a charmed life

We were eating breakfast. Isaac was already late for school. Again.

The computer had seized, its hard drive grinding and gnashing its teeth for several hours before simply refusing to come to life at all. On it, downloads of 50 CDs that were to be our travel music for 5 weeks that Mike had not yet gotten onto an MP3 player.

I was limping around in pain, my back on the lower right side pitched to the point of no return; relaxation not so simple, my couch already disappeared into the storage POD outside my window and the religious peddlers forever pounding on the door while I try to prop myself in bed.

My garden had been ravaged – friends digging up my blooming beauties – better they have them than the landlord's extermo-gardeners mow it all down without discretion after we're gone, though in the latter scenario I wouldn't have to watch.

My son's pretty face was marred by the gashes and cuts of a recent and terrible asphalt tumble that left him trembling like I've never before witnessed, his knees torn up by the same fall and one more two days later when he grated his skin over a climbing wall after losing his grip and sliding the rest of the way down.

Mike was wearing a brace against his wracking cough that threatened to wrench his back out if loading the POD didn't first.

My father-in-law was in the hospital again.

I was showing signs of preterm labor.

We were leaving our life in 8 days, but it seemed already to be falling apart around us.

My husband's '93 Honda del Sol, the very same we traveled across the country in when we came out to Monterey was still not sold or otherwise disposed of. However, he'd had an inquiry, a man who might even pay him $1,000 for the junker – one dollar for every day that bag of chips and salsa have lived in the center console, I guess. We were discussing having to get that deal moving when Mike discovered he couldn't find the keys. The del Sol was down the block, booted from its usual spot in the driveway or in front of the house by the VW van and the POD, respectively. “Sometimes the keys get left in the trunk lock,” Mike offered.

“They do, huh? Just 'get left' there?” I asked, wondering if this was really the time to discuss the social and grammatical implications of the passive voice.

And then, I started to laugh. And laugh. Hysterically. I couldn't stop.

“Why are you laughing?” Isaac asked me half-concerned, half-giggling himself under the pressure of contagion.

I could barely catch my breath to explain. The sound just rolled out of me, on and on, full and maniacal. “Be-B-Be-Be-Cause...Our life...is a DISASTER!”

Mike returned from the car, which miraculously was still there, with the keys. “Yup. Trunk lock.”

Ah, see. No one stole the car. The keys were found. The gods, clearly, have been smiling on us.

From: These United States, an episodic tale. Pre-departure thoughts: Nebraska.

Though we haven't had nearly enough time to concentrate on planning the fun stops for our drive across country, we have the beginning and the end more or less mapped out. It's the middle that we're still not sure about. How many other treks, real and figurative, must share this dilemma?

As it looks now, we may be crossing the state of Nebraska on our journey east. When this first came to my attention, I of course emailed Megan, our former babysitter extraordinaire. She watched Isaac a couple days a week for us for about two years. Truly, if I thought tying her down or bribing her with riches would have kept her from moving to Portland (along with most of the rest of California), I would have done it. Megan was the kind of person you dream of watching your child. Isaac loved her; and what was not to love? She is fun, creative, responsible, infused with common sense, and dedicated to teaching young children (she left to complete a certificate program in Montessori education). Megan is also a traveler, a vegan, a generally interesting person and, as it happens, a native of Nebraska. I figured if Nebraska had produced such a soul, perhaps there was more than basketball and grasslands there. So I asked her what we should stop and see in her fine state. Her advice? “Just keep driving.”

Damn. But surely... With the determination that comes from an age honed in its futility by mindless hours of internet research, I soldiered on, finding with every Google click involving Nebraska, one common feature: “Carhenge.” Voted America's 2nd "Wackiest Attraction," it apparently just lost out for the top spot to a toilet seat museum in San Antonio. But nevermind the near miss, this is Nebraska's roadside claim to fame. A spot in the middle of nothing where someone has painted cars a silver gray and piled them up to resemble the ancient and mysterious Stonehenge of England. Except stacked cars are not ancient or mysterious, and neither, I was starting to see, was anything about Nebraska.

