I'm thinking about employment, because why not? I could join the throngs of people who are hopeful, or desperate or stymied, and are themselves looking. Perhaps they are more prepared, with their resumes and their re-hemmed business suits or whatever people wear to cattle-call interviews, sitting through the humiliation of waiting for their turn, their woeful five minutes with some asshole who's going to end up hiring from within. I'm willing to wager that they have loads more college debt than I do, and you can't buy that kind of blitzkrieged futrescape that gets people hunting through their closets for some rare DVDs to barter...for less than $100,000.
But thinking about becoming employed is not simple, because you have to figure out what your "skill set" is. (Or are-? "Skill sets"? Why can't we just call them "skills" any more?) And having been unemployed for a good while, and what with the whole "chronic invisible illness" thing (Interviewer:.could it be a sham? Because it's not visible!) and having the kind of smart, creative, vibrant ADHD kid to wrangle for ten years now (Interviewer:...ADHD isn't visible, either! I see through your lies! Good Luck With Your Search!) I figure...this should be a snap.
Here are my skills, so far... Handles Pain Very Well. This could be a great asset to any service that provides bedside fussing. The patient or grieved could hold my hand very, very hard- and I wouldn't cry. And that's not just because my medication is dehydrating and teardrops are just too much to ask of my ducts. It's also because I, along with countless other chronic pain sufferers, am as tough as rhinoceros hide. I can hear my birdish and poorly anchored finger bones crash inward when anyone holds it too hard, but I don't even flinch. I am almost French about it, looking bored and not bothering to use my manners: "you call this hard? Sigh...I am fine. give me a challenge and we shall see if this sensation qualifies as this 'pain' you are so concerned with." (Please picture me smoking while I say this, just to fulfill the stereotype. Thank you.)
Very Moody. On the surface, this appears a bad thing; any prospective employer would picture daily hallway dramas about deadlines and perceived slights and lady problems involving the cutest, youngest guy on my floor. They'd picture me on the floor itself, perhaps in my cubicle, perhaps under the table in the break room, where I'd be crying and/or raging, using the office's only three-hole punch to collate the manifesto that I'd written (on company time, no less) about office etiquette and "flex-time," whatever that was. I'd have to point out that it would keep the staff in a constant state of low tension, waiting for me to have a mood snap, so they'd keep their collective heads down and work instead of generate any sort of low-stress camaraderie. Also I'd be great in the customer service department, being sweet like sugar for the first two questions from a customer or client, then I'd switch over to barely repressed loathing and answering the next questions in a more and more sarcastic tone; then the client or customer would go away, leaving the company alone so that they wouldn't have to look any deeper into the possible faults of their product. What a boon!... So after I had explained all this, the manager person who's doing to hiring would offer me a job, starting at $2.55 an hour for the first year, after which I'd no longer be on the mandatory probation that kept me from getting a raise, and my wage would launch upward, rocketing up to $2.67 per hour. Plus benefits! I would get a medical plan, even- one that covers unnecessary trips to an ER for something that might easily have been handled at a plain old doctor's office, except that these benefits would not cover that. In the event that said ER visit happens, the company would graciously cover 10% of the adjusted total. Provided I used a fake name and address at check-in and didn't mention the company once during the entire process, of course...and here, also of course, I would throw their application papers and retinal-scan equipment all over the conference room and say- yell- that I would never take a job in a place that treated it's employees like so much sewage, and that they should be ashamed of themselves. Then I would stomp out to the maze of cubicles and shout "all of you who wish to be free of this corporate tyranny, follow me! You are worth more than the chemicals and fluid that make up your bodies- you are even worth more than the black market value of one of your kidneys! Let us storm off in a huff, together!" Having barked this call to embrace the freedom of the unemployed, I would grab the first three-hole punch I could see and run.
Also I would be a great soap opera villainess, all evil and incomprehensible in one episode, then sweet and recalcitrant the next. Heck, I could do that in separate scenes in the same episode, even. During the audition process I won't mention the memory problems that come with this pain condition- but I'm confident that once on screen, I will be able to improvise plot lines and snappy one-liners, just like Dustin Hoffman in the movie Tootsie except with more career longevity.
Memory Loss. Now, this one is fairly obvious: anyone who wanted someone to officially look the other way whilst the company ransacks it's employees' pensions would be able to find a place for me easily. I could probably be tricked into cooking some books, since I'd lose track of one book, forget that I lost it, forget that I entered numbers into it- and then some lackey could slip a different book and a different set of numbers in front of me, and I'd wonder how it got there for a second (fairies? Please say it's fairies!) and then do it all over again. And yes yes, I realize that there are no actual books left in the world and that I would be entering the bogus accounting into a computer, but I chose to go old school with the metaphor because I don't remember how to enter information on a "field". It makes me think of fields, and the fields I have known- I remember those- and then I'm off into it, dreaming away the daylight, in full ignorance of the fleecing the shareholders were subject to. La la la.
So that job is also not good, and no one would hire me really because I've never been a bookkeeper (I mean, I don't even know what a "field" is.) Plus, because of the terrible things I did at work, I would go straight to Forgetter's Hell when I died, where Satan would constantly hide my car keys and then tell me I'm ten minutes late to my daughter's Show and that I said I would re-attach cardboard tree branches to the second graders. And where were the cardboard tree branches? Huh? Where are those? They're around here somewhere...then Satan would laugh (AH HA HA HA HA HA, etc.) watching all the morally reprehensible and chronically forgetful souls scuttle around searching for stuff they never had...but what might be a great fit is as a professional forgetter at a brain trauma ward. I would ask the person I was Forgetting with a question, and they'd answer the best they could, and that would make me think of something totally different. I might say "You're looking well today. Did you go on some outing or something?" Then the person might say "...uh, we did do that, yes. We did go out. There was a polka band, and someone thought it was a good idea to mess with the stunt bear." And I would reply "Polka dots are the best pattern on bears. There was a slide show once by my friend F- I can't remember her name right now- and the fanciest bear wore Polka dots." And they would go "Theater is awful. Dennehy was fair to middling in that one with the boulders hanging from everywhere. I liked the boulders more than Dennehy but I don't think that was entirely his fault." And on and on- entertainment for hours! It's the greener choice, too, because we would never remember to turn on the television, and that saves energy!
