I am also the woman who will cook him lemon chicken with rosemary in red high heels, and might I add that they may not come off throughout the night, if you know what I mean. But I am also a woman who needs things to get done. I like reminders.

These are the top five reasons I am an absolute f*&%$#@* nag.

1. It’s innate, my Mama did it, sister did it, and my entire childhood was polluted with naggerific tendencies. It’s not an excuse, it’s just why.
2. I want the best for you baby, for us, don’t you see it?
3. Perhaps because I’ve only ever had experiences with people in which I have to nag or nothing will ever get done.
4. I’m a mother and that came as a package deal.
5. And finally, because it’s one of the few things I can do that will incite an immediate reaction. I like immediate reactions.

I’m going to generalize here, which I don’t like to do—but for the sake of the topic, I don’t mean everyone, but some and possibly even most.

What’s the worst thing a woman can do you ask? I answer. Nag. Yes, we know it is annoying, and I can even venture to say, until we nag (a repeatedly whiny asking over and over of the same thing)— or get louder, you’re generally going to ignore us until it gets… urgent for you. 

It’s like something else large has to be at stake. I like things at stake.

I feel like there’s this misconception, this misconception that a woman’s perfect man needs to be half-naked washing dishes. I’m here to tell you, as desirable as that might be, that isn’t what (and if I can speak for the women that I know) we want.

I, coupled with the few power women spoke on THIS topic all too recently, and it all falls in line with what I’ve always known.

Nagging has more to do with feeling alone with regards to responsibility, while a significant other should  share the heaviness of my load. Teamwork, go teamwork. Nagging has more to do with attention span, or lack thereof, and acknowledging when something has been asked, (even in a sensual way) and still no concerted efforts have been made.

I can remember the feeling of utter helplessness, the hindrance. The resentment and frustration, like I’m gonna “crawl up the wallside,” because I’ve asked and been disregarded for things that are (at the top of my list as) less important—ie: workouts, playing basketball, drinking beer, watching Lakers or Raiders, or my own personal favorite—feet kicked up in the lazy chair.

I want my feet kicked up in the lazy chair? But what am I doing instead? Refilling the puppy bowl, helping revamp his personal statement or CV, sorting laundry yet again, matching up his missing socks, replacing the toilet tissue and the paper towels back on the roll—because none of y’all see that sh*t is empty. All I’d like is for a man who notices things, acknowledges what I’ve said, and is present in the relationship he is in.

Since I’m currently single, I stand to warn a potential that, yes, I nag—with the most tender care and in the most yielding  and loving way possible. I nag.

Don’t worry, I use positive reinforcement, too. Very positive. I like positive.

What about you?

Picture credit: Jumbo post-it note

I started writing on this site for a few reasons, but mainly to share. Sharing has a way of coming around full circle—but not always in the way one might expect. This is nonfiction so as a preamble I tell my friends and family that they might all be written about, although I never use names unless I’ve made them up. So, now, after having lost two people I cared about due to the content of my blog, I’ve decided to write even more personal shit. Ta-daa.

Topic of discussion today is sleeping with a man/woman too soon, which has been written and re-written, but probably not as ridiculously. I feel like the Salesperson that indubitably gets sold, but here go I:

The courting process is built on assumptions. ASSumptions that change with conversation and habits. I’m a woman, and generally, we are creatures of habit, but that can be said for some men as well. If I go out on a date with a person, I’m immediately wrestling with ASSumptions, because we use them to make good decisions about strangers. So, if the man I’m on a date with keeps darting his eyes across the room and not making good eye contact, he either has a girlfriend that’s a high profile detective, or he’s trying to see who will witness him killing me. I’m going to assume my ass to the bathroom and never return.

The same applies to the habits that form if you were to make it out of that date alive, deeming him an ok guy. Next you have the text messages. Now, I’m all for text messages, but a lot can be said about text tone, and so much more about a person that picks up the phone and uhh, calls me. It’s damn near like receiving snail mail, now-a-days. Score! But secondly, and more seriously what we are learning about in between this time, is if we can build trust in a person or not. This is synched with the building of memories. We are finding out what a future (if there is any) will be like with this person, and we are building rapport. This is why sharing about one’s past or talking about childhood at any point is important to friendships. Building on those foundations—just as important to relationships. Or standby to get separated into a box marked, “for now.”