One more try – The Nebraska State Parks website featured links to their various regions and attractions of each. I chose a region at random and clicked. There were two attractions listed. One was a steak house.

Sometimes you try to give something a fair shake. You shake and shake, but nothing comes out.

some belly progression pics

Craig's List and other social experiments

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” - Woody Allen

The eight-year-old was in the garage rifling through boxes, the three-year-old had found Isaac's room (“Here's the toy room!”), the smallest was still on his mother's hip for now, their father was talking about the computer hutch with Mike, and the people who came for the futon were inspecting bolts. It was our dinner time, our usual space to unwind, though any movement toward sustenance and family bonding had been arrested: the Craig's List people were here.

We had hosted a “give away” party for our friends the week before. They had come, dutifully, some sad, some glowing at the thought of snatching up my most prized succulents in their elegant painted pots. Books and candles, folding chairs, the streptocarpus, the solar dehydrator, tables, shelves, seeds, booze, it all walked out. Still, we were left with too much. So, against my better judgment, I placed an ad on Craig's List.

Strangely, the biggest draw was one of our dressers. We had recovered it from the garage of the last house we rented, swept out the spider eggs and repaired the drawer that had been driven into, then painted it a dark slate blue with cream drawer fronts, and bought it sparkly new knobs. Five years on, it wobbled a little and needed a new paint job. I posted it for 10 bucks. The crowd went wild.

Of course, there is the surge of excitement that precipitates that initial email of inquiry and then there's actually setting your Suburban's GPS to our address and showing up. The ten-dollar dresser almost brought me to my knees for the shear number of no-shows it conjured. But now, things were different. Here were two families perusing our various sale items – best to lump people at the same time, pull the Bandaid off zip, one, two, three. It'll hurt a lot but only for a second.

“Is this for sale??” It's the eight-year-old. He's got the roll of little plastic international flags we decorated with during the Obama party. “It's yours!” I say happily, and he clutches it gleefully to his chest. Pay back time. For all those garage sales we went to where people so very “kindly” gave Isaac huge bags of beads, stuffed animals, shit they wanted to be rid of that I didn't want any more than they did. “How about this?” the boy asks hopefully, showing me a book of traveler's quotes. “Take it!”

The kids are now rolling around on the futon someone else is looking to purchase. “Are they all yours?” futon lady asks me. “No, just that one over there. The one who looks stunned into silence.” Isaac is seated on the loveseat between two strangers, wide-eyed and quiet.

It's complete mayhem. The eighteen-month-old is on the loose now, our stomachs are growling, the three-year-old is driving one of Isaac's Lego trucks along the molding.

Before, everyone leaves, I discover a convoluted connection with futon lady involving poetry and events of some ten years back, and the three-year-old is looking hard to score something to take, just like his brother. “Can I have THIS?” he asks. He's holding our to do list. I'd love to say yes, take it, please, out of my sight forever, but I trade him for a pirate pencil.

Tomorrow there will be more of this: People who are getting some of our junk as temporary furniture, having just moved from Japan without any hope of seeing their things shipped while hundreds of thousands of displaced Japanese struggle to regain a daily life. A couple who've driven all the way from Salinas to take home my five-dollar butterfly chair. For tonight, finally, we've closed a deal or two, we can eat, maybe get our kid to bed before nine. Only problem is, we might have to dine on the f-ing dresser. Damn thing's still here, but someone bought our kitchen table.

three square inches, or, the problem with moving

 The detritus of drawers, shelves otherwise cleared. There is so much. Any small object that can act as a receptacle. It all comes back to haunt you. The contents of a ceramic bowl I made once upon a time in a pottery class that sits by the front door on a small drawered table Mike doctored the legs of and painted orange included three different kinds of screws, several paper clips, much lint, glass beads of unknown origin and conference nametag holder, and about 17 other items no bigger than your pinky tip but much less useful (photo to follow - of the content, not your pinky tip). This is just what was left after we extracted from it the car keys and about six dollars in change. Three square inches – multiply by god knows and that's the hardest stuff to sort, to “pack,” to have to see.

One week is a Monterey week. I want to throw my arms around the bay, pack the Aquarium, bungie a fleet of redwoods to the roof of the van. I can't go. My friends are wonderful, making this all worse, of course.

