I should have typed this before I read that.

I just made the mistake of checking my final grade in Big Girl School and I really should have written this entry before having done so.But, c'est la vie, we cannot unlive, oui?

I was going to write some sort of year end list including all of the exciting, sad, mysterious or otherwise interesting things that happened this year, but I just forgot it all in the emotional tumult.

This semester I took one course. A fundamentals course. With a lab. I passed, but just barely.

Since when am I a C student?

Dear Brain, determination, interest, and self-preservation:
Please return. I have a whole world to conquer and so little time to do it.
Sincerely, Success or failure, I am still me.

They don't print your GPA on your certification, right?

That is all.

I haven’t written in quite a while and I know you are upset.

Actually I don’t know that. In order to continue writing at all, I have to pretend “You” are still reading and continue this one sided conversation in every long- awaited blog experience. All I really know is what I have or have not done and how that makes me feel. Congested. I feel congested with thoughts, feelings, preponderances, concerns and needs.

I would like to make a list, but I am feeling you are a little tired of lists. Actually, I am tired of lists. And I keep forgetting that you are me.

The Boy’s Grandmother passed away. As the Boss Lady says “Grandparents are special people.” So are Aunts, and Cousins, and friends who believed in you. All of whom have run out of this life much in the same way they came in, quietly, and without pretense or expectation.

It is the quiet that makes me heartsick. The patient waiting for death to come, the quiet resonance of the emptying heart too tired to beat. I am heartsick until it hurts over the people I love, the people I barely know, and the people I see everyday. I know their end is coming. I know my end is coming. I don’t know what comes next. I know what I have been promised, and what others have refuted, debated, believed and wished. But I do not know what is for sure. I am less and less confident that this isn’t just a one way ticket. That the end isn’t just a quietly drawn curtain, closing the show and kicking the guests out of the auditorium, so they may have their own numbers called.

But who cares? Who cares about the long, dark, permanence of our own ends when there is so much to fill these minutes and make them a contrast from the anti-time we experience. The endless papers to write, people to please, tests to pass, food to cook and eat, house to clean, dogs to walk, children who look up to you, money to make, music to hear, creations to create, facebook status updates to laugh at, books to read, snow to shovel, cars to drive, bills to pay, flowers to smell… Who has time to die when we are so busy living, right? Right. Right…

I finally achieved my life long goal of becoming a divorcee. Yay…. My life is complete. That is about all I have to say on that subject. Not very enlightening, and steeped in sarcasm, but it is about all I have left- for anything.

I suppose I have unloaded enough for you. Perhaps, but the next time I find a moment for myself, or you, it might be more cheery. Perhaps not, but you and I both know- well, we both know all of the same everything, so who really cares.

The Stress is Killing Me.

I am just a girl. A girl who goes to school, works two jobs, walks her dog, and loves her Scott. And frankly, everything I love is killing me. The stress of just keeping up has buried me and I am starting to show the wear and tear of weary days and long nights.

I am starting to do what I used to do to myself. When I was a crazy kid, bogged down by all of the expectations of teacher, parents, and friends, the stress of upholding my goody-two-shoes, smarty-pants reputations, and the daily rhythm. I am starting to doubt myself. I hate this. I hate this feeling like life is running by me and everyone is seeing something at a speed which I simply do not function; a frequency I was simply not born for.

I am not a action movie, I am a slow foreign film with subterfuge, abstruse theories and long, organic scenes involving the protagonist and their private miseries becoming public.

I am writing this blog, for instance, for myself. To catalog time and group instances of greatness in my life. But it is no greatness. It is a body of writing that will melt away when I am gone, or be used as a general stamp of our times and era. People may find it, years to come, as a useful morsel of the "Internet Age" and make it an example that people would write or say anything in this open format, pretending to be more important than they were.

And That is what I am doing. I am pretending that all of this life is important. Pretending that I feel like continuing on, doing what I have always done, achieving what I have always achieved, growing the way I have always grown. I write this blog, I paint this picture, I pass this test, I log time in an office, I serve this food. I do this life. I do it and I do it and I do it until I see no meaning in the sum of what I have done.

Will you remember that I painted that in your old age, when the paint has faded and the colors seem less rich?

Will you read this, or re read this in search of something applicable to your life, to make you feel like someone existed on the same vibrations as you?

Will you know my accomplishments and be proud of them?

Or am I playing out this long, lonely story on an empty stage to an empty auditorium, while others have a full audience and roses at their final curtain call?

Life is not for the Grown.

It is for the growing.

