," he said. shaking my hand; his grip was firm. "You and Lisa look alike."

"Everybody says that."

I didn't tell him that Lisa is adopted because she likes to be the one to say so. When people comment on our strong resemblance, a mischievous grin always crosses her pixie face as she says, "That's funny because we're not actually blood relatives."

I closed my car door and Clark escorted me through the doors of the VFW.

* * *

My decision to bartend seemed strange to those who know me—I'm not much of a drinker or very social either.

My lover was the first person I told—over the phone. His giggle fit was completely unexpected because I rarely hear him bark out more than short guffaws. "You? A bartender?"

"Why are you laughing?" I asked.

"It just doesn't seem like something you'd do. So where are you working?"

"The VFW."

I heard his deep belly laughs as the phone clattered to the floor.

Next, I told my friend Rox.

After she finished laughing, I asked, "What's so funny?"

She said, "Here's your fucking drink!" doing an imitation of me serving alcohol. Apparently, she thinks my New York edge (everybody is convinced I am from New York, no matter how many times I tell them I'm from Berkeley) precludes my being polite to customers.

"My daughter, the bartender," my father repeated over and over, while silently telegraphing his thoughts: Nice Jewish Girls do not bartend.

* * *

A mug three-fourths full of Southern Comfort, one-quarter Coke, lime bobbing on top—a "Southern Screamer." Hank—bad skin, greasy hair, 5'6", 200 pounds, drinks four of them over the course of three hours. Says he's on foot, so I keep serving him. Tells me as a bartender I need to learn jokes. He ought to know, he says, because he used to bartend at this very VFW. He then shouts a joke at me. Louder and louder over one of the few sober patrons who is on the stage, singing "Only Make Believe." I pray for someone to rescue me before this sloppy drunk asks me to go home with him.
I am rescued. Justin needs another Greyhound. I make it the way he likes: vodka on ice with a splash of grapefruit.

"How's the writing going?" he asks, head tilted to one side, smiling at me.

"Writing's going well." I give a rare smile to my favorite customer. Black hair—streaked with gray, clear, alert, brown eyes—even after downing three drinks in the last hour. And even in his paint-spattered work clothes he carries himself with a kind of quiet elegance.

I am not rescued. The red haired buzz-cut man who says he bartends at the American Legion is trying to hook up with me. He says we are perfect for each other—what with all we have in common—though all I've ever said to him is "Another beer for you?" Tells me he's a great catch. Been married three times. All three wives cheated on him. Tells me he has a master's in psychology. Three small stacks of quarters are on the bar in front of him, almost enough for three Pabst taps at $1.75 apiece. He's two bits short. Wants to borrow a quarter, which his friend loans him. Doesn't leave me a tip.

* * *

Beer of the Month or cheap well drinks, pull tabs or bar dice, karaoke on the weeknights or live bands on the weekends—often polka. The regulars are here at the Hopkins VFW nearly every night. Vets and nonvets, from the very young to the very old. Men and women. The V, as we call it, feels like another world to me. A darkened, cloistered world I am sometimes relieved to step into. After a sedentary day in front of my computer, I'm glad for a stretch of mindless physical activity. At 4:45 when I turn into the V's already packed parking lot, and I see the squat building and the sign that announces "Bingo Tonight," I know that for the next nine hours all that exists in the world is this place. I walk up the concrete stairs, through two sets of double doors and onto the red industrial carpet, into the smoky bar. People are sitting on red vinyl barstools—not backless though: we want the customers to lean into their chairs, stay awhile. Bottles of beer and mixed drinks sit on the high, round, wood-laminate tables. The dark, fake, wood-paneled walls have flat, gold metal pieces screwed into them, with names engraved on them. The Members' Wall. "But you don't have to be a member to drink here," we always say.
The main room has a small dance floor with a linoleum floor (we keep the dance wax behind the bar), a stage, and the "pull-tab booth," which is a room with a long, chest-high, glass counter that holds six different kinds of pull tabs. The customers can look through the glass to see not only the game they want to play, but also to check if they're playing from a new or nearly empty box. The players tell me there's a science involved in pull tabs: "First you see how low the box is. Then you ask around and find out if anyone has hit big today. If the box is low, and nobody's won yet, if you buy enough pull tabs from that box, you're sure to be a winner." The metal rolltop gate, unfurled and locked at midnight, prevents anyone from breaking in after hours. Losing pull tabs are piled high on the bar, in ashtrays, under barstools, and worse—every time I use the restroom, I see piles of pull tabs lying on the stall floors, and I try not to imagine a life that includes sitting on the toilet peeing and pulling tabs.