I think the best job for someone like me might be distracting preschoolers. I could use all of the tools in my toolkit (see "skill set.") Bearing up under the kicks to the groin from whichever kid had been inappropriately exposed to a Jet Li video the previous weekend; Turning into a nightmare-inducing teacher's aide, clenching my teeth and bulging my eyes if so much as a peep was uttered during Nap Time (because the Gods of Sleep are sacred in every culture, and must be obeyed;) enjoying endless looping pretend stories that go on for hours...actually, that part sound pretty nifty. I'll just check the Classifieds tomorrow and set something up. Easy Peasy!
Monday, May 20, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
What Love Was
There was a woman in the trailer park whose father had bought her trailer for her; though she had done nothing in her life to earn the requisite cash she'd have needed to at least put down on a trailer, she referred to it as "hers." She was house proud- she had a garden, her own larger-than-normal bit of land, owing to the trailer's position at the end of a row. She'd planted chrysanthemums and irises right next to each other and it looked weird. The plants were randomly assigned, so that when you were in her garden you had to walk around the flowers, which were frequently hidden in robust clumps of weeds. Her name was Chryssie.
There was another person in the trailer park- a young man. He was definitely a man, no longer the age where other adults referred to him as a "young man" to his face but who still called him a kid when speaking to each other. His name was Wolfgang. He'd inherited it from an uncle who'd passed away years before, and Wolfgang remembered this uncle as being the kind who'd come over three times a year and drink something he'd brought, usually something in a single bottle and fancy, comparatively speaking. He'd make jokes that were funny every other time. So the young man had no objection to being named Wolfgang. He would walk around Standish Estates and look at his neighbor's units and their picnic tables and their foraged stones that they'd put in neat lines bordering the paths to their doors (it was a popular look.) He would slow down at Chryssie's trailer to watch her.
She was almost always outside when he walked, and for a while he imagined that she was doing it deliberately because she had a secret crush on him. She certainly waved hard enough when he walked by, using both hands and arms with vigor, moving them across space almost presidentially; also she smiled. "Hi Wolfgang! Hi there, I see you! Hiya Wolfgang! You should say Hi back- look at me, I'm waving so hard you should say Hi back!" she'd say, but all he managed was a small smile. Ostensibly he did this so that he didn't encourage the presumed crush she had on him.
There came a day when she wasn't there, and then one immediately after. This turned into a week, maybe eight days, and Wolfgang thought while she was absent. He realized that, of the two of them, it was more likely that he had the crush- he didn't feel the way he supposed a crush was supposed to feel- there was nothing tingling on him, neither high nor low, and he didn't lose track of his intent to walk his usual Standish Estates perimeter. However- well, he kept looking for her, and that must have been what a crush was like. He decided he had the wrong idea of what a crush was in the first place. He walked and searched for her at her place and then around, generally.
On that eighth day, he decided to pace. He'd done his round, and he just could not let his unease settle into mild detachment, so he paced back and forth in front of her trailer. When he saw Virginia Cravach looking at him as intently from her next-door kitchen half-window, he moved into Chryssie's yard, which was fenced (a luxury) and gave him semi-privacy. He shook his fists at Virginia's kitchen because he knew there was greater privacy in the world outside the trailer park. During the gesturing, a car pulled up in front of Chryssie's trailer. Wolfgang jogged the twenty feet from the end of her yard to her front path, and she was being helped out of the sedan by a man older than her by a few decades, at least. Chryssie herself was quiet and kept looking at the man with a sour expression to make him leave.
"Oh great, you're here already. Linda must have called the service while I was at Shadytown-" said the older man. "Could you just grab her here- by the arm is good, she associates it with the center and it's soothing."
Chryssie looked at Wolfgang slyly, a look that he'd never seen on her face before, and that was including every time he'd seen her in the ten years he'd lived there. She then said "I associate it."
Wolfgang piped up. "I'm not from a service." He felt he should have said more, but didn't.
"Oh god, I'm sorry." Older man held out his hand. "I'm Desmond, Chryssie's father. thank you so much for being here- thank you so much. I need to go. I hate that I need to go, Chryssie. but I have other plans for us soon, and you know I'm good for it."
"Aahh- plans" she replied.
Desmond smiled, and Chryssie suddenly smiled back and the sour expression wasn't even a memory on her face. :"Plans! Plans, Chryssie!" Then he made an awful villain face and rubbed his hands together, saying "Plans for you, my dear." Then he got in his car. "It was nice to meet you."
Chryssie, after an appropriate pause, looked at Wolfgang. "Could you take me by the arm anyway? I do actually find it soothing, but I hate to admit it in front of him." Wolfgang could think of no reason to hesitate. "Thank you. Also it's not because of the center. Who could be properly brought down in a place called Shadytown, anyway? What a name."
"It's a ridiculous name. Why would they name a health center Shadytown?" He'd carefully left out the word "mental' before "health center". He hadn't been raised by wolves, after all.
"It's only called that because it has no shade. None. The Commons is just an overheated fish tank without water when it's sunny." She sighed. He was still holding her arm, and he gently put it down next to her side before he let it go. "Oh, that's all right" she whispered both tenderly and dispassionately. And that was it for Wolfgang: he fell, somehow- he fell for Chryssie, who was a bit older than him (he had no idea how much older) and just come back from a mental institution after being treated for nerves or depression or bipolarism. These were the mental illnesses he was familiar with, and he'd read about them in Time or whatever news magazine his other uncle subscribed to. (Wolfgang lived with his other uncle, who was named Sid after no one in particular. He'd lived with Sid since his mother died and left him the trailer- Sid had come with it, a permanent inhabitant with the only steady employment to speak of. It was a good arrangement, but a juiceless one: Sid preferred to watch the same stuff on television every night, and spent his weekends on the couch, watching more of the same stuff in marathon form. Occasionally Sid would go square dancing with his regular date, who seemed to be Sid's girlfriend except that she was never around and Sid never spoke about her. When she came over, and crammed her gigantic crinolines and cowgirl snap-down shirt into the trailer, taking up more than half the width of the living area, Sid seemed happy; still, no telling.)
