Tyrannosaurus Wreck

On what blogs have given me

2008-11-20T15:28:00.004-05:00

A sense of failure for not posting every day! Ok maybe not. If I was that upset about it I probably would have posted every day.

A few weeks back my mother called me, as she does, and I could hear the excitement in her voice as she talked about something Heather had done. Well guess what! We do not know Heather. I have never met Heather and I probably never will because she is all the way over there and I am all the way over here. And yet I feel fine calling her by her first name. I am on a first name basis with about 40 awesome women I have never met, and my mother and I bond over the things they talk about to the internet. This is something that blogs have given me.

I have become someone who appreciates design, small victories, and good food, and I don't know that I would have become that kind of person were it not for the constant stream of inspiration in my life because of blogs. Amazing people post the things they love and I get to listen to them tell me all about why they love them. Have you ever been talking to someone and suddenly they light up like a Christmas tree when the subject makes its way around to typefaces? Even though typefaces are kind of specific and odd? And you walk away LOVING THE HELL out of typefaces and you start to see them differently, at least for a little bit? Isn't that the best? These blogs are like that for me. Is it lame that I found that in a bunch of people on the internet who don't know I exist? Maybe. But I am pretty sure that making me feel a little less alone and a lot more inspired is a better use for the internet than, say, two girls one cup (if you don't know what that is, don't Google it please).

Blogs have taught me how to knit (before Ravelry happened, and even a little bit still), how to take excellent pictures for my own blog should I choose to put a little effort into it, how to make things for my home and what to make when folks come over for dinner. This is just to name a few tangible things. They've also helped teach me how to be brave and stand up for myself and how to laugh off the things I can't change. They've shown me that absurd can be hilarious and that grieving doesn't make me a weak person. Most importantly they've reminded me that it is more than ok to be who I am because whoever I am, whoever WE are, we are most certainly beautiful.

When you mention blogging as a hobby, especially when you don't have anything to show for it other than a website made from butchered code with some dinosaurs on it and a habit of writing things down that you want to blog about later when you should be working, people tend to raise an eyebrow. What does it make? What does it DO? For that matter, why? Why do it at all? I think that for me it is pretty simple. I want stories. There are so many to find and they are told in so many ways. Nobody has to read anything on the internet and many people would feel better in general if they remembered that. But my story is here among all these other beautiful stories in case someone wants or needs it. It will help keep the pot full. That's enough for me.

I have tiny monsters in my belly.

2008-08-04T07:28:00.001-05:00

They are teeny, even. But there they are, lighting up on the sonogram like little fireflies. They have grown on my ovaries and they are PISSED, you guys. So they give me pains like I have to pee. They give me lower back pain like I've been doing heavy lifting all day. Sometimes they make me nauseous JUST FOR FUN.

No, it's not cancer.

I was diagnosed with endometriosis on Friday and I am still kind of trying to figure out what that means.

According to WebMD, "Your uterus is lined with a type of tissue called endometrium. It is like a soft nest where a fertilized egg can grow. Each month, your body releases hormones that cause the endometrium to thicken and get ready for an egg. If you get pregnant, the fertilized egg attaches to the endometrium and starts to grow. If you do not get pregnant, the endometrium breaks down, and your body sheds it as blood. This is your menstrual period."

Well, thanks for that. But what the shit is this shit? "When you have endometriosis, the implants of tissue outside your uterus act just like the tissue lining your uterus. During your menstrual cycle, they get thicker, then break down and bleed. But the implants are outside your uterus, so the blood cannot flow out of your body. The implants can get irritated and painful. Sometimes they form scar tissue or fluid-filled sacs (cysts)." Oh! There it is. "Scar tissue may make it hard to get pregnant." Wait. What?

Nobody knows what course this will take or what to do about it. There is no cure and there are so many approaches to symptom prevention it is kind of dizzying.

I am not really a wait-and-see kind of lady. I am kind of a fighter and kind of a control freak. I want to do something about this NOW, but there is nothing to do. I don't want to control my symptoms, I want to shrink the cysts. I want to make it so they disappear. I want to slay the monsters, not make them a little sleepy.

Some women find a gluten-free diet works. Most sufferers and nutritionists say to cut out caffeine and booze completely. And chocolate. I don't know if you're aware, but I am kind of a coffee and chocolate taster for a living. I am also a booze taster for fun. So where does that leave my options? There is no proof that changing your diet even works, and there is no proof that it doesn't. Some women do nothing and nothing changes. Some women do everything and it just gets worse.

And this whole "It might be hard to get pregnant" thing has got me a bit depressed. Some people have told me that they know someone who has endometriosis and three kids. Some people said that they know of someone with it who is completely infertile. So uhhh... do I freeze my eggs and keep them under my mattress just in case? Or do I take the chance that when I'm ready for kids my uterus will play along? Is action overreaction?

