“It said what?”

“I’m not  going to it again”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish. I was humiliated and even though I knew it was graffiti I felt like I’d done something wrong and I was embarrassed to tell Thatch about it, in a way I felt like I had cheated on him. I know it doesn’t make any sense but if you’d seen those words painted across the car, ugh. The randomness of the whole thing was silly too; maybe a part of me was afraid he wouldn’t believe me which is dumb but…”

“No, it makes sense, you were violated in a sense. Having to drive back to Seattle that way, I’m sure everyone you passed had some sort of reaction.”

“Ah, Char I’ve got to run, my sauce is bubbling too hard, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Taking the pan off the heat Liz stirred slowly, cringing as she visualized the graffiti. The car would be done in the morning but she didn’t want to have to pick it up. The guy at the paint shop had been nice enough. She hadn’t known what to say, everything sounded suspicious or silly. The situation was humiliating enough and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. A fresh painted car might be the perfect canvas, perhaps little too tempting if the offenders come back.

She should have pressed the parking attendant a bit harder, he had to have seen something. His startled reaction to the graffiti made her feel naked though and when she asked him if it had ever happened before he turned it back to her, “are you sure you don’t know who did this? Maybe you made someone real mad.” She shook her head and put the car in gear and drove off praying that no one from work would see her. The rush hour commute stood in front of her, 40 minutes across the bridge and then what? She couldn’t exactly take the care home and park it in the driveway could she? As her shame mounted she began to worry again about what Thatch would think. If she took it straight to a paint shop she could lie about it, say it looked like gang tags but if he somehow found out then it might seem like the words were put there for a reason, that there was some truth behind them. No, she needed Thatcher to see it so she could be off the hook.

She drove across the bridge keeping her eyes straight ahead to avoid the commuters. She drove north past her exit to where the new mall was being built and pulled into what was left of the old parking lot. She parked and got out holding onto the car door as the wind tried to pull it from her. She took out her phone and stepped back inch by inch until the whole car fit into screen then she snapped a picture and quickly sent it to Thatch before she changed her mind. She stood staring at the bright orange words as the wind blew her dress tight against her, gently pulling at her hair as tears from the wind and embarrassment crept into her eyes.  She slowly walked back to the car and waited.

The call came minutes later. “What the hell is that?” he said before she could even say hello.

“Nice huh?”

“What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know. This is how I found it when I got out of work.”

“Jesus, are you still in the garage?”

Why didn’t she think of that, she could have just stayed in the garage. “No, I’m back in Seattle, I guess I wanted to get home.”

“Well you didn’t go to the house did you?”

“No, I’m at the old mall up north.”

“Good. Who have you told about this? Did anyone see you?”

“I talked to the parking attendant to see if he’d seen anyone but that was it. I didn’t know what to do, I am so embarrassed – I’m so sorry.”

What are you… never mind, why don’t you go ahead and get it into a shop, hold on a minute and I’ll Google paint shops.”

She stared out the windshield with blurry eyes. She should have stayed on the east side, looked up a paint shop herself and taken the care there. She could have had Char meet her and drive her home. She’d become so helpless, somewhere along the way she lost herself and now she needs Thatcher to do everything for her.

“OK, here’s one. I’ll text you the address, it’s about two miles from the mall. I won’t be able to pick you up though, I had to drive to Portland this morning but I’ll send Craig to get you and take you home. I’m so sorry this happened, what a mess.”

“Thanks Thatcher.”

“No worries babe. Get home and take care of yourself, I’ll try and make it back today but I’d planned on staying the night. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thatch, please come home, you’ve been working late for weeks now, I need to see you.”

“Don’t do this to me, I’m sorry this happened but you know how important this project is. I’ll do what I can but I can’t promise anything, now I’ve got to go, I’ll have Craig meet you at the shop.”

She watched the wind kick up dirt and garbage as she heard Thatch hang up. She sighed thinking again about how dumb it was to feel guilty about the words, she had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about it. She realized maybe it wasn’t  that she was afraid of Thatch would think about the graffiti but about what she would have thought if it had happened to his car instead of hers.