So he fell, somehow. Again it didn't feel like falling or twinkling or giving his heart or anything else to her (he wondered how that expression came to be, since it was so bogus.) He did feel proprietary. He would be the arm-taker, now. He would be the one to soothe her and determine how she was soothed, and he would listen to her. He felt a strong need to listen to her and whatever she said, and to think about what she'd said. He supposed that he'd got it wrong about love all around, not just about what constituted a crush.
They were together for months, sailing along, together- visiting for days at a time, with no thought from either side of moving in. Chryssie was exuberant and weird and a good sport. Wolfgang was focused and smiling and kinder than he knew he could be, which he supposed was what love was (he was always adjusting his definition.) There were a few times when she herself grew quiet, and had a pained expression on her face, and drank. There was a lack of regular sleeping hours- she became narcoleptic and slumped into herself any time, doing anything. Wolfgang got out of bed and got dressed when she passed out like that during their "sexy times," as she put it (they had both been virgins when they decided to slip downward and consummate their unspoken love- they'd told each other the next morning when they woke up still on the floor, and they'd both found it hilarious.) But when she'd fallen asleep like that, he got up and got dressed and woke her half-way so that he could half-lift her into a cab.
He went to Shadytown with her in his arms. He wasn't alarmed. He'd read about this in Time or whatever, and he'd decided even then- even before they'd spoken- how he would act if and when the need arose. So he stayed calm, and he admitted her easily as the yet-more-calm lady who admitted Chryssie had her own pet name for his girlfriend. That was slightly unsettling, and he thought about being unsettled while he quietly waited for someone to come out and tell him what to do next. He sat in the separate waiting room and was gently shaken awake by someone in a lab coat sixteen hours later.
"You're Wolfgang" proclaimed Lab Coat. This person's demeanor was almost intimidatingly calm and definitely professional.
"Hey there" said Wolfgang. He felt very awake now.
"Thanks for bringing her in. It's the narcolepsy that's the surest sign of a peak coming, and I've never seen you for Chryssie before but you caught that right away."
Wolfgang blushed like a schoolchild. "It was pretty obvious."
"Good. So, anyway- she's here, she's in need of a stay for a few days. I think 'til Monday would help." Said Lab Coat. It was Wednesday. It seemed an inordinate amount of time to him, but he didn't say so- he just went home. Sid was there. He mentioned what had happened to Sid- in a glancing way, something about taking her to the doctor's and how he intended to shower and get a good night's sleep. Sid made soothing noises of his own. Wolfgang slept and paced, waiting until Monday. The morning came and he picked her up in another cab, which was paid for by a standing account of Chryssie's father's.
She was quiet and contemplative on the ride home. When he asked her, as he'd been meaning to ask her, in his most exact, most diplomatic words, what was wrong with her, she turned to him and smiled. She looked at him for a few minutes that way, just sitting there, like she was stuck. Wolfgang sat with the most dignified cab-seat posture he had, and waited and looked back. He didn't break eye contact. Then she said "it's schizophrenia, if you must know." She then leaned over and kissed him, and he was relieved and kissed back, which turned into a full clutch in the back of the car with the cab driver looking in his rearview with a mildly disgusted expression for the rest of the ride.
When they got home, Wolfgang moved his few things into her trailer and notified Sid that that's where he could be found now. Nothing else would change- just that he'd be with Chryssie. "You're already over there all the time. Congrats" said Sid. So: there were times, and there was sleeping, and there was wine, which appeared all by itself while he was sleeping, and which Wolfgang got rid of almost as soon as he woke up. He took her to Shadytown when she needed it- they had many a running joke about the name by the time she really, really took ill.
He'd set the alarm early, so that he could check for wine or wine coolers hidden about. There had been a building, an erection of some kind of bubble around Chryssie that was palpable, and visible- there was a sort of shimmering when she'd talked her self hoarse and fell asleep on an armless chair so that she slid sideways and Wolfgang had to catch her and haul her back to sitting on her couch. He had noticed it, and had ignored it; he was proud of how well he could read her and understand her needs and triggers and ecstasies before she did. So: ignore the shimmer, ignore the aura she had that she'd never had before. He'd just gotten her back from Shadytown and didn't want to give her back, he wanted her in her bed and possibly with some delivered Mexican (they both had the stomach of a walrus and could eat bones, if necessary. It didn't bother them, which was an achievement for Chryssie considering how much prescription medication she'd ingested in her life.) So: he woke up, and she had a knife.
"Chryssie, did you cut something?" Wolfgang said, past alert, before fear.
She was cutting long lines into the wall in some orderly fashion- it looked like she was rendering a spread sheet in the bedroom's fake wallpaper. "Honey, I wasn't. I'm trying to cut this, but it won't go very deep. I picked a dull knife in case my hand slips, so my hand would be intact." She pulled the knife up- it was the dullest one in the place and he absorbed that information.
"What's going on?" he asked. Futility, because he knew, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting an explanation.
"Wolfgang Wolf Wolfie. I love your name so much, it's a fantastic name for a boyfriend. I don't think I mentioned." This statement warmed him, so he watched her knife the bedroom and just asked her questions. He expected something to sound like reason or just her usual form of charm, which included her wandering thoughts. But it was more of the knife-woman, his Chryssie encased in her pod or bubble that waved like heat on a horizon. She began attacking the floor, in long and thoughtful pulls, and the carpet was no match; she talked about her plan and its' dissemination via the carvings. Wolfgang finally got off the bed. He picked up his phone and dialed Desmond. Chryssie was making the gouges smaller, and she stood up to get another knife- "a paring knife for the fine work here. It needs a paring knife. Fine fine-" but Wolfgang blocked her, and when she protested he reached around her waist to trap her. He kissed every time she tried to break in, on her neck or her nose or her ear, and she learned it and started pushing her head toward his every time he bent near. She clocked him on the mouth. It bled a little, and discreetly on the inside.
"What did you do that for?" In the little crash of mouth and skull, he had forgotten she was sick. He had a flashing thought that she was just picking a fight.