Jozen Cummings of Until I Get Married wrote about this very topic a few weeks back and said “If you sleep with a woman too soon, and you suck, she will leave you. Wait for her to fall for you emotionally first, then deliver the sub-par performance you’re capable of.” So real.

But from a woman’s perspective, and only because my besties and I were speaking on this very situation… if we like you and you suck in bed, we’ll try again, and sometimes even again, just to make sure it wasn’t something we could’ve worked with. All of whom shall remain nameless (yes first hand my friends and I have vouched for these shenanigans) men have sex for thrill, for the happy end, for the fact of doing it. Sometimes they’re really into you, sometimes not so much. Women? We have sex, mostly (not always, but definitely mostly) for love. We want it to go somewhere. Maybe not to the moonlight and back, but we want it to go somewhere. 

“Men, they jump for money. Women, for love.”

—Man On A Ledge, Movie 2012

What I said it! Women are emotional beings. I mean occasionally you get the girl who has conditioned herself to separate the two—lust, love. But even in doing so, a woman is a liar if she says to herself that she wasn’t hoping for that good guy afterwards. We ALL are. Get that fellas? All of us are still counting on you, so no this is not a male bashing party.

So when is the right time, you ask?

Ah, we can go into vibe, conversation, I’d usually measure for commonality. Discussing value can go on and on… every situation was different. A guy friend of mine said he’d slept with a girl after a drunken night, a stranger, and said that afterwards—that awkwardnesss, he felt her embarrassment, for her. He said when he woke all he could think of when he looked at her was, and in his exact words:

“I don’t think I would like to do that ever again with you.”

Another of my friends has trouble with caring at all emotionally thereafter. She said her proof is in the days to come. My sister married her high school sweet tart, also the father of her children—and still to this day will claim she wasn’t pregnant with her first child when she rushed to the altar. I slept with a guy for a year and a half and kept telling my friends he was “a one night stand.” Eventually, my bestie said to me, “it’s been a very loooooooong night then, dontcha think?” I didn’t leave him because he didn’t commit to me, I stopped calling him because he wasn’t honest with himself or his feelings.

I’m saying all of that to say this: The theory is you have to kiss a few frogs. Or, err &*%#. Which is personally frightening for me since my emotions aren’t controlled by anything physically (only), but rather uncontrolled when taken into oblong loops and upside down dances. I find that when taking chances, my best judgments elude me. Especially in moments like these:

“I respect you,” he murmured. “and your views. I think of you as an equal. I respect your brains, and all those big words you like to use. But I also want to rip your clothes off and have sex with you until you scream and cry and see God.”
—Lisa Kleypas, Smooth Talking Stranger

The point I want to make is that it isn’t the sex on the first, second, or thirty-ninth date that matters. It’s the intimacy in the moments that develop far before that. The part that keeps your thoughts twirling, even after whatever excuse isn’t given. Even after it’s all lost and over and you know you knew better, but you didn’t do any better because you knew too much better. The part you maybe should’ve fought for, but pride—she got in the way, and then when she didn’t it was too late. The part that’s shy when approached now, fumbles, foibles. The part that doesn’t understand why it crumbles so quickly, wait a year—no bueno. Wait weeks, months, days, hours, give each other raunchy looks across karaoke bars. Doesn’t matter, much, the outcome has all been the same when measured against others’ experiences. I’ve asked men, women—randomly—strangers, friends. When is it a good time to invite a man into your bedroom, with the hopes that he doesn’t turn down the invitation to all of your other rooms? A bust. It’s all subjective.

I’ve heard the typical, ‘a person looses interest, when it wanes, and if they do it wasn’t meant anyway.’ I’ve heard as long as you know their parents’ last names, I’ve heard that if you hope enough, fairy tales come true. I’m waiting on the latter. Well, first the tiff, then the kiss:

“I was just thinking if the sex with you is one-tenth as fun as arguing with you. I’ll be one happy bastard.”
“You’ll never find out. You——–”
He kissed me.
—Lisa Kleypas, Smooth Talking Stranger

What classifies the Good Girls from the Bad Girls, really? The ones whose partners can be counted on one hand? Love might have me mistaken, but I can rest assured I’ve never slept with anyone I couldn’t see myself with permanently—not planning showers or picking out kitchen tiles, but I’ll admit, I am a force of romanticized nature. Is it ruining me? Us all?

