When you let go of what you don’t need, what’s left?

We cushion ourselves from reality with things. Tangible objects like nice furniture and down comforters. Expensive flatware and big screen TVs. We hide behind niceties and social norms that we openly despise and secretly have in a death grip. Our cushions keep us warm at night and cool during the heat of day. We mask our stinky bodies with European perfume. Even when we die, we make it as civilized as possible, delaying decay until we are six feet under and no living human being has to come in contact with us again. Our cushions will not be pried from our desperate fingers even after death; the rigor mortis is that strong.

What would we find of each other, if say we stripped down to the core of who we are? If we let those things we call “life” but which serve no purpose simply melt away? What if we let go of everything that no longer or never did serve us? What would be left? At first, it would be scary. But after the inevitable fear would subside, because it will, there would make way for true exhilaration. If we all let everything go and retained only those things that mattered, the world might be little less full. Not empty, just not as cram packed of meaningless, sad customs and the expectations they bring.

How one decides what is needed is another story. There of course must be the question of value. Some say they could not live without football but in fact football does not fill your lungs. Exercise though, the act of physically playing football could be made a solid argument. If football lets you feel the energy that is you, then I say certainly you could not live without football just as a yogi could not live without his practice. But does football bring the galaxy to your intestines? Does it radiate out your fingertips? If it does, then yes, one could say life without football is a life not worth living.

This philosophy might result in minimalism but it might not. It might beget a stark room with a single lightbulb dangling from the cracked ceiling but it might not. It might result in a very cozy situation indeed. Letting go of what you don’t need simply means more room for what you do.

Regan’s Reasons

Regan was the kind of girl who would make eyes at the altar boys during her own mother’s funeral. I know because I’m the one who kicked her when I saw it happening and gave her a look; the kind of look a mother would give except in this case she was the one in the casket.

Why Regan had to insist on flirting with the boys now was beyond me. She should just stick with at school or during mass. But not now. When God AND her mother were watching from heaven. I silently asked God not to blame this on poor, dead Mrs. Burke. Regan was thirteen years old now and should take responsibility for her own trespasses.

They weren’t even anything special, really. They lit the incense and handed it to Father Walsh. Any idiot could do that. They sat together at lunch and drew that stupid emblem on every surface they came in contact with which I’m pretty sure is a sin anyway. How could she possibly even be interested in somebody who was a founding member of “Knights of the Altar” ?

The thing is, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t. Regan just liked to see them snuff out match after match trying to light the incense but were too nervous now knowing her steel-gray eyes were on them. She got joy over watching them fumble with the pages of their hymnals; making them sweat something sinful in their heavy robes. Regan loved that they looked like fools doing their best to remedy her own mother’s poor soul.

Regan was ruining her own mother’s funeral on purpose. She had always hated her. And truthfully, she had her reasons. But ever since Mrs. Burke accidentally inhaled her own car’s exhaust that night in August, Regan’s reasons seemed to grow.

Nelly Furtado = World Peace

The Cubans had been hogging the pool table all night.

“They got some shit to settle,” the guy with the tattoos all over his face told me. I think his name was Jake. “The Cubans, they’re on the right. They’re playing the Mexicans.”

“Why?” I asked. I wasn’t from this town and was suddenly very glad for that.

“Dunno. Territory. Girls. Whatever gangs fight for.”

I wouldn’t have minded so much if either of the gangs were any good at pool. They just kept pushing the balls around awkwardly. When someone actually hit a ball in a way you could hear, everyone snapped back to the game looking very hopeful. As if they too were sick of this stand-off. Like they didn’t care who won, just as long as it ended. There were other people that wanted to play. Other people with scores to settle over bar games.

I had never been to this town which was the point. Some days you just have to get in the car and drive. Sometimes you just want to tie one on in a foreign land. But air travel is expensive. And there’s so much weirdness right were you are.

Jake was either a rock star or a tattoo artist. The only two jobs in the world that allow you to have a tattooed face. Turns out, he was both. He was divorced. Probably because of one or both of his occupations. I didn’t ask.

“So how long is this gonna take?” I asked.

Jake laughed at my naivety. “Well,” he started, “it’s been going since I was old enough to see over the bar, which is when I started drinking. That said, for ever I would imagine.”

I was one of about five women in the bar. One of two people without a Mohawk. I was in over my head.

I should have known really. We hit the strip in this town and found several bars. With their country anthems and blue jeans, they were what I already knew. I was in the mood for something different. We were about ready to hang it up and head back to our anemic hotel room when we heard it. The unmistakable throbbing of techno-metal. We followed that bass down the street and around the corner into Oblivion. No, really. That was the name of the bar.