Another week is a fuck-this-place-anyway week. Backward ass ideas about health care. Schools floundering desperately in a sea of old people holding on hard to their inheritance. And an article, perhaps my last for the paper here before I hit the road, about a big New York show coming to town one night only – a Wednesday night. The ticket prices START at $53. What? I feel like I need to go over that again. A Wednesday night. $53. WHO is going to this?????? But that's just it. People are going. Just not the people I know.

I think this is the part of the movie where (naturally in the pouring rain) I pound my fists on the strong, hairy chest of my love and my nemesis screaming, “I hate you, Monterey! I hate you! I hate you!” Then kiss him passionately and with abandon.

 

trying to stay Zen about it all.

just a few of the beautiful people we're leaving behind

21 days til we hit the road.

foreign travel

I am actually panicking because I read somewhere at some point that children's perceptions of the world begin to solidify from the age of 8. Am I going to get this family abroad before Isaac turns 8? It's not looking great. But we are about to embark on a drive across the country and if I recall correctly from the last time I did such a thing, it was one of the most foreign experiences I've ever had.

I've been to 16 countries. I don't recall weeping for extended periods of time while traveling through any of them. However, I can't say the same for my time in Wyoming and Montana, for example. I'm just not a wild west kind of girl. These places, their emptiness and landlocked culture unnerve me, despite the fact that Glacier National Park was possibly the favorite stop on our drive. Apart from that, Mike nearly dropped me off unceremoniously somewhere outside of Butte because I couldn't stop blubbering.

Isaac just showed me a binder he's working on at school of the different sections of the country. We'll use it to track our route. I couldn't help but notice that he wrote “Momtana,” and that the label for Wyoming was upside down, that state alone not colored in. Perhaps I'm not the only family member that has a hard time grasping these places.

I want Isaac to know – to really get it – that not everyone lives like us, that there are choices, diversity, landscapes and traditions that dictate very different days. I want him to appreciate this point. I want him to spend time living in some of these different days. But I drag with me to the table of best intentions my biases.

While reading his UNICEF Children Just Like Me book the other day, Isaac shook his head slowly and thoughtfully. “Africa sure has some cool people,” he said. I love that kid. How right he must be. When I think about the African continent I have no doubt that given the first opportunity I'd go get whatever battery of shots necessary and jump on a plane in a second. But North Dakota? Idaho? Oklahoma? What will protect me in these foreign lands?

Here are some shots from our last cross country adventure. 38 days til take off. 

for the love of a van

No, I still haven't written about the fiasco that was to be our first van purchase – the camper that would have taken us across the country with shit for karma. If there is a saint of screwed up vehicle transactions, then his or her image must have been swinging from the rear view on this baby.

But why would I want to tell you about the people who lied, who made my son cry, whom I threatened with various legal actions and a few other thigns before they returned our money, when I can tell you about the van we did buy. The happy van. The one currently getting a facelift, due back in another day, if the mechanic is willing to part with it, that is. He seems kind of attached.

Here's what I hear on a daily basis now: “I'm so jealous!” Even my acupuncturist, a sweet, reserved Danish woman, when I told her we were driving across the U.S. in the van, stared at me for just a beat before her composure broke. “I've always wanted to do that,” she whispered.

Deciding to bring a wee bit of California with us when we charge east, we bought a VW pop-up camper bus. The whole of the west coast is drooling in envy and the whole of the mid-section of the country will hold us in suspicion and most of the east coast will likely just roll their collective eyes, the in-laws in particular should be fully convinced of our insanity, in case we had any chance left at redemption.

When we got married in Monterey almost 10 years ago, we thought it'd be funny if our guests threw granola when we emerged after the ceremony. You know, “crunchy,” “granola,” “California.” My father-in-law, thinking the mapley nuts and oats tied in small silk bags a snack, ate his. Some people just aren't up for a joke.

We hit the road in 42 days.

un-nesting

It's interesting how everyone assumed my first pregnancy was planned and how everyone assumes that this pregnancy was a surprise. The sky is a vast, people. Look up and out of yourself once in a while.

