Mon | December 11, 2006

x-men: l'affrontement final

I loved this movie. Wish I had seen it in theaters. Oh well. It was good on tv as well. I think it really taps into a lot of the dissatisfaction I feel towards American society. I almost wrote my college application essay about xmen, way back when. It was a cartoon at the time.

Posted by Lily at 11:03 PM

Tue | August 08, 2006

La Échappée Belle

I got stopped by a police car last night. I broke into tears. And instantly felt that I was being manipulative, even though the tears were genuine. It had an effect on him. "I'll check your record," he said, "and if nothing comes up..." he walked back to his car.

He had previously been interrogating me—Do you know how fast you were going? What's the speed limit on this road?

"40?" I guessed. He was taken aback slightly, an indication that I was grossly incorrect. "25?" I guessed again. I had been down North Passaic hundreds of times, over the years, so it was surprising to me that I had no idea. It was difficult to think with the blinding, flashing lights and the officer standing there.

"Have you been stopped before? Do you have any points?"

It was then that I broke— while I said "no," thinking of my sister who had just gotten two speeding tickets within two months. She went to court for one of them, and got it reduced to a seatbelt violation. I was familiar with the consequences of speeding and points.

The officer went back to his car and did whatever policemen do in their cars while they have you stopped, and your license and registration confiscated. I waited, collected myself a little, and hoped for leniency. I worried because I had said I hadn't been stopped before, when actually I had been, several years ago. Would that come up and would he see that I had lied? I had said no without thinking. And I'd gotten several parking tickets over the years-- I wondered if those would come up.

"This is a warning, not a ticket," he said when he came back. His tone was slightly milder. But it was the difference between alarming and intimidating. I suppose that's the closest that a traffic cop can come to being comforting. "There's no fine, no points," he said.

"Thank you," I managed to say.

He told me to put on my seatbelt and go. At home I played literati and tried to figure out what had made me cry. I didn't have tears streaming down my face, but I definitely lost it a little. And why did he let me go? I could not help thinking, based on my very few experiences being stopped by cops, that there is a small window of time in which the officer makes the decision whether to ticket you, and you have a fleeting chance to save yourself.

Things that could help: crying, saying I'm sorry, saying "I had no idea how fast I was going" (things I said, and truthfully), being a local (he said, "Since you're from the town—").

Things that probably don't help: acting nonchalant, dismissive, or unremorseful; admitting that you knew you were doing something wrong; challenging or arguing, trying to defend, explain, or justify your behavior.

En tout cas, je l'ai échapée belle.

Posted by Lily at 01:04 PM

Thu | August 03, 2006

Chez Louis Vuitton

Quand je suis descendu du metro aux Champs-Elysés, une femme asiatique m'a approché.
«Parlez-vous Chinois?» elle a dit.
«Je parle un peu», j'ai dit.
«Pouvez-vous me rendre un service?»
«D’accord.» J'ai dit. Je n'avais rien d'autre à faire.
«Bien!» elle a dit. Un homme qui était près de nous est venu. Il a porté un manteau beige.
«Nous recherchions d'une jeune fille qui a l'air honnête.» Elle a dit. Elle m'a regardé de près, et je l'ai regardée. J'ai noté ses sourcils fins.
«Je voudrais que vous aidez-moi acheter un sac.»
«Un sac?» J'ai commencé à reconsidérer ce service, mais il était trop tard. Elle a parlé sans arrêt.

Elle a expliqué que Louis Vuitton avait une règle, selon laquelle on ne peut faire qu’un achat. Elle avait déjà fait un achat, mais elle voulant autre chose, pour une amie. J'ai pensé que peut-être c’était pour elle-même, mais je rien n'ai dit. Je contemplais la stupidité de la règle. Seulement un achat? Ne veulent-ils pas que les personnes reviennent?

~~~

Nous nous sommes assisses sur un banc et elle m'a montré des photographies sur son appareil-photo numérique. Nous avons regardé plusieurs photos. Et elle n'avait pas décidé quel sac elle voulant exactement. Elle hésitant entre deux.

«Vous voulez celui-ci», j’ai dit, en sachant peut-être qu’il serait plus cher et en voulant voir jusqu’où elle irait.

«Oui, je pense que vous avez raison», elle a dit. En fait, l'autre sac avait l'air un peu trop jeune pour elle. Je l'ai assurée que je reconnaîtrais le sac avec deux poches et une boucle, et que l'on porté à l'épaule, grace à une bandoulière ajustable.

Je fut un temps où je savait identifier chaque cellule du corps humain sous un microscope, voulais-je dire. Mais je ne savais pas les mots pour cellule, corps humain, ou microscope. J'ai seulement su comme dire, «Je peux le faire, je suis très bonne pour faire du shopping.»

~~~

Elle m'a donné 1 000 euros en liquide. Et nous avons marché au magasin. Nous avons marché pendant dix minuits.

J'ai eu une pensée, que j'avais eu avant, mais qui s'est concrétisée quand elle m'a donné cet argent. J'ai pensé qu'il serait très facile pour moi de courir avec l'argent.

Par coïncidence, j'avais économisé 1 000 euros pour mon voyage. Son sac a coûté autant que mes vacances de six jours-- des billets d’avion et la note à l'hôtel Tolbiac jusqu'à mes repas, billets de musée, carte orange et cartes postales.

En plus, j'avais dépensé tout l'argent que j'avais apporté avec moi en espèces et travellers cheques. J'avais seulement dix euros pour cet soir et le jour prochain.

~~~

«Nous vous attendrons ici», a dit son mari quand nous étions en face du magasin.

Quand j'ai traversé la rue et ils sont restés derrière, j'ai senti une ouverture.

Mais à la porte je n'ai pas couru. Je suis entré dans le magasin et j'ai commencé à chercher le sac. Pendant une seconde, j'avais peur d’oublier à quoi il ressemblait. Mais finalement je l'ai vu.

J'ai pensé que c’était fini mais c’est seulement le début. Quand j'ai parlé à la vendeuse, elle m'a dirigé au fond du magasin, où il y avait une queue.

J'ai fait la queue à la dixième place, ai observé les personnes, et ai pensée combien j'avais horreur du capitalisme. J'avais pu excuser un américain mais les asiatiques, je l'ai pris personnellement. Toutes les personnes qui ont fait la queue avec moi étaient asiatiques.

~~~

Après une demi-heure une vendeuse m'a servi. Elle a ressemblé à une employée de Walmart-- maladroite, grosse, et sans intérêt. Elle a manipulé le sac négligemment, l'a porté dans une main puis elle a frappé contre les jambes tandis qu'elle marchait jusqu à la caisse enregistreuse.

Je me suis inquiétée quand elle a pris mon numèro de passeport- j'ai eu visions de moi à l'aéroport arrètée, ou forcée de payer un impôt dû pour le achat. Évidemment, Louis Vuitton n'avait pas informé l'aéroport de mon achat- il a seulement créer un compte informatique. Mais je me suis vraiment inquiétée.

Avant que je sois sortie du magasin, environ une heure plus tard, j'étais trop fatiguée pour leur parler plus longtemps. Je leur ai donné leur sac et leur monnaie et ai dit au revoir.