It’s always weird when having a mainstream appearance (i.e. colors other than black, minimal piercings, a smile) makes you the odd one out. Here we were. I requested Nelly Furtado. A perfectly ironic insult to this anti-everything crowd. The DJ played it though to my amazement.

The Cubans started tapping their toes. The Mexicans began nodding their heads. The perpetual game of pool came to a stand still as the dance floor was flooded by everything imaginable ethnic group. The great equalizer turned out to be Nelly Furtado.

We played pool with our noses in the air.

For the Hell of It

****The following is a draft of a personal statement to be included in graduate school applications. It was written for a specific university and is not a generic fill in the (blank) as it may suggest. I took a slightly different approach to it than the books on “How to Write a Personal Statement” claimed one should be written. They were pretty snooze-tastic if you ask me.

I remember the night it happened. I remember standing in my closet with one sock on, one sock off, being supported by crutches due to a broken foot. I hovered there staring at the hanging clothes my mother had bought me for job interviews. Tonight they would serve a different function. I was going to dinner with a theatre professor, my director, his actress wife and a man representing the Kennedy Center. In other words, with people who had been involved with theatre longer than I had been alive. Somehow we were destined to come together that night and dine on burritos.
I guess I know how it happened. In the spring of my sophomore year of undergraduate study I began work on a play for a course I had taken on a whim. I had no idea I would spend the next two years writing and rewriting the script or that I wouldn’t complete it until the fall after my graduation in 2008. Three playwriting courses and a public reading later, my university theatre decided to produce my play during their regular season. This is how I found myself desperately trying to select the proper attire to mingle with theatre folk. As if the right outfit might trick them into thinking I knew what I was talking about.
The theatre world seemed to embrace me, a reluctant participant. Don’t get me wrong. Having a play produced has been one of the greatest achievements of my life. My theatre professor, who is a playwright himself, graciously took me under his wing and fiercely advocated my success for which I am eternally grateful. The theatre has taught me so many things. It has taught me the meaning of thankless work. It has shown me the importance of economy. It has twisted my words in beautiful and unexpected ways. But most importantly it has shown me where my true passion lies.
I realized this on opening night, the same night of my all important dinner where these intense, vibrant people would talk of their passion, the stage. They would look at me when they talked. They included me in their conversations and I nodded a lot, all the while feeling like an intruder. I knew I possessed the same passion that they did, it just had yet to find a home. In the words of W. Somerset Maugham “after submitting myself for some years to the exigencies of the drama I hankered after the wide liberty of the novel.” I know exactly how he felt. Thoughts of drafting page after page of prose preoccupied my mind while I labored over stage directions. I longed to discuss creative literature and writing philosophies with my own colleagues, to thrive in an environment of like minded people where I felt like an insider rather than an imposter. I am dying to hone my craft to a level of sickening perfection. I believe the MFA program at the University of (Blank) is the perfect place, the home for my passion, my missing sock.
As my grades reflect, my last few semesters as an undergraduate were my best, due to the solidifying of my academic goals. By the time graduation rolled around, instead of feeling relieved I felt a deep desire for more. It was as if someone in the cinema had pulled the fire alarm right before the climax. Continuing on to a graduate program became something I simply needed to do, the logical next step. The University of (Blank) MFA program’s encouragement of students to explore various genres of creative writing is one feature that attracts me because nothing, particularly in literature, is ever isolated. As of late, I have been especially interested in creative nonfiction and the memoir. Writing my play required extensive research that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a thrill to find intriguing bits of truth and fashion an elaborate story around them. A workshop course I took on writing the memoir led me to appreciate the genre and experiment with it in my own writing. My creative writing sample is a reflection of this new obsession.
The collaborative environment, the climate of a writing community is essential for me to evolve as a writer but it is also one to which I will contribute. My experiences in theatre will allow me to bring a unique voice and point of view to share with my fellow writers. It has so greatly affected my prose and this will be brought as a benefit to enhance the group. I’ve been forced to explore the intricacies of language in a way that even my English courses didn’t demand and I need to share these experiences with others. I love to write. I’m serious about it. Since my graduation I’ve begun submitting to journals, magazines, anywhere I can. Some people have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and they have to line their shoes up a certain way every night. It’s kind of like that for me except I write. While I don’t view getting an MFA as a necessary career move, this will be an opportunity even if for a moment to focus solely on my writing and making it better. I know I will be strengthened as a writer and editor as well as a listener and collaborator. All are qualities which I need to be successful, to find that damn sock, and wear it with pride.