The V has a kitchen run by Chris Cook (he says he comes from a long line of Cooks who cook for a living) and also a dining room. Two steps down from the dining area is another room with electronic dartboards, video games, and a couple of pool tables. But I rarely have time to come out from behind the bar, which is U-shaped with chairs on all three sides. The space behind the bar is so narrow that the two bartenders brush up against each other as we cross paths. Usually a "right behind you," or a hand on your coworker's shoulder is enough to prevent a collision.

* * *

It's karaoke night and the place is packed. I run back and forth serving customers, my feet bouncing on the thick antifatigue mats behind the bar.

"Clark!" I yell. "Can you please get me another keg of Pabst?"

Clark, the bouncer, is old school. Doesn't think women should have to lift kegs. Although I'm grateful not to have to wrestle and roll eighty pounds of beer in metal from the cold box, I feel guilty asking Clark because he looks so old. Not that he's frail—he appears thin and fit. I suspect he's a World War II vet, though he's never said. He never says much of anything and mumbles through bad teeth when he does.

Clark returns with the keg on a dolly, rolls it off, and hooks it up for me. I thank him, and he goes back to watching the customers. Vigilant. Making sure nobody is going to get too drunk and violent. It happens. Every night, I cut at least two people off. Sometimes I have to ask them to leave. Sometimes we call the police.

Tonight, I see a familiar form walking through the doors. It's Rox, her unruly hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing what looks like a pink sports bra, over which she's got on a sleeveless lime green shirt—unbuttoned but tied at the waist—and her outfit is completed by green plaid shorts and flip-flops on her feet.

"Hi, Elle," she says, sitting down next to Jeff, who is ripping through a large pile of pull tabs. "I rode my bike here. Do you think it's safe?"

I stare at her. "Fifteen miles? You rode fifteen miles—in flip-flops?"

"It was a great ride. Such a beautiful day."

It's humid as hell, I think, but instead I ask, "What can I get you?"

She orders a Sea Breeze. I make it weak—although a weak drink at the VFW is twice as strong as a stiff drink at any other bar. Rox settles in and starts chatting with Jeff.

I get Wanda, a heavyset brunette, another Pabst tap. I've seen her signal: empty glass on the rail, two dollar bills underneath. Should I make the cardinal mistake of pouring the beer in a clean glass, she will not drink it. And if she has to wait more than a minute before I notice the empty glass, I hear something like, "Uh, Ellen? Hello? Can I get a little service down at this end of the bar?" Even though she never tips me, I have never once purposely made her wait. Until the night of the meat raffle. The single busiest hour on a Friday night is between five and six, and because the second bartender was late, I was working alone. A little old lady from the Lady's Auxiliary was circulating with raffle tickets. A dollar for a chance at a hunk of beef, a vacuum-packed ham, or a free drink. While Randy, the manager, called out the winning numbers, I poured drink after drink for a solid hour and a half. I had run out of glasses—no time to wash them—so when Randy finished with the raffle, he came behind the bar to help for a few minutes. I was making a Whiskey-7 Press for a man sitting a few stools away from Wanda when I heard her say, "Finally! A good bartender!" Now I'm not as attentive.

Simon and Maggie walk in. I have his Beam 7 and Maggie's Beam water—with an extra tall glass of ice water on the side—on the bar before they have their jackets off.

"Thanks, Ellen," he says, shrugging off his jacket, rearranging his ponytail, and settling his bulk into the chair.

Maggie says, "You always remember my ice water," and tips me a dollar.

Every once in a while I glance at Jeff and Rox to make sure he's not bothering her. He has a habit of saying strange things. Once when he was watching two women across the bar, he said, "Wouldn't it be cool if a bitchy-broad, psycho-woman catfight broke out right now? What would you do?" But he's intent on whatever he's writing on a napkin. Later Rox tells me that he lost the napkin and asked her, "I left a note for the bartender on a napkin. Because I love her. Did you take it?"

* * *

It's Saturday night. Bob Allen's Polka Band has just begun to play. I groan. They're playing "Roll out the Barrel."

A woman with a missing tooth calls me over. I don't know her name, just what she drinks: Grain Belt. She turns to her husband (also missing a tooth) and says, "You tell her, Honey."

He tells me, "That woman down there? She's bothering me and my wife. Pointin' at us and callin' us names."