Posted by Lily at 04:02 PM

Sat | July 08, 2006

The Last Day

I'm on the train ride home, away from the West Village where the sidewalks are smeared with dog shit and flies spring up off the ground at your feet. The train is moving in the direction of the setting sun. It's too bright and so I close my eyes... and see a luminous reddish orange. It changes to watermelon and then to an orange yellow. I start to think it's peach. Real peach, not Crayola peach, not that dull beigey color. Peach to yellow-orange to red watermelon and back, one color morphs into another. Dark objects pass but I don't open my eyes to see what they may be. I hold them closed so that I can follow this image that has neither depth, nor flatness.

Is it even an image? It's smears of light seen through my eyelids. Vision isn't dependent on open eyes. In fact it can be induced mechanically by closing one's eyes and pushing on the side. This creates a spot or a ring of light.

I'm at home and sitting at my computer on a Saturday night. Being at home on Saturday is no fun but being awake at night is good. Everything else is dark and there is just the black desk lamp and the screen. Joshua is online. Neither of us has anything to do and yet we're not going to do anything together. Such is the unfortunate nature of so many relationships with IM buddies and ex-boyfriends.

He IM's me.

NomadNick (7:32:58 PM): hey u

It's a step up from

NomadNick (9:34:37 PM): hi

which was a step up from no IM's at all.

We chat. I consider taking him out of the "selfish unfair jerk" category, of which he is the only member. I decide to keep him there. A little while longer, just to be safe, I think.

I'm glad about the "hey u." But not glad about most everything else. When I go to bed I realize that for a few nights I haven't imagined him next to me. The feeling of our touching skin, that I had held in my mind, that had stayed like an after image, was gone. That lingering pulse of light had drifted across the blackness and faded into perished memory.

Posted by Lily at 01:53 AM

Tue | June 06, 2006

Steak and Eggs over Easy

One night Josh made dinner-- steak and eggs over easy with rice and black beans. While he cooked, I sat in his bed and tried to write a story about someone whose friend is about to commit suicide but she doesn't know it. His roommate Cory came over and sat in the rocking armchair, which he called the lazy boy. We chatted for a bit, but I wanted to write. I kept my eyes mostly on the laptop screen. At a lull in the conversation I put the blanket over my head and made a tent with my head holding up the blanket. At first I kept one end open but when Cory didn't keep talking, I put the blanket completely over me and the laptop.

Just after I started getting into it, Josh came and lifted a flap of the blanket. "Hey," he said. The steak smelled delicious. He put the plate on the desk by his bed.

I kept typing though, until Josh said, "are you going to eat?" I got up, took the plate to the kitchen table, and started eating. Cory was well into his meal and Josh was still cooking his own. It was impossible for us all to sit at the table because there were only two seats.

"Mmm, this is good," I said after awhile.

"I can cook all sorts of foods," Josh said. He and Cory argued over whether steak and eggs over easy is an ethnic food. Josh said that the way he cooked it, with rice and black beans, made it Mexican style. I had nothing to say in either direction because I had never had steak and eggs over easy before. They argued strangely-- they used harsh words, but said them calmly.

"You're completely wrong."

"What do you know about it."

"I know a lot more than you do."

"You're an idiot."

Cory finished eating and got up, and Josh sat down. Cory hung out while Josh and I ate.

"I was ignoring Cory earlier," I said to Josh, in case Cory was offended that I hadn't really talked to him earlier. "I wanted to work on my story. I didn't want to talk to anyone."

"It's okay," Cory said.

The truth was that I hadn't even wanted to come over. I had come on the condition that I was going to work on my story, and Josh had promised not to distract me. I guessed that he hadn't told Cory, and so I tried to explain it then.

We fought often about whether I would come over. Ideally he would have liked me to come over every other day, or every couple of days. I would have liked to come over once a week, occasionally twice, and to stay in touch through phone calls. At that point we had been going out for only a few weeks. He didn't like to talk on the phone and didn't think anything of suddenly hanging out with someone all the time just after meeting them a couple of weeks ago.

I didn't want to drop everything because I was going out with him. I had Kaplan and Josh and writing, but a lot of the time these things seemed to take away from each other, to be mutually exclusive-- to come in the wrong order. It should have been writing and Josh and Kaplan, but it was always the other way around.

For weeks after it's over I wonder if things could have been different. I replay and rewrite the scenes in my head and think how that might have changed things.

I am under the tent and he brings me the plate. "Thank you," I say, and go to the table.

"This is good," I say, after just one bite. I get up, go to him and kiss him on the neck. Back at the table, Cory and I eat for awhile, and make small talk. At a pause in the conversation, I say to no one in particular, but ostensibly to Cory, "Josh is so wonderful."

Josh hears and Cory is surprised. "He's so cute. He cooks, and cuddles," and I turn towards Josh, since I'm mostly talking for him, "cooks and cuddles and makes love."

Cory finishes eating and leaves the table, and Josh sits down in his place. From Cory's point of view there is a conflict of interest between himself and me- I crowd him out. I should have talked to him just a little more when he came over and tried to hang out. Later I will rewind the scene even further back and think of what I could have done at that point. But now at the table Josh sits down and after dinner I help with the dishes. Before all of this, I should have offered to help him cook. He wouldn't accept it because it's his special meal, but the point is I offer.

I think of this revision to the scene. I am under the tent. "Do you want help?" I ask, walking over to the kitchen. "No," he says, "do your thing." "Okay," I say. I arrange the blanket over my head and work on my story until he brings me the plate and I rehearse the part of the scene that starts there again. I replay it all together in my head, thinking of all the things I could have done differently.

Posted by Lily at 10:21 PM

Sat | June 03, 2006

Puffs

On 8th Street in the village there's a cream puff cafe called Choux. Like Puff & Pao and Beard Papa's, it has a crisp white interior and a line of ceiling lights that lend a clean iMac feeling to it. Actually I think this look has existed in Japan for some time, and has only been recently introduced in the U.S. It therefore appears to follow the iMac.

Choux is narrow-- it has just enough room for four small wooden tables to line one wall. Opposite the tables is a counter behind which four twentysomethings operate.

I walk in because it's empty and I prefer my cafes zero to 20 percent full. I order the first thing that I see in the glass case and sit down. After all, I'm only incidentally buying a cream puff and coffee so that I can legitimately stay there for what becomes two hours.

The puff comes on a plastic silver platter with a plastic fork. I consume it in a minute.

My coffee is black and as I approach the counter the woman literally runs towards me. "Yes?" she says.

"Do you have milk and --"

"Over there!" she gestures at the setup by the door. She's got a round cute face.

While I add 'sugar in the raw' to my paper cup, I meditate on the thought that there is too much urgency, eagerness, and need for approval emanating from behind that counter. They haven't caught on that the best attitude is one of mellow near-indifference.

All the workers wear yellow bandanas in their hair and white chef jackets. One of them stands at the next table stapling coupons to palmcards. She's wearing an animal print dress underneath her jacket. Soon she's outside under the awning, her skirt billowing in the post-drizzle breeze.

In just a few minutes she comes in, stamping her feet, and says, "these people don't understand! The coupon's good for one month!"

