what i need is you

What i need, right now...is you.

I imagine you're laid back on a couch somewhere...brown distressed leather...thinking the same thing.

Lately, you're all that I've been needing.

I need you to pull me into the crook of your arm and tell me everything is going to be okay. Push my hair back behind my ear and tell me that vitamins and a better attitude will fix the fact that I think my hair isn't as thick as it used to be and kiss my forehead when that simple thought makes me cry. I need you to let me fall asleep on the couch, my head rested on your chest, moving with each breath.

Nothing is how I want it. My little brother is leaving soon and I am still in one place. I'm living in a horrible dump of an apartment and I still haven't gotten my brain to where it once was...where it used to be. That confident, ambitious and determined place I'd always known. I'm out of my element and a comfortable place it is not. Friendships have changed so much, I barely recognize some of them and I don't know how to put them all back to their rightful places. It's as if an earthquake has shaken everything in me and around me to its core - and the mess is overwhelming and old and due to be cleaned up.

I need you to believe that I can make everything turn out right. Sometimes I hear you, in the back of my head. When I should be riddled with anxiety...when it would be typical of my brain to race - something in the back of my mind calms me. Tells me to just keep breathing. Tells me one way or another, I will be okay. But I need you closer now. I need you here.

Nothing is as I want it to be. And looking every which way - I can't see ahead. I need you to show me. Show me my reflection.

It's the holidays...and I'm craving you like red wine and bouquets of orange roses. And I need you to get me through this semester...get me through the next few exams and papers and tell me I will do better next semester. Tell me I am not defined by my GPA. I need you to wake up that part of me that's been sleeping. I need you to pull me out of that hell hole of a residence, pull me out of this job. Pull me out of this state of mind and throw me into holiday movies and smells of cinnamon and vanilla and pumpkin. Remind me what its like to sleep in a real bed instead of curled up on the love seat. Take the neurosis out of the family gatherings. Save my soul.

I'm haunted now...today. I ran across a quote by Norman Mailer. "Every moment of one's existence, one is either growing into more or retreating into less." I feel myself retreating into less - when all I want is more. And so now, they swirl in my head, those words. They will for a while. Until I start growing again.

And still...all I need...is you.

pomp and circumstances

It's the 4th of July...and when I go home and go to sleep tonight, this morning, whatever... I want to do so w/ the The Duke. That's right. I want to sleep with John Wayne.

I want to sleep with John Wayne on television - that is.

Usually when I sleep w/ the TV on - it's TNT. Because there's nothing terribly interesting on at that hour that will keep me awake. I can't sleep listening to CNN. I want to hear it all and watch it all and what not. Infomercials bother me so just about every other channel is out. So this morning, I'll search AMC and hope there's a John Wayne movie on for me to sleep to. There must be. There's nothing more American than John Wayne.

It occurs to me tonight that I have been rather sporadic with my posting. I'm not posting much at all lately. I haven't had much to say. Not that I haven't been pondering quite a bit. Just not interested in writing it all down. Or typing it all out - as it were.

I'm not sure what it is - but I go through these periods of time when I just observe and soak up and mull over everything. Okay - so I always do that - but there are periods where I don't really feel like discussing it. That's all I can think up for the reason why I haven't been posting much.

Today, I saw the mother of an ex-coworker of mine. She is a 70 year old Jamaican woman - who doesn't look 70. As I stood in Kim's kitchen talking to her, I found myself soothed a bit by her voice. While she spoke, in a deep, melodic voice, I searched my brain for meaning in everything she said. That is a problem of mine. I'm pathological when it comes to searching for meaning. I search for it even in small talk. Sometimes, the meaning is only in...not searching. But I do it anyway. Habitual, if you will.

So I stared into this woman's eyes, which were as dark as espresso beans. Her skin looked like baker's chocolate. I say baker's chocolate because it wasn't all glossy and polished, but soft around the edges. Her hands were slightly wrinkled and there were tiny wrinkles by her eyes and mouth. So often Rachel and I talk about the horror of finding those lines on our own faces but I couldn't help but think - they are signs of a long life. I don't mind the old age - it's the getting there that bothers me.

And so she talks about coming to Michigan from Jamaica in the late 60's. And pictures of my Grandma and Grandpa and my mom and all of her brothers and sisters standing with mounds of luggage, on their way to Israel in the 70's flip through my mind. Her voice takes me to anywhere but here. Anywhere but where words fall flat where there is no accent to accompany them.