Things change. Ideas and goals change. So here's a little manifesto I wrote a while back about the phenomenon of the only child. I still believe all of it. And it's also true that when I wrote it, I never thought I'd have another kiddo. Yes, the sky is vast.

People often ask if this pregnancy feels different than my first. How could it not? But they're baffled when I elaborate. They want to hear how I'm carrying, what I feel like, but what I tell them is just what I know: that last time, I wanted chocolate pudding and watermelon, lots and lots of watermelon. This pregnancy I want lemonade, tomatoes and those Thai fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce. Last time I was pregnant, I woke up and sneezed three times every morning. This time it's two sneezes.

As my belly grows, we are also beginning to pack boxes, to unseat what we have built around us as a home. I am forced into the rather unnatural state of “un-nesting.”

Six and a half years ago when I was pregnant with Isaac I wouldn't have put much stock in the idea of biological urges to nest, to clean. The morning before I went into labor, I suddenly spotted a giant conch shell Mike had brought back from an island trip that was fated to live out its days in the tideless waters of our bathroom. Even as I grabbed it, scrubbing ruthlessly at the dust embedded in every crevice, dust I had never before cared about or taken notice of in any way, it did not occur to me that something was going on over which I had no control.

It's external forces beyond my control that are jostling me about this time. I've been un-nesting bookshelves, un-nesting closets. The packing has started.

We finally found an affordable house we really wanted, only to be told it had just gone under contract with someone else. One of the first baby names I put in our “like” column startled me when I punched it into Google and received back its meaning: new house. Um. Yeah. Apparently, I kind of want a place to live. Apparently, I want a baby. Go figure.

and dreaming, they say, is also free

My email address that I created almost 14 years ago is "montereybound." I can remember sitting in front of my new desktop computer at the little desk in the little kitchen of the little apartment I shared with someone I found in an ad, but who would become a friend and a kickass roomie (Hi, Dean!) in Arlington, Virginia and choosing this online identity. Dean was there that day, and Mike, too. I was bound for Monterey - headed for the Monterey Institute of International Studies and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and I was way excited.

When I asked Mike if he wanted to come, I don't know what I expected, but I don't think I expected him to say yes. Which he did. And which promptly freaked me out completely. He left a condo he'd just renovated, a whole cache of friends, and a government job of seven years to drive across the country with someone he'd known about 9 months in a Honda del Sol with a lot of cassettes (yes, cassettes) and a couple of plants. We were on our way. Monterey bound.

Years later, still here and having acquired wedding rings, cats, that degree...the address worked on another level. "Montereybound," I'd recite to people to whom I was giving my email, "As in, tied here."

I have no plans to change my email, as we start the search for boxes, call for quotes on PODS.

During another long night of research and planning on everything in the world, we got on Craig's List to see if anyone had any moving boxes to give away. Typing "box" into the search under the Free category brought some interesting bits. Lots of box springs, for example. And one ad that had Mike and I about ready to bust a gut

"Small Box of Misc. Food."

Clicking on the ad, it began "I have one of those boxes of random food..." You know, one of THOSE boxes. In college once, my roommate woke up one day and said  to me: "You know when you have one of those dreams when all your teeth fall out?" Sure, Patty, sure.

In case you're in the area and interested, here's the list of Misc. Food available (and I quote...):

Jar of Preserved Squashes (not opened)
banana chips
split peas
microwavable brown rice
Mrs Butterworth
Kamut puffs
multigrain crakcers
a couple of mystery spices
ginger candy

After catching our breath on this little experience, we figured it might be only fair to check out what popped up under a search for "box" in the free section of the Western Massachusetts Craig's List. "Massive Box of Free Stuff" one ad boasted followed by helpful suggestions on what one might do with it all, including, "Some stuff could be burned for heat." Then there was the "indoor/outdoor ceiling fan," which had our imaginations going for quite a while. And finally, "Homemade time machine!"

Perhaps that last one could come in handy since our time here is running out much too quickly.

seeking the tools of the road

Clearly, when we leave this house the spiders will just take over. We're barely holding them off as it is. I am watching one as I type this. An enormous black creature hurrying over the highest line of wall in my bedroom, just below the ceiling. For any of you Harry Potter fans, I'd say definitely belonging to the progeny of Aragog; for those of you unfamiliar with HP, uh, it's a big spider.

