Full Circle

Thursday, June 26th

8:50AM
Click remote for Papa Sven seven times as approach from my building. Standing in front of the window while directing remote through the glass, clicker hovering a mere eleven inches from the receiver, proceed to peck unlock button eighteen more times. Mumble “motherfuckingpieceofshitcar” loud enough to startle a bunny rabbit perched on the lawn. Apologize to the innocent hare while doing a contorted curtsy, try remote one more time and finally hear chirp signaling release of driver’s side door. Exhale.

8:57AM
Turn key in ignition, blast air conditioning, clip seat belt, adjust radio and shift car into reverse. Carefully check mirrors, release brake and move foot toward gas, at which point car putters and coughs. Whisper a “Come on baby. Don’t fuck mama again,” before slamming pedal to the floor and gunning car backwards. Pat Papa Sven on the dash and promise to fill him up with high octane as a reward.


Friday, June 27th

8:53AM
Approaching car from building, with a massive tree and truck in the way, press clicker just once. Lights blink, car chirps and locks release. Make mental note: clicker at chin height while standing on third stair down and fifty yards away is best location to unlock automobile. Settle into car, shift into reverse and start don’t-stall-on-me-now mantra when car suddenly sets off in a violent bucking motion. Grumble, “of course you’d fuck with me on a Friday.” Then floor it, catching the engine, and set off on the day. Inform Papa Sven upscale octane is officially off the table.

1:32PM
Tell my male coworker who’s joining me to fetch some sustenance he can move the passenger seat back.

“Thanks,” he offers as he fuddles with the buttons and starts sliding out of view.

Turn key in ignition, shift Papa Sven into reverse and hear a loud and familiar but as yet undiagnosed screech echoing from under the hood.

“What the fuck is that?” my coworker asks as he grips the door handle for dear life. “You should really get that checked.”

“Or I should just leave this thing on Broad Street with the key in the ignition. Baja Fresh?”


Saturday, June 28th

1:57PM
Set new record for number of attempts needed for remote to unlock car - forty-two. At click thirty-seven, retreat to third stair down and hold clicker at chin to reenact the previous morning. Then stomp to car and curse while clicking until it finally unlocks. Get in, put on chic sunglasses, admire appearance in rear view mirror, clip belt and shift car into reverse. Realize Papa Sven has stalled without even bothering to cough a heads up. Repeat three times and threaten to start using 87 octane.

2:12PM
Standing at parent’s front door finagling the lock, I hear my mom on the other side.

“I’m coming,” she says as I push the door open.

“Put new tires on the Benz.”

“What? Wait. Why? Is one of them flat?” my mom asks with the kind of angst reserved the diagnosis of an incurable disease or highlights that come up too blond.

“Nope. You were right,” I say before tossing my car key on the marble shelf in the foyer. “I can’t take Papa Sven to Maine. I have a hard enough time getting him out of my fucking parking lot.”

“Say it one more time,” my mom pleads.

“Fine. You were right. God that hurt.”

“I bet.”

“Hey dad,” I yell up the stairway. “Because of you and your crappy automobile decisions, I just had to tell mom she was right!”

“Wow. Okay, you can get a new car,” he yells down.

“I heard that,” my mom says with a yelp.

“You were supposed to,” my dad answers.

Letting It Out

"This is Paige," I answered as I cradled my work phone to my ear and typed an email.

"PJ, it's mom."

"Uh huh."

"Did you decide anything about the car for Maine?"

"Yeah, I'm taking Papa Sven," I announced.

Silence.

"Hello?" I asked.

"I think that's a bad idea."

"I know you do but listen, I can't juggle anything right now. Dad's car has ridiculous blind spots and I stress out driving yours. You're all, it's just a car but don't follow too close and park a mile away from any other vehicle. I'm too anxious about grad school to worry about dinging your Benz."

"But Papa Sven died two weeks ago, has a broken sunroof and makes a curious noise whenever you shift him into reverse."

"He also contains all of my cd's, a comfy blanket in case I want to sprawl out on the grass, flip-flops for an emergency pedicure and a fleece for chilly evenings. Papa Sven is familiar and comfortable and that's what matters right now."