I know who he's talking about. The woman—mid-forties, overweight, frowsy with frizzy hair—came in about an hour ago, sat down next to Charlie, snuggled in next to him, laid her head on his shoulder, and said, "I just want to be close to you." He moved. So did anyone else sitting anywhere near her. She wandered off to a table where she sat talking to herself, laughing every now and again, and yelling "Bitch!" at the woman with the missing tooth.

"Can you throw her out?" he asks me.

When the crazy woman comes back up to the bar for another drink, I refuse to serve her. She throws a glass of water at me before Clark takes her by the arm and escorts her out of the bar. When he comes back, he says, "See that guy at the end of the bar with the baseball cap?" He points to a blond man in his forties—I think his name is Sam. "Quit serving him. He's had too much."

He seems sober enough to me, but I trust Clark's judgment and say, "Okay."

After a few hours, the steady stream of people has slowed to a trickle, and I stop to chat with Raul, the Bingo set-up guy. Every Friday night for the past seven months I have practiced my bad Spanish on him because he's fluent.

"Brandy and I broke up," he says.

"I didn't even know you were together."

"Yeah. Can I call you sometime?" he says, picking up a pen to write down my phone number. He pauses, "Hey, what's your name?"

Before I can answer, I hear a commotion from the other end of the bar. I turn toward the noise. A barstool has just crashed to the floor. I see Sam on his feet, being jerked in a backward shuffle toward the door. He looks like a puppet, but I can't see who's pulling the strings. It takes me a second to register the arm around Sam's neck, because Sam's thick body is hiding the slight figure who has him in a headlock.

Sam yells, "Get the fuck off me," and jerks to one side, trying to wrest himself out of the thinner man's grip. Then I get a glimpse of the man who's got Sam in a chokehold. Lips set in a thin determined line, Clark's pointy VFW hat is still perched atop his white head. Clark kicks his leg between Sam's, and Sam loses his balance and starts to fall to the floor. Clark yanks him upright, pulls his body in closer, and drags Sam out the door.

I come out from behind the bar, grab Sam's baseball cap and coat off the floor, and follow them outside.

I hold out the coat and cap to Sam. As he reaches out to take them, I step back because he looks like he's about to lunge at me.

Clark tells him, "You get going now, hear?"

Sam stumbles off and we watch him go.

"Guess I'd better get back to work," I say, and Clark opens the door for me. I walk into the bar, turning back to see if Clark is behind me, but he's still watching

the parking lot.

2006-08-02T15:06:00.001-06:00

Captives - This was in Spout magazine some time ago. For links to my writing that's online, click on the "stuff that's online" link.

Captives

The phone rings.

It's my lover. He rarely calls me so I ask if he's ok.

"There’s a problem."

He’s stingy with his words.

"I kind of got together with this woman last night."

I never forget the words men use to end relationships because usually the words are so very trite. But now mine are. All I can say is, "Wow. And for a little variety, "Oh. Wow."

"Think of it as enforced moving on."

"I've never been any good at that," I tell him before I hang up.

I stare at the phone and will myself not to cry.

My hands are shaking. To steady myself, I light a cigarette. When I feel calm enough to speak, I call my cousin Lisa, who lives across the street. "I need a drink. Meet me out front."

If I didn't know her so well, she would be unidentifiable under the winter bulk. Her short hair is completely covered by a fleece cap with a pom-pom on top, scarf wound around her mouth covering the flat brown mole above her upper lip, black leather coat that weighs about the same as a live cow, the usual Levi's and snow boots. I am similarly bundled and bound. We stand there a minute, our breath under scarves steaming our glasses, obscuring our vision.

Eli's is only a few blocks away on Hennepin Avenue, but it's below zero. We drive.

At the bar I tell her what happened.

We sit in silence and I watch her lips purse and relax, as she discards words in her head. What makes it to her mouth is: "Well. You know you're not going to get any sympathy from me. You always said sex was all you really had in common."

"Still, four years is a long time," I say, watching my cigarette smoke shimmer in front of my watering eyes.

"Look at this as an opportunity to find somebody who actually talks to you."

He did, I think, but the only clear communication was when our bodies bonded in the quiet of night.

Instead I say, "Lisa, it's been a half an hour since he broke up with me. It's a little soon to see this as a positive occurrence."

She ignores my comment and asks where he met her.

"Sweat lodge."

"You see? He met someone pursing his spirituality. Though why a white guy…" I am waiting for her to launch into a diatribe about Caucasians co-opting other cultures but she fixes me in her sights. "…What are you doing with your life?"