Desmond slammed into the trailer- unwise, considering the situation. "Wolfgang, when did it start?" he asked, all automaton, looking at his watch.
Chryssie began to rock her shoulders in a real effort to get out of Wolfgang's circle. He got a look at her face, her beautiful face, for the first time since he'd held her back- and realized that this was what love was: his heart breaking in two parts that were themselves breaking. One half was flooded with a compassion that demanded he stay with her until her face relaxed, and she could look at him without that rictus of imprisoned hurt- he would die at her bedside if it meant she might become happy- and the other was bleeding out his own life.
There was another person in the trailer park- a young man. He was definitely a man, no longer the age where other adults referred to him as a "young man" to his face but who still called him a kid when speaking to each other. His name was Wolfgang. He'd inherited it from an uncle who'd passed away years before, and Wolfgang remembered this uncle as being the kind who'd come over three times a year and drink something he'd brought, usually something in a single bottle and fancy, comparatively speaking. He'd make jokes that were funny every other time. So the young man had no objection to being named Wolfgang. He would walk around Standish Estates and look at his neighbor's units and their picnic tables and their foraged stones that they'd put in neat lines bordering the paths to their doors (it was a popular look.) He would slow down at Chryssie's trailer to watch her.
She was almost always outside when he walked, and for a while he imagined that she was doing it deliberately because she had a secret crush on him. She certainly waved hard enough when he walked by, using both hands and arms with vigor, moving them across space almost presidentially; also she smiled. "Hi Wolfgang! Hi there, I see you! Hiya Wolfgang! You should say Hi back- look at me, I'm waving so hard you should say Hi back!" she'd say, but all he managed was a small smile. Ostensibly he did this so that he didn't encourage the presumed crush she had on him.
There came a day when she wasn't there, and then one immediately after. This turned into a week, maybe eight days, and Wolfgang thought while she was absent. He realized that, of the two of them, it was more likely that he had the crush- he didn't feel the way he supposed a crush was supposed to feel- there was nothing tingling on him, neither high nor low, and he didn't lose track of his intent to walk his usual Standish Estates perimeter. However- well, he kept looking for her, and that must have been what a crush was like. He decided he had the wrong idea of what a crush was in the first place. He walked and searched for her at her place and then around, generally.
On that eighth day, he decided to pace. He'd done his round, and he just could not let his unease settle into mild detachment, so he paced back and forth in front of her trailer. When he saw Virginia Cravach looking at him as intently from her next-door kitchen half-window, he moved into Chryssie's yard, which was fenced (a luxury) and gave him semi-privacy. He shook his fists at Virginia's kitchen because he knew there was greater privacy in the world outside the trailer park. During the gesturing, a car pulled up in front of Chryssie's trailer. Wolfgang jogged the twenty feet from the end of her yard to her front path, and she was being helped out of the sedan by a man older than her by a few decades, at least. Chryssie herself was quiet and kept looking at the man with a sour expression to make him leave.
"Oh great, you're here already. Linda must have called the service while I was at Shadytown-" said the older man. "Could you just grab her here- by the arm is good, she associates it with the center and it's soothing."
Chryssie looked at Wolfgang slyly, a look that he'd never seen on her face before, and that was including every time he'd seen her in the ten years he'd lived there. She then said "I associate it."
Wolfgang piped up. "I'm not from a service." He felt he should have said more, but didn't.
"Oh god, I'm sorry." Older man held out his hand. "I'm Desmond, Chryssie's father. thank you so much for being here- thank you so much. I need to go. I hate that I need to go, Chryssie. but I have other plans for us soon, and you know I'm good for it."
"Aahh- plans" she replied.
Desmond smiled, and Chryssie suddenly smiled back and the sour expression wasn't even a memory on her face. :"Plans! Plans, Chryssie!" Then he made an awful villain face and rubbed his hands together, saying "Plans for you, my dear." Then he got in his car. "It was nice to meet you."
Chryssie, after an appropriate pause, looked at Wolfgang. "Could you take me by the arm anyway? I do actually find it soothing, but I hate to admit it in front of him." Wolfgang could think of no reason to hesitate. "Thank you. Also it's not because of the center. Who could be properly brought down in a place called Shadytown, anyway? What a name."
"It's a ridiculous name. Why would they name a health center Shadytown?" He'd carefully left out the word "mental' before "health center". He hadn't been raised by wolves, after all.
"It's only called that because it has no shade. None. The Commons is just an overheated fish tank without water when it's sunny." She sighed. He was still holding her arm, and he gently put it down next to her side before he let it go. "Oh, that's all right" she whispered both tenderly and dispassionately. And that was it for Wolfgang: he fell, somehow- he fell for Chryssie, who was a bit older than him (he had no idea how much older) and just come back from a mental institution after being treated for nerves or depression or bipolarism. These were the mental illnesses he was familiar with, and he'd read about them in Time or whatever news magazine his other uncle subscribed to. (Wolfgang lived with his other uncle, who was named Sid after no one in particular. He'd lived with Sid since his mother died and left him the trailer- Sid had come with it, a permanent inhabitant with the only steady employment to speak of. It was a good arrangement, but a juiceless one: Sid preferred to watch the same stuff on television every night, and spent his weekends on the couch, watching more of the same stuff in marathon form. Occasionally Sid would go square dancing with his regular date, who seemed to be Sid's girlfriend except that she was never around and Sid never spoke about her. When she came over, and crammed her gigantic crinolines and cowgirl snap-down shirt into the trailer, taking up more than half the width of the living area, Sid seemed happy; still, no telling.)
So he fell, somehow. Again it didn't feel like falling or twinkling or giving his heart or anything else to her (he wondered how that expression came to be, since it was so bogus.) He did feel proprietary. He would be the arm-taker, now. He would be the one to soothe her and determine how she was soothed, and he would listen to her. He felt a strong need to listen to her and whatever she said, and to think about what she'd said. He supposed that he'd got it wrong about love all around, not just about what constituted a crush.