I tend to have this idea that I am grown up and done learning. And then the first day of school comes and it is followed by more days, and notes, and exams, and modules, and books, and study groups, and powerpoints, and class times, and orientations, and web forums. Then there is homework and meetings, and clinicals, and the juggling act.

And then I realize this is all there will ever be.

This rushing around to meet deadlines. This asking a hundred questions just to keep in tune with the flow of the conversation. This feeling like I am just floating on the surface, just keeping myself up, pedaling just enough to keep with the pack.

And it feels like life. It feels like vibrance and shifting motion. It feels like the race.

An Ending of Sorts; Begining a New Course

I have found you. Or I would have found you, if you weren't already dead. Somehow I always knew, or thought I knew, or felt that I knew that this would be more dramatic than this. That there would be more than this. But this is the end and the end is all there is.

All my fervent wishing that you were or would be longing for me somewhere far or near with happiness or disappointment is over. I thought that the worst would be that you were busy loving someone else like I was sure I deserved to be loved. But that wasn't the case, and, as it turns out, that wasn't even the worst case.

You are gone, dead, and not just a fake dead where I am allowed to choose the terms. Not just a "You are dead to me, sir. I want you not." Dead as in never to breathe again. Dead as in never to see, never to hear, never to want, never to dream. Dead. Not even a cold, long, sad dead. Just a clean, ashen, gone dead.

And I am so disappointed.

I feel as though I have been cheated. You owed me so much and now your dead. You owed me so much and you didn't even have time to know what I deserved. The end of you was and is and always will be and I am still here and still have no way to say or see or know anything of you. And I am so disappointed. So cheated. So bereft. So angry.

I am a good kid. I always was a good kid. Sure, I throw temper tantrums. Sure, I had an awkward adolescence. Sure, I am flawed. But there is so much in me that warrants notice. There is so much in us all that you should have seen.

I know that you are not worth all of this. I know that you are just some illusion, some ethereal mist that I shouldn't concern myself with. But now I will never know. I will never get to make that decision myself. I will never get to look you in the eye and call you a cad- a coward- a cur. I will never get to cry to you, to plead with you, to hear your reasons and your pathetic excuse.

All I truly have now, at the end of this lifelong search for you- at the turning point when questions are answered and answers must be dealt with accordingly, and feelings must be cataloged and owned, and condolences allowed, and pride must surface to buoy the soul- all I have now is me. I get up and I look at my reflection, the reflection that seeing you was supposed to clear and restore in some way, and all I see is me.

A flawed, but completely whole, me.

And the only one to hear my complaints and deal with my tears and hold back my anger is me.

Young, disappointed, cheated me.

And what shall I allow myself? How shall I feel about you today, since you are not here to gauge my emotions, to approve or deny, to hide or to appear? Shall I remain forever hurt? Shall I remain forever tied to the idea that you could not love me, who in the world would?

No. I am not of you. I am just me. Whole, without you. Whole, even though I hurt. Whole, and sufficient.

I can be the best me, without you.
I am the best me, without you.
I am me, without you.
I am me; without you.

Fiddle-dee-dee, Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen unanswered questions from The Great American Novel, Gone with the Wind

If you have yet to read it, do so now. If you are afraid by the sheer volume of the book, don't be. Every page is worth it.

1. Does Scarlett go back to Tara?
2. Is Mammy still alive when/if she does?
3. Where did Cathleen Calvert Hilton end up?
4. Was Scarlett and Rhett's unborn child a boy or a girl?
5. What did Rhett tell Melly during his drunken bout?
6. Where was Will Benteen from?
7. Did Tony Fontaine make it to Texas?
8. Why didn't Alex Fontaine marry Dimity Monroe and move her in with him and his sister-in-law?
9. How did Old and Young Miss die?
10. How much longer can Ashley live without Melanie?
11. Why did Rhett join the army after Atlanta fell?
12. How much money did Rhett really have? How much of it did he earn before the war?
13. Could Rhett and Scarlett ever have reconciled?

neetrihT yadsruhT

Thirteen Exclamations I never forget to include:

1. Seriously?
2. Whatever Ticks your Tock.
3. I am so PUMPED!
4. That's what she said...
5. You're a (_______________.)
6. (_____________) to the extreme.
7. No, I don't watch/ read Twilight.
8. Yuppers.
9. BEEEEEEBE!
10. Yes, she really is my mother.
11. Louise, not Felice, Alice, Elise, Eloise, Lisa, or Melissa.
12. Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose. You can plant anyone of those.