"I think it's a terrible idea. What if I just move all of your stuff into my car?"

"It's already decided. Anything else?"

Silence.

"Hello? Mom?"

"I want to ask you something but I don't want you to get all huffy with me the way I think you might," my mom carefully said.

"Um, okay," I answered, my hands halting to hover over the keyboard.

"Since December, you've been, I don't know, different. Did you change pills?"

"No, same one for the last two years," I said, content I could prove her theory wrong. But I knew exactly what she was talking about.

I've been on edge. I've had little patience. My days swirl together until I collapse in a heap, hibernating from people and the world as I attempt to recover. I fight back tears, I clench my jaw and though I still laugh regularly and almost peed my pants the other day when Joe told me a story, I know things are different. Or more specifically, I know I'm different.

"The only thing I can think of is life's gotten the best of me. In December I decided to apply to grad school. January and February I buried myself under a pile of applications. March and April knotted my stomach as I waited to learn my fate. Oh, and let's not forget Alaska suggesting we get back together only to chicken out."

"That's over, right? Alaska?"

"Yes, it's over. But I've been on an emotional roller coaster since January. And I guess it's left me a tad tattered for lack of a better word."

"Well, I'm concerned. And I just want you to know that."

"You're a Jewish mother - you'll always be concerned," I offered.

"And I still don't think you should take Papa Sven to Maine."

"Oh crap. Are you kidding me with this? I already told dad that if he dies, I'm leaving the car in Maine. He's fine with it."

"But what if it dies in Connecticut. Like in Hartford. Oh my God, Hartford is so unsafe. Then what?"

"Why the fuck would I be in Hartford?"

"Passing through, I mean. Hartford's a tough town."

"I'll be on 84. And I'll also call Enterprise. Mom, I can't. Not now. If I change my mind, I'll let you know. But really, I just can't let stupid shit control me any more. I'm having a hard enough time managing the important things."

"Okay, PJ. I'm just asking you to reconsider."

"Understood. I gotta go," I said.

And I did. I had clients to service and issues to manage. More importantly, I could feel my eyes start to well up with tears and I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep myself together. So after returning the handset to the cradle, I pushed my chair back from my desk, lowered my head and disappeared in the bathroom for a good cry.

Sliding Across A Rough Patch

I started this blog at Ex’s urging. After reading a short story I had dusted off and given him for Valentine’s Day, he pushed me to start writing again. So I did.

Though I maintained a steady habit of posting twice a week, Ex didn’t always read what I wrote. I never said anything. Instead, I waited for him to randomly offer a comment. Sometimes he praised me for my tone and other times he complimented my sense of humor. Then, the month our relationship went south, he chastised me for both.

“I can’t believe you wrote that,” he spewed in my direction, ‘that’ being an older post about nose picking.

“I’m sorry, what?” I challenged.

“Paige, what you said, it isn’t who I thought I was dating.”

I hashed out a retort in my head, swapping adjectives and verbs to formulate a productive statement.

“I wrote that months ago and more importantly, everybody, including you, does it - so what’s the big fucking deal?”

“Sure, that’s true. But it makes you sound, I don’t know, classless,” he said as he fuddled with the clasp of his Cartier.

“Classless...wow. Listen, here’s the thing, I won’t edit myself for you. Not now and not down the road. Because that post is part of me, even if it sheds a less than flattering light. And if you can’t accept it, maybe you can’t accept me, the whole of me,” I reasoned.

He didn’t have a response. At least not at that moment. But the damage had been done. The very part of me he had helped to develop was not what he thought it would become. The honesty, the rawness, all of it challenged his image and ideals.

Alaska struggled with my blog too, sorting out the real me as it collided with the virtual me. Personally, I find them to be one and the same but for whatever reason, to him they differed. He read regularly, randomly relayed his thoughts and never once suggested I alter what I had to say. To him, my blog wasn’t his to edit. It was mine, all mine. Nonetheless, he always identified it as an obstacle.