She walks out and then walks in a minute later. She is now pacing in and out the door. "People don't want to save money!"

When I got my green tea cream puff and coffee, I saw the same coupon on the counter -- it was for fifty cents. What was she saying out there, I wondered-- "Save fifty cents!"?

This place'll tank if there's too much of that girl, I think. She's got nice legs, but she's cranky and insecure, and it comes through in the way she tries to hand out those cards. She leans against the door every time someone doesn't take a card. Which is pretty much every time. She also bounces her knees like a child who has to go to the bathroom. She's apparently under the impression that people walking by can understand what she's saying. The truth is that you can't understand most of what a person is saying while you're passing on the street. You get three words at most. From the wordiness of what she says when she peeps in, I realize that she might be saying some long phrase like "cream puffs, and there's also a coupon for fifty cents off your order and it's good for an entire month!"

I focus exculsively on reading for awhile, but have already begun an experiment, one that I've conducted several times before, in various situations. It begins with my doing nothing, or as close to nothing as possible, since the presence of a person sitting comfortably inside is something. Then I try to draw people in a little. Every few sentences of reading, I look up and catch glances of people on the street. I also make eye contact with the antsy girl, and try to telepathically adjust her mood until the right note of relaxation is in the air.

My "technique" sounds bogus but the fact is she stops pacing. And in a few minutes people begin to come in. It's Saturday, after all, and the village is full of pedestrians with undefined or infirm purposes, just waiting to be swayed. One of the people is a tall guy in a grey army camouflage t-shirt.

"How old is she?" he asks.

Confusion from the two guys behind the counter.

"Is she 45?" He orders a green tea slushie which involves ice loudly crushed in a blender.

The girl comes in from outside. "I'm really old, I'm 21," I hear her say, inbetween blender noises.

He stands outside with her while the drink is made. She comes in. "There's a guy who's really hot," she says to the plump girl with the round face- who looks at the guy in the army shirt coming in behind her.

"Not him!" she says, "the guy on the cell phone." They skittle outside, and she points down the street. They are framed by the open doorway. I feel like I am watching a movie.

The guy in the grey shirt says something in French to the guy behind the counter, who replies in French. Poor guy. He sits in a chair by the wall.

Suddenly the plump girl and the French dude are shouting at each other. Actually it's just the Korean girl shouting at him, her peevish criticisms snapping like snare drum beats. He looks at me for sympathy and I smile. He has dark hair and dark eyes.

"Sorry," she says, turning to me. But I smile at her too. And then she's yelling him again, and it's English but it's so quick and abbreviated, slurring over certain sounds, that I don't make out what she's talking about. I think it's about something he didn't do, or forgot to do. A few minutes later the guys are putting balls of dough on large baking trays. They sprinkle powered sugar over them and put the three trays in the silver oven behind them.

I think maybe this place will be okay after all.

Posted by Lily at 06:06 PM

Thu | June 01, 2006

Apricot Jam

He got out of bed. "You want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" he asked.

"No," I said, but went over to hang out with him in the kitchen.

"I hope you don't mind if I have one." He pulled out a tub of peanut butter on the counter that must have been a half gallon.

"Wow," I said.

"We eat a lot of peanut butter in this house," he said, unscrewing the lid.

Dwarfed by the giant tub of peanut butter, he looked like a child. "And this is the best jam," he said, as he took out a not as large, but still sizable, jar of apricot jam.

"I wipe off the knife before putting it in the jam," he said, narrating his own action. It seemed like an odd thing to say.

He was telling me about himself-- that he doesn't get peanut butter in the jam jar. At the mall earlier that day he said that he used to work at Baby Gap and play with the kids all day. "I love kids," he said, "because I'm like a big kid myself." I didn't say anything in either case, about kids or peanut butter. It didn't occur to me to state my own views.

On a Friday night I miss him and I make a peanut butter and apricot jam sandwich. I wonder if I should have said that I use a different knife for the jam, because wiping it off with a crumpled napkin isn't exactly sanitary. And that I use spoons for jam, and that I like kids too.

Posted by Lily at 05:24 PM

Mon | May 15, 2006

Dogs

The Britts next door got a dog. In about five months it quadrupled in size. The dog's name is "Amber" because of its reddish brown fur, but I think of it as "the dog."

A couple of weeks ago they had a black metal fence built around their backyard and now the dog capers outside all day, and seems at times to be eating the dirt.

When anyone appears, the dog barks incessantly. He doesn't stop until the person is gone. He doesn't even vary the way he barks. It's four staccato sixteenth notes, then two quarter notes. It's in three-four time, the four sixteenth notes in the first beat and the two quarter notes on the second and third downbeat. The first of the two quarter notes is staccato and the second is accented and forte. It goes mezzo forte, forte. Or perhaps mf, ff. That last beat is much louder than the first two.

There are no rests anywhere and the whole thing goes at an andante. It's in major key and one note, perhaps a high C.

At the panel about religion, during the PEN world voices "festival," a woman-- I think it must have been "Mary Gordon" because the only other woman there would not have had that voice-- said, "if we can't be pro-dog, what can we be?"

Everyone laughed. Civil white laughter. Now that I am thinking about it, I wonder if she intended a palindromic pun with god and dog, but I think she pretty much meant "no one agrees on religion, can't we at least agree we all like dogs?"

No we can't all like dogs. We can't all like either cats or dogs either. In response to the question "cat person or dog person" I say, "I dunno, cat sometimes, but not entirely, and dog in some ways too, but..."

Which is why I don't do well on textbook first dates.

Dogs represent a culture based on dominance and hierarchy. As part of training them, the owner must "show them who's boss" and be unwaveringly stern with the dog.

I like to give people chances, make exceptions, and be indulgent and forgiving. I want chances myself. I don't want a tug of war in which the other person just tries to get his or her way, and resolves conflict by being mean to you until you do what they want. Dog culture fosters this type of mentality.

Rather, that is the attitude towards dogs in the U.S. My dad looks at the dog and doesn't think of controlling or dominating it. He wants to give it the bones from dinner.

Posted by Lily at 08:40 PM

Wed | May 10, 2006

Bums

Yesterday as I was eating lunch in Bryant Park, I heard a man asking, "spare some change, change for lunch." I was eating a carnitas burrito from Chipotle, and there is no way to eat one of those without feeling that you are gorging yourself, due to the way you have to take big bites and due to the fact that they're drippingly delicious.

So I felt guilty, and also it didn't seem like anyone was giving him anything. When he got to me I gave him some change from my wallet. However I regretted it because as I turned and put the change in the paper cup I saw that he was a white guy wearing a red windbreaker, a nice one, like North Face, but not. There are a lot of bums in New York but I've never seen one in something like that. The jacket was kind of dirty but it wasn't that shabby. He looked in the cup to see how much I had given him. Real bums, or good bums, don't look; they just say thanks. He didn't say thanks. Most of all he just seemed like -- and I know this would sound racist to some but those people don't know the first thing about racism-- he seemed like a white asshole. It was in his look, in the type of connection that happens in the air between you and him when you make eye contact. It's something you know from the experience of meeting people like that and subsequently getting to know them and hearing what they say.