I’ve been forgetful lately. Not forgetful in the way that when reminded of  the forgotten I remember and have to wonder how I could have forgotten. No, it’s like it never happened so that when I’m told of the forgotten item I don’t remember having ever discussed it or it’s so vague in my mind that I feel as though I might remember something vaguely related, but it’s murky, I’m grasping at straws. Lately I’ve found myself lying about it, “oh yes, I remember now.”

It started bothering me a few weeks ago. Little twinges of worry but now I’m thinking about it quite a bit. The real problem isn’t the forgetting itself, it’s the worry and the fear it creates which metastasizes so that soon there are a dozen fears running around creating shadows and dread. Some are ridiculous, some are legitimate but they are all debilitating on some level.

And then the possible and obvious explanations pour forth and I tell myself to quiet down, relax, but the fear is still there and it’s toxic. I have to live with it until the day, hopefully not far off, things get better and I stop being so forgetful or there a bright morning, clear sky or a fresh breeze shows up on my doorstop dispelling this fear and banishing its offspring to far away places.

I build these wagons and then I fall off or I find the need to hop on a different wagon and go in an entirely new direction. Then, sometimes I find myself climbing right back on an old wagon, a very old wagon.

How many wagons must a lady build?

I’m haunted by that feeling again, the feeling that I can’t continue on professionally like I am but that I don’t know what do to yet. It’s one part not sure of what I would do, one part worried I wont be able to make a living doing something new (whatever that something may be).

So what am I doing to find out what it is I want to do?

Nothing.

Why?

Because I’m tired after a long day at the office. Because I don’t have a lot of time. Because it causes me a certain amount of anxiety.

I can give excuses all day long but at the end of the day I’m plain and simply not sure what I would do if I made the big break. But I need to start somewhere. I know it doesn’t have to be THE thing but who knows where reaching out a little can take me. So I’m going to start with the obvious – writing. It’s the only thing I long to do and lately I’ve been doing a lot of longing and dreaming. So much that it makes me feel a little sick, like butterflies.

An idea that sprang to life quicker than imagined that grew and morphed both quickly and slowly. This little idea created a change in me, almost instantly. It impacted my lens and the way I travel through this world. It challenged me and allowed me to reach higher and to be more if even for a momet. 

The idea was crooked though.

I once again realize how little I know about anything, about me. 

Goodbye.

When I was a little girl I was terrified of the thought of bugs in my bedroom, especially in my bed.  No one likes bugs in their bed but it was more than not liking – it was the fear of the possibility. I’d find myself playing with my dolls or trucks and the thought would come to me – what if there is a spider climbing up into my bed right now? I’d dread the impending bedtime and especially the never being sure that there wasn’t a spider laying in wait to snuggle up to me.

I still remember one or two offenses -  the stinkbug that ran right across my face during a nap or the nasty furry spider that crawled up over the fold of my beddybye blankets to meet my gaze, spidey eye to little girl eye. The worst was the anxiety, fear and general heebiejeebies post bug-in-bed encounter. Crawling back into bed and falling asleep was absolutely out of the question. First, I’d undo the bed and check for bug or spidey companions then I’d remake the bed and lay there very carefully and anxious knowing that there were more in my room. They could be hanging out in the curtains, behind my bookcase, under my rug – waiting for the lights to go off so they could traverse the thready landscape of my bedroom carpet and crawl up into bed the minute I closed my eyes.

After one such an encounter and the tummy tickling anxiety that followed I frantically pulled apart my bedding in tears as I told my mother, with conviction, that I was never going to sleep again. With a weariness that was one part tired and one part sympathy she told me to “stop being so dramatic, that there was nothing to be afraid of because spiders don’t come in herds, in fact I should be glad because I found the one spider in the room and it was the only one around”. You see, as it turns out, bugs and spiders aren’t very friendly creatures.