A few months ago, I started to feel uninspired with regard to my blog. Graduate school applications drained me dry of creative urges. Finally excising Alaska from my head and heart preoccupied my mind and tensed my hands. I continued to write but I just wasn’t in it. I was doing nothing more than going through the motions. The same way I drive down Broad Street, pacing not to the color of the lights but the flow of traffic. I was on literary cruise control. And for the first time in the history of Life Goes On, I Think, I pondered the point of continuing.

In May, I sat down and wrote a post about closing down my blog. I used adjectives like ‘maturity’ and ‘evolution’. I layered ‘the next step’ with ‘going out on top’. And then I saved the piece and waited for the right time to make it public. There in the clutter of published and drafted essays sat a collection of words that would change everything. It patiently lingered, properly prepped for a grand debut or perhaps more accurately, a grand finale.

This past weekend, I went down to DC to visit with Ryane. We threw back margarita’s with Amie and brunched in the shade with Freckled K, all the while pestering Kris Likey for failing to keep her calendar straight and thus depriving us of her presence. As I collapsed on Amtrak yesterday afternoon, I realized the timing to end my blog isn’t right. Not yet. I realized that maybe I’m in a writing rut, but I’m not ready to part with all that this venue affords me. It’s here that I got my footing as a writer. It’s here that I learned to believe in myself as a woman. And it’s here I found a community that embraced me, flaws and all. I might not need this space but I’m not ready to quit being part of it.

So when I got into work this morning, I finalized the details of my journey to BlogHer ’08. I charged out my flight, confirmed my hotel and registered for the conference. Then I made dinner reservations for here and there because, hey, a girl’s gotta eat. The only outstanding detail is to find a sassy blogger to share my room. Anyone? Anyone?

Now Hear This!

If you can’t tell from the format of my blog or the style of my prose, I don’t write to provide a daily update of my life. I don’t write to vent or complain, flaunt or boast. I write to write. It’s an exercise, sometimes in futility, but an exercise nonetheless. Like a runner training for a marathon, I write to prepare for my future as a writer. And while a runner seeks a finish line, a writer is nothing without an audience.

Anyone starting a blog will quickly learn that there are two ways to grow a readership: create a list of links to sites you enjoy and leave worthwhile comments on posts you like. Links oftentimes get reciprocated which immediately opens the door to someone else’s readership. And comments are like self advertising; two sentences is sometimes all you need to make someone curious.

Over the course of time, I have created a little following and amassed a collection of friends. That last part is one of those things that sounds creepy and Dungeons & Dragons-ish but it’s true. The blogosphere offers a curious sense of reality where complete strangers are afforded the opportunity to interact as if they are long lost friends. Or in the case of To Catch a Predator, it’s a venue for men to solicit under aged children for sexual encounters. Hence why people might find this forum creepy.

Anyway, I’m not sure how I met Sarah over at He Loves Me Not. No, seriously, I have no idea how our wires crossed. All I know is that I started reading her a while back and she reads me. Done and done. Or so I thought.

A few months ago, Sarah asked me to submit an essay to be considered for a collection. One of her British blogpals had decided to gather some writers, combine their work in an anthology and sell the completed product to raise money for War Child, a non-profit benefiting children affected by war. Brilliant, right? I mean, I already give away what I write for free so I might as well have it help a cause. The hiccup was that I was in the middle of a grad school application shitstorm. I had no clean underwear, was down to a nubbin of deodorant and couldn’t keep my their straight from my they’re. Don’t even get me started on how badly I was ignoring my down-there. So I took a pass.

But Sarah being Sarah had no intention of letting me sneak away so easily. She nudged me again, noting I could recycle something from my blog. I quickly skimmed my collection of posts, settled on a piece and sent it off to her inbox. Then I sorta kinda forgot about it.

Well, it seems my little essay made the cut. Earlier this week, Peach, the creator and editor of the collection, announced the list of contributors along with information about how to purchase the book. You can buy a printed copy or you can purchase a downloadable version. Apparently more money is donated to Warchild if you download the collection but I’m totally springing for a hard copy. Listen, as a writer, there’s no glory in flaunting a PDF.