They were together for months, sailing along, together- visiting for days at a time, with no thought from either side of moving in. Chryssie was exuberant and weird and a good sport. Wolfgang was focused and smiling and kinder than he knew he could be, which he supposed was what love was (he was always adjusting his definition.) There were a few times when she herself grew quiet, and had a pained expression on her face, and drank. There was a lack of regular sleeping hours- she became narcoleptic and slumped into herself any time, doing anything. Wolfgang got out of bed and got dressed when she passed out like that during their "sexy times," as she put it (they had both been virgins when they decided to slip downward and consummate their unspoken love- they'd told each other the next morning when they woke up still on the floor, and they'd both found it hilarious.) But when she'd fallen asleep like that, he got up and got dressed and woke her half-way so that he could half-lift her into a cab.
He went to Shadytown with her in his arms. He wasn't alarmed. He'd read about this in Time or whatever, and he'd decided even then- even before they'd spoken- how he would act if and when the need arose. So he stayed calm, and he admitted her easily as the yet-more-calm lady who admitted Chryssie had her own pet name for his girlfriend. That was slightly unsettling, and he thought about being unsettled while he quietly waited for someone to come out and tell him what to do next. He sat in the separate waiting room and was gently shaken awake by someone in a lab coat sixteen hours later.
"You're Wolfgang" proclaimed Lab Coat. This person's demeanor was almost intimidatingly calm and definitely professional.
"Hey there" said Wolfgang. He felt very awake now.
"Thanks for bringing her in. It's the narcolepsy that's the surest sign of a peak coming, and I've never seen you for Chryssie before but you caught that right away."
Wolfgang blushed like a schoolchild. "It was pretty obvious."
"Good. So, anyway- she's here, she's in need of a stay for a few days. I think 'til Monday would help." Said Lab Coat. It was Wednesday. It seemed an inordinate amount of time to him, but he didn't say so- he just went home. Sid was there. He mentioned what had happened to Sid- in a glancing way, something about taking her to the doctor's and how he intended to shower and get a good night's sleep. Sid made soothing noises of his own. Wolfgang slept and paced, waiting until Monday. The morning came and he picked her up in another cab, which was paid for by a standing account of Chryssie's father's.
She was quiet and contemplative on the ride home. When he asked her, as he'd been meaning to ask her, in his most exact, most diplomatic words, what was wrong with her, she turned to him and smiled. She looked at him for a few minutes that way, just sitting there, like she was stuck. Wolfgang sat with the most dignified cab-seat posture he had, and waited and looked back. He didn't break eye contact. Then she said "it's schizophrenia, if you must know." She then leaned over and kissed him, and he was relieved and kissed back, which turned into a full clutch in the back of the car with the cab driver looking in his rearview with a mildly disgusted expression for the rest of the ride.
When they got home, Wolfgang moved his few things into her trailer and notified Sid that that's where he could be found now. Nothing else would change- just that he'd be with Chryssie. "You're already over there all the time. Congrats" said Sid. So: there were times, and there was sleeping, and there was wine, which appeared all by itself while he was sleeping, and which Wolfgang got rid of almost as soon as he woke up. He took her to Shadytown when she needed it- they had many a running joke about the name by the time she really, really took ill.
He'd set the alarm early, so that he could check for wine or wine coolers hidden about. There had been a building, an erection of some kind of bubble around Chryssie that was palpable, and visible- there was a sort of shimmering when she'd talked her self hoarse and fell asleep on an armless chair so that she slid sideways and Wolfgang had to catch her and haul her back to sitting on her couch. He had noticed it, and had ignored it; he was proud of how well he could read her and understand her needs and triggers and ecstasies before she did. So: ignore the shimmer, ignore the aura she had that she'd never had before. He'd just gotten her back from Shadytown and didn't want to give her back, he wanted her in her bed and possibly with some delivered Mexican (they both had the stomach of a walrus and could eat bones, if necessary. It didn't bother them, which was an achievement for Chryssie considering how much prescription medication she'd ingested in her life.) So: he woke up, and she had a knife.
"Chryssie, did you cut something?" Wolfgang said, past alert, before fear.
She was cutting long lines into the wall in some orderly fashion- it looked like she was rendering a spread sheet in the bedroom's fake wallpaper. "Honey, I wasn't. I'm trying to cut this, but it won't go very deep. I picked a dull knife in case my hand slips, so my hand would be intact." She pulled the knife up- it was the dullest one in the place and he absorbed that information.
"What's going on?" he asked. Futility, because he knew, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting an explanation.
"Wolfgang Wolf Wolfie. I love your name so much, it's a fantastic name for a boyfriend. I don't think I mentioned." This statement warmed him, so he watched her knife the bedroom and just asked her questions. He expected something to sound like reason or just her usual form of charm, which included her wandering thoughts. But it was more of the knife-woman, his Chryssie encased in her pod or bubble that waved like heat on a horizon. She began attacking the floor, in long and thoughtful pulls, and the carpet was no match; she talked about her plan and its' dissemination via the carvings. Wolfgang finally got off the bed. He picked up his phone and dialed Desmond. Chryssie was making the gouges smaller, and she stood up to get another knife- "a paring knife for the fine work here. It needs a paring knife. Fine fine-" but Wolfgang blocked her, and when she protested he reached around her waist to trap her. He kissed every time she tried to break in, on her neck or her nose or her ear, and she learned it and started pushing her head toward his every time he bent near. She clocked him on the mouth. It bled a little, and discreetly on the inside.
"What did you do that for?" In the little crash of mouth and skull, he had forgotten she was sick. He had a flashing thought that she was just picking a fight.
Desmond slammed into the trailer- unwise, considering the situation. "Wolfgang, when did it start?" he asked, all automaton, looking at his watch.
Chryssie began to rock her shoulders in a real effort to get out of Wolfgang's circle. He got a look at her face, her beautiful face, for the first time since he'd held her back- and realized that this was what love was: his heart breaking in two parts that were themselves breaking. One half was flooded with a compassion that demanded he stay with her until her face relaxed, and she could look at him without that rictus of imprisoned hurt- he would die at her bedside if it meant she might become happy- and the other was bleeding out his own life.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Are You RRREADY to RRRUMBLE??
