Finding myself in your pocket

A penny at a time,
Smudged together in
Copper twos, threes and fours
Pressed up against the faded
LIRR ticket
Stub with which you came to
Me, folded over a
Debit card receipt with
Which you bought me dinner
Ink stains leak onto the
Shopping list I gave you
To pick up from the corner
Store, which stands in front of
The tissues you plucked from
My box for your allergies
Which hides the crumpled
Photograph of us here,
There, today, forever.

June 1, 2006
12:03 AM

The Dynamics of the Break-up

Cleaning through some old things yesterday, I found a letter to me from my ex-boyfriend, sent two months after we had broken up. Delighted at having the slightest distraction from my never-ending chores, I read through it a little. The time of our break-up is like a blur to me now. I don't even know why I still have these things. I suppose it's for times like these - to look back and rediscover what happened.

I realize now he wasn't always mean, but that he actually was serious about getting back together. I realize now that I got angry as I did to protect myself from falling into the same traps again. I realize now that he only got angry later, perhaps because I was rude, and perhaps because it was then clear that things were truly over. He was angry because he felt abandoned. I was angry because I'd felt like I'd fought for our relationship too long with very little to show for it. I wasn't happy. But I'd never been completely safe in what it was we had. There was something in him, in us, that made me needy, insecure and emotional. That made me not like myself. That something, I didn't need.

Yet later, after all was said and done I felt wretched, like I'd committed a horrible sin. There are always things that you wish could be said. Things that you wanted understood. Things that were lost in translation in the hostilities that took place between you. What would you say to that person were they to stand before you now? How could you explain that which happened so long ago? The memory scrambles to put it all back together the way it really happened, yet falls short somehow. We will never remember what happened, just our version. This is nothing but a mere part of the whole story.

I would say that I was sorry. That I didn't mean to hurt him. But that perhaps I had fallen out of love with him, perhaps the pain that I felt at seeing our picture turned down (so his mother wouldn't see), or hearing his lies, or seeing him sink yet again outweighed and overturned what I felt. At the end, I no longer felt. I did not miss,grieve or brood. At the end like all other practical matters, I moved on That is how I know it was not love that was keeping me there those last few months. It was exhaustion to do anything else.

The leftover feelings of guilt, of betrayal, of sad emptiness, are all gone now. The spot where they once lay is blank. I am free now of that period, free now of those emotions. I can put it behind me like all else that has transpired over the last 25 years.

What do you then do with the little objects, the photographs, the gifts and the keepsakes? Do you burn them? Do you give what you can to charity? Do you keep them tucked away in a little box awaiting re-opening at some later date? Or, like my ex, in a mixture of bitterness and practicality, do you pack them into a box and send them to the other person hoping they'll have some use for it? That is up to you. I keep my things in order to remember what was, and better understand it in relation to what is and what will be.

The Job

Starting your career should be one of the most exciting times of your life. It should be a time when you realize what it is you want to do - feel challenged and excited to be alive. It should be the time you taking important steps towards making something of your life.

Finding a job sucks.

It has to be one of the most thankless activities I have ever undertaken. You send your resumes to a thousand potential employers drooling over them, telling them how much you've wanted to work for their company since the age of 2, telling them that their organization is a model for the modern business world...telling them whatever they want to hear. That their job is #1, that their job is the only one that matters. Does it strike them, if one job was all we were ever after - we'd be putting our non-existant careers at serious risk?? Let's say you don't get that #1 job. Then I suppose #2 might move into the #1 spot. But it seems like an extremely tedious way to do things doesn't it? You can't ever just apply to the #1 job. What then, do you tell #2, #3, and God Forbid #336?? Do you pretend that their job is #1? Do you lie? So you make moves towards an honest and integrity rich career through a string of lies. Why does that seem counter-intuitive.

So you land the interview. You dress up to the nines, and sit facing someone in jeans. They ask you about your strengths and weaknesses. They ask you where you want to be in five years. What do I know? If you give me a job I'll tell you where I'd like to be! Without a job now, how can I worry about five or ten years from now? It seems pointless doesn't it? They ask you why their company. What happens if you hadn't really given it much thought. What if there is nothing really that compelling? What if it's just about getting your foot in the door? Is it the best bull-shitter then that gets the job???

