Minutiae

On a windless winter night, with the world tucked snugly in under a duvet of snow (not a blanket, blankets are wool and scratchy and Hudson's Bay-coloured), I lie awake, thinking of moving the furniture around. It is, of course, 3 a.m. (Isn't it always?)

The night pulls me when I should be sleeping. I have things to do tomorrow (go to the gym, paint my nails, wash the floor), but I can't stop thinking about moving the furniture around.

I slip out from under my duvet (not of snow, this one, but some sort of synthetic material that makes me sweat if I don't stick my feet out, a dangerous prospect since the cat is fond of chewing my toes in the morning), ease the bedroom door mostly-closed behind me, pour a tall glass of cold water, and stand in the middle of the room, surveying.

There is nowhere for anything to go that is not exactly where it already is.

I'm going to get rid of those vases. There are five of them, the kind of thin glass that comes with a florist's bouquet. There has never been a time when I have needed five cheap glass vases. I also have too many decanters. There was a time when decanters were all the rage, apparently. I could probably use a decanter as a vase, should the unlikely occasion arise that someone brings flowers that don't already come in their own cheap glass vase. 

It's not moving the furniture around, but it's something.

I often find myself searching for things to get rid of. Old lingerie, expired medicine, socks verging on holes. Exotic condiments used once for a recipe and relegated to the back of the fridge. A lipstick that makes me feel old or ugly when I wear it, a bottle of thickened nail polish. People, sometimes.

I have a secret I can't tell anyone, because if I tell you you'll think I'm the worst kind of person. But I wonder if everyone possesses this secret, and we're all walking around keeping it because we're afraid that everyone else will think we're the worst kind of people. I'm not ready to tell anyone yet.

So instead I will lie awake at 3 a.m. and find things to get rid of and try to move the furniture around.
    




 

Riot On

Let's riot on together, baby. Just you and me and this strip of asphalt in the dark. I'll put my bare feet up on the dash and you'll put your hand on my bare thigh and we'll drive, baby, just you and me, into the black. I'll check my lipstick in the rear-view mirror but we won't look back to see the lights of this two-bit town wink out behind us like an old cigarette butt tossed to the curb, we'll just drive, baby. And we'll play some rock 'n' roll music, turn it up to drown out the noise of the engine, noise of our hearts. And we'll think divided thoughts as the broken lines zip past like years, and we'll remember, baby, you and me and all those moments that link us like this network of asphalt we're driving down in the dark.            

Get up off of the goddamn floor.

Poodles and poppycock, opined the wet nurse as she stepped onto the coals, dark rivulets of warm milk staining her blouse. Her feet blistered and swelled, swelled and blistered. Tell me something nice, she whispered, to no one. Write it in flames and swallow it whole. And the owls moaned and the turtle doves screeched and the tide sucked the life out of it all and then spit it back up onto the beach.

***

Take my vulva, she offered shyly. Paint it grey and buy it some boots to protect it when things get slushy. Put it in a black frame behind glass and hang it on your wall with the others. Slap it when it gets out of line. (It gets out of line sometimes.) I'll be back for it in the morning.

***

Hey fucker, croaked the raven. I was only messing around. Get up off of the goddamn floor.

***

She looped the telephone cord like a Chinese finger trap around her index finger, receiver wedged between her right shoulder and ear, and wondered what to say. Do I dare? she wondered, like J. Alfred. Do I dare? She removed her finger from the trap and placed the receiver gently into its cradle. Tell me something nice, she whispered to the dust motes dancing in the sun.

***

It is important to be wary, she thought wearily. Keep that KEEP OUT sign up, bullet-riddled and rusty. It'll hold for a while yet. Sure, if they really want to, they can just step around that post, step over that chain, walk forward into the black. They won't, though. Probably. Keep a loaded shotgun in your brain just in case. And don't say a goddamn word.

The Apartment

There is something strange about (wrong with) this apartment.

When I stand directly in front of the main door (escape route), I can look down the narrow (claustrophobic) hall into the bathroom at the far end. I can see the tub (closed shower curtain), the rounded front of the toilet seat. There is no window (escape route) in the bathroom. I have to pee.

I walk slowly (fearfully) down the hall, aware of the pressure on my bladder (the weight of six feet of dirt on a closed coffin). On my left, a door opens onto a bedroom. There are too many beds (an impossible number of beds) inside this room. Who lives here? (Do I live here?) This room is safe. I can feel it.

A throbbing in the air as I proceed (am drawn) to the end of the hall. On my left, another door opens onto another bedroom. This room is empty (no it isn't). I need something from this room (I don't want to go into this room). I'll pee first, and then I'll get the thing that I need and leave (what is it that I need?).

The light switch in the bathroom does not work. I leave the door open. Red light from the second bedroom filters (pulses) in. I do not look in the mirror (look). I do not look behind the closed shower curtain (look). I push my pants down and pee, pushing the urine out of my body as fast as I can, wipe, flush.

The red light throbs (calls) and I enter the room. I look around to find that thing that I need (what do I NEED?) but the room is empty (no it isn't) and my pulse (the pulse in the room) quickens and suddenly there is something in front of me (there is something EVERYWHERE) and I (try to) scream and I (try to) run and I make it out into the hall and there is the doorway (escape route) at the (impossibly) far end of the hall and I somehow reach the door and something is behind me and I fumble with the lock and I am going to die (yes) if I can't unlatch this chain and the chain falls free (no it doesn't) and I twist the doorknob and yank the door open (the door remains closed) and I run out into the hall and past the elevator (there is no elevator) and slam the door to the stairwell open (there is no stairwell) and I fly down the stairs two and three at a time (there are no stairs) until I reach the main floor and I escape (no you don't) into the black, black night.  