I am a bit confused, is what I'm saying. I am a believer in traditional medicine but when there isn't really a traditional medicine approach that fits I am inclined to think holistically. Yoga might make my tum feel better and changing my diet might stop these little beasties in their tracks. Maybe. Might maybe. But yoga is expensive and changing my diet could affect my job. Also my life. Also it is probably expensive to buy all that organic, non soy based, gluten free food.

And then there's the anger. The irrational anger. What the fuck, nature? What the fuck. It should make me feel better to hear stories from women who suffer from endo and have had healthy pregnancies, but all I can think about is the fact that it doesn't mean anything. I am happy for them. But their fallopian tubes are not mine, and mine could be being crushed under scar tissue right now. I wouldn't know. A twinge of pain and there goes any chance of conception. Fuck you, tiny monsters. Eat a dick.

So I have another sonogram in six weeks or so to see how this has progressed. Maybe I don't change anything until then. Maybe I move to Vermont and eat nothing but bark for a while.

Also: part of my index finger is numb. WHAT THE HELL, Body? You are a laugh riot, I tell you what.

Pretty soon I will have no thumb left.

2008-02-25T12:15:00.002-05:00

I have one compulsive behavior. I have done it since... I don't know. Forever? I don't remember not doing it. I don't know why I do it. There is no pattern; I don't do it more when I'm stressed out, I don't do it more when I'm bored. I just do it. All the time. It's kind of gross too so hold on to your stomachs.

I pick at the skin around my fingernails. According to experts (science!) this isn't necessarily uncommon. I just do it without thinking about it. When I notice I'm doing it, I stop. But then like 10 minutes later I'll catch myself doing it again and be all "When did this happen?"

Sometimes I'll do it just to do it. It isn't a feeling of "Oh man I have to do this right now or I'll die" but more of a "Hey! Piece of skin! What are you doing there? I'mma getcha!" And I get it. Which makes more pieces of skin kind of loosey goosey and I'm all "You! You're next!" I do it to my lip too. It's just so satisfying sometimes. Like picking a sunburn. Only it never stops.

It's really noticeable around my thumbs. Sometimes it gets so bad that I have to hide them in band-aids and I often do it to the point of making myself bleed. I used to tell people that I had burned my hands (Oh really Danielle? Only on the outside of your thumbs? In the exact same spot on both hands? HOW INTRIGUING). Thank you for not prying if I have ever given you this excuse.

Oh man I was just doing it while I was thinking of the next sentence! HA! Ha ha ha! Ha.

Sometimes I'll see other people doing it and I'll want to hug them. It's probably not such a big deal for them and I've never seen anyone with thumbs like mine (please don't stare!) but really? We're the same, you and I! I see you chewing on your on your fingers and trying to be all sneaky about it. I DO THAT TOO. Let's be bff.

The reason why I bring this up is because I ripped the hell out of my left thumb this morning and it has never bled that much or hurt that much. At least in a long time. I am taking tiny little breaths because my thumb is on fire and pain is shooting up my arm. I had to change the band-aid because I bled through the last one. FUCKING OW.

I will be spending some time Googling to figure out how to end this madness. In the meantime you all should be excited because those kids from "Once" won the Oscar for best song in a motion picture and I love them and you should too.

Boys boys boyz.

2008-02-20T14:18:00.001-05:00

- I sit on the edge of the pool with a tee shirt over my babyish one-piece suit. My mom wouldn't let me buy a bikini. All the kids from my class are playing keep away in the pool and he's the tallest. He holds the ball high above his head as a girl jumps for it and fumbles, her hands sliding down his torso. He throws it and arcs over my head but I don't make a grab for it. The other girl chases after it, her newly blossomed body filling out her bikini like the swimsuit models over my dad's workbench. She holds onto it for longer than necessary. She's waiting until the boys notice she has it and make a move to get it from her before throwing it. Waiting to be tackled. As he lunges for her and they both go under the water I can feel my eyes well up with tears and I splash water on my face so that he doesn't see.

- After he moved he told me he loved me. He told me that when he was 400 miles away the distance made it real. I told him I'd wait for him, promised I'd go to college near him. A year later he visits all of his old friends, a group I was never really a part of, and we barely speak even though we've been e-mailing constantly because we're too shy. A year after that I return to the summer music school we attended before he left in the hope that he might go back too. While I'm in New Hampshire learning about arpeggios and the proper way to play a jazz chord I hear from a friend that he's in Rhode Island. I beg my mom to pick me up and bring me home for the weekend so I can see him but she doesn't come. Years later I find him on Facebook and feel myself blush. I wonder if he remembers what he said. I decide to never ask.