Where do these things come in? Is there a spider hatch I don't know about? Do they momentarily stun me when I open the front door and slip in? And why are they never the ones I see in my garden? The tame, sweet eight-leggers trapping flies and feasting on aphids.

Despite the fact that we have no house to end up in on the other end of our impending move, we have been focusing almost exclusively on the road trip that will get us there. It's a bit like obsessing about the wedding day without a clue of what the marriage will require.

We just came from the bookstore where we perused fruitlessly the road atlases and USA travel guides for something useful. The atlas that touted itself as the best and only one you'll ever need seemed to choose its inclusions randomly at best. The chapter on Colorado featured a page on the restaurants of Denver. Nice. And...that was all.

There were “Easy Fold Out!” maps to Washington, D.C., Lima, Peru, Sacramento. There were big fat books of campgrounds across the country and state parks, often so huge you'd also need to pack the coffee table to accommodate them.

Mike found a tempting book called Watch It Made In the USA which took you through any factory tour you might want to go on. So the question here is not whether my son would like to watch how Harley Davidson motorcycles are made, but the problem with books like that is that after you invest $22 and fall in love with the page on blown glass, you find yourself trying to come up with excuses to drive hundreds of miles out of your way into the mountains of West Virginia and when you get there your kid is sick and whiny and no one wants to go. Also, you find things out you'd have been better off not knowing, like the fact that they make teddy bears and jelly beans in California. Remind me why we're leaving again?

It didn't take long before I gave up on the reference publications and zeroed in on the travel literature. There is no shortage. Postcards from Europe, Please Hug Me, I've Been Delayed, Venice is a Fish, Radio Shagri-La, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: An American Journalist in Yemen...Among them was also this title by Doreen Orion: Queen of the Road. The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus with a Will of Its Own. This depresses me on several counts, not the least of which has everything to do with bitter competition. I feel, to some degree, upstaged, outdone, beaten to the punch.

I would like to write about my trip too, since, duh, it's what I do. But here's the thing: I have this crazy notion that I want to get paid for it. I'm hoping to hook up with a publication “on the other side” as I like to call our destination, to take on a series of tales about many fewer states than 47, many thousands of miles fewer than 22,000, about 2 shoes, only 1 cat, no poodle, a husband, a preggo wife, a six-year-old boy and, with any luck, a van that works.

We've also been shopping for used camper vans. If you've ever bought anything so much as a paper clip through Craig's List then you know that experiences with people who post there can range from delightful bargains to psycho scams. Somehow, buying a vehicle that we hope will move our family safely through a month-long 4,000 mile trip feels a bit more risky than scouting out those oak dining chairs we picked up a couple years back. 

There is a story about our first van exchange as I've already hinted at in my previous post, but that will have to wait for another day.

where to start?

Maybe with the road collapse that trapped us in Big Sur? Maybe with the 3 1/2 hour detour that got us home, me with an aching back since I'm now nearly 4 months pregnant. Did I say that? Maybe how we're moving across the country in less than 2 months? Or perhaps how we were nearly swindled out of thousands of dollars by a bunch weenie-ass criminals selling a camper van? Oh, so many choices. Will get to them all in time. Tune in soon.

some soundbites from the last few weeks

(looking out the window as we fly to a layover stop in Las Vegas)

“Is that a desert?”

“Yup.”

“A REAL LIVE desert??”

“Yes.”

“Camels?”

“No camels.”

“---.”

(at the rehearsal dinner for my friend's wedding, with an awful cold and knowledge of desserts ahead)

“Momby? It's weawy hard to breab.”

“We need to leave, Isaac, and put you to bed.”

“Whab aboud da tweats?”

(while getting dressed for the wedding the clip-on tie in one hand, holding up the untied tie in the other)

“This one's broken!”

(explaining his recent clingyness through the music & rhythm instruction he's gotten at school – learning basic four-beat bars, “ti-ti” = eighth notes, “ta” = quarter note)

“You've been wanting a lot of Mommy cuddles lately, huh? Do you know why?

