The guy that delivered the paper today had a thick middle eastern accent and looked just below 50. His eyes were tired but he smiled at me. I'm in a red beanie, skull blouse, grey cardigan, red slacks and black knee high boots. I'm hardly the portrait of femininity. He brings in the paper cases one by one and denies my help.
"This my job." He says. "You sit and do your job. Stay warm, miss."
After he brings in the last case, he reaches in his coat pocket to pull out the electronic signature device. I roll up my sleeves and sign on the line. He thanks me.
When he looks down, he sees my inked anchor and text on my forearm peaking below my sweater and smiles. He rolls up his own sleeves to reveal his own artwork. He rubs his finger on my anchor like a little kid would and says excitedly.
"You! You like me!"
I smile. When he leaves the office he tips his hat and I wave.
I'm happy to be like a man like that.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
21. Grandfather
My grandfather was very tall but he had the kindest eyes. I remember always having this connection with him. My dad used to say the quickest way to calm me down when I was a baby was to put me in his arms.
Before my parents got divorced, we used to hold baseball games in my back yard. My mom would cook on the grill for everyone. All the older folk would sit around in these plastic chairs, drink out of solo cups and talk about the war, except my grandfather. He was always the umpire.
I was the youngest by a few years, and though I was far from shy, I was content to watch from the sidelines. That, and my big brother who was typically inclusive told me specifically I couldn't play.
"Jessie, why don't you have at bat?" my grandfather asked me.
"No, I'm too little." I replied.
"Who told you that?"
"James and the other big kids."
My grandfather was having none of that.
While he knew he could order the crew to let me play, he was a man of respect and reason, so he asked instead. They agreed to let me have one turn.
He bent behind me to help hold the bat as it was still too heavy. With a twinkle in his eye he said,
"Jessie, I bet you can get a home run."
"No I can't, Papa!" I jolted back with an attitude.
"Yes you can," he said. " I know you can."
With that, my brother threw his first pitch. Strike one. The kids quietly laughed.
Second pitch. Strike two.
"I told you she couldn't play!" my brother argued, feeling embarrassed from his friends for agreeing with the old mans request.
"They're going to laugh if I strike out again!" I whined.
"Don't focus on them," he said, "just you and the ball. Don't let jerks ruin your focus."
With that, the ball left my brother's fingers for the third pitch and I felt the bat connect to it. The ball went up and over the fence into my neighbor's yard. The kids that were laughing grew silent. My brother smiled.
I stood there in shock for a moment before my grandfather screamed for me to run. He caught his little grand baby at home plate and kissed me on the forehead after a great big hug.
He died of Parkinsons when I was 7. My dad later told me that the last thing his dad ever said to him was,
"Watch out for my little one, ok?"
Before my parents got divorced, we used to hold baseball games in my back yard. My mom would cook on the grill for everyone. All the older folk would sit around in these plastic chairs, drink out of solo cups and talk about the war, except my grandfather. He was always the umpire.
I was the youngest by a few years, and though I was far from shy, I was content to watch from the sidelines. That, and my big brother who was typically inclusive told me specifically I couldn't play.
"Jessie, why don't you have at bat?" my grandfather asked me.
"No, I'm too little." I replied.
"Who told you that?"
"James and the other big kids."
My grandfather was having none of that.
While he knew he could order the crew to let me play, he was a man of respect and reason, so he asked instead. They agreed to let me have one turn.
He bent behind me to help hold the bat as it was still too heavy. With a twinkle in his eye he said,
"Jessie, I bet you can get a home run."
"No I can't, Papa!" I jolted back with an attitude.
"Yes you can," he said. " I know you can."
With that, my brother threw his first pitch. Strike one. The kids quietly laughed.
Second pitch. Strike two.
"I told you she couldn't play!" my brother argued, feeling embarrassed from his friends for agreeing with the old mans request.
"They're going to laugh if I strike out again!" I whined.
"Don't focus on them," he said, "just you and the ball. Don't let jerks ruin your focus."
With that, the ball left my brother's fingers for the third pitch and I felt the bat connect to it. The ball went up and over the fence into my neighbor's yard. The kids that were laughing grew silent. My brother smiled.
I stood there in shock for a moment before my grandfather screamed for me to run. He caught his little grand baby at home plate and kissed me on the forehead after a great big hug.
He died of Parkinsons when I was 7. My dad later told me that the last thing his dad ever said to him was,
"Watch out for my little one, ok?"
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
20. Maggie (Hallelujah)
Maggie sings the only word she knows of a Leonard Cohen song,
"Halleluuuuja, Halleluuuuujah" over and over again into the receiver that her mother holds up to hear ear, her dark auburn ringlets laying loosely over the phone.