- We drive around for thirty minutes wondering what we should do and where we should go. He suggests the beach even though it's past 11pm. I am quivering, nervous that there will be a guard in the little house at the entrance. I don't break rules and the possibility of having to explain myself is terrifying. I worry and sweat the whole way there. As we pull up to the guard station I realize that there are two guards in there and they will probably want to know what two twenty one year olds are doing at the beach at 11pm. I open my mouth to tell him to turn the car around but they're already walking to us. He motions to the back of the Rav-4 where there are two fishing poles that I hadn't noticed until now. I look at the guards. They're waiting for more explanation "My brother and I," I start, my voice shaky, "go fishing late at night." I look at him and my voice becomes more confident. "The fish feed in the shallows then." He struggles not to grin and stares resolutely at the steering wheel as they wave us through the gate. We spend the night in the dunes, wrapped up in each other and the sand.

Day 16: Friday 250

2007-11-16T14:55:00.001-05:00

We collapsed into the snow out of breath and pulsing from the fight. I moved so that my back was against yours, me facing into the sun and you facing into your own shadow. I had taken off my coat. You were wiping the blood from your lip with your mitten.

"You know," you started, and your voice was shaking, "Mom really does love you more." I didn't say anything. What could I have said? "She tells you everything," you continued. "She doesn't tell me anything. She loves you more."

I wondered if it was love that made mom tell me that dad loved naked women on the computer more than he loved her. I wondered if it was love that made her tell me that thirty eight was too young to be stuck in a family, that she never wanted a second daughter, and that I was an accident.

"I don't want her to tell me everything," I said, but I knew you wouldn't understand. I turned and hugged you around your neck. Your ear was so cold on my cheek. "It doesn't matter, Josie," I said. "I love you more than they ever could."

It was then that the knife slipped and cut the tip of mom's finger off while she was chopping vegetables in the kitchen and dad, who was cutting wood in the shed just to do something with his hands, felt his heart palpitate, shudder, and double its pace. He coughed and it was over.

Day 12: Short stories

2007-11-12T21:41:00.000-05:00

- My mother and her friend have dressed up in over-sized pillowcases, drawn cartoonish faces on them and put clothes low on their legs to appear as if they were really short people with huge heads. They're dancing around for my 6th birthday party and my friends love it. I think about how I'd never seen any of their parents have as much fun.

- I'm looking out my parents' bedroom window and crying for some reason, a washcloth clenched in my hand to stifle any noise I might make. I'm around 8 or 9 years old, but I know that whatever happened shouldn't have been heard by my ears.

- It's the first time I ever got that feeling from a boy - where they touch you and you shake because it's so electric and so delicious. It eventually becomes a warning sign, that when anything has that much voltage it has to be dangerous.

- The door shuts behind me and I can see him crying through the window. I pick up my two garbage bags of clothes and throw them into my car with the rest of my stuff. It isn't until I'm on the highway that I remember to breathe and I let out a sob so loud that I scare myself and almost hit a pole. By 4am I'm three states away.

Day 9: An excerpt from a short story I'm working on

2007-11-09T18:19:00.001-05:00

Through one town, into another, south and south, intrepidly south. South to the end of the road where the water tries to swallow the shore and gnashes its foamy teeth on the jetty. I had to park the car as the road had turned into sand and then water. But I left it running.

"I'm not going to kill you, you know," I said.

"Well, after all these year I still don't know what you're about." We smiled at out joke, but I know you still, after these many more years, don't know what I'm about. I forgive you for that and for not knowing how to break me. It's your only flaw.

"Come on," I urged, and took your hand.

"Out there?" You looked scared. It was the only time I've seen that look in your eyes. Was it the water? The black sky against black waves? The rocks making those odd jagged shadows?

"Don't worry," I laughed. "I'll protect you from the fish."

The spotlight on the dock shining between the masts of the fishing boats slid back and forth across your face as the mast obscured it, then let it through. Now I see you, now I don't. Where are you? There you are. I held your hand tighter and pulled you onto the jetty, stumbling over the cracks between the stones. We moved when the light allowed us, jumping the larger cracks, performing a treacherous dance.

"Slow down!" you shouted at me, but the wind pulled it out of your mouth and your panic was all around us. Then you slipped. I felt you pull at my hand as you fell and let go to save myself. I recovered my balance and turned around. You were bleeding and your pants were ripped. I almost vomited.

"Are you ok?" I asked, after the nausea passed.

"I'm fine. Are you ok? You're as white as a ghost."

"I just don't like seeing you hurt," I said, and I meant I can't believe I let you go.

"Don't freak out. This is far enough," you said with such finality that I knew, of course, it was.

"This is far enough."

Day 8: 150 words

2007-11-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

-Do you remember that date we went on? At the river?
-Yeah...
-You wouldn't jump from the rock you were on to the rock I was on.
-The water was high. I didn't want to die.
-I know. I think that's actually what you said.
-"I don't want to die"?
-Yeah. At the time I thought it was silly but now I think I know what you meant when you said it.
-Oh?
-What you meant to say was, "I don't want to fall and risk you not being there to catch me."
-No, what I meant to say was, "Why do I have to jump over rivers in order to reach you?"
-It doesn't matter anyway.
-Why not?
-Well, I don't see any water here, and you're still too far away for me to touch you.
-Just reach.
-Just jump.
-I don't want to get my feet wet.