One day, one blessed day, you may come to the decision that a long-distance relationship is an okey-dokey relationship. Your love is fair and fabulous, and so it can withstand the mild quirky bits of the separation and all of the communication snafus that will attempt to snarl things up. You are not alone. There are millions of others already doing just that: bucking that trend, building that intimacy that would not naturally be built were you in each other's space all the time, being centered and exuding love from your pores even when Skype is making each of you speak five seconds after the other has already started talking and also looking like you lost an eye since the two of you last spoke.
But one day, one ugly day, you'll get in a fight with your long-distance beloved. You just will. There is a particular energy that builds between those trying to keep it together via telephone and computer, like static electricity. And some day that static love frisson will surround the balloon life head of your talks, and it will have to come out in the air, and then it will hang in the air while one of you looks confused at the live video on screen while the sound catches up. In order to make it good- to ensure that your slow-motion fracas can go on for days, if not weeks- you'd best follow these steps.
1) Make it Small!
A common mistake of the newbie is to hash things out and especially to keep things in context or in the big picture or whatever. That is such a common mistake that you might even feel good about it, like you'd just been chosen for some Olympic Fight Avoidance Team and your partner is your team mate- you might even be online, shopping for matching sparkly unitards complete with sequined headbands. What you really want to do here is forget all those high-falutin' dreams of gold-medal glory and start looking back at your discussion.
Pick some point (you may develop a method for choosing, but don't be afraid to wing it at first) and then pick at that point. Was it fair that they brought up your expensive stock car racing when you were really talking about your five-year plan? Did they actually refer to that racing as a "hobby"? Because that is just not cool, now that you think about it. Haven't you already had the conversation where you described how the burning rubber smell and the unhealthful heat and the team of spandex-clad co-eds spraying water into your mouth while you waste gas making the motor go R-R-R-RAAAAWRRRR is the only way you feel really free? How dare they say that's a "hobby"! The fact that it costs more per annum than the asking price of a small rural home is not the point! A"Hobby"!...If you look at it this way, you can bicker about the diplomacy of that particular choice of words for hours. And it will feel longer, which is just gravy.
2) Forget Your Progress!
Look, every couple has had it's fights, right? And every couple has figured it out, in some way. Perhaps you went to therapy for months on end and came out slightly more calm and much more broke. Perhaps you just decided the best way to go about this involved a fifth of whiskey per person and a series of shot glasses until one of you falls down first, enabling the other one to crow "I'm the winner!", throw up, and collapse on top of the body of that beautiful, wonderful person who is the loser. Maybe it involved a referee and a closed cage- I don't know what you kids are into these days. But I know this: for the kinds of fights that must be fought over long distances, you have to just let that go. Let it go.
The trusty Keep of Bitter Snipery cannot be conquered through politeness and thoughtful response. Revert to old, bad habits, such as mentioning previous fruitless bickering about something completely off topic ("This is just like when we went snorkeling. You were such an asshole. I swear every time we go to a reef and you get anywhere near some neoprene, it's just like snorkeling with Uncle Ted, because he was such an asshole.") Or you can make half-empty ultimatums ("If you mention my insignificant, completely controlled coke habit one more time I swear I'm going to have to consider whether or not this relationship is as solid as I thought it was." If you're Skyping while you do this, don't forget to make a haughty face!) Works like a charm!
3) Just Hang Up!
Someone taught you not to do that, didn't they? You listened while some well-meaning authority intoned about some golden rule and what constitutes being horrible, didn't you? We all did. And we believed, with our whole half-wit hearts that it was our duty to extract ourselves from a conversation by listening and responding with kindness to the jerk on the phone or the computer that we're trying to correct. If we must, said the nice lady/gentleman, we might write a letter filled with the all that vitriol- and then rip it up. Which is downright crazy.
Listen, well-intentioned people told you not to play with yourself, too, but you didn't listen to that bit of wisdom, did you? Of course you didn't! No one did! And the "be nice" rule is the same. Sure, it makes sense that one must give love to receive love, and you may feel just a wee bite of conscience trying to make you reconsider, but you must take that gnat-like conscience of yours and spray it with your anger spray. Then, just when the conversation you're having with your combatant lover is reaching its' apex and therefore its' possible resolution, get off. You can choose to inform them that you're about to hang up and then do so before they have a chance to "communicate their feelings"; or you can simply disappear. Either way is going to really, really piss off the one who's on the other end- and that's the whole point. The next time you are in touch with them, the tension will be tenser and the rage will be awful and the fight will continue, except the stakes will seem even higher! Woo!
...well, that covers the basics of long-distance relationship fighting. The rules listed above are really just guidelines, so don't be afraid to improvise. As long as you stick to your stupid, self-defeating metaphorical guns, you can be brawling with your loved one for a span of time that is measurable but will feel like many many eternities. Good luck, and remember: only one of you can win the luggage set, and by god, it's going to be you.
But one day, one ugly day, you'll get in a fight with your long-distance beloved. You just will. There is a particular energy that builds between those trying to keep it together via telephone and computer, like static electricity. And some day that static love frisson will surround the balloon life head of your talks, and it will have to come out in the air, and then it will hang in the air while one of you looks confused at the live video on screen while the sound catches up. In order to make it good- to ensure that your slow-motion fracas can go on for days, if not weeks- you'd best follow these steps.
1) Make it Small!
A common mistake of the newbie is to hash things out and especially to keep things in context or in the big picture or whatever. That is such a common mistake that you might even feel good about it, like you'd just been chosen for some Olympic Fight Avoidance Team and your partner is your team mate- you might even be online, shopping for matching sparkly unitards complete with sequined headbands. What you really want to do here is forget all those high-falutin' dreams of gold-medal glory and start looking back at your discussion.
Pick some point (you may develop a method for choosing, but don't be afraid to wing it at first) and then pick at that point. Was it fair that they brought up your expensive stock car racing when you were really talking about your five-year plan? Did they actually refer to that racing as a "hobby"? Because that is just not cool, now that you think about it. Haven't you already had the conversation where you described how the burning rubber smell and the unhealthful heat and the team of spandex-clad co-eds spraying water into your mouth while you waste gas making the motor go R-R-R-RAAAAWRRRR is the only way you feel really free? How dare they say that's a "hobby"! The fact that it costs more per annum than the asking price of a small rural home is not the point! A"Hobby"!...If you look at it this way, you can bicker about the diplomacy of that particular choice of words for hours. And it will feel longer, which is just gravy.