“You know how there's “Ti-Ti Ta Ta Rest? Well, you're the Rest!”

(when his video clip wouldn't play on the computer)

“Click again!”

“Honey, I've clicked a hundred times; it doesn't want to work.”

“Punch the computer then!”

“Believe me, that method's been tried.”

(playing demolition with his blocks)
"Everything was wiped out! There was a WIND STORM! A THUNDERSTORM! A HURRICANE! A TOMATO!"

down by the river...take two

“You know, I think it's about time we start looking for a house.” My son said this to me casually enough the other day while we were driving in the car. He means in Massachusetts. Since as much as we all like the school we saw 50 minutes north of here, we can't seem to reconcile the housing prices, neighborhoods, etc for the life we want. We've told him that.

He's not all that thrilled with the idea of moving across the country. He's told us that too. He's been fragile and regressive and generally difficult. It's a lot of unknowns. But he's a realist. Appealing to logic with Isaac has long been a strategy we rely on with him. It works. My son and I are different in that way. And so, he's trying to move his mind forward to a Massachusetts life.

Isaac is, as usual, right. About the house that is. We need to find a house. Problem is not much has been coming through what with that pesky little winter thing going on out there.

We have, however, been checking out vans and other odd vehicles that we might use to drive across the country to our new life we think, maybe, sort of, we will probably, we're not sure, be going to, like this summer, or, not, but well, likely, in a way. (See how much closer we've moved to a decision! Our resolve is stunning.)

The imaginative play is always the first give away to what they're thinking about. “Okay, these people are homeless,” Isaac instructs his dad as they both lie bell down on the living room rug, a dozen or so Matchbox-sized cars and trucks between them. “They live in their camper van.” I've already posted the Chris Farley bit on living in a van down by the river on this blog, so that punchline's out.

random bit

This is the elephant trophy Isaac made and awarded to Mike for winning the scramble from the Sports Center to the car last Friday. (Though Mike maintains the kid threw the race.) Engineering design to get the thing to stand up all his.

It's the end of an era. My kid has been swimming on Friday nights with his dad since he was a baby. At six they kick em out. It's called "Tot Time" after all. They celebrated with pizza and, apparently, an award ceremony. Time for a new tradition.

The Birthday

So Isaac had his birthday and turned six. It must be like the Grinch in Who-ville at Christmas – it comes without blog entries, comments, or tweets. Amazing. Better bloggers/mothers than I am would have posted many words accompanied by many pictures on the actual day of my child's birth. But you, dear readers, are stuck with me and the piece meal retrospective.

As I travel through the first year without my mom, every landmark is a landmine. Isaac appeared at my side at the breakfast table the morning of his birthday with a heart-shaped stone a friend gave him at Christmas time. “When I roll this around in my hand, it makes me think of grandmom,” he says to me. “Try it.” I dutifully take the stone. “Can you feel it?” he asks hopefully. “It makes me think of her because you think of her, honey.” I try to give it back to him. “You can keep it,” he urges, “I don't need it.” And so he doesn't. As for me, I carried it in my pocket for days.

We had a party. Isaac sharing my inability to narrow themes, had requested a T-Rex party with a pirate treasure hunt and a king cobra cake.

We played “Pin the Useless Little Arms on the T-Rex.” We had a treasure hunt for dinosaur bones (Inside, Arrgh, Matey! since the rain refused to cooperate. Successful thanks to my husband's mathematical genius and the small size of the guest list.). We played a dice game where the kids themselves were the game pieces tromping through a giant game board I constructed that I'm sure my son's friends' fundamentalist/creationist parents loved (“Ichthyostega crawls out of the swamp and breathes air! Move ahead 3 spaces!” and “Asteriod hits! Go back 100 million years!”).

What can I say? I'm here to offend. Really, I'm here to amuse myself and it takes priority over much else. How else would you expect me to survive half a dozen women I don't talk to on any regular basis and have nothing in common with parked on my couch for three hours discussing recipes and Facebook? Without other sources of sanity, I'd have to take a page out of Isaac's book and hide in the closet. Which is where I found him at the end of the day – the two girls at the gig otherwise occupied and content, the four boys engaged in a massive balloon fight in his trashed room, and the host, my sensitive son, holed up against the din and chaos. 