“For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer—the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you’ve never had sex, you’re a “good” (i.e. “moral”) girl and therefore worthy of praise.”

—Jessica Valenti, The purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

Yes, there’s the treasure idea. The “kept” woman, but at what point does it start to matter less about how fast a person jumps in the sack with another person, and more about the two people individually and how they work together? More about the way they trust each other, and understand each other. What about the married people I asked that both said “you never really know your husband/wife anyway, but we just keep trying?” What about the couple I asked that’s been married eight years and they both (without consulting each other) said “we make each other the best versions of ourselves” Or the homeboy who said he would never still be with his girl if the sex wasn’t sOoO good? Or the girl I went to undergrad school with, who said she always sleeps with a man the first night and it’s never not become a relationship.

Or sometimes I wonder if I can’t always do better than what’s in front of me? Is it all just a ploy? Drake said “all those other men were practice.” y’know?  My best girl and I fought over the double standard: that a womanizer is whatever, but if a female has three partners she’s a, what’s that called now, “ratchet?” I keep hearing it.

I’ll put it this way, for me:

“Sex isn’t good unless it means something. It doesn’t necessarily need to mean “love” and it doesn’t necessarily need to happen in a relationship, but it does need to mean intimacy and connection…There exists a very fine line between being sexually liberated and being sexually used.”
—Laura Sessions Stepp, Unhooked

There’s tons more to dating than sex, but sex is the part that makes the difference in loopy or comatose. A little turned around, or head across arm on the steering wheel. A little flutterbye in the tummylovely, or I swallowed a sick whale flapping in there.

Ah, lesson learned.

illustrator weheartit, quote from yours truly.

Silence says so much, sometimes too much.

So many times have I walked into places and said hello in my “spunky-chipper-I-just-raged-up-all-my energy-for-this-very-moment—and I’m not sure why they haven’t said a damn thing back to me—voice, and then in return I’ve gotten, silence.

At that point I can tell this is gonna be fun. You see, I was raised by an introvert, and an extrovert.

My mother—a wildly popular extrovert from Baton Rouge, Louisiana threw big parties and in the midst of them raised me on common southern and sometimes just plain ole “old folks” rules. What were they:

1. Speak when spoken to
2. Stay outta “grown folks business” (“grown folks business” being any words the people taller than you were saying)
3. No talkin’ back

The rules were so real to me, that just last year (I’m now almost 29 years old-mind you) when she visited me, I snappily responded to something she said and she flashed an eye at me, and my reply was,

“Ouh, sorry, I forgot who I was talking to,” yes, like that. Respect your elders. Respect people, period.

And my Dad, o my Daddie (the introvert) he spoiled me rotten with conversation and attention (when he could manage to escape work) and because as a young girl, I craved it, I find it odd when people don’t say shit. Because when we had our quiet time, it was very quiet. He’d go hours not speaking sitting next to me. He taught me to value my time to myself. If I tried to interrupt him, he didn’t shoot off at the mouth like my Mom, he just simply ignored me until he got good n’ ready. From that point forward I’ve always taken silence when you’ve spoken to someone, or non-responsive behavior, very seriously. Like, no response, seriously? That is very intentional. For me, at least.

I don’t see a person’s non-response as accidental. I mean sure, there’s a head space a person can be zoned into, but when they come up for air, (I’m an artist I know) they remember those they need to reach out to, and they do so. Those that do not, well it’s a blatant ignore.

Words are like sugar for me—just a bit sweetens, too much causes cavities, but right in the middle… it’s like mixing warm sunshine with a bubble bath… It’s like speaking magic “Let’s stay up all night discussing Didion? Rap music’s influence on society? Care Bears or Smurfs? Legos or Transformers?” MmMm yummy sweet conversation.

My Dad read books and newspapers every morning when I was a child, by his lonesome, before the birds woke, at the round kitchen island table—and still to this very day, clips out things he thinks I have time to read, and I do, at least I try. But what I find most respectable about him is his careful attention to the words he uses when he speaks to me. I attribute this to him having lived in different countries and that he speaks different languages, but still. He’s careful what he says, and also, what he does not say.