On the other end, her Nana smiles, least just for today. In a few months she'll be gone, but Maggie doesn't know that. She's nearly three and right now, gone is what happens to the food when you eat it and gone are the cars passing by on the street. When things are gone, they either come back or you forget.
She doesn't know everyone is eventually gone forever. She still doesn't know forever outside of cold toes in the winter, or cookies in the oven.
When she's old enough to write about what it all means, or to even come close to understanding, she'll have forgotten how sweet her nana's laugh was, or the taste of her apple pie. She won't remember the look in her father's eyes watching his own mother die, or that her mother's pregnant belly was the only thing keeping anyone going in those days.
But we'll know. And we'll remember. If I know her when she's a grown up I'll tell her that the thought of her little voice singing that song both killed and healed us. I'll talk about the scrap book that her little life is for me.
When she asks what she was doing when Franny was passing away, I'll tell her of the one day I went to visit in the hospital, and Uncle Andrew was there with us. She was pretending to be a monster, and punching everyone in their gentiles. We laughed half out of discomfort and half for all the nerves. We tried to keep spirit around a woman who knew she had maybe weeks left.
I'll tell her that she was busy being just shy of three-a high note in an otherwise cold and broken song, in an otherwise cold and broken moment in a pit at the hospital.
"Halleluuuuja, Halleluuuuujah" over and over again into the receiver that her mother holds up to hear ear, her dark auburn ringlets laying loosely over the phone.
On the other end, her Nana smiles, least just for today. In a few months she'll be gone, but Maggie doesn't know that. She's nearly three and right now, gone is what happens to the food when you eat it and gone are the cars passing by on the street. When things are gone, they either come back or you forget.
She doesn't know everyone is eventually gone forever. She still doesn't know forever outside of cold toes in the winter, or cookies in the oven.
When she's old enough to write about what it all means, or to even come close to understanding, she'll have forgotten how sweet her nana's laugh was, or the taste of her apple pie. She won't remember the look in her father's eyes watching his own mother die, or that her mother's pregnant belly was the only thing keeping anyone going in those days.
But we'll know. And we'll remember. If I know her when she's a grown up I'll tell her that the thought of her little voice singing that song both killed and healed us. I'll talk about the scrap book that her little life is for me.
When she asks what she was doing when Franny was passing away, I'll tell her of the one day I went to visit in the hospital, and Uncle Andrew was there with us. She was pretending to be a monster, and punching everyone in their gentiles. We laughed half out of discomfort and half for all the nerves. We tried to keep spirit around a woman who knew she had maybe weeks left.
I'll tell her that she was busy being just shy of three-a high note in an otherwise cold and broken song, in an otherwise cold and broken moment in a pit at the hospital.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
19. Firm Line
"But what if I do someday?" If-the one word that keeps us tethered to a false sense of anything.
"I don't love you, what what if I do some day? Then you will be gone and I will be left with a ton of regret."
We fear the unknown so much that we lose the moment. In this moment, I do not feel X, Y and Z. I cannot treat this as though I could in the future. I could do a lot of things in the future.
We could sit on the maybe until the idea is over cooked and in the end, no one wins.
So it's best to just be honest.
I don't love him. I know I don't and I know I can't or could. I wish I did. I wish there wasn't such a firm line that I could justify any drunk midnight moves trying to figure it out. I wish life gave you the luxury of having unparalleled attraction to the person that texts you every morning just for the hell of it, or remembers stupid things that you forgot you said yourself in conversations. Sometimes it does, but maybe not when you need it, and certainly not in the dead of a Midwest winter. Least not with me.
So for his sake and mine, my indecisions and addiction to ifs, I draw the line. I know better now, having learned from years of similar mistakes.
"I don't love you, what what if I do some day? Then you will be gone and I will be left with a ton of regret."
We fear the unknown so much that we lose the moment. In this moment, I do not feel X, Y and Z. I cannot treat this as though I could in the future. I could do a lot of things in the future.
We could sit on the maybe until the idea is over cooked and in the end, no one wins.
So it's best to just be honest.
I don't love him. I know I don't and I know I can't or could. I wish I did. I wish there wasn't such a firm line that I could justify any drunk midnight moves trying to figure it out. I wish life gave you the luxury of having unparalleled attraction to the person that texts you every morning just for the hell of it, or remembers stupid things that you forgot you said yourself in conversations. Sometimes it does, but maybe not when you need it, and certainly not in the dead of a Midwest winter. Least not with me.