So since I rarely ask much of you people, I am boldly going out on a limb and asking you to wander over to Lulu and buy a copy. I’d do the British Pound/American not-worth-the-paper-it’s-printed-on dollar conversion but I’m a writer, not a math whiz. Plus, the resulting number might make you choke considering the Pound has been kicking the Greenback’s ass ever since they let us start our own country.

I know that money is tight these days. I know that gas is expensive and the market is tanking. I know the cost of cucumbers has risen and your disposable income has shrunk. But I am asking for you to give to a worthy cause. Perhaps you should think of it as a donation to benefit kids who, no matter how bad you have it, have it tremendously worse. Oh, and with your donation, you will receive a free gift - a collection of original stories generously donated by a bunch of pretty cool bloggers.

A Sense of Adventure

Life is an adventure. Though of course, ‘adventure’ is a subjective term. For one person, eating escargot tops the extreme list and for another, jumping out of a plane a few thousand feet up is the limit. It all depends on where you’re coming from and where you want to go. Or perhaps, how you want to get there.

I’d say my life is rather tame. I’ve shot guns but I’ve never gone and killed anything out in the wild. I’ve been in a 10 foot Boston Whaler with an 8 foot Bull Shark. But it isn’t like I was in danger. I mean, I was smart enough to be stationed by the tail instead of the teeth. And last year I set off solo for a week in Ecuador, though it wasn’t like I was trekking with the gear on my back and a tent to shelter me from the rain. For some, the way I live might seem careless and for others it’s too limiting. For me, it’s just right.

Last August, I spent a day on Kodiak, a small island off of Alaska. I ended up there by chance and though my interaction with the locals didn’t span much beyond ordering hot chocolate at Harborside Coffee and fish and chips at Henry’s, I still got a feel for that place. I spent an hour reading the headstones in a town cemetery, another touring the two room museum and I settled in on a bench by the Russian Orthodox Church to read a book. There was quite a bit to experience on Kodiak and at the risk of sounding cliche, my time there left a mark.

Shortly after returning to Philadelphia, I started to search for Kodiak bloggers. I figured the island probably had some pretty interesting people floating around. Sure enough, I found Ish of Kodiak Confidential. And he led me to Flat Rat Rants and Sandinyerface. They’re just regular old people going through life sharing their opinions and highlighting their adventures. As an aside, it was also through Ish that I met Theresa of My Fairbanks Life and without her editing and guidance, my graduate school applications would surely have sucked beyond words.

Anyway, my Alaska adventures are finally over. And I’m not talking about the state; I’m talking about the man who led me to that far part of the planet. But as much as that chapter has closed, the people I met because of him linger on. A few times a week, I get my Alaska fill by visiting Griff and Ish, Nick and Theresa. It’s my little escape from Philadelphia, the same way I always listen to a Martha’s Vineyard radio station while working at my desk. It keeps my adventure going even when I’m sitting still in an all too familiar place.

When I read Ish this morning, I came across one of his posts about a California physician, Shaun Lunt, who spent some months flying around Alaska, all the while photographing the view from way up high. The post was about his unexpected death and it included a link sharing many of the photographs he took along the way. They are just spectacular. Really, there is no other word. Take some time to wander over to Shaun’s site and see all that he saw.

I gave up a good half hour this morning doing just that. The views of a bay as he swooped past the shoreline and the images of a bear as it waded through the water; you’re invited to partake in his adventure, one so many of us would easily dismiss as extreme or perhaps even foolish.

My favorite photographs are the ones of him, his plane and the landscape filling the background. I love those because of the contentment captured on his face. You can just tell he was doing what felt right. Or that he was on a great adventure and every day seemed better than the last. It reminds me of all the things I want to do but oftentimes shelve, reasoning that the time isn’t right or the finances are too tight. I look at those portraits of Shaun, a man I never knew and never will, and I smile. It’s a tragedy he died. But man do I envy and admire his adventurous spirit.