The fact that spiders are not pack animals brought me great relief because it made complete sense to me. You never see a bunch of spiders crawling along a wall, in the tub or in your bed – there’s always just one. Charlotte’s Web reinforces this fact, Charlotte didn’t have any spider friends and all her babies were blown away after they were born so not only do spiders not have friends but they don’t even hang out with their own kids. Cool, it was great news, it sounded true and to this day, on occasion, I will still remind myself of this fact.

Which brings me to today – today I found a creature in the basement. I was doing the laundry and I reached over to pick up a fallen handkerchief when I stopped just short of picking up a rather large mouse instead. I screamed as the connection from brain to voice box made the quick leap to fear even as I was still to comprehend what it was I was seeing – grey body, little ears, black nose, rapid moving belly.

I jumped away from the mouse which in itself was funny because if he hadn’t scurried off as I rummaged around in the laundry basket just inches from him, a scream wasn’t going to do the trick. Next came the reluctant voice of my husband, the only logical voice that comes in response to a scream from an old, dark, damp and cluttered basement – a voice that doesn’t want to know what the scream about at all.

“Micky, come down here,” I yelled.

“No.”

“Mickeeyyy.”

“God, what is it, just tell me.”

“It’s a mouse, it’s sides are moving really fast, come down here.”

I was fascinated by it. As repulsed as I was, and boy was I, the thing made my stomach hurt and a sour taste found its way to the back of my mouth, I couldn’t help staring at it and finding sympathy for it. It was kinda cute, it’s tiny little perfectly shaped ears or it’s cute little paws as it licked and wiped  at it’s black bitty nose. The truth is, for one moment, across the room from the damn thing it was almost sorta cute until I heard my husband holler “you always said you’d deal with rats, we had a deal.”

It was at the word rat that I saw the long tail that snaked out behind the little creature that seemed to have suddenly grown a wee bit bigger in the time I’d looked up at my husband face peering around the basement door. It was no mouse, it was a rat and any trace of cute was replaced by awareness that the basement was damp and sticky and a little hard to breath in.

I’ll spare you the details of how we got the bugger ( him AND his tail) up from the basement and threw him over the fence into the yard of the abandoned house next door and how the little guy crawled around for a bit but it wasn’t long until he lay quiet and the flies . I’ll jump to what happened an hour or so later when my husband came to find me and tell me about his theory and the point of this here entry.

In the time that had elapsed I’d called my mother, my best friend and posted about the incident on facebook. I’d gone back to the basement (with the dogs en tow) and mapped out a plan to get the place cleaned up, inspected for entry points and tricked out with the latest in rat trapping technology. I was ready to go to war, I was repulsed and set on erradication, when enter my husband.

“So, I was thinking , I’m pretty sure that was the only mouse in the basement and let me tell you why.”

It was all I could do not to smile, in fact I’m sure the corners of my mouth must have lifted slightly. It was one of those fleeting moments where my husband takes a break from the strong, confident and capable man I see in most everything he does, instead he was my husband, a sweet grown boy, an elusive creature who I catch only glimpses of here and there. Asleep on the couch, playing with the dogs, laughing at the occasional crude joke with his guy friends, and when his favorite soccer or football team wins a particularly important match.

He proceeded to explain how and why it was the only mouse and that we didn’t need to worry about it. His story sounded  a lot like my mother’s ‘they don’t come in packs story’ but it didn’t ring true because . I looked him in the eye and what I found was his need to believe and I remembered my own need to believe and at the end of the day he was right, we had made a deal, I’d would take care of the rats.

When something was extra delicious, my father would say “that’s the best something or other I ever flapped a lip over.”

This flapping of a single lip over something (tacos come to mind) is the funniest, creepiest and weirdly visual thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t help but nearly hear the flapping of a lip laid down upon a food item. As I look at the phrase I feel a funny, slightly embarrassed twinge and then I can’t help but succumb to laughter.

What a strange thing to say. I haven’t been able to find anything about the origination of the phrase thus far but I’ll keep hunting.

