What Would Dorothy Parker Do?

2008-04-09T09:30:00.000-04:00

2007-02-06T19:50:00.000-05:00

someone once said
if you are going to fall
fall forward
The End.

before and after...

2007-02-01T00:11:00.000-05:00

she said,
"i wish i could be her for just a minute.
Just to have you look at me the way you look at you phone when it lights up when she calls"

which made me sad in a way that i dont even know how to articulate.

and
i wish you looked at me the way you used to

the way she does now.

laugh clown, laugh.

2007-01-24T23:10:00.000-05:00

im afraid to say too much.
im keeping everything to the barest of minimums.
i think there is no surprise in how i feel.
im lost.
and lonely.
and even when im laughing really hard and loud.
i wish that she could be there to hear what im hearing
and laugh at what im finding so funny.

the laughing is new.
im scared a little bit that im laughing when im sad
i worry that maybe im handling this too well.

im not talking about it so dont ask me

2007-01-22T23:50:00.000-05:00

i always knew that girls could break my heart in a way that boys would never be able to
it was always my biggest fear.
it was the reason i was so ginger with my affection
it was the reason i kept them at arms length
and picked the ones that wouldnt be a concern.

i dont think she sees the value of this.
or the rarity.
in the day to day
and in crisis she is unable to see clear.
in crisis i see more clearly than i do at any other time
what really is and what really is not
and this crisis was like a big, wide, blue sky
where i could see for miles
and all i could see was the single thick black cloud
that would always be there
that no matter what i do
no matter how much i try to redeem myself
no matter how dilligent i am
i will always have a record

maybe in the end, i picked the one that would do the most thorough job.
and at some level i knew it going in.
then i was lulled into thinking that it wouldnt happen.
and it did.
and then it happened again
now maybe i should put the little hard candy shell back on

know no evil

2007-01-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

i dont ask.
mostly because i know
a little because i dont want to know any more than i know.
there really isnt any more time in the day so there isnt anything to wonder about.
i know her.
well enough to know that she can't split herself
soooooo
finely
to know that she is harder on herself than

that

but i dont KNOW
i know what i think i know
and whos to say that im not fooling myself
because i must
in order to be where i am
that i dont
lalallalalalallalalalala

and i dont ask because
i like being here

right.
here.

2007-01-06T19:40:00.000-05:00

I gave her my fathers crooked smile.
The one he gives when he is feeling all-right with the world.

I hadn't known until that moment that I even had that smile.
The devil smile that charmed everyone
The smile that got him through.
The one he gave to women right before he said 'hi sweeeeetie!!!!' in a slightly higher pitched voice.

I wondered if I did it all the time or I if I had just discovered this hidden ability.

If I HAD been in possession of this sleight of hand all my life, how much had it determined where I found myself? How had it gotten ME through? Did it charm people the same way?
i dont know
but
what i do know is that she introduced herself right after.

a month

2006-12-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

junkie
with guilt
and i never even let on
still embarassed by my lack of will
and i spent the time spinning and spinning and building cities
with houses and temples and freeways
and seemingly dreaming of disatsers and heartbreaks
and its hard to know whats real when shes only that close
and its hard to know whats right when you are far less dressed
and its easy to believe when she wakes up and sleepily kisses your furrowed forehead

amnesia

2006-11-11T16:45:00.000-05:00

my head screams that it wants out of my skin more often that one would imagine.
i picture myself running and running and running until i collapse.
blaming my parents seems the simplest solution
maybe they let something happen to me that i dont remember
but that cant be right
its always the little things that i forget
never the big things

history always repeats

2006-11-10T16:33:00.000-05:00

as funny as this is going to sound to the other half of the "Bad Idea Bears"
i am not impulsive with her.

in the past, my talent to get away with
shooting my mouth off
if im pissed or cranky or over it
has been second to none.
and its not just that she wouldn't let me get away with it,
its that i don't try do it.

my ability to sort through things,
my ability to stop and assess,
my desire to be a grown up about how i deal with things that come up between us.
the lack of compulsion to flee when things get heavy.
the fact that im not panicking from the weight of it.
that, for the first time,
in a very LONG time,
i do not have one eye on the door
or on another girl.
i am not sure what to do with that last one.
as that has been a constant in my relationships for almost as long as i can remember.

i have both of my eyes squarely on her
and this
and sometimes my shoes

this was written on 10/20/04
and i still feel the same way.

there is no other place i'd wanna be

2006-10-31T22:14:00.000-05:00

i am right here.
its a struggle for me most of the time because I'm always looking down the hall at whats coming next.
i have an idea of whats coming next
but i'm enjoying how simple this has become.
how i expect nothing except the space this deserves
this is the first time we have ever been exactly where we are right now.
in all the years and rapture and crap and junkiness and aloneness
we have never been right here.
and i really really like it.
i have to remind her that i still feel like a guest.
for now.
but when she looks at me with that crooked smile that I had almost forgotten about
i feel like i was never away.
when she backed me against the wall and grabbed my mouth to kiss me
i recognized it like it was yesterday.

this morning I woke up remembering some years ago
the yellow light shining over us as she sat straddled over me in an industrial neighborhood
with wooden palettes looming above our heads.
she looked past me and said, almost as if she were talking to the sky,
"I wonder where we will be in 5 years."
i smiled at her and shrugged my shoulders
and she said
"probably much farther along than X and I are"

right now i feel like i am where I belong

sun and the rainfall

2006-10-12T19:02:00.000-04:00

it was nice to laugh.
both of us
loud and a lot
the ease with which we move around each other
the sun and ocean
and her skin
and my little heart
happy and thumpthumpthumping

dawn

2006-10-04T22:42:00.000-04:00

i realized tonight
while spewing things that didnt belong to me
that i am ok
no matter what happens now
i am ok.