I have been meaning to come up with a set of "rules" for whether I will give a bum money. In New York this is necessary because you are asked all the time, and you can't give to everyone or you'll be broke. New York will make you broke anyway but you'll be even broker, faster.

For awhile my rule was that I gave singing bums money, but I didn't think that through-- I made it up based on nothing. It was an easy way to decide based on whether I liked the music. But people who have instruments are better off to begin with-- there's a bit of classism there. I realized this when I gave a dollar to a violin player who was so good that I realized later that he must have had training. I played violin for two years and was in contact with it for years through my sister's playing, such that I can recognize a well-trained player.

The rule must be based on a principle-- and the principle must be appropriate. Having developed skill in music isn't it. It's okay to give to a bum who happens to be skilled in music- there is no reason to decide not to on that basis either. It shouldn't be the reason to or not to.

In the case of the red windbreaker guy, I gave change because no one else was and I felt some inclination to "equalize" this. I often feel an inclination to "equalize" or "balance" things, making sure everyone gets a fair share. This isn't a good basis for most decisions, this one included. Actually the fact that no one else was giving to him should have been a red flag, but my "equalizing" instinct got in the way. As a result I helped a type of person who has been responsible for a lot of my misery, and more importantly, the misery of innumerable others.

At least it made me realize what the basis for decisions should be. In considering bums, I had been thinking there are music ones-- ones who play instruments or sing, ones that talk or give a speech, ones that smell. I had thought to consider how shabby they are-- how much they seem to need it. Or to consider how hard they are trying-- to give an "A" for effort. Perhaps to give to a little of each type on an equalizing principle. I was categorizing them by what they do, or as black or white, women or men, bitter ones and ones with good attitudes. When it comes to bums there are only two types: ones who are oppressors and ones who represent the oppressed. Ones who are victims and ones who would be oppressors if they had the chance.

It's anyone's best guess whether a bum is one or the other. That night, after work, I got on the subway to go to a philosophy lecture. A black woman dressed in all black walked into the car. "May I have your attention please," she said, or some other starter. She said three or four things, of which I only remember one in the middle: "I have two daughters." I was half listening and half sizing her up. I decided she would rectify my earlier misjudgment. I gave her the rest of the change in my wallet, which was regrettably less than I had given the man. However the black man across from me took out his wallet and gave her a dollar. So I figure I was partly responsible for more.

Posted by Lily at 05:30 PM

Mon | March 13, 2006

dinner time

It's seven o'clock in my house and that's dinner time. When I was a kid, dinner was called supper-- by my classmates. I called it supper at school and dinner at home. It was one of many discrepancies that made me doubt my understanding of the most basic things... and with good reason because dinner at my house didn't mean the same thing as it did for others. For them it was special "family time" and they said grace and were scolded if they said "rub a dub dub thanks for the grub." Sometimes they went out to dinner at restaurants and sometimes they "had people over" for dinner. Or supper rather.

My dad tells few stories. But he does tell the story of how when he was a kid he used to stake out the kitchen so he could get to the table as soon the food hit the plate. Once he ate all the fish that was supposed to be for the whole family.

"I like fish," is the moral of that story.

Actually all my parents' dinner stories are about not having enough food. My dad says his mom would put out a plate of peanuts and the kids would grab them like hungry hungry hippos. And they'd put the peanuts in their pockets and eat them one at a time. My mom claims she hardly ate anything for years because she didn't get at it fast enough and no one noticed.

Dinner tonight is takeout, leftover from Saturday. It's greasy. I stand by the counter, what we call the island. I am sure I sit down for a few minutes at the table but I don't even remember. There are four seats at the table but one of them always has papers and mail in front of it so no one sits there. There are four people in our house right now-- Mom, Dad, me and Henry-- but because of the table situation we never sit all four at a time at the table. An informal rotation system is in place. I have finished my dinner and gotten up by the time Henry comes downstairs. I stand around just to hang out and watch him microwave a frozen pizza.

When it's ready he tosses the paper plate with his pizza on the table. A couple of sausage toppings bounce off and land on the floor. He doesn't notice.

"Hey!" I say. "Henry!"

"What?"

"I saw two of your toppings bounce off your pizza onto the floor!"

"Where?" He gets a bounty and looks for it like he's about to catch a bug. Calmly, as always. Henry is very chill. Sometimes I jump out from around corners and scare him-- just to make sure his reflexes are still okay.

He only finds one sausage piece. "The other day Dad did the same thing," I say. "He went over and took the toothpick shaker, and did this--"

I scuttle to the island and shake the toothpick shaker over my upturned left hand but don't look at what I'm doing. I look at the ceiling like I'm gaping at Superman.

"And two toothpicks fall onto the floor! And I wait a minute and he doesn't notice! And I'm like, 'Dad! You dropped two toothpicks!' And he says 'No, I didn't.' And I go to point it out to him on the floor, but he steps on them with his slipper. And he won't move his foot! When I got him to move his foot he said, 'No, that's not mine.'"

I walk back to the table and stand at the corner between Mom and Henry. "You're just like Dad! You've got to watch what you're doing!" I say.

"Na summa how shao," says Mom, because I am laughing and gasping for breath.

"Remember when Mom left for Taiwan, and the place was infested with ants in a week?"

"It's because he cut the orange on the table and left the juice there," Henry says.

"Dad is so inconsistent! He leaves the juice all over the table but if you sit on the couch and put your feet up, he gets all upset! He won't stop talking about it until you put your feet on the floor!"

My brother finishes his pizza and goes to the pantry to look for something else. It's the habit at my house to go to the pantry several times an hour and stare at what's inside. I go over and punch him in the arm.

I'm wearing a navy Bruce Lee t-shirt. "Hey," I say, pointing to the kernel-shaped drawing of Bruce's head screened onto my chest-- "do you know who Bruce Lee is?"

"Yeah."

"A karate champion."

"He wasn't a karate champion, he was an actor," he says.

"Whatever. He was awesome. He was like murdered or something."

"No he was like 90% muscle. He tried to make the perfect body for kung fu."

"Yeah he was awesome," I say. I think of that movie where he takes off his shirt and he looks like a plastic action figure.

"No that's why he died," he says.

"He died of too much muscle?" My brain has shut down and is now running on empty.

"He experimented with his body too much."

"No, muscle is good. He was murdered!"

Henry doesn't say anything. He only talks for a few seconds at a time.

"Yeah too much of anything is bad," I say. "Like those Koreans who died of too much video games!"

"Ai-right deel no deel!" I hear Dad say from the family room.

I am miserable but every once in awhile I forget.

Posted by Lily at 08:13 PM

Sun | March 12, 2006

the place on the floor

There is a place on the floor in my room where I played one day with my sister and our my little ponies and barbies. We were making up what was happening and giving them dialogue. It wasn't the first time we played there, nor was it the first time children mixed toy genres and made an impossible story with ponies and barbies. But we got to a plot point where it wasn't clear to my sister what would happen next. My sister, being older, usually led the play, and told me what we would do. "Having a birthday party" was a common subject. That day-- I don't remember the situation exactly-- she got to a point when we were playing and she didn't know what would happen next. And I told her. I talked for a few seconds... which was unusual for me. "And then?" she asked. And I came up with something more. This second addition, I remember, referenced and built on what had happened in a My Little Pony cartoon we had seen that morning.