But you know me - there are always contradictions. As she tells her stories, I float through mine. If I could, I'd splice them all together with a killer soundtrack. There'd just be moments. Sitting on porches, front steps, back decks, in front seats and back seats. There'd be snippets of uncontrollable laughter, uncontrollable tears, heads resting on shoulders, hands holding one another...

Then, when she asked me if I travel, my answer being "not enough", I began to remember how fierce I used to be. Fierce about dreams and plans and ambitions. I wanted to see Peru. Argentina. India. Israel. Ireland. Kenya. Greece. Italy. Countries that I didn't even know existed. I wanted to see them.

I suppose there are times when everyone becomes...unfocused. As extended as this period of time has been...it has been one of those times for me. I don't feel focused. I am not on point. My head isn't in the game, I'm nowhere near the game.

As this completely inspiring, 70 year old woman spoke to me, advised me to save money, to travel, I found myself begging my mind to be inspired. Begging my mind to just do something. Click back over. Click back over to when you felt unstoppable.

It didn't.

So...as sporadic and discombobulated as this post is. There you have it. Tonight, I'll hope to sleep with John Wayne. Then I'll wake up early - prepare what I need to before heading over to Rachel's for the 4th. I'll stare, wide-eyed and mouth open at all the fireworks. Take comfort in friends close by...

And keep looking for inspiration - wherever I can find it.

rolling with moses

Tonight, my family rounded out our Passover Seder with Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On".

Because that's how we roll...you know, with Moses.

This weekend, an unfortunate conversation left me reeling about the perception some have of Judaism. To be completely frank about the whole situation, let me first say - I've dealt with prejudices. Growing up attending a private Hebrew school, I watched as swastikas and other Anti Semitic words and symbols had to be professionally washed off our school's building as well as our synagogue's walls. The "Hebrew" on our buses had to be covered during the 1st Gulf War because people felt Israel was responsible for the war to begin with...and they threw rocks at the bus while kids were being taken to school and back.

But I've never been flat out insulted. I've never had someone from another faith stand in front of me and explain to my friends what a Jew is - and that explanation be less than flattering and literally incorrect. I've never had someone judge me for it on an eye level. A 'here I stand, there you are' level. And it pissed me off. And it still pisses me off.

And what really got me - was that I said nothing. To be polite, because I was at my friend's house, I said nothing.

Luckily it was just two days before Passover.

Passover has always been my favorite of the Jewish holidays. Even though I'm forced to go without cereal, pizza, bread and anything else that consists of flour, yeast etc. etc. The ceremonies can be grueling... One year, my older brother and I slept in the back of my parents' station wagon as we drove to New York to celebrate with my Aunt Laraine, who was going according to an Orthodox ceremony. We started mid-afternoon and didn't finish until well after midnight. Somewhere in between, they allowed the children a little break from the formalities...my cousins sat me in front of the television for a viewing of "Cat's Eye". I'm not a cat person.

There's a lot of ground to cover before you can even think about touching the matzo ball soup. The baby in the river, the ten plagues, the Pharaoh's control issues, the splitting of the sea...

Some of the best Passover moments are when everyone is ready for a good song and nobody cares that we're banging on the table so hard that the wine in Elijah's cup is spilling over the edge and onto the table cloth. Others roll like tonight, when we laugh so hard we can barely get through the Haggadah and fill up on so much food - that we can't even properly finish the Seder.

Unlike Hanukkah - which can be compared with Christmas because they both occur around the same time and involve presents - Passover is just for us. Just for Jews. Regardless of the fact that Easter happens around the same time - there's nothing to really compare between the two. There's something comforting about knowing that while everyone else you know is going about their Monday - Jews are stopping to tell a story so important in Jewish history - and they're partying it up with wine and singing and maybe even Marvin Gaye.

You know, depending on how they roll.

st. paddy would be proud

"Hey Jessica," Rachel yells. "How does it feel?"

She's sitting right across from me, but has to yell over the band. I can't remember what they were playing at the time. It was either before or after we sang along to a cover of "Last Dance w/ Mary Jane"...of course, I sang along with just about every song. But that's beside the point.

"What?!" I yell back.

"Not having to worry about driving us home!"

I smile. Just the night before while she was closing the bar, I told Rachel I didn't think I was fun. She disagreed. But she's supposed to. That's her job.