If you should happen to read this

I started reading them, one by one. These pathetic little last-ditch attempts at altering fate. People desperately clinging to some delusion that just maybe that smile from the gas station attendant meant more than that or that possibly the Hooters waitress was being more than dutifully friendly. Maybe.

You served us on Wednesday around 5 or 6. Your eyes and smile are unbeleiveable. I gave you my card and you said you would call, I’m still waiting.

How long will he wait? How many waitresses will smile before he realizes you can’t read waitstaff the way you can read people in the real world? How many waitresses have unknowingly broken his heart? A thousand. Into how many pieces? A million.

His beer bottle was sweating and so was he. Makes it hard to get a grip. She was cute. She was 19. She was cute because she was 19. Skin doesn’t stay that pink forever. Her nose was too big. She had a really stupid haircut, he thought. He didn’t get it. He was too old. But he wasn’t too old to wait. For a while, anyway.

You wearing a blue top almost bumped into me with your cart in the freezer section, I was wearing a blue polo with a white strip. I really like your hairstyle and your nose peircing and wish I would have taken the opportunity to give you my number, hopefully I’ll be able to see you again sometime.

He kicked himself all the way out of Woodmans. Why didn’t he just talk to her? Why is he such a wimp? He wasn’t buying anything weird, his cart was filled with what you would expect a polo-wearing wimp’s cart to be filled with: frozen pizza, mountain thunder, lunch meat, pop-tarts. Nothing she could have judged. She was buying tv dinners.

He went back the next week. But made sure to shower. Shaved himself clean. Smelled nice. You know, just in case.

And they go on like this, virtual page after virtual page. Long lost lovers who never even knew it searching for their soulmates completely unaware. I can’t help but wonder how often this approach works. It seems the kind of people who would get hung up over a smile from a stranger would be the only ones to read them. The people who are aleady doing the posting.

August 24th (sunday night) I seen you crying in your van at the park you had your windows rolled down , I heard you form distance sobbing , I still think about that night , you crying , I wanted to come up to you and ask you if you were all right. But I’m shy. I think about you often. You were in a Gray Dodge Caravan , I remember the look on your face , when you looked right up at me. I still wonder today. How you are doing? If you read this please let me know your ok.

And before I knew what I was doing I was responding. I thanked him for his concern. I assured him I was fine. Just sorting some things out in my head after a long week, nothing serious just exhaustion. I told him he was kind, he was a good person and had bad grammar. I thanked him again, told him not to worry and said goodbye.

Maybe I just didn’t want him to worry anymore. The thought of a stranger worrying about another stranger made me so happy inside, but he needed to be free of it. I needed to be free of it. These games and stories we make up in our heads hold us captive but they keep us responsible when we have nothing left. Sometimes they are so much easier to bare than the simple truth that a smile is just a formality or a glance wasn’t meant for you. It’s much more exciting the other way.

Around 2:15pm, you were leaving with a friend as I was walking in. Your smile shot me through the heart, perhaps you felt the same.

If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it anyway

The plane tickets are non-refundable. The rail passes aren’t either. They have been purchased and are being safely stored in a coffee can deep within a closet.

Maybe some rogue grounds clinging to the can will adhere to the rail pass instead. I’ll hand my pass to the train attendant. He’ll check that I’ve marked the appropriate day of travel and hand it back. He’ll look at his hand then rub his fingers together, wondering what this grainy, brown shrapnel on his hand is. He might ask his co-worker, what is this shit?, in a language I don’t understand or in an accent so thick the English is indiscernible. I won’t have the opportunity to explain.

You see, sir, these passes were in a coffee can. Back in America, I mean the United States. Think of it as a souvenir. My treat.

As for me, souvenirs would take up too much space in an already max-capacity 35lb backpack. Not to mention they weren’t accounted for in the budget. The only affordable souvenirs will be stamps in a passport, free evidence of my much-desired worldliness. Proof of my experience. Proof that one day, after real jobs, kids, commitments, will lay on a coffee table collecting dust and the occasional rogue ground.

Nothing against retail

Palpitating rhythms and inappropriate car honks followed by choruses of “woo”-ing. The air is saturated with the deceptively heavy aroma of lilac, grilling meat, and beer. Make your way around the chutes and ladders side streets of collegeland and be accosted by scantily clad students, set free with the pent-up ferocity of wild beasts. People hanging lazily off porches and railings for simply the act of it. Playing yard games reserved for the elderly and the idle. This could only mean one thing: the end of the semester.