"Jesus Christ. How many times do we have to have this conversation? At the age of thirty-eight, I finally have a career. Now I can pay off my debt and start a retirement fund. Anyway, I applied to grad school."" I stab out my cigarette, deciding it's my last one ever, grab my gin and tonic and take a swig.

"A job isn't everything."

"Talk to me in nine years when you’re my age."

I'm grateful for my job as the Advertising and Marketing Project Coordinator at King Koil because it keeps me working at a frenzied pace. This morning, late as usual, I hurry to my cubicle and search my messy desk for the thick folder that holds the paperwork of my most pressing project; I am working—via telephone—on a two CD advertising set. I make my contribution to the world by helping our factories hawk mattresses. Finding the folder buried under some paper samples, I pick up the phone to call New Jersey.

"AllMedia, Joe speaking."

"Hola Jose. I'm flying out to finish this project up."

"I'll pick you up at the airport."

"I don't know what you look like. E-mail me a picture?"

When I open the Jpeg I see a blurry little square in the upper right hand corner of my computer screen. About all I can tell is that he's blond.

I head down the hall to tell my boss Hector Jesus how close we are to completion, but he's headed for the back door, pulling on the necessary layers to survive Minnesota’s frozen February hell—especially for the two of us native Californians.

He shoves a pink Post-it note into my hand.

"Here," he says. "Alan's e-mail address."

I am following him down the hall, past the 1970's scary clown painting.

"Why would I e-mail your friend in Phoenix?"

But I know why. Hector has decided that since my lover left me last month, I will marry his friend Alan—a nice Jewish boy who lives near my parents in Arizona. He has taken to calling him my fiancé because he worries that I am still husbandless. I have told him that getting married hovers near the bottom of my to-do list, just above staying in Minnesota, pregnancy, menopause, osteoporosis, and dying, but as a practicing Mormon, he can't believe me.

At noon, it is seven below. I’m sitting in my car wearing two pair of socks, snow boots, long underwear, flannel-lined jeans, Hanes briefs—they cover more skin, an undershirt, turtleneck sweater, down jacket—good to thirty below, a hat and gloves. I am a prisoner of my clothing. Living close to relatives is not worth frostbite and immobility. Maybe I should have moved to Phoenix with my family when they left California. But I'm sure the University of Minnesota will not accept me to their creative writing program so I just worry about the bills. Sometimes I ask the credit card companies if they will accept my first born son in lieu of payment. They tell me no. I tell them I have no son anyway.

I curse myself as I work at digging my cell phone out of my pocket with my encased fingers.

I call my ex-lover at least once a week at lunchtime. There are things I have to say. Except I'm not sure what. Or why. So when he comes on the line I babble, "I quit smoking, I'm going to New Jersey for work, Hector got a job offer in Salt Lake City and wants me to go as his assistant."

"Are you going?"

I sigh. "I don’t know. I have so few friends in Minnesota and without you, sex, or Sundays at your house, it’s intolerable." I consider telling him I'm thinking of pitching myself into the Mississippi. It's frozen now; surely I'd break my neck. But the first and only time I made reference to chucking myself in the river, he took me seriously and I had to explain black humor in the proper Jewish context. Instead, I say, "I want to thank you for the last four years…" I feel my voice starting to quaver so I take a deep breath. "…You gave me something nobody else did."

"What?"

Good God, Is that interest I hear in his voice? I say, "Great sex." We both laugh. But then I’m serious. "A spot of pleasure and passion in my week. It’s funny, the things I most dislike about you are the things I like the most."

"Like what?"

"Your stability. I knew what I’d be doing every Sunday. Movie, dinner, sex." I’m going to cry, so I say, "Find me a replacement."

He laughs again.

"At least you can vouch that I’m good in bed."

"Yes I can," he says with a fervor that amazes me.

"Is there anything you want to say?"

"No."

Nothing like having a Chemical Dependency Counselor for an ex.

"My function is to listen," he says.

I sit in the car watching my breath fog the windows, surprised at the curiosity in his voice. Over time I have forced some of the details of my life on him: I write stories about him that he won't read; I love humidity at night; I eat cookies at 2:00 in the morning when I can’t sleep—he wouldn't know because we spent the night together only twice.

On one of his rare visits to my apartment I caught him looking around at my books, the pictures on the wall, my clothes strewn across the floor. Something I identified as interest crossed his face. What did I say to prompt his next words?—words I can't forget: "I don’t want to know you." But after four years he does know me. And I know him. It's impossible to hide oneself completely when naked.