So we commandeered a designated driver who wasn't me. They put Noelle in heels and made her look glam and when the waitress came over to check our legalities - Noelle flashed her military ID. Without so much as a glance, the waitress started calling her ma'am, I kept asking about how much shrapnel she took in 'Raq and we didn't have to worry about getting kicked out with a minor at the table.

Each of us dressed in green sipped...okay we more than sipped...green beer, beer in bottles and a few rounds of shots. Every song was a good song. Even the cold air didn't damper our moods after closing down the bar. Noelle and I napped on the couch while Rachel & Leslie fake-boxed each other on Bill & Beth's Nintendo Wii - Rachel dropped her cigarette more than once in the back of the Tahoe o' Fun and Leslie earned the title of Kelpto-Queen when we walked out of the 'Dog w/ five souvenir pint glasses...free of charge.

I stood...tired...in Rachel's kitchen, sipping on ice water. Mart was already out, snoring on the couch. It was almost 5 a.m.

"I did good tonight, didn't I?" I asked her. "I was fun?"

"Yes sweetie," she said. "Lot's of fun."

She could have just been saying that because it's her job. Or because I stuck a bottle of beer into my cleavage and was able to drink from it. Or because I kept crying out like Borat "you will never get this" to the bar.

Never know.

excerpt

From King's sermon entitled "Unfulfilled Dreams" - March 3rd, 1968

"And the question I want to raise this morning with you: is your heart right? If your heart isn’t right, fix it up today; get God to fix it up. Get somebody to be able to say about you, "He may not have reached the highest height, he may not have realized all of his dreams, but he tried." Isn’t that a wonderful thing for somebody to say about you? "He tried to be a good man. He tried to be a just man. He tried to be an honest man. His heart was in the right place." And I can hear a voice saying, crying out through the eternities, "I accept you. You are a recipient of my grace because it was in your heart. And it is so well that it was within thine heart...

...It will be dark sometimes, and it will be dismal and trying, and tribulations will come. But if you have faith in the God that I’m talking about this morning, it doesn’t matter. For you can stand up amid the storms. And I say it to you out of experience this morning, yes, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll. I’ve felt sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice of Jesus, saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to leave me. Never to leave me alone.

And when you get this faith, you can walk with your feet solid to the ground and your head to the air, and you fear no man. And you fear nothing that comes before you. Because you know that God is even in Crete. If you ascend to the heavens, God is there. If you descend to hell, God is even there. If you take the wings of the morning and fly out to the uttermost parts of the sea, even God is there. Everywhere we turn we find him. We can never escape him..."

going with and letting go

At one point, I turned the flash off of my camera and adjusted a tacky paper crown that said "Happy New Year" just a smidge and shot it. It's a good picture, a red candle, soft light, empty test tube shot glasses and the crown slightly out of focus.

"You realize," I tell my friend Leslie, approximately six hours prior, "Last year we sat in my living room w/ a cheese ball that was entirely too garlicky. I drank a three dollar bottle of champagne by myself and was almost asleep by ten."

We're picking up Mart and Rachel and starting our New Years Eve-ning.

"I do." she says.

Last year, obviously, was not an impressive New Year's Eve. This year we were gathering, having dinner and would watch the ball drop from a television above the bar at a club that had 'pleather' ottomans and swanky curved love seats positioned around short little tables. Swanky. Sort of.

A few beers and a few shots later, Nicole - all sweet and hard to say no to - flashed a big excited smile.

A donation from each in our party and a few minutes later - a bartender carried a bottle of Dom Perignon and some glasses to our table. We may not have looked it...we may not have admitted it...but we felt cool.

Nicole raised her glass. "To all the people that I love that are right here..."

The DP was gone long before midnight. At 11:59 we looked towards the TV and screamed along with the countdown. We hugged each other and whispered love yous into each others ear. Then we hunkered down to the table and began making phone calls.

"Happy New Year!" I said to Oren, who was ringing it in from the comfort and quiet of his own home.

"I think this is going to be your year," he said. "I have a feeling."

"I'm going to hold on to that," I said.

"Don't hold on to it," he said back. "Go with it."

While Nicole and I spent the rest of the night sipping on water and sobering up in order to fulfill our DD assignments, the rest of my friends danced to every last song Mr. DJ played and the beers came in rounds. And every so often, one of us would catch the eye of another and smile. When she wasn't shakin' it up on the dance floor, Rachel threw her arm around my neck and hugged me. When nobody was looking, Mart and I rocked our 'white man's overbite' dance moves.

