fascinating...

Last night I dreamed that I was doing really intense crunches. I was showing off for a room full of people, like an exercise class. Everyone else stopped just to watch me crunch.  I was really impressive, and even my dream self was secretly amazed at her strength and speed. 

This morning, my abs hurt. Could I have actually been exercising in my sleep? If so, how can I repeat this phenomenon nightly? 

a very happy atmosphere, a bay window

The Star News did a profile of my town. The only source quoted is the local real estate agent. I don't think it went through any edits. It makes for some jarring reading. But I've found that sometimes technically awkward things can be strangely lovely. The foremost example of this is title an eld student gave his essay about divorce: "A View of My Father's Back." 

Anyway, this writer and this real estate agent have no such excuse, but still, I love this goofy sentence about the Sierra Madre Elementary school:

"There is a waiting list of people from Pasadena wanting to transfer. 'They want in,' she said. 'It has a very happy atmosphere, with a bay window.'" 

That bay window seems to be the reason for the happiness, or equally important to the happiness, and I guess, if you want to get nit-picky, the window belongs not the to school building but to the happiness. 

But either way, it's rather poetic. 

It's like a real life I'm not Stiller! 

aria

tissue paper squares, yellow-gold 

stacked in slices

pasted to the grainyblack sky

and the moon

overhanging, wise

the warmth of kitchen walls

of major thirds,

this unnamed time

sing to it,

an aria pure

spun, spinning

speak nothing

what we've said before 

we've said wrong

sing instead

sing only of the yellow squares. 

what must be heard

is all there. 

evolution

The last day of yearbook camp I told the TC editors that I'd make a coffee run. I was in no particular hurry when I walked into starbucks. I held the door for a woman who was walking behind me. It was one of those behind-the-back door-holds, so as to say, come on in, you'll be right behind me in line. As I walked in, I stepped about one foot out of my bee-line to the counter to toss something in the trash. 

Before I could swerve back, the woman quickened her pace and stepped in line, ahead of me. Her foot twitched a little, a sure sign she'd just wrestled with the age-old question: be on time or stop for coffee? Her id had won, most likely by arguing that over-priced sugar drizzled into some probably-burned coffee isn't just a lovely treat, but is essential to survival. 

I know well this war; my swollen neurons have waged it against me many a-morning. 

You'd think I'd have had some empathy, but this cutting in line irked me. My door-holding body language had been abundantly clear. So as I walked over, I stepped firmly in front of her. No words were exchanged. Not even a locking of the eyes. I straightened my shoulders. There. I was in the technical right. Lines are lines. 

I basked in the technical right as I chatted leisurely with the barista and then rattled off a laundry list of drink orders. A Venti this, some Macchaito that, make this one a skinny and this one sweetened, yes room in the Americano, but just a teensy bit...it went on an embarrassingly long time. I was now standing so I could see the cutter's profile, and I watched it fall with each new"-ano" and "-aito". 

I finished. In a defeated voice she ordered her grande mocha. She glared at me and stalked to the bar, where she crossed her arms and stared down the lone barista. I yawned and picked up a copy of Times.

Five minutes later, my coffee tray ready to go, I noticed her again. She was still waiting. I felt sort of sorry.  Apologizing, however, seemed pointless and unsafe. She looked fully capable of throwing the precious mocha in my face. 

It's weird, but she stuck in my head all day. I wonder if she did make it to work on time. I wonder if I ruined her day, and if I ever look like her in the mornings--as desperate and angry. I have no idea why I didn't just let her cut in line. It really didn't matter. I was just in the same mode she was. It's a weird mode, really. It does feel like a desperate push for survival. And that's ludicrous. How did we all got to a place where we feel this primal pull of necessity for five dollar coffee?

The Elmwood Chronicles: Part 1

We arrived at Elmwood house after a long and harrowing drive up the 169 from Mankato to Minneapolis. What we were doing in Mankato is another story for another post, which I just might tell later, but the point is, we were very tired when we reached 1 Elmwood. The innkeeper had phoned earlier to let me know she wouldn’t be around, but she had left an envelope with our names and the key in a mailbox outside.

As we neared the Elmwood, we glimpsed one austere tower rising out of a shroud of bushes. It wasn’t quite how any of us had envisioned.

A month ago, perusing websites from my green couch, Jenny and Mo sandwiched beside me, it had looked so cute and charming, billing itself as “quaint and comfortable,” and promising, “a parlor filled with afternoon sun and a living room fully furnished with classical sofas, antique decorations, a baby grand piano…” It sounded great. Just to be cautious, we had looked up reviews. One woman complained of scratchy towels. We can handle that, we said to each other. It looked perfect for our one-night stopover in Minneapolis.

Elmwood seemed to have lost something in the virtual to actual translation. We tilted our heads up to the topmost gable of the foreboding Victorian mansion. The whole thing was shingled in a thick brown color…the shade a chocolate bar turns when forgotten in the back of the cupboard. That was all we could see through the 20 ft. blocks of shrubbery.