Sundays are the hardest, made worse without my friend nicotine. A frenetic energy fills me up and pours out in an urge to rid myself of the possessions that crowd in on me in my small apartment. But it's hard to find what I want to lose in the chaos, so I start to clean and pick up as I search for what can be discarded. All the while, Eddie Small Devil Kitty thinks we are playing a game. He burrows in the bag of cast-off clothes and jumps out at me when I drop a sweater on top of him. He hides in the bathtub and pounces on the hand that clutches the red toothbrush I'm using to scour the grout between the tiles of my bathroom floor. He crouches under the bed, and peers out with round eyes when I lie down on the floor to see how many dust monsters are living in dark spaces.

Hours later, I climb into my $2,000.00 bed—the latex luxury model I got for free from work—exhausted. Eddie lies down on the pillow next to me and falls asleep. But I cannot shut off my thoughts.

He only had to take off his clothes and I was ready. Always the first one naked, I'd lie in bed and watch him peel off the layers. He'd stand there for a moment, long brown hair illuminated, body back-lit in the smoky lamp glow from the living room behind him. Climbing into bed, he'd reach for me. He knew just how to touch me. He pushed into parts of my being that I hadn't known existed, and my body still wants him, longs for the one physical certainty he's always been for me.

Today it is ten above. I call my ex-lover from the parking lot of the "Out to Lunch" deli. I say, "I’m still depressed, I still miss you, I’m never going to find anybody, my biggest fear is that I’ll die cold and alone in Minnesota, well, that and dying in a snow bank."

"You’ll be fine."

"I say it so you’ll laugh, but I’m serious."

"You’ll be fine," he repeats.

I am not fine. In my car I clench my fists. I don't know how to purge him from my system. I feel as though I am a hostage, broken down slowly over years, still connected to my captor, invisible ropes binding me, even now as he has set me free. Who will enforce this moving on? I can hardly slog through the ice encrusted physical world without falling down.

Tonight I am folding my laundry. I used to do my wash at his house but now I'm reduced to the industrial washer and dryers in the dank basement of my apartment building. I look over at the small wicker chest of drawers with the pile of mateless socks on top: one red chenille, one grey Wigwam, one nubby purple, one white silk liner, at least ten others. My socks are at his house I think, along with my missing underwear that used to get tangled in the sheets at the foot of his bed. Because I wouldn't always be waiting naked as he expected me to be. He wanted the immediate contact of skin on skin, but sometimes I would rebel. Over time, he learned if I were still partially clad, it was my silent signal that I needed it slow.

And I think about his mostly wordless instruction. If I didn't understand what he wanted he would cement it with one sentence, "Let's try something new tonight." And I'd let him. And like it.

I pick up a few of the socks I care least about and throw them in the trash. I left a lot at his house that I can't recover.

Eddie stretches out on the still warm socks and goes to sleep. I lie down, alone on my bed, turn on the TV to a detective show and try not to wonder what he's doing now.

Every time I went to his house he had a new project he was mastering: a kayak he built in the garage of his house—the house he bought to have space to work on, and display, his Bonsai trees; the stone wall he constructed around his garden with rocks he had collected; once, walking into his living room, picking my way around stacks of books and objects of his latest infatuation—anything to do with Indians—I noted one book that spoke to his own heritage—something about the Irish conquering the world, and found him with porcupine quills sticking out from between his lips. Naturally, I had to ask what he was doing.

"You have to suck on the ends, then flatten with your teeth."

"What are you going to make?" I asked.

"A medicine bag maybe," he said pushing himself out of his white leather chair—the pale, stunted offspring of a Lazy Boy. The chair he wouldn't let anyone else sit in. The one he bought just before his best friend Carl came to die in the living room. He sat in it for hours next to Carl's hospital bed, holding Carl's hand, rubbing his feet, feeding him food and medicine to ease the pain.

Once, I overheard him tell Carl, "You'll never be alone here." His words, the look on his face, stopped me mid-stride and I stood unmoving in the entryway to the living room, gazing at him kneeling beside Carl's prone form. I had never felt such tenderness from him in full light. Only in darkness had that tone briefly touched me. Only in shadows had I seen it.

He yelled at me, probably "Wait in the kitchen!" I'm not sure, because his face—which he struggled to compose when he saw me staring, had mesmerized me. Banishing the gentleness I had been witness to, the embarrassment at being seen, and last, the anger. I ran to the kitchen as stunned by his fury as by everything else.

It was the only time I ever saw him lose his temper.