After hanging up the phone with my brother, I couldn't help but ponder over what the new year would bring. And the morning after, with the aid of the headache...I still wonder.

But one thing is certain. My nights of cheap champagne and bad cheese balls are over - Happy New Year, indeed.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give us a hand o’ thine! And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne.

ashes to ashes

"You need to bury that." Oren says declaratively. "It was like, ten years ago."

My older brother is talking to me on the phone. He's out on his patio in the sweet Arizona air. I am in the back room of the lodge chain smoking and trying to ignore my drunk friends who come waggling in screaming, "WHO ARE YOU ON THE PHONE WITH!?!?"

He's talking about my stint in Pittsburgh ten years ago. When I wanted to toss a hanky to my small town and hit the big time, big city. A few days before graduating high school, when my honors English teacher asked who was leaving the state, I shot my hand up into the air with pride. I'd blown off ACT's and SAT's with no plans to attend any college - but was accepted to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for what was supposed to be an "awesome" film program. Four months, a deep depression and a Video Production teacher who everyone mistook for the janitor, later and I was home.

Oren tells me to bury it. It was a bad experience and I've grown so much since then, venturing out to a different city at a different time would not be the same.

I know he's right. In a way. The bad parts should be buried. Walking a mile and a half to and from class on my own, in the dark hours of morning and the late hours of night. Being warned after a stabbing took place in the building across from ours. The depression that reared its ugly head, kept me in my room and out of class. The falling out with my father. It should be more than buried. It should be tossed into a fire and turned to ash.

But there's another aspect to the 'Burgh era that I don't want to bury. States away from home, family and friends, in the middle of bad state of crap - I began to write. Really write. I started a novel, that I've still never finished - but it didn't matter. Writing was enough. I guess that's how it is with anything you're meant to do.

I'm thinking about all that tonight, as I read an interview with my favorite author, Alice Hoffman. When I started, I didn't worry about what people really thought of anything I wrote. I never showed anything to anyone. Never spoke about it. If anyone asked me what I was working on my answer was simply, "I can't talk about it before it's done."

Eventually none of it ever got done. Wondering what people might say got the best of me.

I'm at Rachel's house today and I'm crying. It's been a long week and I'm tired and worn out. I ask her why I'm still here and not moving anywhere and she tells me I have an attachment. She's right. She tells me things will happen when they're supposed to. And she's right. I'm not quite as depressed as it may sound - just more in a lot of thought.

Reading the interview, I start thinking about writing again. Furiously, like I used to. Pushing out the "what ifs" and the "what abouts". Hoffman says it took her a long time to tell people she was a writer and the feeling feels familiar. Writing is to "be alone in a room". And I miss that comfort. When the writing came first. The time alone in a room. At a big dark wood table at Barnes & Noble. Getting there in the early afternoon and scribbling away until I'd look up and see that night had fallen.

To my list of resolutions this year, giving up lazy and getting back to my work out, giving up junk and getting back to my nutritional habits...getting back to myself - I long to get back to writing.

But I'll probably keep smoking... Mustn't bury all my sweet vices - all at once.

how easily the sweet

...can turn to sour.

I wanted to blog about my Hannukah. Laying under Rachel's Christmas tree at 2:30 in the morning. Our heads under the tree staring up at the lights and the green. It was pretty. She needed more lights - but still pretty. She'd spent the entire evening with me and my family. Her daughter learned how to play dreidel and even lit one of the candles on the menorah. "I want to come over for Hannukah every year," she said, twirling her dreidel.

When we got back to Rachel's house, her fiance and my brother prepared to watch 'The Ballad of Ricky Bobby' while Rachel and I exchanged gifts. I love to watch her open presents. She gets this wide-eyed look, all innocent and full of gratitude. She reminds me of childhood. Things like swing sets and snow forts and peanut butter and graham crackers. She truly enjoys things and its an aspect of her that I envy sometimes.

As we lay under the tree we made a few mentions of the crap that we'd dealt with the past week. "At least we have each other," I said.

"At least that." She agreed.

I wanted right there and then to find some sort of peace that would take me through the new year and on. A balance. I'd felt it before and I thought in the safety of her house it would come back.

Almost a year ago to the day, I was constantly passing out at Rachel's house. On her couch, on her love seat, sometimes even with my elbows on the counter.