 



  

Jelly shoes

Jelly shoes and neon bracelets,
boys with brown hair and Dukes of Hazzard t-shirts,
tiny paper bags of penny candy,
cold stone steps,
black and white horror movies playing on a VCR in a dimly-lit basement rec room,
hide-and-go-seek at dusk,
milk money,
monkey bars,
cassette tapes,
and looking down into your backyard from the tree in mine.

Life is Weird

Life is weird.

One day you're a kid and you think grownups know everything and you ask them questions so that you can try to understand the world and your place in it and they tell you things and you believe them.

And then the next day you're a teenager and you don't really ask them questions anymore because you've realized that your parents can't help you with your trigonometry homework, so maybe they don't know everything after all.

And then the day after that you're almost finished university and you're (calmly) freaking out (you're a Libra, after all) because you have no idea what you're supposed to do with your life, so you get a couple of part-time jobs, and it takes you a couple more days or years to realize that you definitely do not want to spend the rest of your life taking orders from people who just blindly follow their own orders without asking questions and who punish you when you do ask questions.

So you start helping kids and teenagers when they have questions about things (grammar and boys and parental pressure and, more often than you'd think, about how they feel like no one can really answer the questions that are the most important to them, like how they don't know what to do with the rest of their lives and how they feel like they don’t fit in) and you answer as honestly as you can and you always admit when you don't know the answer to something because part of being a grownup is realizing that grownups are just kids with a few more years under their belts and that they are just fumbling through their lives wondering what the hell happened and how did I get here.

And then the next day you are 40 years old and you know now that you were wrong when you were a kid and you thought that grownups and old people were in some fundamental way different from you. Because now you are grownups and old people, but you are also the kid and the teenager, and you always will be all of those parts and isn’t it amazing and scary and wild.

And you realize that one day you won’t be anything at all, or maybe you’ll still be something but it definitely won’t be this something, this kid/teenager/grownup/old person in this body with its scars and its questions.

So you take a moment to appreciate all the moments that have brought you to this point in time and space, and you think of all the people and places and experiences that have helped you understand the world and your place in it. And you are grateful, even though turning 40 fucking sucks.    

9 things that I have promised myself will no longer annoy me

I haven't written a list in a while, mostly because the internet is so goddamn full of lists that lists are now one of the things on this list, but here is a list of 9 things that I have promised myself will no longer annoy me, because I'm getting older, man, and I've seen the faces of old people who let stuff annoy them and I'm already predisposed to some pretty serious jowl action and why not do what little I can to preserve that little upturn at the outer corners of my lips, am I right, friends? Of course I am. I'm always right, or at least I am in my own head, and that is ultimately the only place that matters. Okay, lengthy introduction over, and congratulations if you've made it this far. I know that your internet time is valuable; there are two-and-a-half-minute (the average length of time anyone will spend on an internet video according to very scientific research based on my own predilections) videos to watch and lists to read. Here goes:

1. Lists. (But only internet lists. Personal to-do lists are still in Holly-fashion. Sometimes it's the only way that I get anything done because I'm too busy reading internet lists. Plus, the joy I experience when I stroke an item off is unparalleled. Nothing is parallel to it. Not a double rainbow, not an orgasm, not a great night of drinking and dancing. Nothing.)

2. Your shitty grammar. Fuck it. Do what you want. I always know what you mean anyway. Mostly. (But not mine. I will still edit everything I type and be mortified if an apostrophe should go awry.)

3. Lack of original creative content on the internet. (As an aside, I think it's mostly the internet that bugs me.) While I would prefer to see everyone on the cyber-planet coming up with unique ways of expressing themselves, I get that it's hard to do. Sometimes someone else just writes/paints/photographs/sings your thoughts and feelings better than you can yourself. It's cool when you find those things. I've just never really been fond of collages, personally.

4. Telephone solicitations. You're just doing your job, and everyone's gotta make a buck somehow. Oh, who am I kidding? These will still annoy the shit out of me and I'll still hang up on you when you try to continue the conversation after I've told you I'm not interested even though I know you'll probably get in trouble with your assistant manager for not keeping me on the phone long enough.

5. I seem to have lost the point. I'll try to get back on track. Think positively, Holly! These trivial things will no longer have the power to annoy you. Think of them all! Ignore them all!

6. You know what's tough? I am sitting here racking my brain and I can't come up with one more thing that currently annoys me. The backwards toilet paper roll? It's not really that big a deal, even if I can only manage to get one square at a time. The spiders trying to get in? They'll always annoy me. I've come to terms with my fear. University kids wearing stupid outfits? You should have seen some of the outfits I wore to school in my younger years. I wore a Navajo-print jacket over a black catsuit. The jacket had orange in it. And green. And yellow. I also wore a long pink silk blazer over the same catsuit. The catsuit had a turtleneck. Who am I to throw stones at your Juicy ass and your Uggs?

7. Now that I think about it, those Charmin bear commercials will probably always annoy me. And any Geico commercial that doesn't involve the gecko.

8. This list is a complete failure. I tried, man. I really did.

9. For old time's sake, my feet are cold. And you know what? Strangely, it's not annoying at all.