It’s often that because I’m a communicator (and usually an over-[shameful downward head]-communicator) that silence blares violently loud to me. Because so many times it’s been that small effort to explain, or the few seconds it takes to say “this is why this happened”— that has changed not just perspectives for me, but changed my mind entirely and caused me to take action.

I thought an old boss of mine hated me for four years simply because she didn’t speak to me in the mornings. She spoke to everyone else that passed, but me, despite my “heys!” or “good mornings!” she stared off disregarding my presence. There is a difference between someone who ignores someone, but this girl, would altogether NOT see me. The afternoons she was fine, seemingly unphased by me, and strongly and rather completely indifferent toward me. Finally, she gave me a very high review at the end of a quarter once and I commented, (I was young)

“All this time I’d thought you didn’t “like” me, you never speak in the mornings when I say hello.” Her response was simple:

“Liking you is not my job, you do good work, and I don’t speak to anyone I don’t have to speak to before I have my second cup of coffee.”

That bitch got me two (very tiny) raises and I learned a lot from her. I was just apparently not on her priority list of people she had to speak to on any morning.

A simple “hello,” navigates differently reaching the more ridiculous synapses in my brain and it says to me a whole lot more than silence does. Just like a look can say more than hello, an ity gesture can shout crescendos.

Few people have reduced me to silence. Being a writer I’ve always found more luck in sharing my stance, than the abysmal whist. The huff n puff never got me anywhere, but a professional letter—I turn into Wonder Woman! If I am ever quiet there are a few things going on, please allow me:

1. Emotions
2. Emotions
3. Emotions

Because I’ve probably realized that When We Talk, Nothing Changes, So I Have Chosen Silence. Which is again, very intentional.

My old friend used to have a problem shopping in places where when you walked into their store, the workers didn’t speak to you. A while back I was in Visuals (I did lights, aesthetics, and dressed mannequins) at Abercrombie & Fitch and know first hand how that store wasn’t always peppy, at least not my location. Basically the models stood there and didn’t speak. I don’t think I’d fully realized the affect silence had until I was standing around with them—not speaking, it’s like the environment follows suit.

Today, I second my friend. If I walk into a store and the employees don’t speak—or worse, I speak and get no response, they will get extra negative zero dollars from my pocketbook, I promise. Matter fact, I’m turning around and shopping somewhere around friendly people who will acknowledge me. I’m a human, I deserve human interactions.

If words are rock candy for me, good conversation is an excuse to get a stomach ache. It’s the subtleties that matter. I don’t need any grandiose gallivanting or enormous bouquets, but a nod or a text hello every now and now (!) … is the sweetest thing a person can do.

Picture of Rock Candy from my favorite gal XOXO Jessica XOXO over at SuchPrettyThings

Have a happy Wednesday and thanks for the requests, the emails, and the lurking!

Picture origination unknown

But what about relationships? Do we title our relationships? And if not, do we eventually? How soon after we either begin dating someone or begin sleeping with a person do we say out loud or in our heads, that this person can formally be introduced as “my boyfriend/girlfriend?”

Is it subjective depending upon who the person is and the vibe/aura you feel, or the chemistry this person emits? Should there be standards and rules and when you meet the “Gamechanger” (the person that goes against said standards, rules, and supersedes expectations) do those rules stand to be broken?

Does any of it matter if you’re having a damn good time enjoying the person and getting to know whatever it is they’re about, or does the lack of title set you up (me up, us as women up) for heartbreak?

My friend and I were having this talk over Asti (sweet white wine) the other day. Initially she spoke about the title: “Enjoy yourself and see what it does.” (Her exact words were “See what it do”) and then you wait, you wait in what is unexpected. I haven’t mentioned yet that surprises annoy me a bit in this way:

Tangent alert: Surprises annoy me because they mess with my ability to plan, to deliver ready-conclusives, and OCD my way into or outta something. Surprises force me to relinquish control. We are talking about a person who generally knows what time a movie starts, ends, and is generally there to see the majority of the previews—why? Because of Moviefone. But that same urgency-adrenaline-wreck a surprise gives to me, is the same emotional tug that intrigues me. The break in monotony. The element of the unexpected causes me to come back for more, while the predictable bores me after what I’ve painfully realized more than once, is about ten days. —Lalanii, on surprises

Halfway through the bottle she confesses (aka contradicts) that the “title,” or rather, “recalling when she knew things were going in the right direction” was undoubtedly when her “Gamechanger” put his arms around her and whispered at the tip of her earlobe the musical words she longed to hear. She’d asked where they were going—or what they were going to do (I can’t remember which) and he’d responded with something to the likes of:

“You’re my girl, anywhere you wanna go, anything you wanna do is fine, jus’ wanna be with you.”