Beyond the bushes, a saggy, graying porch swing sat on the grass lawn. It swayed ever so slightly, a tiny creaking nose coming from the rusty springs. We crossed a porch which jutted out like a pier, fished through the mailbox for our key, opened the double glass doors, and stepped out of the drizzling late-afternoon.

Inside, we climbed a winding stairwell with a stained-glass window letting ing yellow-blue, sickly light. On the third floor, a post-it with the names “Linda, Jenny and Krista” was stuck to our door. Mo ripped it down quickly and crumpled it up. No one needs to know our names, she muttered. I felt suddenly thankful for the typo, as if it gave me a little edge on things.

We had a two-room suite. Next to my bed was a statue of a butler holding a tray. He looked angry. He came up to my lower waist. He followed my unpacking progress with his beady little eyes. The room was not one to invite lingering; in short, it did not scream “quaint and comfortable.” We headed down to explore the “sun-drenched” parlor.

Against the dark paneled walls hung the head of an unfortunate elephant and rhinoceros . Between them was giant, dusty chandelier. A built-in bookcase housed cozy titles like “Ghost Story”, “Valley of the Dolls”, “A year with Edgar”, and “Sybil.” A life-sized, black metal statue of a woman in a tight dress with a lampshade for a head was posed next to a dormer window.

Dinner? Jenny suggested. We scurried out to our car.

After eating at a diner, we explored a park next to one of the lakes. The sun had already set, but we basked in the glowy early evening sky mirrored by the water. After about 5 minutes, Mo noted that she thought, maybe, a man had been watching us. Mo can be quite dramatic about these things. I didn’t even bother turning around. Well we are beautiful, I said to her, laughing, but he’s probably just looking at the beautiful lake.

A moment later, Jenny tugged my sleeve in the direction of a nervous, twitchy man. He was definitely, for sure, not looking at the lake. He was looking at us, watching as we frolicked innocently in the twilight.

I shouted almost involuntarily, in my angriest teacher tone: Time to Go!

The creeper really did look extremely guilty: he gave a start, looked right at me, and then slouched away up the hill, his blue polo shirt disappearing into the dusk. True, Mo was at the height of her theatrics, but we didn’t protest when she insisted that we walk in circles so he wouldn’t know how to follow us. We dutifully skittered all over the park for about two minutes then leapt into our bright red-rental car.

I’m getting down, she cried and dove face first into the back-seat. Her stage-whisper, now muffled by the sweaters she had buried her face in, continued: That way he won’t know there are three of us in here; we’ll confuse him! Jenny, you too!”

Jenny buckled down into jackknife position.

What do I do? As the driver, I couldn’t really duck. A phantom hand from the backseat shoved a white and yellow beach hat in my general direction. I grabbed it, placed it low down onto my head, and stole away into the night.

We drove for quite some time, the voice from the back insisting that we could not make a beeline for the Elmwood in case we were being followed.

Well, I said, the scare wearing off, that jogger is staring at us too, and he’s hot, so maybe it’s just that we’re really, abnormally, attractive.

And you’re still wearing a beach hat, Jenny observed, still slightly hunched down in her seat.

This broke us, and we were laughing as we turned onto Elmwood Drive. There was a man, in a blue polo shirt, on a bike, right outside the driveway to the Elmwood. The laughed stopped. I squealed to a halt in the middle of the road.

And then we looked closer, and noticed that this man was young, nice-looking and smiling at a little blond haired girl on a tiny bike beside him.

Shaking, and still clad in my brilliant beach hat-disguise, I pulled a U into the steep driveway of the Elmwood house and sent the car screeching back to the street, right behind the girl and her father.

The girl turned around, her eyes amazingly wide. Her father rode ahead, leaving her alone in the wash of my headlights. Her little foot slipped off the pedal. She looked back again, right at me. We locked eyes. I started to smile, but before I could she let out eagle-ish caw of pure terror, lept forward on her seat, and peddled frantically.

I looked at Jenny and Mo in confusion. The creep-ie had become the creep-er. We exploded into laugher, much harder and louder than usual. My heart had honestly frozen at the sight of that second blue polo shirt. It felt necessary to laugh.

Besides, we still had to walk into that house.

Through the veil of bushes, past the grey swing which still swayed mysteriously, up the front steps. The porch ceiling had seemed to lower during dinner and in the darkness it hung just inches from our head. We fished out our key, opened up the heavy glass door and felt for the light. I was praying the headless black lamp-woman would not be the one to light our steps up the stairwell.

My wish was granted, technically: a glowing globe on the stair rail appeared and illuminated a life-sized statue of lady justice, blindfolded and with the scales balanced carefully in her hand. We had somehow overlooked her in our earlier explorations. We sprinted the stairs, straight to our room on the third floor.

Mo shoved the door closed, dragged a suitcase in front of it, and let out a long sigh. I was about to follow suit, but just as my sigh escaped my lips, it morphed into an involuntary shout. A wizened, waist high silhouette loomed dark against the rainy windowpane.