A glimpse of Past Injuries

"I can't believe it, Young"

"What is that, my love?" The Young we know never coos, nor even seems to understand the art of making love, but this is the old Young, this is the way that he used to be in all of his naive splendor.

"Young I can't be it"

"What is that, my love?" What he heard in her voice- a measure of displeasure, disbelief and a helping of dishonor- he'll never forget.

"Young, I won't be it..."

"What is that, my love?" And at that, at her first step towards decisiveness, Young was Undone. Unloved. Un- John.

She had a choice.

His very life was gone.

Oh, Young.

What sentementalities you and I share for life and love and things undone.

I think I made a huge mistake...

While Roasting Marshmallows.

I just think I want to cry for about thirteen days straight.

But what I really need is some heavenly assurance.
And Health Insurance.
And a day off.
And a million dollars.

Regardless, I am an idiot.
And I am not afraid to admit it.

Atleast, I won't be when I don't have a choice. And all the world will know that I make silly choices when I am left to my own devices on warm summer nights with you by my side and a silly notion of affection.

Not everything that happens while roasting marshmallows stays in the fire.

Simple Pleasures

Gnarls Barkley.

Being Ghetto Fabulous.

Not having a single care in the world when I am driving in my car with the windows rolled down and my hair blowing and my bass thumping and you on my mind.

Unwritten.

You tease me with a prospect. You tease me with the chance to fill a tablet with my favorite medium.

You speak, and you say, "I am unfulfilled"

I offer, and "What do I do?"

*************
"My mind is currently a blank sheet of loose leaf waiting to be written upon."

Beauty is such as I had never imagined in a mind that dilates beyond my perception.

Should I, with an unsteady and failing hand and heart fill that empty page, disorganized with scraps of pictures, tender words, witty things and soft remeberances, it would last you as long as you'd like.

You might like to fill it in as we go, though with your own thoughts. Precious, quiet, genius.

Yes, I shall ignore my desires and propel your creativity to fill your own empty space and maybe a few of mine as well.

Living my life in Text message currency.

"What do you mean, Young?"

"Huh-- about what?"

"You said something and i just think I misunderstaood you."

He wasn't really being fair. He knew what she was asking. He knew she wanted to be reassured. He knew she was looking for him to validate he feelings. Her thoughts. Her kisses. But he wanted to be coy. He wanted her to wonder. To probe. To question.

This was all that Young had said to her to make her heart flutter and her palms to sweat and her eyes to twinkle:

"You know, Young, you are a free man. You can do whatever you want."

"Free, huh?" Young winked at her and thought so strongly that he was sure she knew his thought as her own that "Were I too consider myself free, I would be a fool not to belong to you"

And that was all.

And Young thought, "Maybe I did speak aloud to her."

And April is the cruelest month...

I just wanted to jot something down that was worthy and genius, but typically when I set out without a clear plan my brain plays tricks on me.


I start thinking about everything except brilliant literaray accomplishments. Things like tennis and mountain biking and pizza flipping and bread baking and dinosaurs and piano playing. Real life things that mean nothing to posterity or other people of elevated intelligence and distinct taste.

They just mean things to me.

And how un-genius is that.

Something I should have realized, one thing I know for sure, and some extra words I wanted you to hear straight from me.

I thought about you today. I thought about how you don't hold me tight and about how when I sit next to you so oft' in the car or at dinner or on the porch in the soft yellow porch light that i have to ask to be touched. I thought about how you always make me make the first move in everything. I thought about how you have no interest in promising me forever or in owning me or even in owning your own feelings for me.

I thought about you today and I smiled. There was joy in my heart and a lightness in my step and a twinkling in my eye.

What a joy to be on the same simple page. To be at the beginning of the same simple story, or the end of the same great tragedy. And to be there with you.

To turn to someone at the same time with the same sentiment and the same heart as they are turning to you and speak "Where are we going?" And to answer with your heart or head quietly "Who knows, but isn't it nice here?"

Who Knows.

I thought about you and how quiet you are. And how nothing makes you nervous. How nothing changes your constitution. nothing- except the state of my tires, or when I laugh to hard and start coughing like a stage three TB patient- Nothing worries you or makes you fret or wring your hands. You calmly assess situations and move through with a clear head and Lord only knows what you think when you're silent and alone n your head.