Realize that she ain’t heard a thing after You’re my Girl. Real Noah, in The Notebook-like. This is why us women are fucked up! If we keep waiting for Noah, the likelihood of anything really pretty happening is slim, because that was just a movie. A man on today’s market-menu expects a woman to do the majority of the work for him. Let me not generalize, I HATE categories as much as I love them, but it is true that a colossal majority of decent men like to be pursued these days, in my own humble experience.

I agree with reciprocation, although, I just can’t see myself chasing. After a certain amount of time—motives, perceptions, and possibilities become clear.

I remembered this guy I used to hang with, a while back. For me the most important things, the things that grab me in are:

1. Intelligence
2. Drive and potential
3. Physical attributes
4. Kismet and chemistry
5. Consistency

Let’s not fail to say that in the story I’m going to quickly sum up—this man had all of these. Maybe a stretch to say his drive was uncommonly strong, but his potential made up for the lack of drive in the way people usually make excuses for the shortcomings of the people we like. He was incredible, he could’ve worn the red suit with the cartoon i, mid-chest, incredible. One of the very few people I used to stay up all night talking to and head straight to work after, never having closed my eyes. The type of person with an infectious demeanor. His presence was what I won’t forget, long after I’ve forgotten the emotions that developed over the 1.5 years we hung out frivolously. By hung out, I mean, I got attached. He got, high.

He broke the standards, as in, I don’t like men that smoke, generally. But I rationalized that he was a functional smoke-a-holic, though they rarely ever are. A week and maybe three days into the most rapturously enchanted delightful overflow, I was spent emotionally. What did I ask this man after knowing him for almost two-weeks?

“Where is this going? I mean, like, what do you want, or like, do you see yourself in a relationship? And if so, when?”

If I were on-stage somebody would’ve thrown a big ass avocado at my forehead. [klunk] It might have been the most brilliantly-idiotic and majorly-awesomely clumsy thing I’ve ever done. My best friend would’ve whispered “whooooooahh horsey!” His response:

“Man, you cool, but I on’t even really know you like that yet, I don’t really know you Lalanii”

Might I stress the usage of my name (the only title I have at this point) echoing melodically in my ear, confirming more strategically—my dumbassness. I spent the rest of the year with him. I’d meet other people, not like him, but other people, and I’d talk to them—but my nights belonged to him, and not always physically, but mostly—and always intimately. It got to the point where my call would cause him to answer the phone,

“What time?”

Yea, and this was the guy I would swear wasn’t anywhere near my type. If there is such a thing that matters enough.

“Time” was my title. I should’ve just changed my name to Time. Fix this whole mess up, right here and there. What I know now, that I didn’t know then is if someone is consistently giving you their time—the energy to speak to you, answer your calls, letting you in a bit—little by little, you have the answers to most of your questions. At least for the current frame of mind, which is all we can and need to see. If things don’t move along progressively, then you gauge what you’re willing to accept, and how long you’re willing to accept it for. Especially, without a title. So you see, not having a title can work in our favor, ladies and gentlemen, because we can essentially have less leeway—have less patience if so desired, and having a title can work less in our favor for the expectations that a “title” generally prematurely places on a relationship, usually before that relationship is ready.

If a name doesn’t matter try calling out the wrong one in the throws. No, I kid. I kid.

Not having a title coincides with surprises for me. The title behaves the same way in my mind. How marvelous is it to receive flowers you weren’t expecting? Very marveloso. But how fantastic is it to have your un-titled interest come over and replace a burned-out lightbulb? Unusually phenomenal. It’s the element of surprise. And practicality. And the fact that he noticed, and he gets triple points for me not having to ask for a teensy favor, ’cause you know how us damsels hate to have to ask.

Yes, there’s comfort in the feeling of “just knowing” when something is right, and leaving it at that. There’s more comfort in the things two people understand between each other that they don’t have to say or speak about at all. Often times, in the interest of understanding and communication it is best to ask more questions before you allow your heart to ask for anything as bigly as asking for a title.