On the television, two detectives are arguing. One says the missing woman left of her own volition; the other says she has been abducted. The TV drones as I fall into sleep, dreaming about girls getting kidnapped and held prisoner, someone attacking my cat, snow in a part of California that has never seen it, and my ex-lover kissing me—he feels the sound that travels from my mouth through my body. The world is freezes in that moment.

I wake up to Eddie purring in my ear. When I ignore his polite pleas for food, he steps on my head, walks down my body and bites my toes through my down comforter, until I get up, go to the kitchen and fill the food bowl.

A week after I found him kneeling next to Carl, I walked into his the living room to find him watching Carl who was sleeping fitfully. The house was filled with family and friends—all day, all night. Before I could take off my heavy coat, he said, "I need an ashtray. Let's go to the store."

I looked at the large glass ashtray on the table overflowing with his Winstons.

"Okay," I said.

The Country Market was glowing harsh white light on us as we wandered the aisles aimlessly.

"Is it wrong," he asked, "to tell people not to sit in my chair? I don't want them to ruin it."

We wandered down the rows picking up juice, pudding, soft foods Carl might still be able to eat, while he continued to worry about the ruination of his chair. Finally, we made our purchases and drove back to his house.

He pulled the car into the garage.

"We probably have a few minutes," he said, pointing to the back of his Subaru station wagon.

Familiar with me and all my layers, he found what he needed. I lay on my back, spread my legs and pulled him into me, one hand still clutching the bag that held the cheap plastic ashtray.

The day I leave for New Jersey it is six below. Joe picks me up at the airport. I spend the day with AllMedia making sure everything is organized and nothing is left off the CD. Yes, here is the jpeg of the Queen Size Tight Top Turn-Free Mattress. Yes, here is the Blue King Koil logo. Yes, here is the Mattress Bonanza ad. Yes, please do put the African American Woman on the CD cover insert so I can thumb my nose at all the factory owners—mostly older Jewish men, who always insist on putting a perky blond shikse on our advertising material.

When we break for lunch I call my ex-lover.

"How are things going with the Sweat Lodge Woman?"

"Okay."

"Do you talk to her?"

"No. My job is to listen."

But it was only after Carl died that he didn't get up out of his chair and leave the room if I spoke about something beyond the weather or my cat.

At the end of the day, Joe takes me back to the airport.

I look at the soundless movie on the small screen that has dropped from the bottom of the overhead compartment but I don't see it. Instead, I see us: lying on our sides, face to face, my right leg over his hip, pulling him in. I hear the words murmured in between sighs and thrusts: "Deeper..." "Are you going to come for me?" "Don't stop." My eyes open to find him watching me. He smiles before he brings his mouth to mine.
Trapped in the middle seat, I feel the ghost of his body still subsumed in mine.

I sign up at an online Jewish dating service and go on a date with a potter. It’s like finding lox buried under lutefisk. I can hold off calling my ex-lover for a while, but I can't quit ruminating on how so much electricity existed between me and a man who could only speak deeply to me with his body. If I knew, I would be released.

I used to think what passed between us was invisible, held firmly inside unseen walls, but Carl's sister saw it.

"The two of you are together, aren't you?" She asked.

"How could you tell? He barely talks to me. Never touches me in front of anyone."

"I feel the energy between you."

"Let’s go Sugar Plum," says Lou the Potter after dinner on our second date.

As we are walking out of the restaurant, I ask him for a cigarette.

"I’m out."

"I know you have a pack."

"I’m trying to be supportive of your not smoking," he says, pulling his cigarettes from his coat pocket.

We stand on the sidewalk smoking. It’s like sex—it feels so good. I lean against the wooden retaining wall, inhaling deeply, knees weak.

He stands in front of me, boot tips a half an inch from mine. I watch him try to figure out how he’s going to kiss me without being awkward. What he doesn’t know is that if I kiss him back, it means I will sleep with him at some point in the future. This is my rule.

When he kisses me, it’s much better than the cigarette.

I bite his lower lip just before I pull away.

A week later, I am out with Dimetrius.

We met by the mailboxes in the hall of our apartment building, complaining about the weather so bitterly that a minute into the conversation I knew he was not a Minnesota native.

"Where are you from?" I asked staring at his hair. His dreadlocks, not long yet, peeked out from under his winter cap. I wanted to reach over and tug on one.

"New Orleans," he said his eyes fixed on my long, curly hair.

Now, sitting in Eli's bar with Dimetrius, I'm not sure if we are on a date, because a guy with a Masters Degree in Social Work, living in a one-bedroom apartment—with a male roommate—in Loring Park is probably gay. But over drinks I discover he is straight, sweet, cute. And ten years younger than me. I give him a kiss on the cheek when we get back to our building.