Brandon had just died. A year ago, today in fact. I was spending the night at Kim's house. Staying up - sometimes all night - sometimes just a few hours of sleep was all I got. I'd go home, shower, go back to Kim's house and somehow make it through another day. It was Rachel I called when I finally broke down. Two days later, the night before the funeral, I snuck away to my car and dialed her number. She was Christmas shopping with Mart at Walmart. I couldn't stop sobbing. "Rachel said she's never heard you like that before," Mart would say later. "She was worried."

When I wasn't at Kim's, I'd run out to Rachel's. She & Mart would put on a movie, our friend Leslie would come hang out and after a couple of hours - I'd pass out on the couch and Rachel would let me sleep. I didn't feel safe anywhere else. In the afternoons, I'd fall asleep sitting up. I'd heard her whisper to people, "she's not sleeping...she's having a hard time."

She doesn't really get just how safe I felt. I never wanted to leave her house. The other night, when we sat up from the tree, I felt it again. I didn't want to leave. Last night, as I slipped into bed - draped in the new bedding she bought for me as a gift - I fell asleep completely exhausted. I had a vicious nightmare, death and terror were all around. I woke suddenly, a strain on my chest and unable to move. It's been a while since a full panic attack for me but there it was.

Today, I've been angry, annoyed and snappish. It's a year to the day and Brandon isn't coming back. I can still hear the tone in Kim's voice when she told me. The terror in her mother's scream. I can feel the brittle in her father's hug, the guilt that we didn't do enough...the disbelief. Worse, I can still feel his hug. So tight. Earnest. Also like childhood.

I'll spend the day with Kim. She needs to go shopping, wants to exchange gifts and will make dinner. We'll visit the cemetery. We'll wonder when we'll feel safe again.

joy to the world

I've been humming Christmas carols for weeks now.

I caught myself doing it a couple of weeks ago as I prepared chicken won-ton bites and pumpkin ravioli for a small dinner party I was hosting. I was doing it again the other day when I was wrapping presents in Hannukah paper and writing names on name tags. It happened when I was doing dishes, in the car and even at one point when I was at the bar and there was a sudden possibility for drama - I started humming it again.

It could be all the holiday themed entertainment I've been watching for the past couple of weeks. I've fed my DVD player "The Family Stone" & "Love Actually" for the past few days - as well as the Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes of Grey's Anatomy. I put them on repeat while I sleep.

It's the scene in "Family Stone" that gets me every time. When Sarah Jessica Parker and Luke Wilson are lying there and hum/sing just a few bars to...damn. I don't even know what song it is. "Repeat the sounding joy" is the line she sings. I think it's 'Joy to the World'...but I could be wrong.

I'm trying real hard. That's what I'm doing. And so far - it's working. I'm trying to limit the stress and enjoy the holidays. Saturday I shopped. I was zipping in and out of stores picking out presents and sipping on Gingerbread Lattes. I wrapped presents near candlelight and twinkle lights and watched Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in my favorite romantic comedy of all time - "Holiday".

I'd buy my friends and family the world - if I could afford it. Just to see them smile when they get things. But as I put my wrapping paper away, the tears started to surge. It's going to be a hard time of the year. What I can't give them is peace. Peace with demons, peace with ghosts... Turbulence & trouble sit where I can't touch them. I want to crumple their pain up like tattered wrapping paper and stuff it in a big black garbage bag.

More so - I want to write it down. But that is for another day.

t-minus

Forty minutes.

It's finals day today and I've had two anxiety attacks and my stomach is moving like a lava lamp. A bad simile, I know but I'm a little preoccupied right now.

The sad part is that I don't really get all worked up over the tests. I have a paper due today as well, which I worked really hard on not being stressed out over. The professor said it looked fine just as it was, so I played with a few words and cleaned up some citations and kept the over-obsessing to a minimal.

I also don't have test anxiety. I'm of the strong mind that you can only retain and hold what you can retain and hold. I can only study so much. I can only read five books in a single semester, balance a few jobs and a social life and my own neurosis...and remember so much. When it comes down to it - there's no need to over-obsess.

So why am I over-obsessing?

I want the test over with. I want to scribble as fast as my hand will let me and get the hell out of that class room. I want three weeks off. I have two stories due by Friday. I haven't even started them. I want them done. I want to get them done in two days so I can have the rest of the week to do my last minute Hannukah shopping. I don't want everything to take forever and a day to be finished.