It should be clear that when a woman (or man) wants a title what she is probably asking you for is your undivided attention. He or she is hoping for the grandiose introduction of belonging to someone. Namely, you. Problem is, it isn’t warranted because there are so many people that don’t respect it anyhow.

A quote I love from the movie Love Jones:

Nina Mosley: You always want what you want when you want it. Why is everything so urgent with you?
Darius Lovehall: Let me tell you somethin’. This here, right now, at this very moment, is all that matters to me. I love you. That’s urgent like a motherfucker.

The movie follows two young lovers who—if both were initially honest with their feelings for each other, could have avoided the heart-break, or the break up all together. It highlights that even through the harder moments we must all recognize what is there, what that Time means to us, the small Time. The large amounts of Time.

So much pride in courting these days. Tit for tat. When I watched Love Jones the other day it hit so close to home I had to re-think one of my all time favorite quotes:

“All of these people running around here jumping, … falling in love ain’t s**t. Somebody talk to me, please, about how to stay there.” —Love Jones

So many superficial misconstrued shenanigans, so much hiding behind what has hurt us, or what we fear will. Yea, I’m human, so I want to be linked and relevant to someone other than myself, and correspond individually—while existing consecutively, yes… but sometimes I wonder why it can’t just be so wide—why for me it’s so hard to unfold and discover? Why do we need to owe each other anything?

How come we can’t just light up the sky with it?

My new job is great, great, great. The people, the experience, the everything. Lunch at the job is great, great too. I’m no big shot by far, but I get to see all of ‘em. I get to succumb to being lost in thoughtlessness, the Studio backlot is a very interesting place. There’s the new age execs that pair blazers with jeans and carry briefcases. The fuzzy haired blonde or dull cherry business women that look busier than I can imagine, the café woman who I could swear un-intentionally (is that a word?) gives me non-fat milk when I insistently ask for soy in my coffee. You know. A regular work-lunch place.

Yesterday was a day. I’m getting the hang of things, acclimation is steady. I’ve officially allowed myself to stop staring at a screen even when it is doing nothing. [I wouldn't leave my seat even during lunch a few days ago, and if I did the worry that I would miss something was so great, my anxiety would send me back upstairs to learn the next trick or whistle that'll hopefully keep me there] But now, now that I’m feeling better about what I understand, I leave for lunch. I wander. I stopped in the cafeteria for a coffee.

Since my new 6 a.m workouts began I’ve started to realize a few things I cannot live without. There’s tea I cannot give up. I like sweet red wines and sweet subtle whites—but those are optional during crunch time. What time is it you ask? CRUNCH. There’s avocados, shrimp Pho (when I’m sad, cold, angry, or need comfort) there’s the salad and fruit munster I am—no trainer will say no to those much, there’s breads and pastas which (less the three pizza slices I scarfed down last night to my own painful surmise—I’ve heard you can’t eat that *%#@ once you start eating right, but yikes) and then there’s thu, thu, thu, thhhhhhhhu… COFFEE.

They say you can tell who has graduated from school by one simple question.

“Do you drink coffee?”

The premise is, coffee is a pusher. It forces you to press through, sleepy, irritated, exhausted, overworked—whatever. You get that paper in. Same for mattés. Lately, I’m juggling so much I have to press through. 25 lbs. I want to lose. My trainer says 15 is fine, but 25 for me. Overachiever. Big stupid smile. I’m 140 and 4″11 and 3 quarters tall. “Thick in all the hula places,” my ex used to say. Anyway, coffee I cannot live without, although I’ve been advised that if I want to eventually reach the aforementioned goals—I’ll have to.

Yesterday was not one of those—let’s start giving up shit days.

So I head across the lush Fall-y looking courtyard and into our cafeteria for my fix. Wha? Might as well have been, it is. I even got a Keurig machine to no avail. It’s too big to leave my house, aye. I pass our inner café because like I said, either that girl gives me non-fat instead of soy, or that coffee—my body—is rejecting that coffee. I figure simpler is better. I go inside the cafeteria where they have the large black coffee juglike containers against the wall and you can put your own goodies in there. I opt for the straight black with 1/4 soy and one sugar. I waltz on over to pay.