The next day I call my ex-lover on the telephone.

"I’m dating two men."

"I told you you’d be fine."

But I'm not fine though I feel as if I should be. I have two talkative men who are able to speak to me fully clothed. I no longer have to disrobe for communication and small morsels of conversation that could only be allowed to happen naked. But I have been changed and have forgotten how to use normal language.

I call my ex-lover after my fourth date with Lou.

"You’ve wrecked me for other men," I say.

He laughs.

But I am remembering the first time I slept with him.

That night—that first time, we were talking as we slathered his walls in high-gloss white. Or I was talking, anyway. I half think he started kissing me for some silence. He pushed me back on the floor, started taking off my clothes, probing me with his tongue and fingers. Too good. Too fast.

"Stop," I said.

He didn't stop.

"Not like this," I said. Not pressed against plastic that covered the whole floor of his apartment.

He didn't stop.

"Let's wait," I forced the words around his tongue, distracted by pleasure and fear—I had not known the two feelings could co-exist until that moment.

His hand was slick with me and he wasn't going to stop.

So I gave myself up to him that night on the black plastic paint tarp as I did a thousand other times, a thousand other ways, in the years that followed.

In the tiny one room efficiency where I first knew him, almost everything was white. We transformed the cigarette stained walls and even the 1940's salmon colored refrigerator. But not the closet—wood slatted on the outside, spanning one small wall but only hip high. Not good for much, I thought but when I swung the two hinged doors outwards, the inside was painted midnight blue with silver stars. He dipped his paintbrush into white and started for the blue on the inside. I said it was the one lovely thing in the apartment and to leave it unchanged.

He called the building The Crack House. The three-story structure, originally a one family home, was now broken into closet-sized studios. The narrow hallways looked as though they were collapsing in on themselves. I had to brace one hand against the wall to climb the uneven stairs.

Opening the front door to his apartment and stepping in, I only had to turn my body to end up on the bed. In that apartment, in that bed, I absorbed his rules.

He would rent a movie, usually an action flick I didn't want to see, and we'd sit up in bed, our backs resting against the black iron headboard that dug into my shoulder blades. If I got to the bed before he did, I'd take two of the four pillows—one thick, one thin, to lean on.

Walking over to the bed he'd say, "Where's my pillow?"

"There," I'd say, pointing to two pillows.

"No. My pillow."

I'd trade him the fluffy for the flat and he'd arrange himself, keeping a twelve-inch channel between our bodies. As the movie rolled through scenes of people being captured, escaping, shot, killed, and our hero's ultimate triumph, he'd move closer until we were touching thighs, hips, shoulders. In the beginning, I'd slide over to his side of the bed, lay my head on his chest or rest my hand on my leg. I can still feel the stiffness of his body. After a few minutes, I'd move back to my side and wait for him to cover the distance between us.

At the end of our sixth date I ask Lou if I can have a cigarette for the road.

"No," he says.

Is he serious? Just in case, I say, "I said I’d buy you a pack."

His hands are gripping the steering wheel.

"Get out!" he shouts.

"What? I’ll buy you a pack."

"Sometime when we have the evening ahead of us, I’ll explain."

Does he think I’d go out with him again? I slide out of the van without a word, walk across the street and buy a pack of cigarettes.

I light up before I even make it through the door.

Near the end of March, I open up my mailbox and pull out the envelope. I stare at the University of Minnesota logo contemplating the cost of printing custom colors. But as I rub the envelope between my fingers, despite the cotton weave, I can feel it's not heavy stock. I guess they send the chintzy paper to the people they reject. I open the envelope. Scanning for the words, "We're sorry to inform you…" I don't see them. I jump up and down, "Oh my God, oh my God!" And then, "Oh, fuck! oh, fuck!" I am here for three more years.

The first person I call is my ex-lover.

"From great pain and suffering comes great art," he jokes. But he sounds serious when he says, "I know I caused you pain and suffering."

When I hang up, I wonder if he feels guilty for the way he was. He sent me home in a snowstorm one night because staying the night was against his unspoken but always clear rules.
Was he that cruel or that afraid?

At work, I tell Hector Jesus about Lou.

"I have to stop messing with the locals," I say.

He shakes his head. "They don’t know what to do with emotions. When they actually have one, they can’t identify it and it comes out in some strange way." Then Hector brightens up. “Well, I guess Alan still has a chance. Your fiancé.” He smiles.