Day 7: This is no time to panic. But I'm gonna.

2007-11-07T19:05:00.000-05:00

About a month ago I went shopping at H&M for some new duds. I recently lost weight, and let me tell you. I was feeling fine. I was looking for something to commemorate the occasion that would make me feel cute and impish. I found a great dress, black with white letters all over it. They didn't spell anything but they were in this awesome font and I am kind of a font junkie. I grabbed a 10 and an 8 off the wall to try on because I figured I'd fall somewhere in between. The 10 was way too big. The 8 was good, maybe a little loose, but it was the smallest size in that style. I figured it would shrink in the wash and put it in the "definitely gonna buy it" pile and left the fitting room.

While browsing through some cardigans I saw it. The perfect dress was hanging on the wall - a little plaid number with an empire waist, A-line skirt and little cap sleeves. It was adorable and it had pockets, for Pete's sake. Love. I grabbed the one in front off the wall and it was a 2. There's no way I'm going to get my butt into a size 2. So I pulled all of the dresses down and found the largest size. It was a size 6. I was doubtful but I had fit into the 8 and it was a little too big. I was feeling skinny. Hell, I thought. I'm feeling size effing 6 skinny. I actually shook my head up and down with a smirk on my face. This was going to fit me.

I took it into the fitting room and undressed, removing my bra. I am not really well endowed on top so I have this kind of push uppy bra but this dress would not require its assistance. I unzipped the little nothing zipper, the kind that doesn't go all the way up or down the side of the dress but just kind of makes a hole in it, and put it over my head.

I got one arm in and the little sleeve was awfully tight. No big deal, I thought. It will be fine once I get it on. So I stuck my other arm in the arm hole and tried to pull it over my braless boobs.

It wouldn't go. But I am not a quitter. I was determined to get into this dress. I pulled it down and settled it in place over my shoulders and it instantly felt like they were encased in cement. I could not move my arms more than two inches in any direction. And then I realized that the empire waist would not fit over my boobs. Not in one million years. Oh well, I said to myself. I guess I'm not a size six. It was time to give up the dream.

I grabbed the left sleeve with my right hand, as one does to remove one's arm from a frock. Only then did I realize that there was absolutely NO ROOM to maneuver my arm and navigate my elbow out of this thing. The fabric had no give. It was like a straight jacket. No big deal, said my brain. You're a broad shouldered gal and you've been in this situation before. Just pull it straight up over your head. Ok brain. You know what's best. I grabbed the hem of the skirt and tried to pull it up and off my head. If you've ever taken your clothes off this way, you know that at one point your arms are crossed over your head. The fabric was so unforgiving and the sleeves so tight that I couldn't get to that point.

Ok. Ok. I am stuck in this dress. No big deal. Maybe I can wiggle out.

Wiggle wiggle. Nope. Now I was starting to get upset. Maybe even a little panicky.

I am going to have to call someone in here to get me out and oh my gosh they are going to see my boobs and these old lady underwears with the hole on the butt cheek. Oh my gosh oh my gosh. What the hell am I going to do.

Wiggle wiggle. Stretch bend stretch.

Shit. Shit shit shit I am really stuck.

I started to sweat. This dress had a satiny smooth lining. Do you know what happens to satiny smooth fabric when you sweat? It STICKS. The situation went from dire to catastrophic.

I am going to have to rip myself out of this dress and pay for it and explain the whole thing and tell them that I thought I wasn't a FAT ASS and could fit my crazy shoulders into this delicate frock and I HATE YOU YOU STUPID DRESS COME OFF OF ME.

I actually started to whimper. I was in ULTRA PANIC MODE. Thirty minutes had passed. I called The Boy.

"Mike! I'm stuck in a dress at H&M!"
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"I'm really really stuck!"
"So what? Call someone in. I'm sure they've had to pry people out of clothes before."
"No! They'll see my boobs and - STOP LAUGHING."

I don't know what happened next. I sat down in order to regain my composure and stop sweating and I think some kind of primal escape mechanism kicked in. Suddenly I didn't care. I didn't care if I ripped it or if I barged into the store half naked screaming GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE. That thing was coming off. I took a deep breath in and yanked the hell out of it. I was almost hoping for it to rip or for my shoulder to dislocate, whichever happened first. Either way I'd be free.

All of the sudden, it came off. It hit the wall opposite me and slid to the floor in a rumpled heap. I stood there, staring at it, for five minutes. I didn't believe I was out of it. I was sure it was in ribbons. How else could I have escaped? I picked it up and couldn't believe it. The dress was FINE. No rip, no tear. No stitch out of place. That diabolical frock just decided to let me go. I put it back on the hanger and boogied out of that dressing room.