<restlessness> a. lacking or denying rest  b. continuously moving  c. characterized by or manifesting unrest especially of mind

Save me. There are so many things I want to do but I don’t want to do any of them.

I could paint or draw or read but I can’t decide so I look around to try to figure out which one I want to do the most and then I find more things I want to do. Download pictures or research or write a letter to my aunt Dorothy. Only which one? I could work on the web site, mail out zines or send an email to Dawn but if I do that then I wont have time to paint or draw or read.

If I read, what? Would I read the grammar book, The Midwife’s Tale or Open Secrets? If I read the grammar book, which I’ve been meaning to do, then I can’t read The Midwife’s Tale. I know I’m not going to read the Nursery Crime Book anymore because life is too short and I’m not enjoying it. I would like to finish it because I hate unfinished books, like The River Why, in fact I still think about the River Why. I do need to finish the River Why because that was a good book, the problem with that was just me, not being able to focus. But don’t get me wrong the Nursery Crime book isn’t bad I just don’t get all the nursery rhyme allusions. It’s good actually, quite funny and a good mystery too but I know I’m missing a lot of funny jokes so I’m going to stop because there are a lot of other books to read.

Maybe I’ll just read the news for a bit, or play bejeweled or read some more about Thomas Pynchon – he’s fascinating. Well hermitry is fascinating. Is ‘hermitry’ a word? I guess not I can see that darned red squiggle underneath it. Of course I also get the spelling squiggle with ‘widdle’ which I know is a word. Seriously, widdle? We all know what it means but Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com both say there is no such word. AskOxford.com says it is a word but they completely bungled the definition – urinate? I don’t think so. Every person I ask knows what I mean when I say “I widdled a tiny frog out of a popsicle stick”. Shit, now I’ve got  the squiggle on popsicle, good grief.

Instead of all this back and forth maybe I’ll go clean the house or take the dogs to the park or finish the laundry. Maybe I just think I want to do all these artsy things but when it comes down to it I really don’t or am I scared? Scared? No, that’s weird. You know what I really really do need to do today though is work out. When I woke up this morning I told myself I’d work out today. Work out and work in the yard, those were the two things I had to do today. Work out, work in the yard and get the cell phone plan changed (and pay the utilities bill).

So yea, I should go running, and take the dogs. I am going to need to find my running shoes however. I think they are in the suitcase (which I haven’t unpacked). I should probably get that suitcase put away today.

Before I get all sweaty and dirty I should run to the grocery store so I can make something yummy for dinner tonight. But what? Maybe I’ll go look at some recipes. Crap, you know what, I don’t really feel like cooking and it’s hot out so maybe we’ll just have a big salad for dinner. Speaking of salad, I wanted to find out who wrote Lars and the Real Girl, that was such a good movie. I love it when you run across a movie that you think you can maybe take a nap too but it turns out to be really good. It made me laugh and cry at the same time, kind of like Special. It’s so simultaneously hilarious and heart wrenching terrible. I need to buy those two movies. I shouldn’t be buying anything until I get a job.

Shit, did I file my unemployment claim this week, arrgh. I guess I should definitely do that. Yea, I’ll do that and get the cell phone plan changed and then I can do something fun to make up for time spent on the chores. But what?

After a false start then a hiatus I’m back to try again. The first time around was typical, too much time spent trying to plot the perfect plan and hide behind melodrama. So this time we’ll try to abandon the vision and start with what we have at hand today.

Yes, I said ‘we’.

Amidst more than six months of weeds I discovered strawberry plants have cropped up in the footholds of their deceased brothers and sisters. The new plants grow straight out of the ashes of their distant siblings making it near impossible to know where life begins and death ends.

I carefully brushed at the twisted, withered leaves freeing the few whose final grasp was weak. However, some held tight, dipping into the ground in the same exact spot where new green stalks rose. I didn’t want to hurt the new by fiddling with the old so I let those, steadfast in their death grip, stay to give those strong enough the chance to either reach and crawl or be hindered by the past. Their fate left to each to decide.