Friday, my older brother and I resurrected our Friday night ritual. He calls me from the porch, in his flannel, with a cigar and a glass of scotch - I sit in the back room of the bar and chain smoke. We discuss the aftermath of his recent wedding, how he wants me back in Arizona for a tour of the northern part of the state and the fact that I've been a little bit of a downer for the past few months. When we talk about my options and my future he says, "sounds like it's going to take a lot of 'me' time for you to come to a decision."

Precisely.

I had hopes of filling my three week break from school with another reunion. One with the gym. It's been so long I just might cry when I get to the track. But I worry that I'll be so busy with other things I won't get there. Hannukah is almost here and I still have shopping to do. And this year, Rachel and Mart have asked if they can join in with my family's celebration. I never invite friends to family functions. My family doesn't function well with the outside world - but that is another story entirely. Can't worry about it really, until it happens. But it all can't happen until this damn test is over.

So with a nervous stomach....it's now t-minus 30 minutes.

all others pay cash

Last night driving home from the store and listening to NPR, the radio played a snippet of Jean Sheperd's radio show "Duel in the Snow or Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid."

Jean Sheperd is the guy who wrote "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", the novel that inspired the film "A Christmas Story". It is Sheperd's voice that narrates the movie.

It was cold out, in my opinion it was the first real snow, covering the streets and making them glisten where tires had tread their way through them. The decorations hanging on the lampposts in town blew in the bristly air and twinkle lights always look better in snow.

And the brief clip from the radio show made me smile. Sheperd's voice is nostalgic and warm, like a big wool pea coat. If I could choose anyone to narrate my life, it would be him. Then it wouldn't seem so thick and dramatic but more ironic. Entertaining. Brimming with authenticity.

It's my Christmas Day ritual actually. To watch 24 hours of that movie. Jews have nothing better to do on Christmas anyway. Nothing's open, friends are all busy. So I usually laze about. Baking something so my house smells good, putting on massive amounts of coffee and leaving the TV on even if I'm reading or napping or pretending to read or nap.

If Jean Sheperd narrated my life, I'd insist he talk about how my grandmother's cooking was so good the scent would stick to your clothes...forcing me to change outfits before I'd go out to the bar...causing drunk men to tell me I smelled good. They should really bottle up pot roast and sell it as a perfume. I'd make him talk about waking at 5 a.m. to the smell of onions and garlic and cumin and the sounds of a vacuum, signs that company was coming later that day. My grandmother would make us speak in whispers in the morning when relatives would come to visit - afraid that the sound of us chewing might wake them as they slept snuggled beneath the covers in their beds at the back end of the house.

The best types of memories are always exaggerated. My brothers know about this. Every time the three of us get together the infamous "knee" story, of how I slammed my knee on a block of ice while we were sledding - and later cried about it - is always brought up complete with imitations and whiny voices. I like to exaggerate about the obvious anti-wholesome memories. Like how my father, still hanging on to divorce, wouldn't drop us off at the door of my grandparent's house, but the far end of the driveway. How he took me to breakfast on my birthday at a 24 hour diner and (though it's below the belt because our dog just died a few months ago) how he constantly reminded me that the dog was his best friend in the world and the only one who understood him.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, families, nostalgia, narration... There's not much to narrate now. "Jessica woke up with the least bit of excitement to trudge her way through the snow to school, where she learned absolutely nothing about some pretty influential works of literature and then trudged her way back to work, where her co-worker tortured her with phrases like "hence is the problem".... Sometimes I think I should run my tongue along a metal pole.

You know, just for a little drama.

dark & twisty

There's a scene in 'Bridget Jones' Diary' where she imagines that one day she'll die alone and be discovered and ravaged by a pack of wild dogs.

I felt that way this morning as I dressed for Thanksgiving.

It's a hell of a way to wake up.

I've been living on my own for a few years now, so I don't know why this morning felt different but it did. I struggled with my sleep, trying to get as much in before a long day of giving thanks, working through the night and bypassing sleep for Black Friday shopping. After my shower, my apartment seemed eerily quiet. I stood in the hallway for a moment and wished for a song. Something to make the moment feel more like a introspective television drama moment rather than just a quiet, real life one.