I caught sight of myself in one of the full length mirrors. I had been in the dressing room for 45 minutes and had come out with my face red and my hair all messed up, clothes all wrinkled. Every person was staring at me. I pretended like my phone was ringing and pretend answered it, talking to a pretend person on the other end as I hastily made my way to the cashier with the dress that didn't try to eat me, paid for my purchase and left.

This situation was so ridiculous that in recalling it here I have brought those feelings of panic and humiliation back to the surface and now I need a shower and a beer, maybe at the same time.

Day 1: What a way to begin

2007-11-01T17:52:00.000-05:00

Today would be the birthday of John William "Billy" Toulin, were he still alive.

One time he decided that he wanted dreadlocks. My sister and I sat him down and put toothpaste in his hair to make them stick and to help dirty it up a bit. I was 15 I think? And she was 17. It didn't work. This other time he robbed my dad's house for money for heroin, a drug that would take his life. I don't remember feeling any anger when that happened, though. His heart was good and the heroin made him someone else.

I feel like telling the whole story would be a little too hard for me. I feel like not telling any of it would cheat him. He liked attention and I think he'd want to be remembered in some way at some point. I don't remember the day he died so his birthday has served as an anniversary to remember his life and ultimately reflect on his death and what it meant to our town.

Tiverton is tiny. Most people who don't live there only know about it if they've passed through it on their way to Newport. It has three stop lights, two Dunkin' Donuts stores (which is low for New England towns), and an alpaca farm. It has four elementary schools but only one middle school and one high school (700 students) which means eventually every kid knows every other kid. We all knew Billy.

I knew him well because he dated my sister on and off for three years. I won't even get into the countless parties and shenanigans that they let me tag along for because it was always the same: drinking, smoking, suburban kids trying to forget something they didn't even know was there.

Billy was a trouble maker. He wasn't a bad kid, as far as kids go, but he got into trouble. He was from one of the wealthiest families in town and lived in one of the most expensive areas in one of the largest houses. The world was like a giant experiment to him and he was always trying to throw it off, to knock into it hard enough to make it fall off its track. He was frigging good at it too. There were a lot of stories about things he'd done, laws he'd broken, girls he'd loved and left. He was fascinating because he was untouchable and because nothing broke his heart. But he was so good. He'd always go out of his way for a friend and he was one of the people who showed up when you needed him. He was good to my sister (mostly) and good to me, and that was enough.

Eventually they broke up and lost touch. We'd run into him from time to time and we heard through the veins of gossip that keep towns like ours alive that he'd gotten into heroin and was going downhill. My sister contacted him and they became friends again while she tried to get him help. Then he robbed my dad's house.

This is getting painful because we're about at the end. Every time I hear anything about heroin I think about him.

The day he died, my mom called me. I was 18 and living with a boyfriend in another town and hadn't thought about Billy in a year or so.

"Hello?"
"Hey honey. I have some news."
"Who died?"
"...How did you know?"
"Your voice. Who died?"
"Billy. Overdose."
"...Oh. I can't say I'm surprised."
"Are you okay?"
"Let me get back to you on that."

I was numb. Numb numb numb. My boyfriend was no help.

"You haven't seen him in a year. Why are you upset?"

Because he was good, I thought. Because his heart isn't beating anymore and his brain doesn't work and I'll never see him again, and he'll never have a chance to get clean because he's dead. Because he was like a brother for so long. Because he let me tag along. Because he didn't think I was some stupid kid sister and he put up with me being around even though he didn't have to.

I said, "Oh, it's just sad is all."

I can't even think about the wake, funeral, and vigil. People were screaming and sobbing. Over the next few days the story came out about the hours leading to his death, and it was as terrible as any after school movie. Death by cliche.

This will be quick. Just write it.

He shot up too much. His friends noticed and became scared. They didn't want to bring him to the hospital because they were all high on something too and didn't want to get in trouble. They left him at the end of his driveway instead, where his mother found him dead when she went for a morning run.

I can't watch movies with scenes of heroin use. The first one I saw after he died actually made me vomit. I cried for two days.

It kills me that he died alone. I only hope he didn't know that he was dying.

I'll never understand the fear or thought process that made those other kids drive away. But when people in town found out who was in that car there was an unspoken hit put out on them. Billy had some loyal friends. I hear those kids skipped town and never came back. I'm glad for it.

Kids who were on it when Billy died got help and got clean. Awareness spread from his death, and parents started to notice what their children got up to at night and where they went and for once were not afraid to confront them about it. Now it's back to the way it was. None of the kids who are there now even know who Billy was. I hear the drug of choice in town now is crystal meth. Crystal fucking meth. I guess every generation needs its own personal tragedy because the tragedies that came before don't matter in five years. They'll learn from their sorrow.