Below: Isaac and a friend at their behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium - only available to 6-year-olds and up. Notice the birthday button.

'tis the season

I wrote this a couple years ago, actually. In honor of the this goofy day of hearts and in honor of Husband-Guy:

Love Poem

Like with every other incidence of toil

in my husband's life,

at each small upturn in his struggle

with the stomach flu

he swears he's over it,

is convinced

he has passed through the worst,

never to return just before

the color in his face drains

and he bolts

toward the bathroom.

We are so unalike:

me - staring into the black

of the world and knowing it

for darkness, him –

riding the tunnel again and again

to the light, unfazed

by the echoing chamber,

the swelling nausea no reason

not to perk up the next time

he feels a spark of relief.

It is optimism

that borders foolishness,

at the very least, a disregard

for simple reason. This

must be why I married him,

to sleep next to that sense of wonder,

bathe in the electricity

of an essential determination

that everything is fine,

to trace the stubbled chin

of goodness with my cheek,

and then, to write it down.

the break up

I've said for a long time that Monterey is like a bad relationship. It has all this potential, you see. You keep waiting for things to get better. (He's really a great guy when he's sober!) Because it has so many great qualities.

It's gorgeous, for one thing. The two best-looking men I ever dated I dated for about a week and a half combined. One was a guy I met in a bar that my friends and I continually referred to as “Random Guy” throughout our brief time together. He was hot alright, but I brought him home for the cat test and he failed immediately. Bunda didn't like him. He had to go. Then there was the Mexican exchange student. Yum. And he could DANCE. Isidoro. (“Jus' call me Izzy (wink).”) Except he was so full of himself I could barely breathe standing in the same room.

And now, as we consider this move, Monterey has become even moreso the relationship you can't quite shake. (You'll never find anyone else who wants you like I do...) I mean, after all, it's not perfect, but it's what you know – and isn't that better than venturing into unknown territory? There'll never been someone like so-and-so in my life again! Surely the east coast won't be able to support me in this way. By “this way” do you mean half-assed? Why, of course it will! But I'm blind to it.

As a tourist town, Monterey is that boyfriend that everyone else L-O-V-E-S, that'll do ANYTHING for ANYONE when they ask. (Read: whore itself for tourist dollars – AT&T Pro-Am, anyone?) Everyone thinks he is super AWESOME. But you ask for a little time and whaddayaknow he's out helping everyone else, or else he's just asleep.

The worst part is, if Monterey and I break up, I know he'll steal all our mutual friends.

valid question

Isaac: "Which do you think is smarter, an elephant or a zebra?"

Me: "I don't really know, bud, but if I had to guess off the top of my head, I'd say elephant."

Isaac: "So, what's on the bottom of your head?"

coastal comparisons

A biased, abridged list of the differences between California, where we currently reside, and Massachusetts, where we may possibly move...

Current Weather:

(central coast of) CA – 70 degrees and sunny. MA – nowhere left to put the snow

Native Heritage:

CA – usurps the names of Native Americans for spa and resort facilities. MA – usurps the names of Native Americans for highways

Town Names:

CA – typing random CA towns into Google may bring results including Beach Boys' lyrics. MA – typing random MA towns into Google may bring results including Puritan England

Driving:

CA – known for the rolling stop, tagged the “Hollywood stop” in Northern CA. MA – known for completely f-ed up intersections that were paved sometime slightly after the Mayflower landed.

Politics:

CA – liberal lipservice done in every time by Orange County. MA – Gay marriage legal.

Housing:

CA – just because it's bank-owned, doesn't mean you shouldn't pay half a million for it. MA – affordable housing options

Money:

CA – largest deficit of any state, but thank god we've cut the car tax and filled the prisons. MA – also in debt, yet their residents enjoy the anomaly of health insurance.

Food:

CA – Awesome Mexican food on every block. MA - ---

The pro/con list has long failed to fit the bill when it comes to decision-making.