Our mom called and it was time to stop playing. We went and did something else, but it was as if something had moved in my mind, shifted and settled like a snake sheds its skin. Or had cracked and fallen off like the dark layer around a peanut.

My sister had been just following me. I had gotten someone to accept my rationalization and explanation of things-- something I didn't know I could do. Yet when I did, it seemed like I always could have done it.

Now my desk-- a different one-- is near that spot near the closet. When I sit at my desk my feet are right next to it. A wire basket covered with blue linen, a container for my bags, occupies the place. Every once in awhile I walk to the other side of my desk, move the bin aside with my foot, and stare at that spot.

I wonder that I ever fit on that shiny bit of hardwood floor, and conjure up again, like an actor, the feeling of my mind breaking out of that space.

I tell myself that if I did it once, when I was seven, I can do it again.

Posted by Lily at 10:31 PM

Mon | February 06, 2006

moby and opium

On Saturday night I went to the release party for opium .print #2. Moby was there. I have no idea how Todd got him there, or if it was just coincidental. I doubt it was coincidental.

I was standing with Curtis and Tao and Curtis said, "he could walk out with any woman in this room." I think the topic of discussion was whether Moby was cool, and this was Curtis's reasoning.

"He couldn't walk out with me," I said.

But a few seconds later Moby looked at me (and I of course looked at him, though I have no idea what expression was in my eyes when mine met his). Thereafter he seemed to be keeping track of where I was. Then, at the break in the reading when I left the people I was with and made my way through the crowd and down the stairs to the bathroom, he appeared a half-minute after me at the bottom of the stairs. There was one person between us on line. The guy two people ahead of me had started a conversation with the girl behind me because she was wearing some Seattle-connected t-shirt. We were not standing front to back, but side to side, and it would have been easy to say something to Moby.

I really wanted to. I wondered what the etiquette was-- whether it was rude to talk to a celebrity. Everyone else was letting him be. I wondered if he would react negatively. If I should know more about him first. I have some of his music but I'm not sooo familiar with it. And I wondered what the point was, really. What could I possibly accomplish with a few seconds of chit chat. Then I went back to wondering whether he would be happy if I said something to him. I tried to think, if I were a celebrity, or if I were Moby, whether I would want to be bothered. Whether he would think I was pretty or intelligent or both. Whether he thinks anyone is pretty or intelligent, after all the women he undoubtedly sees. What his motivation was, what he could possibly get out of it. My motivation was clear. But I did not know what I could possibly give him. Certainly not insight on his career, since I had not followed it. There are very few, if any, celebrities to whom I could give informed advice to, or even make an intelligent comment about something they did.

Nigrash. My word for the mess of doubts and thoughts and what if's that jumble up inside my brain when I am considering some hypothetical action-- a maby bubble. Usually the maby bubble is something that I on some level know that I would be much better doing poorly than not at all.

This was definitely such a case. It had been awhile since I was ever in such a situation-- I did not recognize it at the time. And yet that's another excuse. I should have swept my doubts aside and just said something. Anything. I totally could have.

The question I never considered before last Saturday and that I am now turning over in my mind is, Would I sleep with a celebrity?

Whoa, how do I get from talk to sex? Partly that's Curtis fault for putting it in my head at the beginning. But I like to think all the possibilities through to the end. It informs how I am. I would say how I act, but I don't really act. I just am one way or another or another.

So I have been thinking, would I talk to a celebrity, would I talk to Moby. And if he said come hang out at this other place, would I go. And if he said come back to my place, would I go, and then if... I suppose the ultimate answer is yeah, if I wanted to. It all goes back to whether you're attracted to the person or not. At the end of the day (or night) it's a question of person, and not of celebrity.

Posted by Lily at 12:00 AM

Sun | January 08, 2006

Winter Passage

It was a morning in December. I sat in my cubicle, looking at the bruised purplish grey wall and lamenting the passing of the holiday season, in which I had taken little part. My cell phone rang. I wished it was Jake. It was my sister.

She spoke with affected friendliness. We hate each other. I try to ignore her. I think her trivial. Sure enough she had called to ask me what size her coffee filters were. Two years ago I bought her a coffee maker. I resented the fact that I knew they were size 4.

"Are you sure it's 4?"

"No," I said, for no reason.

"Does it really matter if I get the wrong size? What's the difference? Oh, I think they get bigger." Jen could not make the smallest decision without consulting someone. I welcomed the break from work so I tolerated the conversation.

"They're on sale! Twenty cents." she said. "Twenty cents, for one hundred!" she was dividing out the cost per cone. I braced myself for the result. And then decided I didn't want to hear it.

"I have to go," I said.

"I'm getting a new shampoo and conditioner."

"I have to go."

"What are you doing?"

"Work."

I got off the phone and took a walk around the floor. There was no one there. It was the week after Christmas and before the New Year. Everyone was off having a good time.

I made myself a coffee with two sugars, a little skim, and a little half and half. I sat down and gauged the size of my thighs. They had gotten fat from too many nights with mud slide.

They rubbed against each other as I walked the halls again and glanced into the empty cubicles. Seeking a reason to prolong the walk, I went down the stairwell. The stairwell was dusty. I wondered whether the air was hazardous. The walls were a wet-looking white and the steps were grey. Inexplicably there were a few small white feathers at every landing. It gave me an ominous feeling, as if a bird might suddenly fly out from around the corner.

I had never been to the bottom. At the bottom was a long hall. It was wide and tall enough for a small car. With a bicycle on top. And more. I felt liberated, and trotted down the passage. The white cinderblock gleamed. It would make a fine sordid retreat with Jake. Jake was a guy I would never have.

I know a place we can go, I say.

Let's stop here, he says, on a landing in the stairwell.

No, there's a better place at the bottom, I say. Look at those small white feathers. What do you think they're doing there?

We reach the bottom, where I paced, imagining it all. I wondered if it would be unhealthy to inhale deeply there. And if lingering there one would pick up the smell of polluted rain that stagnated in that space.

oh! oh! oh! oh!

But Jake was not the type. He worked on Wall Street. He lived on the East Side. He wouldn't think of going down there. I asked myself how long I had been down there myself. I walked to the end where there was a metal door and a sign that said: Caution: stairs immediately behind door. I pushed the bar and peered down the stairs to the door at the end, but did not go.

"Where'd ja go?" Alex asked. He always asked where I had been.

"Nowhere," I said.

He did not reply. I began to feel regretful. "I went down the stairwell," I said a few minutes later.

Alex was interested in me, but I was not interested in him. He was too cheery. I had moved beyond that long ago, and I could not go back. And yet--

"I'll show you something," I said.

"Ok," he said. Around the corner and down the stairwell we went. He did not see the feathers on the ground. He did not see things unless they were pointed out to him. It was one reason why I disliked him. And when we were at the bottom and walking down the long, remote hall, he did not see its potential.

"Well," he said, looking at the clammy walls. "It's like another place entirely."

We are in another place, I would have said, but I didn't. I turned around and led the way back. I supposed I must be a little insane for looking at that clammy hallway and thinking of anything besides the clammy hallway.