A lot of kids I went to high school with have died. Nora was in a car accident (not her fault) Jared was too (but his was during a drag race). Thinking about them is a really disconnected feeling for me, like they never existed. I know they did but I didn't know them that well. Billy's death is a bruise the won't heal. You don't know it's there until you touch it and then it hurts like hell.

I don't really know what else to say. Maybe I've made him out to be better than he was. Maybe I didn't make him good enough. I know who he was though, and I'll never forget him.

What a way to kick off NaBloPoMo, no? I promise tomorrow will be less of a downer.

Violated

2007-08-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

Boston and I have always had a kind of love/hate relationship. For a while, every time I went to Boston something bad would happen. One time I had a huge fight with a boyfriend. Another time, I got stuck in a parking garage because I didn’t have the $7 to get out because someone had stolen my money the night before. There were many other things and small bad memories that made me cringe when I thought of its skyline - the Prudential Center and the John Hancock Building stretching up like two huge fuck yous.

But then I met some awesome people from work and they all lived in Boston. They showed me its many lovely communities, taught me how a little planning went a long way, and reminded me to laugh at inconveniences because there are much larger problems. I adored visiting them and after a while began to think of Boston as my second city, the kind of place where I always had a room to crash in or a backup bar to go to. Somewhere to get away to. I knew it was a city that I would love despite its surliness and cold north-eastern disposition. I especially loved the transportation systems and learned the subways like the back of my hand. I’ve spent whole afternoons riding the red line and watching people, wondering what they were about and where they were going.

It is because of my love of Boston that I always fly out of and into Logan International when I travel. I park at a train station, ride the subway in, hop on the bus and get dropped off at my terminal. It’s a bit of a drive but I don’t mind as the airport is clean and I know it well. Plus, I get to ride that subway and watch all of those wonderful people.

On Saturday I flew home from Kansas City to Boston, grabbed my luggage, and went outside to wait for the bus. I’d been gone for five days and was looking forward to seeing Michael and Stella and being in my own bed. It was as I was thinking of these things, leaning against a pillar in a brown dress next to one of those lovely Bostonians who was sitting on his luggage next to me, that I saw a youngish guy about 20 yards away start walking toward me. Fast. I’m not a scared girl. But the way he looked was scary. He had reached me before I could collect my things to move and stood between me and the old man on the luggage. He cleared his throat and in an accusing voice said, “I don’t think she appreciates you taking pictures up her dress with your camera phone.”

My brain took a second to process the words but I looked down in time to see the man hastily putting away his phone while shaking his head and making that noise people make when they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. I don’t even know what I was thinking. My brain told me to get out of there and that something very appalling had just happened but I hadn’t really processed it. I bent down, picked up my things, and followed my superhero to another section of the terminal feeling like everyone knew what had happened and had seen whatever picture he managed to get. I thanked him for letting me know and shook his hand, not knowing at all what to say. And then my bus came and I had to run to catch it and I was shaking so badly that I barely got my Charlie ticket into the slot.

I sat on the bus, watching the woman across from me shield her daughter’s head from the harsh glare of the sun, holding it close to her chest with her hand over her eyes. I wanted so, so badly to be that little girl and to have someone hold their hand over me. I called my mother and told her what had happened. Her reaction was, “I would have made such a scene! You should have yelled out what happened so that everyone would hear. You should have slapped him! Oh my God, you should have told the police. Don’t they have police there? You should have taken the guy that stopped him out to dinner to thank him!”

… Did I do something wrong? An hour after it happened I knew of about a million things I should have done, should have said, should have screamed. I had a fantastic vision of me ripping the phone out of his had and smashing it on the ground while screaming PERVERT! at him at the top of my lungs. I had another picture where I played a kind of dignified victim, asking him quietly for his phone so that I could delete the picture. I could have bought the superhero a drink. Fuck… if I could write down all the things I thought of afterward, am still thinking about now, this post would be so ridiculously long. As it is now, I’m writing this because I couldn’t sleep for thinking of all the things I should have done. I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t do them. I couldn’t sleep because one person can walk away slightly ashamed but generally unscathed and the other one walks away feeling dirty and vulnerable, bare and stupid.

The whole train ride home the ugliness was everywhere. There was a mentally retarded man on the train with nobody to sit with him and nobody’s eyes could bear to look at him for more than the second it took to dismiss him. There was graffiti everywhere, nobody offered me a seat even though I had three bags to hold on to, and a woman stared unabashedly at me until she got off a stop before me. I swear she could see everything that I was thinking and I hated her for it.

Everyone knows somebody that something like this has happened to. Every story is more disturbing than the last. But it’s never you. It never happens to you. If it does, you become the person who someone knows that it happened to but it will never carry the same weight for someone else. You can warn them, but it will never be them in their head.

I’m going to make a generalization I don’t often make, but I’ve become biased: The world can be ugly to women in much deeper ways than it can to men. A man can be victimized, can be attacked, can be made to feel like shit, but not often like this. I feel like I’ve done something wrong and I know I haven’t. I feel like someone has seen something I don’t want them to see and now everyone can see it just by looking at me.