Forty Fucking Years In The Desert And Still My People Don't Drink

At noon on Saturday, after ogling the tarts at Tisserie and shopping the housewares at ABC, my mom and I showed up at Union Square Cafe for a pre-theatre lunch. I know there are plenty of other eateries to experience in Manhattan. I know the city is bursting with culinary brilliance driven by sophisticated palates. I know it all. But I adore Union Square and that's that.

The hostess showed us to a table in the front room and within minutes we were nibbling marinated olives and sipping sweetened iced tea. Just as the last pit was discarded in the designated bowl, our meals arrived. I had a soy glazed tuna burger topped with pickled ginger and my mom had an arugula salad adorned with seared sirloin, mushrooms and Pecorino. We shuffled our plates back and forth, savoring each bite before moaning in delight. Next the waiter presented a strawberry rhubarb crisp topped with a dollop of honey lavender ice-cream. Though I cut sugar out of my diet a few weeks ago, I still sneaked a few tastes of dessert, or as I liked to call it, orgasm on a spoon. As I finished my last bite of sinful sweetness, the neighboring table struck up a conversation.

"Excuse me, but what is that?" the older woman inquired as she generously spread mustard across her hamburger bun. Her voice arced and pitched just like that of a proper Upper East Side doyenne.

"Strawberry rhubarb crisp," I answered after licking my spoon clean and placing it on the table.

"It looks delicious, right Henry?" she continued, this time directing her comment to the man seated across from her.

"It sure does, but everything here is delicious," the man responded before directing his attention to me. "We got back from Florida late last night and if I had given in to her pleading, we would've come straight here from JFK."

"What can I say? I live for their burgers," the woman reasoned without apology.

"Where in Florida?" my mom probed.

"We do Lauderdale By The Sea in the winter and Sutton Place in the summer. Oh excuse me," the woman said as she lifted her empty martini glass up in the air to signal for another.

"We have a place in Sarasota," my mom offered.

"Henry grew up in Sarasota and has a great story about one of the Keys."

The conversation continued on and when the plates were scraped clean and our bellies full, we gathered our things, said goodbye to our neighbors and escaped out to the street. Under arching umbrellas, we lazily strolled the rain soaked sidewalks.

"Those burgers were insanely small," my mom noted as she peered through the window of a flooring store and eyed the tile work.

"They split it. The kitchen made two smaller burgers instead of one big one," I explained.

"Well there's no way that would have been enough to satisfy me."

"Mom, between us we had two entrees and one dessert. They had one burger and three martinis."

"Really? Wow. I just can't relate to that."

"Oh please, I'm sure they're saying the same thing about us," I said before altering my voice to mimic the proper diction of our recent dining neighbors. "I mean, Henry darling, did you see them? Those girls had all that food and not a single drop of alcohol? Madness, I say. Madness!"

"I guess so. But I still don't get it. I'd pass on a martini for strawberry rhubarb crisp any day of the week."

And that there sums up the difference between the Jews and the Goys.

Raw Talent

My mom constantly exposed me to the arts, filling my childhood with any and every activity she could come up with. I was taken to kid-specific orchestra performances to become acquainted with classical music. I stood before exquisite art by people like Van Gogh, Manet and Seurat, the vast canvases towering over my little head. I sat through Broadway productions like Whoopi Goldberg’s one woman show and Terrence McNally’s Master Class, all the while begging to be taken to the Penn and Teller show one more time. Sometimes I put up a fuss, cranky about having to wear my mary janes or grumpy about spending an entire hour staring at antique clocks at the Frick, but for the most part I was happy to go along for the ride. The funniest part of it is that my mom never did any of this when she was growing up. Her parents were bitter, church-going, factory workers who lived in an isolated world defined by misery, Jesus and poorly cooked pasta. I guess my mom wanted to ensure I never had her childhood.