I can't do that. i can't be that. I have to talk. I have to talk so much that i do it (poorly) in four different languages. I have to talk so much that i do it with my hands. On my food. When i sing. In my sleep. With a million pieces of scrap paper and on a thousand wasted web pages. i have to worry and fret and wring my hands gnash my teeth so much so that i wake up in cold sweats always feeling that I have forgotten something. Anything. Lunch. Money. Mom's Birthday. To Clean my Shoes.

I change so much I wear myself out. I change more than I like. Most days I wake up unsure of where my day will begin much less where it will end or who i will be when I make it there. Will I be laughing so hard I can't breathe or crying so hard and so pathetically alone that i can't bear to force my chest up once more. Or sleeping. Or dreaming. Or drawing. Or dancing. or driving. Or walking. Will my day end too late or my night begin to early? Will my glass be half full or will I have it all wasted?

How can you possible stand it? How do you torture yourself by asking me to speak? (which you do, telling me i shouldn't be so quiet what's wrong do I need anything and what am I thinking?) Why? Why do you demand my inconsistencies and incongruities?

Or do you? Maybe somewhere in the vast expanse of your great mind that devours books and find delights in simple jokes and puppy kisses- just maybe you think I'm a babbling idiot. A dolt. A loser with an unsettling upper respiratory issue. Maybe you think i'm a baboon. A joke of a woman with an unnecessarily large vocabulary.

Perchance you view me as a fun project. Someone to talk and take up your time until something better comes along. Some better offer. I'm okay with that.

I'm no longer fostering dreams of marriage and children and family dogs on little leashes and edible gardens in front of my brick false front with a deck made for parties and a Baltimore-ese stoop for which to sit on and talk to passing neighbors and sometimes get a little rowdy all in good fun. I'm no longer looking for a love to shake the very root of me and change me and own me and put me above all other things in the universe. I'm no longer willing or needing to pledge my life's blood and devotion to the love of another.

I want someone to sit with. And drink with. And drive around town. And drag out to silly excursions. And make to buy me ice cream. I want someone who appreciates me, not someone who flatters me. Not someone who tells me what i want to hear, just what they want to say.

I'm not going to thank God for the occasion of meeting you. I would not be devastated tomorrow if you told me you and I were nothing more than pals. I don't miss you when I sleep nor dread the days alone. When I see you my heart doesn't roll with elation. My heart doesn't bob inconsistantly up and down in my chest.

I just simply like you.

I just simply like you as much as you like me.

And isn't that the point anyhow?

Uninsipred and Boring Thursday Thirteen.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN...?

I would like to open this with something funny:

"So what you're saying is you like to suck the liquid souls out of cows?"

I don't know, dude.

Ten pet names I hate being called:

1. Weezy
2. Missy
3. Boo
4. Lilly
5. Felice... Don't ask
6. Momma
7. Babe, although Baby is acceptable for the most part.
8. Mrs. Dahl
9. My anything. I am not yours. I am a person, not a doll.
10. Melissa... another interesting one.

Three pet names I not only allow but incourage:

11. L-Dawg
12. Louise (which is my name, but no one likes it)
13. Lady... Which is a new one entirely.

This was the mort uninspired post I have ever created. Enjoy it while it last, I'll most likely kill it in the morning.

If I were to scrap book, I would have taken that tissue off of your bed post.

Have you ever heard someone make fun of something so much (like homosexuality, driving tricked out SUVs, underwater basket weaving) and then thought, "Maybe this is what this person wants most in all the world?"

Last night, The Boy and I were mocking scrapbookers. I myself USED to be a scrapbook type of person. The type of person who sees things and thinks, I should like to remember this for all my life. So I shall make a page out of paper cut outs to memorialize it. When I am done with the page I shall affix it to a book, place he book on my shelf and disregard it for atleast three years.

Then I realized how rediculous and cluttered this practice makes one's life.

But this is kind of a scrap book. There are pictures. There are words. There are memories and feelings and short thing and long things and things that really only mean something to me. There are fallen thoughts and year long dreams and old flames and new desires from the pit of my stomach and the tip of my tongue.

And I told The Boy this.

And he pointed out that I am wrong. "Because that involves neither scraps or books."

So I guess I don't scrap book. Which I guess makes me like 35% cooler than those girls that take every ticket stub and every handkerchief and every receipt.

Or it makes me less of a girl, I don't really know.