Fleeting Dreamtime Made-up Memories.

I saw you last night, or more likely this morning, at 4:16 am, just before I noticed it was too hot to sleep. You were slender and slight and owned an antique shop for fun.

Your hand was outstretched and from it, your daughter took $1,000 cash and a $1,000 prepaid credit card to buy herself new bras and to take me and her aunt out to dinner. You couldn't possibly come, you were too busy.

I gasped when you said how much money but what do I know, maybe it was her birthday. She was so pretty. She flipped her head, full of thick blonde hair and smiled as she put on her sunglasses and blew me a kiss. She was on her cellphone and giggling away while putting the credit card and money in her purse. Meet her at the restaurant at 9:30.

You asked was I surprised? What else would you give your only-- well, one of your daughters. I said a thousand dollars could alter my lifestyle greatly. You laughed and said so little, such a small lifestyle. Not to me. Books, tuition, uniforms, car, house, they all cost enough.

A thousand could pay the bills for a month, and what I work for could help me get ahead.

You said, again with a laugh, work for me, one day a week, a thousand a day.

A thousand a day? Why only one day a week?

As if any child of mine could focus on anything for more than an hour, let alone more than a day. We'll start with one day at one thousand and work from there, my little late bloomer.

Guarantee me $1,000 a day for as many days a week as I can work and you have a deal. A deal? is this a business transaction or my father? Or one with the other?

Ok, Ok, deal. Still, a small life.

Thursday Thirteen, Right On Time.

Island time, that is. I am not missing the catamaran.

Thirteen things The Boy has bought me this year alone:

1. Our Big House.
2. A Wii.
3. Games for the Wii.
4. A digital camera.
5. Plane tickets for Hawaii.
6. New Shoes.
7. New Jeans.
8. Amazing Glaze Fun.
9. A million lovely dinners.
10. Ceiling Fans.
11. Air Conditioners.
12. Goliath Tomato Plants.
13. Oil Paints (for creative purposes only.)

Don't be jealous. Get a Boy!

Why did I ever leave the Shoe Store?

marginalize
mahr-juh-nl-ahyz

–verb (used with object), -ized, -iz·ing.
to place in a position of marginal importance, influence, or power:

I feel as though my talents and time are marginalized when my assistant criticizes my work ethic, asks me to get up and find someone in the office for her, or asks me how I am coming along on a project I assigned to her.

Possessions are Possessive

"I used to own a pair of them. I loved them. They were the sandy colored leather with a really thick, clear sole. They made me feel punk rock and comfy all at the same time."

I was dreaming again, in a mall I have been in hundreds of times. As I looked up at the Dr. Martin's Airwalk Collections lining the walls of a local shoe store, I had a smile on my face and a stupid longing. I started to miss my shoes. Shoes. Dumb, old, stinky shoes.

"Well... why did you get rid of them?"

"I lost them in the separation."

Shoes or offspring?

I lost so much stuff when I left The Ex, both during the first Exodus and the Second Fleeing. And then there were things he took from me. Thoughts he invaded, moments he muddled, feelings he confiscated.

Here's a small list of things I misplaced, he stole, or I gave up:

My Dr. Martin's
A Ring and two Necklace from Ex Boyfriends (Mr. Future Millionaire, Mr. Hamster and My Gay Ex Boyfriend, Respectively)
All of my personal journal entries circa 2001-2005. The only thing that remains is this blog and a few poems/ prose I wrote about Mr. Hamster
Tons of clothes
A good majority of my wedding presents- though few they were
My Lennox Hummingbird ( of course, the more beautiful one)
Most pictures of me and my Exes
Money. Lots of money. All the money I earned from January 2007- July 2007 and then some
My Jason Mraz Live CD
My Josh Turner CD
The Chevy. God, I loved that car. I know it wasn't working, but who knows, maybe Scott could fix it
My smiles and dreams from May 2006- July 2007
Time


I live everyday without these things. It's not like I can't function. It's also not like I would ever read my old journals, or wear the old jewelry, or listen to the cd's. It is the point. The point that we have items that carry meanings. That jewelry never belonged to him. It was a gift from someone who loved me for a girl I once was who pleased them. If I didn't own it, it should go to whomever gave it to me. It was ours and a symbol of us.

The cd's had songs that evoked feelings. I listened to that Jason Mraz cd tirelessly for about a year and lived through it. It was playing in the background when Mr. Future Millionaire broke my heart and told me about his feelings for someone other than me. I belted out You and I BOth and Doubling Back till I couldn't cry any more. I owned those notes, I knew those chords, I had that beat in my heart.