So you take business cards and write Thank you's, telling them how much you appreciate their time, appreciate their interest and hope to hear from them soon. ie tomorrow. Tomorrow would be good. Today even. This is not dating. I won't feel scared of committment. I won't feel like we're moving too fast. I won't feel anything except relief that there is an end to the lies, an end to the pretense of it all. I'd feel happy just to know that somebody wanted me.

Then maybe you get called for a second interview. Maybe you get a template letter telling them how impressive they find my qualifications, and how much they enjoyed speaking with me, yet in spite of all this, in spite of everything good about me, I still do not meet their qualifications. What sort of miracle of modern creation they are looking for, eludes me.

And perhaps after the second interview you get the sad letter. Or you get yet another interview. Exhausted from the questions that you may or may not be asked..you go on tirelessly talking about yourself, what it is about you that makes you special and why it is that you, above all other living mortals, qualify for the job.

All this for that one special phone call, the one that you wait for, the one that you check your cell-phone eight times a day for. The one that wants you. The one that you will "think about" when you really know your answer. YES YES YES.

Reboot?

It hadn’t struck me how much our society has really become dependent of computers and information technology. Today for instance, I am doing my laundry. My building has a prepaid card system which you stick into the machine and select a cycle of your choice. I was doing three loads. I put detergent in all three and put my card into the first washing machine. It read “hold”. I held. I held a little bit longer. And then I held a little bit longer than that. Finally it was clear that the machine wouldn’t be done holding for a while. I tried to select a cycle. It was futile. I couldn’t even tell if it had started to fill up yet or it was just vibrating for no reason. I waited for a little bit longer. I glanced at the instructions for using the machine on the wall. No instruction for a never-ending hold sign. Finally I opened it gingerly, preparing myself for a flood of fresh laundry water that might sweep out at me. There was none. The machine hadn’t even started. I shut it, to see if that would do any good. It did not. Finally I started the other two washers, and went back to the first. It still read “hold”. The only thing I could think was “reboot-reboot-reboot”. But this is no computer. It was a computerized washing machine. What did one do when a washing machine freezes? There is no control-alt-delete button. There is no “restart” (well not one that I could find.) There is no tech support or Washing Machine helpdesk. The instructions were of no use whatsoever. What did one do? Where did one go for complaints about an issue? Or any issue regarding a computerized machine not a computer. Sounds like a funny thing to think about but there has to be something? I did not know. All I knew is I wanted my third load of laundry done today. I sighed and looked back at the defiant machine that stared back at me. And with that…I gave up. I finally opened it again, and started putting the laundry back into my laundry bag. I glanced up at the machine. “Hold” was gone.

On Writing

As a writer one of the things I struggle with most is reading - how do you balance what you take in and what you put out? Where is interpreting, incorporating or hinting at someone else's words, thoughts or ideas plagiarism? A 19 year old student is facing charges that her novel is too similar to one of her favorite books - did she intentionally copy or was it all just a big mistake?

I don't know what is safest when you're writing - just not to read at all? I, myself, try not to read before I write during the day. If I'm planning on writing I will not open whatever I'm reading at the time...I feel like it's too risky. I'll read after I'm done writing for the day. But is that enough? Just because I sleep for 8 hours or so, does that mean that what I read the day before can no longer affect what I write?

According to www.dictionary.com, 'plagiarism' is defined as follows:
n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own [syn: plagiarization, plagiarisation, piracy]

Obviously what you write is influenced by what you read. You only ever broaden your horizons when you read, and in turn it makes you a better writer. But where is the line between inspiration and copying? This always makes me uncomfortable. I feel like my style is definitely influenced by what I read, but does that mean I copy? Do I imitate someone else's style? Is it then not completely my own? How do I know?

According to Plagiarism.org, in a study by the Center for Academic Integrity, 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once and 36% admit to copying written material. According to The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996)in 1969 58.3% of high school students allowed someone to use or copy their work. This percentage rose to 97.5% by 1989. The internet has made it that much easier to cheat...so is this girl just an example of another person taking advantage of the system? Or did she have the best of intentions.