The release has been replaced by nerves, the anticipation by fear. This is it. The real world. Does it start the day after graduation? Or in the fall when instead of heading off to class I head off to work a dead-end job because the one I wanted a) didn’t want me b) wanted too much c) will call you, don’t call us. What should be easy isn’t after all. What should be a given is a fight ever step of the way. The new college grad is unemployed, in debt, and drowning. I want to blame the current political situation (thanks G.W. for doing such a bang up job), I want to blame myself (of course you would pick English. WTF were you thinking?), I want to blame everyone who has a job already (Could you just, like, die or something?).

I wish someone had told me the dream job I was going to school for doesn’t exist. That writing one best-seller a year in the foothills of Spain, while maintaining a reclusive mystique and not having to pay taxes doesn’t generally work out for people. Generally. But Pottery Barn is hiring. I wish I had known college was insular poverty and the real poverty is yet to come.

And then Pottery Barn calls. And yes, you are willing to work nights and weekends. And you are interested in starting as soon as possible. And, somehow, you are excited because you will take whatever you can get. And just like that, you found your dream job.

Wish it had been chocolate

My eyelashes were crusting together by the time I got home. The night had cooled and the wind had picked up just enough to create a coagulating effect for the pudding. I was covered from head to Chuck Taylors with bulk vanilla pudding. The kind in 12lb cans from Sam’s Club. The pudding squished out my shoes with each step. It coated my skin with a shiny shield like crusting glue. It was getting hard to move. Forget about smiling.

It started off innocently enough. Just a couple kiddie pools filled with pudding and a Friday night. I was to be a spectator, not a participant. But Anne had to be a smartass and chuck a fistful of pudding at the back of my head. From there, it was out of my control.

The eight or so blocks to my house were spent chasing Prada girls on their way to the bars. They ran in those heels, to avoid our pudding-filled outstretched arms begging “Give me a huuuuug.”

I got home to find my roommate and a couple of her friends on our porch. It was one of the last weeks we would be able to drink outside. September leads you on.

I met the guy I ended up dumping on the porch that night, covered in pudding. He admitted to me later that was what drew him to me. The pudding. I knew we were in for trouble.

Maybe his mom had warned him to watch out for girls who smoke, work at gas stations, and drive Sunfires. But she should have warned him about girls covered in desserts.

They are bad news.

Role Model

There are people that you go places with, and there are people that you don’t. Certain people belong in certain places. There are school people, work people, drinking people, coffee shop people. When you see these people out of context, it’s off putting. I don’t want to see the girl that makes my lattes, no matter how second-hand chic she is, at the place where I work. I’m not fond of running into school people at the bar or bar people at school.

The danger lies not with them so much as it does with me. See, they could start comparing notes and realize that I’m never the same in these different places. At school I’m quiet, at the bar I’m loud. I contemplate global warming at the coffee shop and mix recyclables at work. Suddenly, two and two doesnt make four. It makes a hypocrite, a girl with no undeniable personality. A blobular mass of whatever is supposed to be given the situation. A liar, maybe.

It should be easy. But mixing these worlds scares the shit out of me. That’s why blogging is so wonderful. I can say anything without taking ownership of one word. Kinda makes me want to swear. Or promise something fantastic.

The Game

Our summer nights usually consist of this, Trivial Pursuit and a bottle of Jagermeister. Maybe two rounds of one, the other, or both depending on the night. We used to use the Jager as a reward, taking a shot upon answering a question correctly, but that seems to happen so rarely that now the Jager is a punishment to be endured after each incorrect response. More shots are consumed this way. We discuss purchasing a new board, one with questions pertaining to our brief lifetimes, but she decides against it. She always has been a glutton for punishment. As it stands, our lonely little amputated circles longing for their completing pie pieces usually end up in the couch cushions as we stagger to the bar defeated, waving a white flag to the last few drops of Jagermeister. We still have a ways to go tonight.

We own the 1981 Genus edition, the original. The answers to the questions are many times countries that don’t exist anymore, records that have been long since broken, and refuted scientific claims. We aren’t playing to get any smarter.

“Nope, the answer is Czechoslovakia. See?” she points to the card.

“Yeah that was the answer in 1981,” I protest.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules,” she says. “Now drink.”

I comply. The tepid Jager goes down like cough syrup. It tastes strangely comforting, familiar, like so many wasted nights spent rolling the die over and over again. First a two, then a five, then one, four, six in no particular order. We work our way around the game board toward a goal we both know will eventually be abandoned for a smoky, dimly lit bar. It gives our conversations a taste, our conversations about the meaning of life (death), work (infuriating yet necessary), her disease (permanent). It all tastes like Jagermeister.

It’s her turn. She rolls. Her strategy consists of utilizing every “roll again” spot on the game board until she no longer can. She rolls again. And again, and again, until finally she has to answer a question.