Because it was only a quick break, I didn’t grab my purse from my office. I grabbed my wallet, and my cell. I had to grab a white to-go bag to put my sugar and stir stick and I might as well throw my phone and wallet in the baggie too. A tall familiar man stands behind me in line as I do this.

The line is growing down the walkway because the lady in front of me can’t find her wallet to pay for her salad or some other issue is happening but that’s the one I made up in my mind to justify how long her ass is taking to get out of my way somysleepyselfcangetthiscoffeeINme. I reach over for a napkin across the sliding tray table and knock-over-the-coffee-into nice guy’s pants.

O. My. Shit. The guy jumps back.

You can tell a lot about a person by how they react to certain things. The cliché examples are: tangled Christmas lights, forgettable waitresses, and spilled drinks.

Of course I apologized profusely—which I promised I wouldn’t overdo on this job, given my so pleasey-to-please nature. But this was different. The look of general—it’s ok shot back from his eyes. I’m pretty sure coffee had wet through this man’s pants legs, socks, and probably unmentionables. I scrambled to clean it all up. I heard sighs, shrieks, and an “o, how embarrassing” behind me. Just the look I was, going for, really.

The man (who if I weren’t extremely interested in the likes of someone else) I could’ve fallen in love with. His face was round, his features bold and warm, his striped blue and white tucked smartly in his Banana Republics, a dark brown belt, and I thought I saw glasses. He winks. Then he jokes.

“As long as you don’t try to clean it up” he says, as he steps back and I notice his bejewels are likely more soaked than I’d imagined. I was patting around the counter like a poor maid.

“I’m so so sooooo, so sorry,” The counter gal had disappeared to grab more towels. The coffee went unendingly drizzling down the sliding table, the sides, the floor, the creases and cracks. So glad for the 1/4 soy. It would’ve been hotter, usually.

There are few things I can hope for in this instance. Empathetic understanding, and that this all goes quick. The line is pretty long now.

Tail between legs—covering face I head back to the coffee station to make another round. I promptly scurry to the back of the now more than eight-person line. I figure, my anxiety would tell me I have to explain diarrhea to my boss or a three-car pile-up in the cafeteria—neither being the case. Having an awesomely unique prior work experience in which you have the most micro-managing impossibles overlooking you, will change the way you view everything else coming after that experience. I’d taken a few longer minutes than I should have. This made me more frazzled. I waited in line and when I got back to the front I calmly said,

“Two coffees please,”  blatantly holding up my one coffee.

“No, one,” The cafeteria lady smiles pity at me, and says

“It is ok, it happens to everyone.”

But no, no, it doesn’t. As I am walking back to my office, down the hallway I see Mr. Incredible (obviously returning from the bathroom) and I smile. It was a smile that hurt and I felt shame.

He gestured an it’s ok with hands pushing away the air with a sly smirk. Aw, my goodness. I LOVE THIS PLACE.

When I got back to the office, I sat at my desk with an I can’t believe that just happened face—staring at my now lukewarm coffee.

One of the ladies in my office passes and stares and asks if I’m ok. I love her too for the way she just read my face. Everyone is so—cognizant of their surroundings.

I shake my head “I just spilled my coffee all over this man in the cafeteria,” her eyes widen.

“O no,”

I leave out the fact that said man apparently works down the hall from us.

Soon, I think, I’m giving up coffee.

Dreamskating.

There’s a moment, in the dark, wanted to talk ‘til I sunk.

A sketchwork glow. A patchwork quote. A skeptic overdosing on the tips.

Careful, I might fall in love with the shipwreck. I want. I want.

I want it at the creases where the please starts leaking spring water.

I will start from the matchstick and capture it, every inch.

I will redefine our kisses in skittish, jump from the rim.

And read to you read to you read to you.

I’ll explain later. Too busy.