A smarter person might realize that the city was always like this. I guess I thought that I was savvy, that I could take its sting in stride. I was wrong.

A Christmas wish

2006-11-16T17:09:00.000-05:00

When I was five years old my family was visiting my grandparents in Connecticut. At the time we were devout Catholics who attended church every Sunday and could sing all the hymns by heart, so it wasn't a surprise when after we returned to my grandparents' house I wandered over to the piano and played a full hymn. Well, maybe it was a surprise because according to everyone in the family I'd never touched a piano before that morning.

Apparently my parents took it as a sign of impending prodigal fame and bought me a used upright. It was gigantic, with carved relief work on the front that resembled tangled vines. Standing six feet tall it reminded me of a wise, creaky old man with dark sun worn skin. It played, which is a quality that is hard to find in a $500 piano. There was a key, the low A, that stuck like it had molasses under it and the sustain pedal stayed down when you pushed it. You had to get your foot under it and pry it back up before you could push it again. That's how I learned to play, every song a full body aerobic workout.

After a couple of weeks I started my lessons. Ten dollars a week for a half an hour lesson in the back of a music store run by a woman whose name I've forgotten. I went to her for a few months and my first recital was the most stressful thing I'd yet undertaken in my young life. I played a hit people would know, a tinny rendition of "Give My Regards To Broadway" that had my left hand stagnant in my lap most of the time. All of us little kids had songs like that. But then the big kids came out and my left hand wanted desperately to move across keys like theirs did, to dance with the right in a counter melody of coordination. At my next lesson I asked for harder music, but she refused saying I wasn't old enough. I stopped taking lessons from her.

I moved on to Melinda Jackson, a nice woman from the South who pronounced my name like the first syllable was leaning onto the next and tickling it. "Dayn-yale" is the closest way to phonetically spell it, and that doesn't even really do it justice. She was soft spoken but firm and never let me slack on practicing. She would KNOW if I hadn't been. It got to the point where I would practice obsessively - not to get better at piano, but because I couldn't stand the look on her face that said, "Why are you wasting my time and your parents' money?"

She opened a world of music to me. Her recitals were dynamic and featured every level of talent. She even let my sister (a pretty good flautist) play duets with me as a second recital piece. When I got to middle school, a friend of mine started to take lessons from her as well and we were fiercely competitive. Mrs. Jackson made it work to our advantage by giving us four hand duets higher than our skill level that she made us perform together. I learned how to use my left hand. I learned Debussy and Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann. I learned what an etude was and played entire sonatas under her soothing, correcting tones. My parents promised to buy me a baby grand if I learned how to play Moonlight Sonata, so I practiced until my arms throbbed and got a $500 used, crackle finish Brahambach baby grand for my efforts. I was stoked.

In middle school I was in the concert band (playing clarinet, then orchestra bells and melodic percussion) and my director would ask me to play the piano for people as a kind of segue between grade levels. I even played at a mall once. I was basically a classical version of Debbie Gibson touring the Rhode Island mall scene. It was pretty damn awesome.

Eventually my main performance medium was as accompanist for my high school's choirs, directing a musical (Anything Goes) and not much else. I mean, really. There were boys and booze now and who has time to practice with all of that? I stopped being good. I still played my favorite sonatas and arabesques, but really I wasn't technically improving anymore.

And then there was that fateful day that my old chorus director asked me to accompany the middle school choir at their choral festival and I bombed so hard that it shook the moon. Granted she had given me the music (four different, complicated pieces) a week before the performance and I had never played them with the choir, but still. I had never walked onto a stage and not been prepared.

Since then, I haven't played for an audience. I miss it. I also know however that I am less likely to dazzle and more likely to fizzle. I haven't felt my hands wither from carpal tunnel in at least five years, and oddly enough I miss that. I haven't felt the thrill of buying new sheet music because I have nothing to play it on, and that's probably the feeling I miss the most. And just remembering how it felt to sit on a bench in front of eighty-eight keys and a million possible songs is heartbreaking.

My dad is selling the old baby grand. He broke it to me last weekend at my grandfather's 80th birthday party. I took it as a nothing, like I'd forgotten all about any piano. Deep down my heart gave a little shudder, a faint arpeggio of a memory.

So here is my Christmas wish:

I would like a piano. Nothing too expensive, eighty-eight keys and a nice tone. It could even be electric. I don't care. If it sounds like a piano and has weighted action in the keys and pedals attached, I am good. I need it. I need to breathe in trills and grace notes. I need to feel the felted hammers beat on my heart strings and finally find the adagio again.

Friday 250

2006-11-10T14:58:00.001-05:00

“There was something, you know? Something real.” She’s picking at the dirt under her fingernails, her eyes darting to yours and away again repeatedly.

"And now?" you ask, your palms becoming sweaty.