I dressed and readied in a hurry and as I made my coffee I surveyed the logistics of my situation. There was the 1.5 hour drive to my family's annual Thanksgiving. But this year, Mom would be in town...so I'd have to drive back home in time to see her before going to work. I made coffee and tried to shake the feeling that was just a little too irritating to me...but it wouldn't shake. When I got into my car, it just felt thicker. The business of Thanksgiving is what the holidays are all about. Make the rounds, eat three different dinners, drive to, drive fro, come home. Nap.

I wanted someone to take the drive with me today. I don't usually want for things like that.

Thanksgiving went fast - and for the most part - fun. We ate, we took pictures, we laughed and told stories. Nothing painfully original. I've always loved Thanksgiving. The food. The football. The dishes in the sink overnight and the leftovers in the wee hours of the morning. The routine of detesting family get-togethers but submitting to them all the same year after year at the appointed time.

This year my leftovers were made a little tastier with the help of two things: my mother's boyfriend's drop dead pecan pie and a delicious dose of Grey's Anatomy.

And here I am. At work for the remainder of the evening and into the early morn.

And I keep hearing things in this very open, very empty building and I'm wishing I had gone to medical school so I could be in full swing of an internship with people like the Nazi, the She-Shepard and McSteamy/Dreamy.

And I'm playing with this creepy wish because I realized over a plate of turkey today...that I am all dark and twisty and wishing it would go away with simple things like dinners out or shopping trips or superficial inspiration.

I knew going back into school I would get bored with it. I knew I didn't have the patience. And I knew the minute it didn't go my way - I'd want to back out. I knew and I enrolled anyway. I know things and I ignore them. It's like my bit or something. Those are the kinds of things you just know about yourself. The kinds of things you like knowing - because they make you who you are - but you hate dealing with them all the same.

There are plenty of other things I know. But right now, they're being outweighed by the things I don't. I know I could elaborate but I choose not to. See? Dark & twisty.

something to look forward to

I'm tired.

I'm always tired. But I'm tired.

I wish I could say that I'm back on track after a measly four day trip - but I'm not. I'm behind on deadlines and interviews, behind on homework and behind on laundry. What I need is a kick in the behind. Shut up. You knew that was coming.

Work is terribly slow...not a lot of parts to ship around the Midwest when the automotive industry is shut down for the holiday. So the dispatch quarter is quiet. Even so, I'm not making much of my downtime. I'm contemplating and day dreaming and doing little else. I could be outlining and researching and reading - but once again - I'm not.

This year Kim and I realized we have an alarming lack of tradition when it comes to the holidays. In fact, my only real tradition (besides actually celebrating the holidays) is a friend's annual Christmas Eve party. That's funny. Because I'm Jewish.

So Kim's big idea was to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea, as I avoid the mall on a regular day. But she made it sound all sugary sweet and filled with something we were both missing. Whatever magic it is that tradition carries with it.

Actually the idea was to meet up on Thanksgiving night, watch holiday movies and then go shopping in the early morn. But Jessica has to work - so the movies were out. Shopping more convenient - since I'll be up at 5 a.m. anyway. "Maybe after we go shopping, we could go back to the house and bake cookies," I said. Obviously delirious. I'll be waking early on Thanksgiving to make the rounds and eat the food, staying up all night for work and up all day shopping. If I make to the cookies - I am superwoman.

I've picked up blue and white towels for Hannukah, more twinkle lights, including the "two tone" icicle lights with blue and white twinkles on each side. I'll be removing all my fall themed decorations for Hannukah ones - and keep looking for more during our shopping extravaganza. I'll pick up a warmer at Yankee and some Hannukah Night candles, put out my driedles and listen to Israeli music.

I'll bake and try to arrange dinners with friends. Get excited and spend way too much on presents and curse the snow. Because yes, I live in Michigan and understand that I don't get the luxury of complaining - but dammit - the Jews didn't need snow to celebrate their holiday.

And while there is a chance mine & Kim's foray into tradition could go drastically wrong - it's become something for me to look forward to this week - amidst all the other crap we have to deal with day in and day out. Because somewhere in there will be a moment only the two of us could share together...and I've got $10 that it will involve ordering a pizza and a movie and complaining until it's time to go to bed.

And incidentally - let me take this moment to promote the beauty that is the holiday movie genre. There are plenty to enjoy as we jump right into this holiday season, including: Home for the Holidays, Love Actually, The Family Man, The Family Stone, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Christmas Story, the original Grinch & Serendipity.

Ahh the joys of the holidays.

when i was a kid...

My mother was a stickler for rules.