I drove back and forth to Pittsburgh in that Chevy. I wore a hole under the gas pedal with my heels. I was kissed in that passengers seat. I put that air freshner in the glove box. I kept those keys hidden in my jeans. That is, until he found and stole those, too. Another story. Another sad song.

I know. They are not me. I am not defined by what I possess, but by that which possesses me. I am defined by wonder and enlightenment. I am still essentially me, with or without props.

[Insert Applause Here]

wiTty 13.

Thirteen things I am going to do this summer:

1. Get all of the vaccinations required for School. Including but not limited to measles, mumps, rubella, typhoid fever, chicken pox, scurvy (Only for children of pirates,) and Mad Cow.

2. The pre-reading and comprehending of 156 chapters for school (throughout eighteen varying volumes and indexes.)

3. Finish planting every gal- dern plant or seed I have thus far purchased including Goliath Tomato plants, a tomato tree, pepper plants, marigold seeds, caladium bulbs, sunflower seeds, allysum seeds, sage and rosemary plants, and a money tree.

3a. I will talk to all of my plants in a loving and considerate tone to improve morale.

4. Housework Project A: Decide when to rip up and replace the flooring in the lower level of our big house.

5. Housework project B: Clean out the area upstairs that will be empty once we throw away the left over stove, cabinetry, flooring, and sink.

6. Lose some pounds. Just a few, and no, I still don't use scales. i will know I have lost pounds when the other ones ask me where they went.

7. Clean my desk. Yeah, it is so bad it made it on the list. I didn't say they were all fun, geez.

8. Increase my iron levels to 13.6 ppu so I can give double reds again in July.

9. Go to Amazing Glaze and finish making pottery for Aunties Number 1-5, cousins on both sides, and people I generally like.

9a. Finish the five paintings I have started now to also provide for presents for the family and friends.

10. Go to Hawaii. If it kills me. Or bankrupts me.

11. Adopt my personal mission statement and think of it everyday:

" I pledge to live a life that promotes a sense of peace, simplicity, and order. I will learn to apply myself to my duties and commitments in order to nuture and serve those around me."

12. I will read one or more book(s) for fun. And I am not that fun; this may include or be a re-read.

13. JUICE. As a verb; Hot, I know.

Your Calendar is just Early.

T 13, The Revival.

13 Things People say that can really get under your skin:

13. " Well, if you lost thirty pounds you would look great."
12. " It's not you, it's your perfume."
11. "I, for one, wouldn't drive that/ wear that/ go there."
10. "I have to see you all week at work, why would I come to your cocktail party?"
9. Nothing. Silence can be painful.
8. "Nice to see you finally showed up for work."
7. "You look tired."
6. "I think people who don't have children
Shouldn't say anything
Don't know anything
Can't know what it is like."
5. "Are you serious?"
4. "What is it that you do here again?"
3. "What is your name this week?"
2. "Must be nice."

And the Number One offensive piece of blabb I heard this week:

1. "Of course she wouldn't check her facts, she doesn't care about that."

To all of you lovely people who made this week so pleasant: Take a long walk off of a short, oil-covered pier.

Something so sweetly, so quietly me.

...about the way everything has worked out.

Have you ever had a dream that you were the you, say, ten years ago? But that you knew everything you had learned in the past decade, and were ready for everything.

Lately I have been having these dreams. (I know, always a dreamer, never a star...)

I thought about what I would change if I had a chance; then I thought about how that outcome would change the Now. The now that is every second the increasing store of yesterdays and last weeks and decades ago. I thought about how I would face the Mr. Hamsters and Mr. Future Millionaires the Mr. L of ten years ago.

The bratty, the snarky, the moody, the weird faded and I thought I would face them with maturity and dignity. I thought I would tell them all that they did appreciate me and that I didn't appreciate that. I thought I would value myself more highly and carry my self with more grace and avoid the dis-. I planned to go back in the moment and remember it and savor the good while ending the bad miles short of what it was. And is.

I thought about the Misses and thought I would indulge them. Because we grew up and out too fast. Because weekends are hard to come by now. Because they always helped, even if what they did or said hurt. Misses are so oft' neglected.

Then, Scott told me all of my lofty dreams are impossible. He seems to think without everything, I would have never found him. Maybe he forgets that what is meant to be will be. Or maybe I forget that.

Maybe this is a stream and none of us can swim. Maybe we just float along, silently or noisily, with the current or drowning, with bumps and bruises or cleanly.