When I am writing, I loathe, detest, and absolutely cannot stand, interruption. The nanosecond I’m done, however, I want someone to hear it. Immediately. Don’t care what or where the person is; he or she has to hear it. If you happen to be in the shower. Be prepared for me to draw back the shower curtain and begin reading. Without looking up of course, except to gauge your reaction to my masterpiece. I only have this fearlessness the second I finish. After I am finished, and it’s been a few moments—hours, days, or weeks, my confidence levels dwindle into crumblets and I’m not sure my topic was any good, or that I correctly portrayed the perspective, or the dialogue—uh-uh-uh, just not right. But that moment I’m done, it’s pivotal. If it’s three a.m. and you’re sound asleep. If I wake you stumbling over my words because it’s so fresh and twinkling with it’s newness, don’t startle. The inner critic in me hasn’t had enough time to rip it down from the wall like “tweenage posters.” I won’t begin to tell you that there’s a person that understands this. But I will tell you, there’s definitely a person whose reaction was worth recording. This is the story of:

I have bedhair. The just woke up or never-went-to-sleep-kind. Groggily jumpy at 6:54 a.m. I parade into the room. The room, I’ve delicately taken over with subtle hues of pinks and pales. The furthest I could get him to go to yellow, was pale. But, the sheets? No one sees the sheets. Pastel, it was. I’d nearly passed out in the library-den because I’m in love with the lighting and the closeness it is to the kitchen. The teapot is large, unlike the pots at my house, the ones that whistle pretty—the comfortable usual. This, this strange foreign pot is never-ending copper and looks like a golden version of something out of Willy Wonka meets the Jetsons. This tea, goes on forever, and is never lukewarm. I don’t want to leave the massage chair because it rocks. How long have I wanted my own rocking chair? Long. How long have I wanted my own rocking chair that will swallow me. Never. But, that’s the point.

I’ve been here three nights. No need for a change of clothes, leave them on the heated patio and they will miraculously appear on the bedside clean and folded like spoiled rotten you oughta be ashamed of yourself. Mom, didn’t teach me how to relax. Dad sure passed on the panic gene, Mom passed on the worry, and I cultivated a culmination of the two against “worry more cause you can’t do shit about it.”But, I’d finished a story. My own little short story. A story that I’ve been told has a possibility of being published later this year. It’s a tough piece and in my excitement of pushing out a draft, I forgot that.

I run to him. An hour prior to this, I’d been offered more tea in the dim light, but I vaguely remember not looking up at all, not even for a thank you. This is what I call the lost stage. Everything is lost on me. It’s likely anyone would say my name several times and I’d fail to recognize it. I jump atop the pillows sloppily. I can see by his face, this is not his idea of fun.

“I’m finished,”

“… (mmHmmMm)…”

He snatches the paper from my almost-ready-to-read-to-him hands.  And pulls me over closer. I’m grabbing at the paper, but while I’m sitting I’m unable to reach—my arms are too short. He clears his throat.

And he reads my first draft to me slowly. By the third paragraph his left hand is shaking. By the second page he has forgotten I’m there and that I can hear his response to what he’s reading by the way he is reading it.

At the end of the draft he is not only speechless, he grabs for me, his eyes are wide.

“I feel like I was there with you.” I nod and lean back, and yawn.

“I don’t know if I want it in the world.” I tell him.

“I don’t think the world should be without it.” He adds.

I fall asleep on the corner of his pillow, I feel him looking at me but I don’t open.

In the morning he is quiet throughout egg whites, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and avocados. It’s a Saturday and my plans don’t involve brown leather briefcases and a cleanly shaven face.

“So, that was nonfiction?” The first words out of his mouth.

I stare at the black cracked design in the grey marble table and look to him with a yea smirk.

It was the first time he read any of my prose.

Warm tears fill up my pink eyes and then I cough. My baby dog loves me so much I saw her eating one of my snotty tissues. Tearing it apart and making neat little piles all over the room. I want someone to love me like that, to not give up when it gets hard. Well, maybe not exactly like snotty tissues. But maybe, not having to get my achy legs out of bed to fix my own tea. How lovely is it to be bundled in bed, when there are so many bigger things I need to do?

“The writer must be in it; he can’t be to one side of it, ever. He has to be endangered by it. His own attitudes have to be tested in it. The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.” —Arthur Miller

Packed up lots of items from our closets to give away to a shelter. Bought a puppy toothbrush and toothpaste at Petsmart today. Re-reading about Why The Caged Bird Sings. Revising so bad it hurts. Waking up answering to. Eating live butter lettuce and baby yellow tomatoes.  My Christmas tree is still up, I don’t know what I feel about Christmas. Arranged the books neatly in the bookcase.

P.s. happy.