If trick-or-treating didn't start until 6:30 - we were not to leave the yard until 6:30. And there was none of this "starts at 5:00, ends at 7:30" bullshite. We were out until all the house lights were off. And then some. I remember my cold, tired legs wrapped in warm pajamas, the smell of Noxema filling my nose after my mother had washed all the black eyeliner or dried blood off my face, some animated special on the TV, my brother and I furiously putting our candy into neat little rows - by type - preparing for at least an hour of bartering before bed. The doorbell would ring late into the night with older kids on scavenger hunts looking for things like safety pins or cans of peas or duct tape.

When I was younger, my parents took turns walking with us as we ran from house to house. Parents used to get real into Halloween then. One year our neighbor sat out in the frigid October air in a speedo, in a blow up raft filled with candy. One year my dad went up on the roof in a mask and ran the chainsaw as the kids came up to the house. On the next block, one guy dressed in a trench coat and gorilla mask while his wife passed out candy at the door. They had a large pine tree in the middle of their yard and the gorilla man would walk stealthy around it, lurking in the impending darkness. Oh yeah, he freaked me out. My Dad often had to carry me up to the door. I cried.

That's what Halloween was about then. Not just the candy - but the fun. Running from house to house, running back to mom or dad and telling them what was just dropped into your pillow case. As we got older, the night was a competition. When we didn't need our parents right at our side, my brother and I broke into a mad dash for the TV tray house. The house two blocks over next to the brown house on the corner with the big black dog. The elderly woman who lived there (who we oddly enough - only saw one day a year)would set out cans of soda, comic books, full and king size candy bars, bags of chips and gummy tarantulas on a line of TV trays - and she let you pick. That's what was so cool.

We knew the houses by heart. We knew our neighbor two doors down, who always threatened to shoot any neighborhood cats that had gotten loose, gave out pennies (heartless bastard). If we could make it a few blocks past our regular neighborhood to Crestwood - we'd score cans of Cherry 7-Up and A&W Cream Soda. I didn't have any friends of my own in the neighborhood - they were mostly my brother's age and his friends - but their parents still gave each of us extra hand fulls of sweet and gooey stuff.

Then we'd set out what we'd collected for the night, my brother and I. We didn't always have the best relationship as children, but on Halloween, we were ready to do business. We'd set up our merchandise night after night - once we'd gotten everything we wanted, we stopped. Our pillow cases were kept in our own secret spaces, to avoid theft.

Halloween was a night of delicious sin. Junk food, devilish costumes, pandering and bartering all in one. It's not the same anymore. Our pillowcases were washed and smelled like Tide. As I sat on Leslie's porch passing out tootsie rolls and pops, some pillowcases had drool marks on them. I swear. We were creative w/ our costumes. Sometimes we fell for a fad, but it was still a bonafide costume. If you couldn't come up w/ something new, it had to have some sort of make-up or blood to make it viable. Now, kids as old as me walk around in sweatshirts carrying WalMart bags trick-or-treating as "high school football fan". Seriously? Fun Size candy bars - got a hell of a lot smaller and a lot more expensive. Babies trick-or-treat now. Which is really in kind of poor taste. "You know that thing ain't more than 3 mos old," Leslie said. "Can't eat any candy."

Girls of 12 go out with their friends dressed in fishnet stockings, shorts that barely cover their ass cheeks and bunny ears. Without their parents. Which is a good thing because I'd probably report their asses to Social Services if I knew who they were. Little five-year-old boys dress up as pimps - and have the walk down. Times have changed.

And then there's the curfew on trick-or-treating. Which is bullshite. Yet, the Halloweens I remember, the running through the night, the freedom and fun of it all - were all before a friend from the neighborhood was kidnapped while on a walk with my brother and some other friends. I suppose more neighborhoods have stories like that. And so you have a curfew. Because kids aren't safe anymore. Now we screen our candy through the Police because Mom isn't good enough. It sucks - but then again if kids aren't safe it's probably because their parents let them dress up as prostitutes and run around on their own.

I was seven when my parents divorced - so I probably only had five or six good ol' fashioned Halloweens. But on those nights, we were free to do as we pleased and be anyone but ourselves. Those are the only memories I have of my father being protective, holding me in his arms far from the gorilla man. Even though my brother was 3 years older than me - and technically cooler - we bartered together and had jolly good fun. Who knew our neat little rows of treats were a glimpse into the obsessively structured adults we now are.

Trick-or-treat indeed.