At 6 as I got up to leave, he got up also. "Time for a drink?" he asked.

"Okay."

We had not taken ten steps when he said, "or do you want to get sushi." It was alarming, the way he proceeded without caution. And yet I thought, perhaps this is the only way things will happen. Jake and I were both so cautious, and doubtful, that nothing would ever happen.

"Cheers," he said, lifting his glass of sake. He brought it to his lips with a lascivious look. It seemed improper and premature and completely unfounded. He raised an eyebrow and nodded knowingly. He reminded me of my mother, who talked on and on, without checking to see if anyone was listening.

I drank. My charm bracelet jingled as I put my arm down. He reached over and felt it. I reflexively extended my arm to make it easier for him. He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. I drew it back.

"The sushi is good," he said.

My face had flushed with the wine, and as we walked down the street past unknown people on the sidewalk and past buildings and apartments full of more unknown, I felt drawn to this convenient, immediate person next to me. As we stopped at a crosswalk, I suddenly put my hand in his elbow.

"It's cold!" I said. "It's colder than it was before."

"My apartment is warm," he said, "and so is my bed."

I broke free of his arm. His eyes glinted in the lamplight. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to tell him he was crazy for the way he proceeded without caution.

"Look at that," he said, pointing off to the side. I looked. He stepped forward and his lips were on my neck. The wetness touched me to the bones.

The bothersome pest dissolved and I clung to the warmth and the shared breath. I laughed. He stood close and pushed against and upwards. It was unabashedly crass. He did it again. I gave no reaction. I was thinking. But I was trying to think as I hung about his shoulders and it was useless. My mind had collapsed and spilled over like melted candlewax.

His bed was higher than mine, and it felt as if we had gotten on stage. But we were on a boat, on a river, and it was a relief to be there.

"A cigar," he said afterwards. I thought of how to go back. It was impossible.

He had put on his robe and sat on a low armchair. He did not think to offer me anything. I took his shirt and crawled onto his lap. I thought of the stairwell and its dusty steps. And of the hall at the bottom-- how it glowed with that strange, slimy white paint. His apartment seemed large and well decorated. There was a fabric hanging on the wall. On the next wall, there was another fabric.

On the table, there was a wooden puzzle of several interlocking pieces. I walked over and picked it up.

"Don't take that apart," he said languidly, "I don't know how to put it back together." I found the piece that slid out, and it fell to pieces on the table.

"My God," he said with genuine consternation.

"I'll fix it," I said. I began to study the small logs and their indentations.

I took a few pieces back to the armchair and he put his arms around my waist. It was a pleasant constraint. I did not resist-- in fact I wanted to feel them tighter. Reaching under his robe I felt his chest, and kissed him again and again.

I picked one piece up and counted the nicks. Three. And the next piece had two. As I put them together, flipped and tried, he advised, "they don't fit side by side. You have to line up the identical pieces and then fit them crosswise."

He went to sleep. I stayed up. I thought of how when Jake held the door he was thinking, let me get the door for her. Alex did it thinking, I'm a swell guy. It was no good, I knew.

It was late. "Alex," I said. He had fallen asleep. I got into the bed and waited, sleeping and waking, for the morning.

Posted by Lily at 02:15 AM

Fri | December 09, 2005

the presumptuous white man

I saw him again last night. I am not sure if he was the same person because he was wearing a different jacket-- a blue puffy vest, instead of the black wool coat. But he had the same slightly epileptic energy. He looks like an Aztec totem pole, tall and rectangular, with a solemn face and broad sagging cheeks. He is old, but not weak.

--

On Wednesday night I wanted to go to the Asian American Writers' Workshop for a panel on publishing short stories. However I missed the train by a full two minutes. I watched it glide across the overpass as I walked down Hillside.

As I stood in the cold, reading the train schedule and resenting myself for not putting on my shoes and getting out of the house more quickly, someone walked by behind me.

He didn't stop, but as he passed, he said, "where do you buy the tickets?" I didn't know whether he was talking to me or not-- the voice was a distance away, and not in my direction. I can tell whether sound is coming directly at me. I didn't turn around.

He walked by again seconds later and said, "where do you buy the tickets, I'm asking you nicely." As I turned my head he concluded, "you don't speak English, you're from China."

I do speak English, I half-muttered, the words staying mostly in my mouth.

At the same time he had continued without listening: "I'm from Mexico, I need to get to Penn Station."

"You don't buy the tickets here, you buy them on the train," I said. "The next train is at 6:10, you missed it."

He started to say something else but I walked away.

I thought how he irritated me: "I'm asking you nicely." He had taken on an adversarial tone. I had not done anything and he had escalated things to a confrontation. I wasn't ignoring you, I should have said. He should have said 'excuse me' and then waited for me to turn around. Instead he presumed it was my fault-- it was that I did not understand English. He just kept talking; he didn't wait for me to confirm or deny anything he had said.

When he said he was from Mexico I started to feel that he was just saying lines. That he was an actor and that he was delivering lines. I think I do this sometimes to convince myself that something isn't real, so I don't need to deal with it. "I'm from Mexico, I need to get to Penn Station." It sounded like he was just saying it. And it did not make sense- if he really thought I didn't speak English, why did he keep talking?

He didn't seem like he was from Mexico. He said "I'm asking you nicely" and who says that except white Americans and perhaps British people? It was in his manner- he just seemed like this societal white guy, who has supper and calls his basement the cellar. And it was in the capitalist way he situated himself in relation to me- the way he thought of himself and the way he thought of me. Unless Mexicans are capitalists, but I suspect they are not.

--

I saw him last night on the 10:39. He was wearing a blue puffy vest and he had a blue bag from the Met. He had gotten up as the train pulled into Chatham. There was a moment- a mental skip- when I saw him. He had just skipped himself and I skipped as his finished. I walked by and he went back a few seats to talk to another old white man. I don't know whether they knew each other or if he started the conversation just then. At any rate they talked to each other -mostly the Mexican to the second man, rather than vice versa- and I did not listen.

Posted by Lily at 02:18 PM

Mon | December 05, 2005

Forgotten Things

I have a tendency to become blissful and turn my brain off like I'm on the drop of a rollercoaster. Tao isn't like this. Jan is like this. I am going to go through everyone I know and think of whether or not or how much they are like this and try to detect any patterns.

I must be more mindful. Last night I hung out with Sharif and we were both kind of vacuous. We went to a bad kgb reading and then improv. I asked him what he thought the difference was between a story in which people have sex and porn. When is it just, this is porn. He said you know it when you see it. I have never seen it, so it doesn't help. I have an idea that it has something to do with vocabulary and emotion.

Whenever I make resolutions it's to do bad things. Like that I should lie more and watch porn. You're such a liar, he said. No, you are the liar, I should take some tips from you. I don't remember how we got to talking about lying. I might have written about it in this blog. I forget whether I've told him about this blog.

Last night I forgot that it was Sunday. I think this has happened before and I started to write about it and then I thought forget it, why do I write about such trivial things. But then it happened again and now I am thinking I must examine myself a little and figure out why I forget. Forgetting is fantasy, is disconnection with reality. Being in a writing state of mind involves disconnecting with this reality in order to more fully inhabit another. I have always been annoyed at writers who embrace their faults like some badge of their genius. I must be more mindful, that is all. I must be aware of how much I can forget before I start to miss trains.