All that I am is the sum of all I have been. Every second, every dream I drop in my sleep, every memory I store in my mind, every song I keep and fact I forget, is a collage of an identity. I remember the things I have gone through, therefore I can prove my existence and secure my future. This thing I call me is just a total of one long equation, divisible by chapters, a multiple of smaller Me- like images, the addition of other influences, lovers, and moments, the subtraction of a few souls from the greater World Identity and there you have her.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have me. A definite identity, with an infinity of changes to come.

Healthcare Reform

This is a small diversion from my usual posts, but I had to write this paper, I might as well share it with you. It is a quick run down on how I feel about Healthcare reform. I should have included more research and I could write five more papers about different issues under the main umbrella, but another time, another space. For now, here it is:



President Obama has called for the nation to begin reforming our current healthcare systems. In a nation built on free enterprise and fueled by American dollars, earned mostly in service- based industries, healthcare companies have been allowed free reign. Tax breaks are given to companies who insure their employs, huge, privately owned healthcare companies funnel their money into research aimed to cut costs and increase profit margins- money that is largely seen as charitable contributions to fund research grants.

The primary responsibility of insurance and insurance companies is to cover unexpected events and costs- we pay into escrow, the provider makes a profit directly from the premium and the rest is made in the form of interest from moderate investments. Americans payout for services we have yet to receive, and may never need, in order to protect us should we need procedures and medication we could not otherwise afford. Instead of following basic and sustainable business plans, insurance companies who provide baseline healthcare for premium prices have developed impossible scenarios to avoid paying fairly for the medicine and procedures their clients need. Catchphrases like “pre-existing condition” have been coined specifically to save companies money and leave citizens who consistently pay their share for healthcare to foot exorbitant medical bills- bills their insurer had guaranteed to cover when they signed up as healthy, often times young workers.

Healthcare companies attempted to gamble in an unstable market by placing their investments in risky endeavors- investments made in a market built on sub-prime mortgages and the ever-increasing debt-to-income ratio of an entire nation. The healthcare industry as a whole lost sight of the basic goals of providing viable and complete insurance to those who pay a fair price, and compromised the health of a nation of trusting policy holders for the sake of free enterprise and undeserved, inflated earnings.
In order to make up for their irresponsibility, companies have resorted to the most basic and primal survival instincts- stealing from the very customers they vowed to protect in sickness and in “un” health. Premiums have become as expensive as the care itself, doubling in the last decade (Singer.)

Peter Singer reintroduces the idea that healthcare should be rationed; suggesting that price already dictates who benefits from a ration system. According to Singer, rationing is based on the fact that healthcare is a limited resource and regulated by economic shifts and trends. Singer says this is not enough, that we must have a government implemented proactive agency that will volley for the rights of a nation of patients. Singer argues that we spend a third of what we earn as a nation on healthcare, while other industrialized nations spend far less for better care. It is difficult to see the justification in this view when our nation has the highest life expectancy, and arguable the highest overall quality of life. How can Singer justify the belief that nations with government run healthcare give their citizens better or even equal care without someone having to pay for it?

The question insurance providers, patients and politicians alike should be asking is not “How can we help the healthcare industry?” or “How can the government ration healthcare?” It is much bigger than digging the industry out of its own hole or changing the way people attain access to healthcare. The question is how do we review the system and require responsible business practices from those who promise a service and are more than adequately compensated? How do we regulate an entire industry that was for so long focused on making money, instead of serving their customers?

What is our answer from Washington? How does the government plan to make health insurance companies provide the healthcare they promise at rates that nearly every citizen can afford? We have been promised the public healthcare buy-in in order to answer the needs of the millions of uninsured Americans. Politicians are asking Americans to disregard the poor state the healthcare industry is in and to be willing to pay the same amount they are already paying for healthcare that would be regulated by the government. How can the answer possibly include adding a middleman, namely a government that owes more than 11 trillion dollars to other countries and it’s very own citizens?

Politicians who support the healthcare reforms being passed in Senate have publicized the benefits our society would garner from the changes they deem necessary. “Healthcare for all, run by Washington” is what we are being promised. Who really wants to trust their health to a bureaucratic government that is difficult if not impossible to navigate now? The government already offers subsidized healthcare in the form of Medicare and Medicaid, organizations that are notorious for their unwillingness to pay for adequate care for their patients.