She swallows hard. "There's nothing."

You look at her face and suddenly it's that day when you were eight and you thought you saw someone lying on the bottom of the deep end. Your heart raced as you frantically tried to figure out what you should do. Part of you wanted to run away and hope someone else noticed, but a bigger part of you wanted to dive in and be the hero.

"I mean, I still want to be friends, you know,” she says, her eyes foggy like swim goggles in summer. You always thought she was watery, thought she might pass through your hands if you tried to hold her. “But for me,” she adds, furrowing her brow, “there’s nothing else there.” She flips her hair. You close your eyes. Grit your teeth. Feel your heart beat harder.

And it’s that day again, but the clouds have moved and you realize it's nothing but the light playing tricks with a shadow and a forgotten t-shirt. It's nothing but nothing.

"Yeah," you concede, opening your eyes and smiling into the yellow light bouncing off her highlighted head. "There’s nothing else there." And it's easier to walk away, because you know that nobody ever needed saving because nobody really got hurt.

Panic with no disco involved

2006-11-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

Around four years ago I woke up to my heart beating about 120 beats per minute and sweating a cold, clammy, not at all nice sweat. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was going to die which quickly turned into an "Oh my God I'm actually going to die," but I couldn't find the thing that hurt that would kill me. Chest? Ok in there, except the heart rate. Liver/stomach/abdomen? Nothing hurt. And yet I was convinced beyond reason that I was going to die so I called 911 and went and laid on my bed and waited for them to get there or the icey hand of death, whichever came first. When the EMTs arrived they took one look at me and said two words:

"Panic attack."

I couldn't believe them. I was 17 and a happy senior in high school. What the hell did I have to panic about? I soon learned that it didn't work that way.

My heart would be the first thing. It would palpitate once or multiple times. Then I'd know what was about to happen and my hands would get clammy. My breathing would quicken. At this point, I'd try to talk myself out of it. "You're fine," I'd tell myself. "This is nothing you can't handle." And then I'd be sweating all over. My vision would get blurry. I'd start to hyperventilate and get dizzy. "No," I would say, "you're just freaking out." At that point, I'd be convinced that I was dying. I'd look for a way out... get up and jump up and down just to know I still could, make a fist so hard it hurt, just to feel it... anything to convince myself I wasn't going to snuff it. If I could do these things and feel these things, I couldn't be dying.

I decided to ignore these weekly occurrences. I would hide in bathrooms during school or try to walk it off while I was at home. They blossomed into twice weekly occurrences, and finally to every day. Let me re-emphasize that. Every day, I thought I was going to die because that's what you think even though you know you won't. Every. Day. They wouldn't all be huge, but they'd exist. I was remarkable at outwardly keeping my shit together. That went on for a year, and I learned to live with it.

It wasn't until I started calling out of work every other day and leaving early that I realized I maybe might kind of have some kind of maybe sort of half problem. Yeah. I am stubborn. But when I was driving home one day and wave after wave of panic came over me, bigger than the biggest ones I'd ever had and I almost killed myself and someone else, I decided that something had to change.

I figured it was subconscious angst. I changed my diet. I started exercising. I did yoga. I did all the things they tell you to do to de-stress. I even picked up knitting (a hobby I continue today). Nope! Nothing. Once a day, I still thought I was going to die.

I became a hypochondriac. I insisted that there was something physically wrong with me and saw at least 15 specialists for multiple tests. All were negative. No cancer, no brain tumors, no heart problems, no diabetes, no adrenal/hormone/thyroid issues. I was so bucking healthy and it pissed me off so much. What was the problem?

It wasn't until I went to my physician's office and saw one of the women who was not my usual doctor that I heard the words that would change how I looked at mental issues:

"Panic disorder."

Not just "attack" anymore, kids. Disorder. DSM-IV classified disorder. Me? I had never been disorderly in my life. Still, it made more sense than anything else I'd heard/imagined. We started the medication.

Within 3 months, they dissipated almost entirely. Once in a great while I'd get a feeling of anxiety in my chest, but it would never bloom into that terrible place that defied any logical thinking. I was on the medication for 2 years and then weaned off it. We waited six months and I didn't have another one after that. Everything was fine. I never even got that wave of anxiety that comes for no reason. Again, these panic attacks happened for no. Reason. I never got one while doing anything even mildly stressful.

Anyway, I've been off the medication for over a year and haven't felt so much as a twinge. Until today! That's right. Panic at the workplace! Molly was great and went for a walk with me to clear out some of the adrenaline and keep my mind off itself and I did feel a bit better.

But I can't get rid of that feeling in my stomach - the one saying that this isn't over.

I am a nice girl.

2006-10-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

I am a nice girl.
Your mom would probably love me,
But that's because she doesn't know
That I thoroughly enjoy bourbon
And can put my leg behind my head

Well. What she doesn't know
Can't hurt her. However,
It will probably kill you.