I could not do anything after I realized I had been erroneously waiting for the 11:49, that I had not missed the 10:39-- it did not exist, there was nothing to miss-- I could have caught the 11:11, and was now waiting for the 12:34. I could not do anything after these revelations but I could not do anything before, either. I sat and wanted to go home. I observed the bums at Starbucks. I called Sharif and told him I missed my train. Well do you want to stay here? he asked. He meant his place in Fort Greene. He didn't mean anything else. No, I said, looking at my jeans with the rips and stitches and painted flowers. I might be able to get away with wearing them the next day at Kap, but I thought I had better not try.

I sat on the train until Orange and then had the inspiration to lie down on the three seater. At Millburn the conductor came by and called me Miss. He said I could lie down but that he didn't want me to miss my stop. Also there was a man coming around. By the way he said man I knew he meant creep. Write me a letter, the creep said, as we were leaving Summit.

This morning when I turned on the lamp it flashed and then expired. I remembered again how yesterday I sent that email to Jim but it went to the whole damn group. I forgot my cell phone. I left it in the pocket of my other jacket.

Improv is temporal. I forget what they said.

Sharif smells like dust. Last night I wanted nothing more than to go to the other side of the table and sit on his lap. Not in a provocative way, but in a cozy, intimate way. Instead I got up to leave, and he took a long time to put all his clothes on. A sweater and then a sweatshirt, and gloves, scarf and hat. I cannot believe you are the fussy one, I said. I put on my jacket and I'm done. While we were walking down 7th St. I borrowed his hat. When we got to the 8th St. N/R station we grinned at each other and said,
-bye!
-bye!

Last night when I called him from the Starbucks where I was surrounded by bums and crazy people, he told me that he left his wallet at the sushi place. Because I threw my fucking wallet in my fucking bag, and it fucking bounced off the edge of the bag instead of going in. He said this all good-naturedly. Over dinner he told me about this girl he slept with a few times and then told her it was turning into a relationship and he didn't want one of those. Oh, I said sympathetically. You probably hurt her feelings. No, he said, we hung out last week, for the first time in a month. I thought she must have been hurt anyway because when Eric broke up with me I was hurt but continued being friends anyway. I started to think of how to show him that she might be more hurt than she seemed, how to change the way he was thinking about her so that he would be nicer and more considerate. Oh what do I care about her, I said suddenly. I hope she gets hurt. Sharif laughed. I like him because I can say anything to him.

I told him about how I had to email ~~ recently to tell him I wasn't interested. That he had kept trying even though I kept brushing him off. That he had said thanks for the clarification, and I was surprised he didn't know. I wonder if I should email all the guys I know, I said, and tell them exactly what I think. I think they know, but maybe they don't. I tend to think everyone must know exactly what I think because I know exactly what they think. Still, after all these years, I don't know what I think of Sharif. And now that I'm thinking about it I don't know what anyone really thinks of me after all. Maybe I should instead email everyone and ask them what they think. But I am already forgetting my recent email disaster.

Posted by Lily at 12:07 PM

Fri | November 18, 2005

at a reading

I am at the Opium reading. It's at Happy Ending, an unmarked bar at the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

I am here alone.

I am sitting next to a balding white guy. Todd later gestures to this guy and says to the crowd, "C___, very talented, will be reading on December 5th."

In front of me is a guy with curly hair who is eating pork lo mein. He is C___'s friend. I am at the corner of an L and they are the ends.

They don't talk to me; they talk to each other. They meet the girls on the right-- three of them, along the wall.

"We're friends of Todd," the one on the right says. It becomes evident that they don't have much to say. However they will laugh at anything you have. The conversation dies. I am relieved. I hate being an innocent bystander to conversations like that.

The guys go back to talking to each other. I feel that they want me to hear what they're saying, or that they're aware that I might be listening and take that into account. But I am not listening.

There is tension about my being there. Their conversation turns to the subject of my presence.

"Awkwardness is the next best thing to wisdom," curly-haired guy says to balding guy. Balding disagrees.

I take out my cell phone and start re-reading and deleting my text messages. They relax.

...

Now I am at the Delancey F/J/M/Z station. I feel like I am sitting in a clearing. There is a mosaic of cherry trees on the wall opposite the track.

The advertising inside the F is green. Anheuser World Lager. The best of both worlds.

...

I write all this on a napkin and type it up on the train ride home. Then I wipe my nose with the napkin.

The people across from me seem inclined to talk. They are impressed that I have my laptop plugged in.

"That's really neat," the woman says, in her best imitation of a teenager.

"How do you know where you can plug it in?" he asks.

"Where there's an outlet," I say, with an unintended tinge of sarcasm. "You just have to keep your eyes peeled," I add encouragingly, to make up for it.

He is in jeans and a charcoal fleece. I try not to make eye contact. When I look up, it's at the conductor at the entryway to the next car.

I get the feeling that I don't use good sentence construction. I try not to care.

Posted by Lily at 12:54 AM

Thu | November 17, 2005

Ava's Escape

Ava had a recurrent dream. She worked at an old building. It had a yellow glow instead of the fluorescence at the office where she worked in real life. She went out on the roof. A moment ago it was day, but out on the roof it was night. There was a playground-- a large plastic playground like the one she never had when she was a kid. At the top of the playground was a red, yellow and blue striped tent. The stripes ran vertically with the pomp of a flag. There was wet rain and a postcard view of the Manhattan skyline. She passed the playground. She went to the edge of the roof and --woke up.

Withdrawl. That is my method, she thought to herself, as she pushed 3, 5, 8 to get into the bathroom. I invite condescension. I bring it on myself. It's in the way I carry myself. Open, just waiting for someone to stab me. She looked down as she undid her grey plaid pants with the pink and yellow cross-hatches. As she sat on the toilet, she smoothed out the pink ribbon that served as a belt. She did not need to go to the bathroom. She had gone there to think.

What makes Jen so great? She doesn't fool me for a second. I don't believe she's accomplished anything. I haven't either-- but at least I don't act like I'm so great. Ava wished she was a squirrel. She wished she worked at McDonald's. She wished life was simpler. She wished she was ugly and dumb. The ugly and dumb were never expected to do things. She was cute and smart. Everyone assumed that everything about her was peachy. She looked at her cute outfit and thought perhaps it was not such a good outfit. It made her look like a nice girl. On top she wore a cream cardigan. Her hair was in french braids. There was no one to look cute for. There were only people to look vulnerable to.

I bring it on myself. I act happy even when I'm not. I act happy especially when I'm not.

She had gone over to Mark's cubicle. Mark had always been nice to her. He had often caught her up in his girlish energy. He was tall and wore close-fitting black shirts. They looked plain and casual but they were very expensive.

"Hi," Ava said.

"Hi," said Mark. But he didn't look up. He flipped through his papers as if he were concentrating on finding something. Ava walked away.