I smile too, but I’m hearing Dimetrius saying my name and imagining the feel of those springy dreadlocks between my fingers.

The phone rings and I answer.

The voice says, "E-llen." Dimetrius puts the accent on the first letter and my name just rolls off his tongue. "What you doin’ pretty lady?"

"Going to dinner with you," I say.

At the Greek restaurant, Dimetrius has his arms crossed on the table. His head is tilted down but he peers out from behind dreadlocks and stares straight into my eyes. I notice a black fleck in one of his brown eyes. He’s shaking his head making the "Mmmmm… Mmmmm… Mmmmm" sound that serves as an exclamation point.

Walking home after dinner our mittened hands brush against each other and as soon as we are inside our apartment building Dimetrius wraps his arms around me and pulls me in. One of his hands is sliding underneath my sweater and up my back, and the other is tugging at my hair. He’s lifting me off my feet and kissing me so hard that we almost fall over. I pull away, tell him I have to get up early for work, and walk down the hall to my apartment.

"If you get restless, call me," he says.

As I'm getting ready for bed I wonder why Dimetrius' unrestrained passion makes me nervous and wonder if it's because we have no structure yet. I don't know where I fit. With my ex-lover I always knew although sometimes I would set myself the task of getting him to give up a little control and choose a rule to break. After I made him dinner for the first time, he wouldn't see me for three weeks. I kept cooking for him, and in time he accepted my wordless expression.

But once, when he broke one of his own rules—he touched me in affection—I was taken aback. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I was standing at his stove, stirring the mole sauce. The shock of non-sexual touch didn't allow my mind fully register his words, something about dinner. Instead, it was the warm tone in his voice that penetrated. And I, I just stood there, frozen—like my cat who hides behind plastic bags. If I don't move you can't see me.

Sometimes I despair at how we are all held, willingly and unwillingly to our own personal set of laws—conscious or unconscious, articulated or unspoken.

I want to be sure, so I wait a month before sleeping with Dimetrius and now I'm sure of nothing. Each time, the bed ends up halfway across the room, as if we're engaged in aerobic combat. In the middle of it all I am shocked at the feel of a tall, heavy body on top of mine instead of my ex-lover's slim, compact body. As the bed is jerking its way across the room, I remember how well my ex-lover knew my body, always uncovering something new and surprising in me. The bed never moved anywhere. But we did. Together. I'm not sure where Dimetrius and I are headed but after we're finished having sex we always lie in bed, spoon fashion and talk for about an hour, which is nice. Then he gets up to go back down the hall to his apartment. Sadly, that's nice too.

I call my ex-lover from my car. Officially it's spring, but it's not warm enough to roll my windows down.

"It’s hard being with someone new," I tell him. "Were the first few times with your new woman strange?"
Silence. Then, "Yeah."

"Everything’s uncertain," I say.

Tonight at yoga, lying in Shivasana, I can feel the stinging behind my closed eyelids, the burning in my nose. I am supposed to be relaxing, concentrating on my breath and white healing light. Instead, I am trying not to cry. I lie here on the floor, refocusing my energy, breathing in, breathing out. Breathing him in, breathing him out, floating free in the wordless space we created. In the silence where his body spoke to mine.

2006-08-02T11:08:00.002-06:00

My Writing Online--in no particular order:

Nonfiction Nightmares, a personal essay published in Rattle.

Family Stories, a memoir piece published in Branches Quarterly and anthologized in Best of Branches 2003.

Summer of Corn, a memoir piece published in Whistling Shade.

The Lord of Lutefisk, an interview Rox and I did with Mike Fields of Mike's Lutefisk that was originally published in Minnesota Monthly, but now resides on Dislocate--The University of Minnesota's lit journal published by the creative writing MFAers.

Driving through Minnesota, a poem published in White Crow.

The Weight of the World on my Body, Spinning, and The Flow of Blood and Words published in Proseax.

Of course there are about a zillion theater reviews that Rox and I (The 2-Jew Review) have done over the years on Aislesay. And Fringe Fest starts in 2 days and we will be blogging on The Fringe Flog.

VFW, creative nonfiction published by The Rambler. (Not online, see above)

Captives, a memoir piece in Spout. (Not online, see above)

And let's see, there was the infamous chicken book review (still have the book) Rox and I did for a now defunct mag; a poem called Loring Park that was in a very cool (defunct) mag; some upcoming stuff; a piece that may or not have been published (Passing Through) that I never saw a copy of; The Defintion of Normal (in another long gone lit journal), and things I've probably forgotten about.