2) Forget Your Progress!
Look, every couple has had it's fights, right? And every couple has figured it out, in some way. Perhaps you went to therapy for months on end and came out slightly more calm and much more broke. Perhaps you just decided the best way to go about this involved a fifth of whiskey per person and a series of shot glasses until one of you falls down first, enabling the other one to crow "I'm the winner!", throw up, and collapse on top of the body of that beautiful, wonderful person who is the loser. Maybe it involved a referee and a closed cage- I don't know what you kids are into these days. But I know this: for the kinds of fights that must be fought over long distances, you have to just let that go. Let it go.
The trusty Keep of Bitter Snipery cannot be conquered through politeness and thoughtful response. Revert to old, bad habits, such as mentioning previous fruitless bickering about something completely off topic ("This is just like when we went snorkeling. You were such an asshole. I swear every time we go to a reef and you get anywhere near some neoprene, it's just like snorkeling with Uncle Ted, because he was such an asshole.") Or you can make half-empty ultimatums ("If you mention my insignificant, completely controlled coke habit one more time I swear I'm going to have to consider whether or not this relationship is as solid as I thought it was." If you're Skyping while you do this, don't forget to make a haughty face!) Works like a charm!
3) Just Hang Up!
Someone taught you not to do that, didn't they? You listened while some well-meaning authority intoned about some golden rule and what constitutes being horrible, didn't you? We all did. And we believed, with our whole half-wit hearts that it was our duty to extract ourselves from a conversation by listening and responding with kindness to the jerk on the phone or the computer that we're trying to correct. If we must, said the nice lady/gentleman, we might write a letter filled with the all that vitriol- and then rip it up. Which is downright crazy.
Listen, well-intentioned people told you not to play with yourself, too, but you didn't listen to that bit of wisdom, did you? Of course you didn't! No one did! And the "be nice" rule is the same. Sure, it makes sense that one must give love to receive love, and you may feel just a wee bite of conscience trying to make you reconsider, but you must take that gnat-like conscience of yours and spray it with your anger spray. Then, just when the conversation you're having with your combatant lover is reaching its' apex and therefore its' possible resolution, get off. You can choose to inform them that you're about to hang up and then do so before they have a chance to "communicate their feelings"; or you can simply disappear. Either way is going to really, really piss off the one who's on the other end- and that's the whole point. The next time you are in touch with them, the tension will be tenser and the rage will be awful and the fight will continue, except the stakes will seem even higher! Woo!
...well, that covers the basics of long-distance relationship fighting. The rules listed above are really just guidelines, so don't be afraid to improvise. As long as you stick to your stupid, self-defeating metaphorical guns, you can be brawling with your loved one for a span of time that is measurable but will feel like many many eternities. Good luck, and remember: only one of you can win the luggage set, and by god, it's going to be you.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Party at My House!
The movers are coming in six days. They come for our stuff, which I think of as my stuff for practical purposes. It is mine; it is all in my control; I am fully responsible for it. Also, it is terrifying. I have moved to well into the point that some dude on cracked.com smarmily pointed out for me and for anyone like me: it's just a mind-boggling array of shit, and I will be happy- kicking my heels together, frozen-in-time-with-a-rictus-of-joy-on-my-face-just-like-in-that-Toyota-commercial-of-old happy- to let total strangers take my things away from me. As long as I can't see it five minutes after they've left, and provided they don't set fire to anything (anything other than my own stuff, I mean) they can ha-ha-have it.
People have been very kind- in-laws, blood relations, people I only see every three years, weirdos that I know only peripherally, friends- and they took my bait. I sent out an evite a few weeks back inviting folks to come over and help me sort through my precious old bar coasters and Alan wrenches to furniture that I never had, and they did. On time and everything. I opened the door to each of them, mouth already working except that no sound was coming out, desperately trying not to appear desperate, which I now believe cannot be done unless you are Helen Mirren. Not that I'm comparing myself to HM, because that would be pure rot. Pure, distracting rot. So once the person came in and I, ever the thoughtful host, forgot to offer them a glass of friggin' water, fer chrissake, I would say something like this:
ME: So, you guys, I think that I'm not Helen Mirren. I mean, I know I'm not Helen Mirren, I'm not fooling myself, because she was so good in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover- that was the first Mirren movie I ever saw. But I think I must have seen more before that, you know? I mean, were the type of geeky family that would watch Masterpiece Theater re-runs, and that was in the 80's when she was becoming Mirren. So I must have seen her before CTW&L, and that's why the line "Try the cock- at least you know where it's been" resonated with me so much...
FRIEND: Jenn, these are my kids. They are five and three-and-a-half.
ME: Are you telling me that they've seen a Helen Mirren movie? It must have been The Queen, because she's so damn good, and it's a great HM primer. Bit much for the kiddos, in my opinion, but what do I know? One could argue that there is no time that is too young for watching-
FRIEND: So, hey, what do you need us to do? Kids, why don't you go downstairs and play with the cat-
ME: Be careful, love bugs, she's a biter!
FRIEND: -or why don't I go down with them, because you have stuff there too, right? That needs to be packed, right? Jenn?
ME: ...Oh, right right! But it's not packing, 'cause the people are doing that, they pack it up for us, which is amazing, so I just need sorting, and I can't be in every room at once, so why don't you just get started on the DVDs? There are the obvious ones, like The Wiggles Christmas- hey, why don't you take that with you home with you, because you have children and you own a DVD player I'm sure, so there you go, I'll just bop downstairs and get it and make sure I put it in your purse-
FRIEND: - WHAT ELSE CAN I DO? There must be something else, honey, I can see a giant pile of coats and t-shirts and what appears to be wet towels over there in the corner. I could just throw that in the washer, or did you want that all folded? I could put it in separate piles, towels coats t-shirts- would that be ok?