2006-10-03T22:16:00.000-04:00

i said that i had grown more in the last six months than i thought myself capable in a lifetime.
she said
"please promise you won't give up just yet.
not until..."
i promised.
because she might be right.
i hope shes right.

"it won't be easy for awhile"

2006-09-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

i am trying to look ahead to when it can be easy.

to a time when i will be able to kiss her shoulder
because the light is hitting it just right
and i cant help myself.

long division

2006-09-05T15:42:00.000-04:00

she told me that i had beautiful hands
i looked down and i laughed
because?
of course i should.

when she told me i had beautiful eyes
i believed her.
because it was convenient

"you can get anything you want with those eyes, cant you?"

but my petrified deer look
when she asked if she would see me again
made me feel like a monster
i would spend the rest of my time avoiding her

even when she said
"look! i can pull off 'boy'..."
gorgeous,
with her baseball hat holding all that hair back behind her ears

i just tilted my head and smiled and looked at the boardwalk
and knew that after dinner I would never see her again.

2006-09-02T20:26:00.000-04:00

i felt like i had been ravished by God.

that same heady, drunk feeling i had had the night before
when we broke the bed and she left.
but this was sea
and sky
i hadnt felt wind like that in years
nearly toppling me from my wooded perch
as a child, growing up at the beach, i had experienced the force of the ocean
it scared me
it felt overwhelming and far more powerful than anything i knew
and
i had seen a lot.

the water at night was terrifying
enough to give me nightmares
and the most primal reaction when faced with standing at the edge of white capped blackness.
i wanted to run

but tonight, i stood on the stairs as the waves crashed just feet from where i stood.
daring me to step from my safe spot and join it.
the air whipping my hair around furiously.

i didnt think about where she was tonight

i didnt think about what was happening

or the girl who'd bought me a drink and said she'd be looking for me later

i thought about "god"
and i thought about how
that moment was as close as i would ever get to seeing it
and
as i do whenever i feel small and overpowered
i said
"thank you"

secret code

2006-08-29T01:12:00.000-04:00

this is the story of the unraveling of us.
but at its core it has been a continuous love letter to you.

a way of sorting through
but also a way of letting you know what was important when i wasn't able to tell you outloud,
when sometimes even post its wouldnt have done.

because we both knew you would
and we both knew that i was writing it to you

i feel incredibly at ease now
surprisingly so.
it feels good
and
you were right
i Do keep going back to the beginning to say
"remember when you came to my house JUST to tuck me in?"
or
"remember when we would walk around the streets of SOHO for hours having temper tantrums in aisle 7 when we couldnt find dinner at 1am"
that was before we were interrupted.
thats when we built what we have now in its bare bones structure.
we ARE there
with all of the stuff stripped away

i will never be able to rid us of the fallout.
the only thing that i can continue to do is to try to make up for it.
and to never forget how fragile it is
and how wildly forunate i am that it is also so sturdy.

lost

2006-08-21T00:10:00.000-04:00

im not really sure where to write what anymore.
i have had everything perfectly segmented and split according to its gravity.
i am worried about the levees
and what is going to seep into what
where is the sewage going to go?
what will happen to my house?
i thought i was sure that the worst was over
but what if its not?

i talked about the beauty of the walls around you while you move through something.
sometimes that is easier to say.

i told her that i envisioned gagging and tying up my inner 'caretaker'
but i realized that, really? its one of the things that i am best at and i don't ever want to give it up.

no more monkeys jumping on the bed

2006-08-12T16:42:00.000-04:00

my hair still full of last night
covering a brain dreaming of taking all the unruly monkeys by the hand
one by one
sitting them down calmly and quietly
and giving them a job
making architectural models maybe.
something to keep them busy but thinking.
anything to get them to stop shrieking and jumping on the console

friday is the new sunday

2006-08-05T11:17:00.000-04:00

last night i felt 'lonely'
but simply that.
there was no sadness or grief attached to it.
just lonely

it was in the noticing that everyone was coupled up last night
and that all i wanted
after a really rough week
was to have my knees pressed into the back of someone elses
curled up on the couch
and NOT going out.

backstroke

2006-08-01T22:54:00.000-04:00

my head feels 'swimmy' and good.
it feels nice to experience that giddiness and let go of what you think it 'should' be.
I would be lying if I said that there wasn't a tiny bit of me that is yelling
'dumdum. Be careful please'

history never repeats

2006-07-29T00:06:00.000-04:00

I am a really good friend.
if I have nothing else in the world going for me, at least I have that.
and no matter how many times it might happen I am always surprised when someone that I believe in disappoints me by not being a good friend.

resorting

2006-07-21T16:04:00.000-04:00

my toes and legs have been slowly creeping
diagonally across the bed on to her side
i am slowly creeping back to my self in the singular

it's been awhile since i cried .
but tuesday night i cried myself to sleep.
while spooning her pillow.
i dreamt of love letters written in gorgeous linear lettering
i was able to make out only one word

"giving"

i rubbed the letters against the paint in the hallway
thus putting the writing on the wall myself
trying to subconciously gain some control
over a situation over which i have none.

wednesday she called to tell me that she missed my spoon
i told her i had been spooning her pillow
but
i hadn't told her that i cried
and
i didn't say that i was starting to usurp her spot.

also
i didn't tell her that i thought we might be getting closer to even

puzzle pieces

2006-07-17T23:59:00.000-04:00

I don't even know where I would be able to find anything to give to anyone else.
I slowly handed everything over to you.
all of my secrets,
all of my quiet quirks,
all of the things that I was never able to give as much of as i did to you.
including my guts.
I never dreamed that you would no longer be able to care for them.
and there they are sitting on a table for everyone to see.
and I don't know how to put them back in the right way.