Take a closer look at another well-known government run healthcare office- the Veteran’s Administrations hospitals across the country- hospitals that are notorious for their out-of-date equipment and procedures and their underpaid and under qualified staff. Ask any Veteran and they will tell you war stories from the local VA rather than the front line. In recent years, Walter Reed Army Medical Center has gained an infamous reputation for one of the worst medical facilities of its kind, stories about endless bureaucratic regimens in order to obtain basic healthcare, amputees waiting months or years for outpatient therapy, patients counseling each other when access to qualified medical personnel is denied or limited, and those recovering from illness and injury in dilapidated buildings with few necessities, let alone any comforts. (Priest & Hull, 2007) Brave men who have served this country are unable to attain healthcare adequate healthcare at a rate they can afford when the medical decisions are left up to Washington, what, then, is in store for a whole nation of patients?

The answer to the healthcare question does not lie in handing the reigns over to the government. The answer is not represented by using government funds to bail out the insurance companies so they can once again pillage the defenseless public. The answer is not in reform, it comes in the form or review.

The goals for Washington should be to review the healthcare system, find the flaws, and protect Americans. If the industry can remember what their primary goal is, to provide for the insured at the highest level of care available for their premium, and be less concerned with how much money their companies can make by mismanaging funds earned when customers pay into their policies and seeking tax breaks and loop holes in policies, then a balance can be restored, putting the patients needs before the needs of the insurance company.

Government agencies should be created in order to investigate insurance company’s investment practices. Insurance companies should only be allowed to make solid and protected investments for moderate returns. The liquid assets of an insurance company should always be at the value or higher than the value of the premium care available to their insured at any given time. Regulating the insurance companies in order to protect the customer’s benefits and assure Americans that insurance companies are operating at the best of their ability to provide those benefits is the job of our government. Politicians in Washington who earned political science degrees assuming the responsibility of rationing healthcare, forcing the consumer to buy insurance from a government- run agency that knows nothing or next to nothing about providing healthcare, is not an adequate solution.

Meant for Someone Else

This is something I was writing to the Ex, and then my better judgement got ahold of me and I decided to give it to you. If I send it to him, it will just perpetuate communications. But I knew you would understand.

Ugh. Every time I get a bill I cringe. I keep thinking (like an idiot) that one day you will man up and pay off things that you owe. You know, like the apartment that you trashed and ditched, the Jeep, the cell phone etc... It's like you hurt me all over again every time I get a bill. But I guess that is your plan. I don't know why I am even writing this, I know you don't care.

I just keep having these nightmares of being buried alive by your negativity. I hate everything you are and were to me. And I hate the monthly reminders of you. I can't wait to be divorced, but I know even that won't erase all of the pain. And I know even if the court tells you to, you won't repay your debts. Even if they put you in jail, I know you won't care.

Heck, all you had to do to keep the Jeep was make the payments, and you couldn't even do that. I don't mean to heckle you, I just want this to be over, and I want you to recognize, at some point, your mistakes and (literally and figuratively) pay for them. But why should you? You don't care and everyone in your life allows you to behave in this reckless and unfeeling way.

I guess I just can't believe I fell for it all. For your lies and your deceit. For you pain and your hurt. What was I thinking?

DR, how much of this is my fault.

"I can't believe you are shoving this down my throat like this, Benny," He huffed at her in disbelief. The one thing that always got Benny was the truth in his eyes when he was angry. She never saw truth any other way in him. Int his instance, his soul was laid bare. He was more than angry.

"I can't believe you think that saying that will change my mind. Shoving or not, this has to happen." She was cool. Calm. Collected. She thought. She thought she appeared so on the outside, though she couldn't be sure. Her feelings rose by the moment, the heat of her anger, distrust, and all the years of worry was quickly overpowering her.

"I don't want this-"

"I didn't want you to beat me, or steal my soul, or force your interest in prostitutes and drugs into my life, but you did. And so hear we are," He began, and she finished, for once changing the balance of power in a conversation, and maybe in the whole world.

There was much more said, but not much more heard.

The Short and Sweet of it.

"Look at it Young."

"I know, Benny. She's a beaut."

"It's not a she, it's a He. Definatly. He is strong and hardy and big and manly."

"Well, if he makes you happy, Benny."

"He does."

She walked towards Him with a smile on her face and for the first time loved a man other than Young.

That "He" was the home she would build her life on, the foundation Benny and Young would cherish, the cornerstone of all that was good- every moment, every dream, every wish, every birth and every death centered here for the rest of their lives.

But all Benny and Young could see was now and the very near future. They sat on the porch and dreamt of the rest of truth and peace here, on Taylor Road.