I just wanted to say this before it escaped me

I'm building my way through and to you and I am getting distracted along the way by brightly colored objects and the beauty that falls from your eyelashes when you sleep and dream that I would be touching you in ways to make you swoon under a moon that we both see and wish with which to be on and when you have a light in your heart a love would grow from the start of it the very start of life is this in love we find our very hearts which have been torn and worn like emblems of lustful pride but now it's just you and me and a great big sea for us to divide and own and make our way together with the moon and light and love.

Me, Maybe.

We girls have a few horrible habits.

One of which is taking showers that last for hours and making you late for everything.

Another, much more interesting phenomenom is our ability to lie. In a very specific way. Allow me to elaborate:

You boys say: "Honey, What's wrong?"

We girls answer, tersely, "Nothing, why would you think something were wrong?"

"Well you just seem quiet..."

Here is our flaw. our down fall. Our issue.

We as women think that you know very well what you have done/ omitted/ allowed to happen that has affected us. And you know you were wrong. And we are just waiting for you to ask how to fix it. Read on:

You boys say: "I had fun today/ last night/ at the beach/ with your family"

We respond "Yea, I bet you did/ Whatever/ Me too, especially meeting your ex-girlfriend"

At this point, we think we've made it clear. We think you understand. We imagine that you are now forming an apology that includes a mentioning of how beautiful we are.

Instead you say: "Good." And then you attempt to kiss/ fondle us messily.

I am unlike most girls here though. Because I fall for it. I think you really do know what you've done worng/ forgotten to do/ mistakenly done to hurt me.

I think your kisses/ neck rubs/ thigh grazings are just your way of saying "I'm sorry. I fully admit my stupidity and heartily hope you will forgive all of my transgressions because, well, I am, afterall, a sex-crazed fumbling ritardando."

Ah, the joys of young, pseudo-insane, almost- love.

Young and Rock Music and the Ocean and the Girl

"So you know nothing about modern rock music?" He was playful and free with her now, much more easy than he had ever felt neccessary in previous hours. They had shared something more important and now they could be open.

"Well, I suppose you could put it that way," God it felt good to allow a twinkle in her eye as they barely held hands and walked down the board walk, chilly but bathed in a white sun. The kind of sun that only shines for pseudo-new lovers, barefoot on the beach while eating soft serve ice cream and squinting their eyes to smile. "I know a lot about Elvis, and Dino, and Michael Buble."

"Who? Nevermind... I suppose you can live your live just fine without knowledge that is deep and meaningful"

"Meaningful, huh?"

Just a snapshot of what two poeple who like to walk on the beach together in flip flops without sunglasses while kites are flying and dogs are barking might discuss. Small things that are said quietly or screamed calmly depending upon the roar of the ocean, the din of the arcades, the hum of the giggle of small children.

Just a little mark of freedom in thought and in action that Benny really ddin't know how much she had missed.

What are we doing?

THURSDAY THIRTEEN.

ON A THURSDAY!

WHAT NOVELTY!

SUCH DEVOTION AND DEDICATION AND DELIGHTFULNESS!

Here you go, 7 Funny Phrases I heard this week alone, and 6 random thoughts just for you:

1.) "Things that are freakishly large kinda scare me"- ME

2.) "OO look your Hot chocolate sure is happy to see you!"- My Barista at Starbucks

3.) "It'll Hurt. I'll probably cry. And I'll say I love it. I guess that's just what love is about."- Technically me, but more or less Benny.

4.) "I wondered why I hadn't worn these pants in a few weeks, then I realized that they have a huge hole in the upper left thigh."
"So what you're saying is they're too revealing?"- The Boy

5.) "I just don't want her to say anything creepy, but I know it'll happen"- Piano Lady

6.) "Pork it." - The Bourbon, Beer and BBQ fest tickets

7.) "Yes, her name is Angel and I swear she's not a stripper." - The Boy

8.) I was unaware that it was Chris Meloni's birthday just yesterday. What a strange co-inky-dink.

9.) I am terrified/ way too excited to drink my body weight in bourbon Saturday at the aformentioned Bourbon, Beer and BBQ Festival.

10.) I have a huge bump on my forehead from under estimating the formidable oppontent that was the bathroom door at Applebees.

11.) Officer KillJoy really is my least favorite person this week.

12.) I can smell the Ocean and it is making me quite insane.

13.) Paul Anka. Smells like teen spirit. Nuf Said.

I have a Young post for you, coming shortly so stay tuned.