ME: That would be great! I think that would be great, what a big help you are! I think that pile is my daughter's safety place, though- she might be buried under there, I haven't seen her in a while. So, again, be careful about the biting. Oh and hey! I just remembered I also have Ice Age 14: Trouble Tectonically (Again) downstairs too, so I'll just put that in your purse with the Wiggles and these clearly used but unmarked VHS tapes! Brilliant!
FRIEND: I am considering leaving now.
ME: Great, because we haven't done a donation run yet, and you could run it for me, and I could just weed out those dozen or so movies that the kids are really going to love- you've already got them watching R movies- it's really too much for them, sweetheart, you know that developmentally they aren't really ready to recognize great acting yet, which is something I know from this book right here, which I will put over by your purse with the box full of the DVDs! I was going to say that it's a different direction, to be sure, but maybe your children will like Fight Club, because I have two copies-
FRIEND: I was told there would be beer.
So the next few hours were torture for all of us, but no more so than for people who aren't me. I blathered like that for hours- I blathered well after everyone was gone, sick to their stomachs to see another human being reduced to such collateral idiocy. So, now, there are lists per room. The lists in themselves are terrifying; they are no more specific than my ranting about cookie cutters and taxation and paper cuts. An example:
Living Room
* Get bowls to put plates in/move- see studio; Antoine?
* Gouges
* S & D 1 truck stockade lamplamp; S & D 2 same
* CARD TABLE!!!!!!
* Neighborhood Assoc. needs paper jambos, must put jambos on curb second Tues but not with recycling so ask racist lady two buildings down schedule for jambos
* Def. move cabinet (**cat in there**)
* Sell cat
* Girl to dentist wed with goo snacks absent (she will know!!)
* fish fixtures frustrating: farm factory Ferarra @ Fulton (Thurs?)
Right now I'm wondering if I'll remember what each line means in one years' time. Could be fun to find out. Have to put "list packing" on the list, but for which room?
People have been very kind- in-laws, blood relations, people I only see every three years, weirdos that I know only peripherally, friends- and they took my bait. I sent out an evite a few weeks back inviting folks to come over and help me sort through my precious old bar coasters and Alan wrenches to furniture that I never had, and they did. On time and everything. I opened the door to each of them, mouth already working except that no sound was coming out, desperately trying not to appear desperate, which I now believe cannot be done unless you are Helen Mirren. Not that I'm comparing myself to HM, because that would be pure rot. Pure, distracting rot. So once the person came in and I, ever the thoughtful host, forgot to offer them a glass of friggin' water, fer chrissake, I would say something like this:
ME: So, you guys, I think that I'm not Helen Mirren. I mean, I know I'm not Helen Mirren, I'm not fooling myself, because she was so good in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover- that was the first Mirren movie I ever saw. But I think I must have seen more before that, you know? I mean, were the type of geeky family that would watch Masterpiece Theater re-runs, and that was in the 80's when she was becoming Mirren. So I must have seen her before CTW&L, and that's why the line "Try the cock- at least you know where it's been" resonated with me so much...
FRIEND: Jenn, these are my kids. They are five and three-and-a-half.
ME: Are you telling me that they've seen a Helen Mirren movie? It must have been The Queen, because she's so damn good, and it's a great HM primer. Bit much for the kiddos, in my opinion, but what do I know? One could argue that there is no time that is too young for watching-
FRIEND: So, hey, what do you need us to do? Kids, why don't you go downstairs and play with the cat-
ME: Be careful, love bugs, she's a biter!
FRIEND: -or why don't I go down with them, because you have stuff there too, right? That needs to be packed, right? Jenn?
ME: ...Oh, right right! But it's not packing, 'cause the people are doing that, they pack it up for us, which is amazing, so I just need sorting, and I can't be in every room at once, so why don't you just get started on the DVDs? There are the obvious ones, like The Wiggles Christmas- hey, why don't you take that with you home with you, because you have children and you own a DVD player I'm sure, so there you go, I'll just bop downstairs and get it and make sure I put it in your purse-
FRIEND: - WHAT ELSE CAN I DO? There must be something else, honey, I can see a giant pile of coats and t-shirts and what appears to be wet towels over there in the corner. I could just throw that in the washer, or did you want that all folded? I could put it in separate piles, towels coats t-shirts- would that be ok?
ME: That would be great! I think that would be great, what a big help you are! I think that pile is my daughter's safety place, though- she might be buried under there, I haven't seen her in a while. So, again, be careful about the biting. Oh and hey! I just remembered I also have Ice Age 14: Trouble Tectonically (Again) downstairs too, so I'll just put that in your purse with the Wiggles and these clearly used but unmarked VHS tapes! Brilliant!
FRIEND: I am considering leaving now.
ME: Great, because we haven't done a donation run yet, and you could run it for me, and I could just weed out those dozen or so movies that the kids are really going to love- you've already got them watching R movies- it's really too much for them, sweetheart, you know that developmentally they aren't really ready to recognize great acting yet, which is something I know from this book right here, which I will put over by your purse with the box full of the DVDs! I was going to say that it's a different direction, to be sure, but maybe your children will like Fight Club, because I have two copies-
FRIEND: I was told there would be beer.
So the next few hours were torture for all of us, but no more so than for people who aren't me. I blathered like that for hours- I blathered well after everyone was gone, sick to their stomachs to see another human being reduced to such collateral idiocy. So, now, there are lists per room. The lists in themselves are terrifying; they are no more specific than my ranting about cookie cutters and taxation and paper cuts. An example:
Living Room
* Get bowls to put plates in/move- see studio; Antoine?
* Gouges
* S & D 1 truck stockade lamplamp; S & D 2 same
* CARD TABLE!!!!!!
* Neighborhood Assoc. needs paper jambos, must put jambos on curb second Tues but not with recycling so ask racist lady two buildings down schedule for jambos
* Def. move cabinet (**cat in there**)
* Sell cat
* Girl to dentist wed with goo snacks absent (she will know!!)
* fish fixtures frustrating: farm factory Ferarra @ Fulton (Thurs?)
Right now I'm wondering if I'll remember what each line means in one years' time. Could be fun to find out. Have to put "list packing" on the list, but for which room?
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