I guess from my own perspective, I would never willingly copy anyone else's work. But how do I control the unintentional?

For more information check out:
http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060502/ap_en_ot/young_author

Ink

Procrastination. I write the word out slowly and carefully in a beautiful cursive script. I trace it again on top pondering over each letter. I go over it again. And again. When I’m finished I underline the word. Then I draw a box around it. Then I draw a box around the box. I shade in both boxes leaving the word itself intact. I try to stop there but my pen stays firmly connected to paper.

My pen keeps moving.

My pens keeps moving and has a life of it’s own, a spirit, a destiny. The ink spreads over the blank page like a disease, like cancer, reaching it’s bony fingers to every nook, every cranny, every tiny bit of white space till there is none left. It moves independent of my thoughts, independent of my hand, independent of that part of the brain moving the hand. It carries me with it. It cannot stop moving. It runs out of space on the page, but that burning hunger is still there, it moves onto the table underneath the page. It scratches the lacquered surface as it goes. The pen will not stop. It starts to move faster and faster replacing the light brown surface with one that is scraped blue. The pen must go on. The wall, the ceiling and the floor are next. The pen must not stop.

I try, oh believe me I do try to take back control, to reclaim my authority. I try not to give in as my body trails the pen across the floor of my hardwood living room, through the dining room and into the bedroom. My knees are scraped and every bare part of my body is stained blue as I keep going and going. The pen is the master now. I scramble to keep up, my body burning in pain from the friction of trying to slide and scramble across the floor. As it goes through the bedroom door the pain is becoming unbearable, I want to peel my whole body off, shed the load, shed the burden. At the foot of my bed it stops.

It is out of ink.

I stare at it and using my hand gently try and move the pen. It will not give in at first, clinging onto the last vestiges of the power it had over me. And then finally it surrenders.

I put it down flat on my palm, stroking the smooth outer covering gently then turning it round and round in my now blue palms. Sighing I try to stand. At first I’m not sure that I can, my knees don’t seem to have the strength. And then, using my dresser as support I rise gingerly. I walk across the blue hardwood floors, those blue chemicals permeating the skin on my heels and my toes the most. I reach the kitchen table where my page lies still, just where I left it. I can no longer read the word “Procrastination”. I move away from the page towards the trashcan nearby, and I toss the pen away.

March 27, 2004

Remembering

May 31 2005.

What seems like a different lifetime altogether was barely a year ago...I try to grasp at memories of there, but like sand it spills through the cracks between my fingers...There is a cloudy intensity that weighs down on those memories...Murkiness slinks between the days and nights at via garibaldi, into soft but slightly too small twin size beds, the identical sheets and pillows that Dara and I had picked out from Ikea...Into the bathroom with the washer that had to be drained into the toilet (a cause for much strife in our household, not to mention the dirty laundry water all over the bathroom floor, an overworked mop and a great many kitchen towels)...We move on next to the kitchen - the centerpiece of many dinner parties and late night/early morning cram sessions (when in Italy...Procrastinate)...Out to the balcony overlooking the courtyard, where Dara once dropped a very valued piece of clothing and tried to rescue it with a very strange contraption composed of a hanger among other things...The crash site of many kamikaze socks and pins, not to mention a few restless shirts that swooped off our clothesline down into our neighbor's laundry...Chrissy & Lauren's rooms stretched along the other side...And finally the living room where mal & I discussed many important issues of life...Occasionally working on a project or two...The walls that kept it cool and damp in the long winter and unbearably hot in the summer...These are things that are now far away...But in a heartbeat I can almost be there, almost feel the wind as we crossed La Ponte Vittoria over the Arno to Villa Strozzi aka The Big Hill...I can feel my shortness of breath as I climbed (the shortcut involved stairs, being afraid of heights stairs made it only worse)...I can smell the fresh cappucino they drink first thing in the morning...Feel the cool iciness of gelato dripping down my chin (from the good place across the dirty river) and all these things and more filled my days for nine months.

For those who were there they remember, they knew, they saw.