So for his sake and mine, my indecisions and addiction to ifs, I draw the line. I know better now, having learned from years of similar mistakes.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Sunday, January 26, 2014
17. Toxic
Toxic holds out his 5th of whiskey as an olive branch but I don't take a sip. In a slurred speech he outlines all the ways in which I'm beautiful and apologizes for being such an asshole all the time.
I have two options- I can let him upstairs to my apartment where I at least know he's safe, or I can leave him on my doorstep, keys to his friend's car in hand with a high probability that he could hurt someone else. A cab has been ruled out as he refuses to go anywhere without me or the car.
Alright. My sympathy is draining but I'll take one for the team.
He staggers up my stairs using me as support. Three flights up, he attempts to slide down the banister in jest, only to fall. Drunkenly, he dangles over the railing laughing almost madly, while I use all my strength and the memory of my friend dying in a similar fashion to hoist him back over. His limp body hits the stairs, and both my neighbors below bang at their doors in protest.
I open the front door, quickly grabbing a blanket and pillow off my bed to bring it to the couch. He sways down the hallway to the kitchen to laugh in my roommates face. I am buzzed myself, but repulsed to a point of no comparison. I motion him to the living room, apologizing over the clatter of him knocking things over.
His eyes look right through me as I tell him to stay put. Once in sleep, I feel the weight shift on the other side of my bed. I ask him what he's doing and says he doesn't want to sleep alone.
Toxic promises he'll behave but I have to swat him off a few times before he finally falls asleep. I lay awake with the smell of vinegar, and the sound of his snore crackling over an otherwise quiet night.
When he wakes up, I am reading and slowly drinking my coffee. He rests his head on my shoulder, looks up at me sweetly and asks what he did last night.
I wanted to say, "Destroyed any compassion or assistance moving forward."
Instead I tell him that he has more people he should apologize to.
I have two options- I can let him upstairs to my apartment where I at least know he's safe, or I can leave him on my doorstep, keys to his friend's car in hand with a high probability that he could hurt someone else. A cab has been ruled out as he refuses to go anywhere without me or the car.
Alright. My sympathy is draining but I'll take one for the team.
He staggers up my stairs using me as support. Three flights up, he attempts to slide down the banister in jest, only to fall. Drunkenly, he dangles over the railing laughing almost madly, while I use all my strength and the memory of my friend dying in a similar fashion to hoist him back over. His limp body hits the stairs, and both my neighbors below bang at their doors in protest.
I open the front door, quickly grabbing a blanket and pillow off my bed to bring it to the couch. He sways down the hallway to the kitchen to laugh in my roommates face. I am buzzed myself, but repulsed to a point of no comparison. I motion him to the living room, apologizing over the clatter of him knocking things over.
His eyes look right through me as I tell him to stay put. Once in sleep, I feel the weight shift on the other side of my bed. I ask him what he's doing and says he doesn't want to sleep alone.
Toxic promises he'll behave but I have to swat him off a few times before he finally falls asleep. I lay awake with the smell of vinegar, and the sound of his snore crackling over an otherwise quiet night.
When he wakes up, I am reading and slowly drinking my coffee. He rests his head on my shoulder, looks up at me sweetly and asks what he did last night.
I wanted to say, "Destroyed any compassion or assistance moving forward."
Instead I tell him that he has more people he should apologize to.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
16. Bus Girls
I'm on the 72 headed west back to my apartment. The bus is packed but I managed to find a seat. Two girls make there way in front of me, holding on to the rubber straps on the metal railings. They're loud and curvaceous, clad in bright prints and fake lashes. At first I'm annoyed. My commute is always noisy no matter what time it is.
But there's something in the way they carry themselves. They radiate with enthusiasm, whether they're making fun of each other or speaking of how awkward public transport is. I'm half listening to my friend beside me, and half to them. I find my in to their conversation, complimenting the girl in front of me on her leather jacket. Her friend pipes in to make a joke. I engage in conversation with them for a few stops.
I doubt I'll ever see them again. Extreme weather conditions make us adjust our travel habits. Hell, anything can make you adjust your travel habits.
I hold true to my notion that anybody can be a friend, even for a moment, if you're both willing and open.
But there's something in the way they carry themselves. They radiate with enthusiasm, whether they're making fun of each other or speaking of how awkward public transport is. I'm half listening to my friend beside me, and half to them. I find my in to their conversation, complimenting the girl in front of me on her leather jacket. Her friend pipes in to make a joke. I engage in conversation with them for a few stops.
I doubt I'll ever see them again. Extreme weather conditions make us adjust our travel habits. Hell, anything can make you adjust your travel habits.
I hold true to my notion that anybody can be a friend, even for a moment, if you're both willing and open.
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