It should come as no surprise that eventually I fell in love with the arts, visiting museums and going to plays simply because I wanted to. I’ve been known to cross state lines for the sake of an exhibit. I’ve been known to book theatre tickets months in advance to ensure a seat in the orchestra. I have even gone so far as to fly up to Boston and down to Atlanta to catch a performance. But two weeks ago, my affection for the arts hit an all time high. Case in point, my calendar:

May 18th: August: Osage County

May 20th: Interference and The Swell Season

May 23rd: Working

May 27th: The Happiness Lecture

May 28th: Eric Hutchinson

May 31st: reasons to be pretty

June 1st: James Taylor

As I’ve come to identify myself more as a writer and less as an insurance broker who blogs, I’ve started to view the arts through a different lens. There was one slice of August: Osage County, a scene of banter around a dinner table, that was utterly brilliant. My mouth hung open as I listened to the dialog. I hope to hunt down a printed copy of the play so I can experience the scene again but this time through the eyes of a writer. And I sat through every minute of The Happiness Lecture in awe of how one person could craft something so creative. Bill Irwin’s production, no matter how odd and quirky, was quite spectacular. Okay, so I’m not sure I fully grasped the plot of that play or if there even was one but I do know I enjoyed the performance from start to finish. And in the arts, that alone can represent true success.

This Saturday, as I waited for the the start of Neil LaBute’s current Manhattan offering, I peeled back the cover of my Playbill and began reading the playwright’s statement:

If I could be anything but a writer—and I can’t, I’ve tried—I would be a braver person. One who just doesn’t give two shits about what other people say or think or feel; I don’t think that would make me callous or uncaring or stuck-up (to utilize a wonderfully high-schoolish word). I think it would simply make me hold my head up a little higher, look people in the eye for a bit longer, make my smile a little broader (and any picture of me will attest that smiling is not my strong suit). I hope this play makes a case for being yourself and standing up for what you believe in. For being brave. For making choices that are hard and adult and not easy. For going out and being a part of the world instead of a mere observer. I’ve written about a lot of men who are really little boys at heart, but Greg, the protagonist in this play, just might be one of the few adults I’ve ever tackled. The play talks a bit about our country’s (and, by extension, the world’s) obsession with physical beauty, but it’s really the first coming-of-age story I’ve written. A boy grows up and becomes a man. I suppose every writer has one of those stories to tell, and this one is mine. It also concerns a very blue-collar side of the work population, like the friends and family I grew up with. I know what a dead-end job is like. I know exactly what it’s like to be eating your lunch at 3:00 a.m. and feeling like life as you know it is now officially over. I have a profound respect for work and workers and communities who live from paycheck to paycheck. The worst day I’ve had writing is better than the best day I ever had working in a factory, and the people who do it, year after year, because that’s life, and food and rent and child support must be paid, have all my respect. Writing is easy. Life is hard. It’s more than hard—it’s a bitch (as many bumper stickers are happy to point out for us). I suppose that’s why I like the person who spends more time working than on Facebook, the person who gets out there and lives his life rather than blogging about it or staring in the mirror wondering about anything so damn inconsequential as looks or hair or yesterday. The future is now. It’s time to grow up and be strong.*

I reread the statement again during intermission and for the first time in years, I tucked the Playbill in my bag instead of passing it back to the usher afterwards. The wise words shared by the playwright were obviously inspired by this specific production but clearly apply to life beyond the stage.

I’ve always respected Neil LaBute and his talent. He slices through the meat and gets right to the bone. He has a unique ability to provoke thought and present a reality we all know about but rarely want to confront. From In The Company of Men to Fat Pig, LaBute just puts it all out there, bloody and raw, for the rest of us to observe. But as much as I embrace his talent as a writer, I didn’t think this was his best play. I liked it but I didn’t love it the way I cared for other things he has written.

But, I did love what he had to say about it all. I love it as a member of the audience and as a writer trying to find my path in the literary world. In the process of penning this post, I have gone back and read that statement at least five more times. It isn’t condescending or pompous. It isn’t written for a specific gender or class. It is a collection of exceptionally simple words that together make, in my mind, a worthwhile statement. It leaves me thirsty for more. And I hope one day my writing holds the same power. That one day, people will read something I wrote and a few days later, they’ll still be thinking about it.


* From the preface to reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute, to be published in June by Faber & Faber, Inc., an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Copyright (c) 2008 by Neil LaBute. All rights reserved.