She had almost gone to Nicole. Nicole was the office pariah. Her body was like a twig, like the letter K. She scurried around like a confused ant. She started every sentence twice. No one had the patience to talk to her. As beaten as Ava was, Nicole was abused even more-- and openly. Was there a word for this, Ava wondered? It was not shadenfreude. That was pleasure at seeing others suffer. She wanted a word that meant the relief you feel that someone is worse off than you.

Ava had nowhere to go so she went to the bathroom.

"I don't do the cataloging," Jen had said a few weeks ago, as if it were a low thing to do. Ava had been doing just that for the past several months. And now Jen had ruined the credibility of her current project. It would not matter what Ava did. Whatever it was would acquire a tinge of worthlessness because of how Jen spoke of it. Jen was above everything; thus Jen did nothing-- nothing but erode the reputation of Ava. All she did was judge and make everything good into bad. She was like Midas but worse. Everything she touched turned to shit.

Ava estimated that she had been gone about twenty minutes. She thought of what she would say when she got back. She would try and pretend nothing had happened. But during her time in the bathroom stall the emotions had built up in her, rather than subsided. She thought she might cry. She would say she felt sick and take the rest of the day off.

She left the bathroom and thought of something else. Instead of going back, she went into the stairwell. She had never been in the stairwell. Up and up she went. She went as quickly as she could, not noticing how far up she went. The exertion relieved her frustration and she kept going. As she neared the top she remembered her dream. She had never remembered it before. She had only thought, right after she woke up, that she had had it before. And then she forgot it.

It came to her as she got to the top and saw the black door with a bar and a wheel. She tried to remember if that was the door in her dream but she didn't know. She put her hand on the door and felt its coolness. It was locked.

She returned to her cubicle. No one had noticed she was even gone.

Posted by Lily at 07:38 PM

Mon | November 14, 2005

Tao Lin

Tao is applying to Kaplan. You don't need a job! I said, punching him twice in the arm. But he is like I was a few years ago. He wants a job; he won't feel normal until he has one. He is advanced of where I was; I burned a year in film and then another year or so at two ill-fitting jobs before landing at Kap. And hell, he knows he wants to be a writer. I didn't know that, or I didn't admit that, until January 2004. Then I didn't really do anything about it until January of this year. I mean I thought I was doing things, but I really wasn't. Maybe I'm not even really doing things now. But I think I am.

Tao is like chococat. He has this spaceyness about him. I barely know him, which is why I can write about him. I think once you get to know people it's harder to write about them, because there's something at stake then. Also, once you get to know someone, you forget them a little. You forget your first impressions and you don't see their physical features anymore. Or I don't.

Tao has hair like black grass. Like the grass in a wooden box that you can put on your city apartment windowsill. I didn't remember his hair being this way before, but the last time I saw him, it was like this. Maybe he styled it that way. But I don't see him as someone who styles his hair. I see him more as someone who wears the same navy sweatshirt and pants for days on end. Who wakes up and lets his hair be whatever it is. Yet I may be confusing him with myself. I do that sometimes.

His brain is mushy and poetic. This is why he is so spacey. He's really overwhelmed by the world, in a way. He'll say things that are basic observations, as if they are big revelations to him. One Sunday at KGB there was this old man sitting nearby, and Tao said, "he's so old," drawing out the 'oh' in 'old,' as if he were old himself. As if by being near an old man Tao somehow experienced his oldness.

I met him at an Opium reading. He read some poems. One of his poems was called "some of my happiest moments are on IM." Or something like that. Another one had a line like, "I'd rather be unhappy and honest than dishonest and unhappy." Or something.

On his blog he writes that the people he likes never like him. I suppose that implies that he doesn't like the people who like him. (Or maybe it doesn't. When I took philosophy of logic I nearly failed it.) At any rate, since I like him, he probably doesn't like me. But I think he meant "like" as in, "like like."

Maybe we will continue to be acquainted and grow into friends. But then I would have to delete this post. I don't think there's anything up here he would object to, though.

I wonder if he will work at K. It seems to be the fate of Kaplan to employ every lost soul between the ages of 21-25.

Posted by Lily at 10:08 PM

Thu | November 03, 2005

First Smoke

I tried my first cigarette last night. I had mentioned to Steve some time ago that I had never smoked a cigarette.
"Really?" he said.
"Nope."
"Have you smoked pot?"
"Nope. I've been in a room where people have been smoking."

I've been missing Steve. I saw him last May and we started talking on the phone every once in awhile, through the summer and early fall. Now I feel out of touch with him again. I don't have any reason to call. And yet I didn't before, either. I think one definition of a friend is someone you feel you can call for no reason, with nothing in particular to say. Or maybe that's the definition of a good conversationalist. A combination of both, I think.

Lynn, one of my few New Jersey friends, went to Vanderbilt with her boyfriend this past weekend. Brian had an interview for dental school. Lynn doesn't want to move down there. "I don't want to hang out with hicks," she said.
"I think they're all right," I said. Steve works at Vanderbilt.

So the smokes. It happened last night after the event at the Brown club. As I was leaving, I ran into Bilal outside the building. Bilal was wearing a Brown sweater with a giant "B" on the front, and a Brown baseball cap. He has a pretty good sense of humor. "Let's get a drink," he said.
"I don't feel like it," I said. "I'm going to catch the subway."
"Let me say goodbye to this person," he said, looking through the glass at some people coming down the stairs. "And I'll come with you."

Out the door came a well-groomed Indian woman and a bald white man with a rim of white hair. His head was shiny and phosphorescent. We chatted for a few minutes. I don't remember what was said.
"What do you want to do?" the bald white man said to the Indian woman.
She murmured something indefinite.
"It's up to you," he said.
"I'm going to catch the subway. Where is it?" I asked the woman.
"I'm not a subway person," she said. She meant she cabs it everywhere.
"I think it's that way, where that "M" is," said Bilal.
"Thanks," I said. I bid them goodnight and left. I wondered if I should have tried harder to save the beautiful Indian woman from the disgusting white man.

I was swiping myself through the turnstile when Bilal appeared behind me.
"___ is so obnoxious!" he said. I do not remember the name.
"Who?"
"The bald white guy!"
"Oh."
"He spit in my face! He wouldn't stop talking!" Bilal exclaims everything.

I started walking over to the tracks, but he wandered to the newsstand. "Do you smoke?" he asked.
"Nope."
He got a pack of cigarettes from the vendor. "Do you want anything?" he asked.
"Nope. Well-- gum," I said. He got some gum.
"This is my favorite gum," he said. It was cinnamon, the kind that you pop out of the foil casing.
We got on the N. I looked over and Bilal was stuffing pieces of gum in his mouth like the cookie monster.
"How much gum are you eating?" I exclaimed.
"Just- four."
I took the empty foil package from him. "That's six!"
"No, it's four, you had one, and this one is in my hand, I haven't put it in my mouth yet."

We talked about his apartment in Tribeca, which he claimed was the size of six subway cars. It seemed preposterous.
"There aren't apartments that big in Manhattan," I said.
"Yes, there are. I live in one. Of course I will have to move out when I finish with it." He turns real estate, I think, for a living. I was somewhat taken with the idea that I wanted to see this apartment.

"Let me buy you a drink," he said.
"I'm going to K-town to check email," I said. "You can come if you like."
We got off at 34th Street. It was nearly ten. I walked in my usual direction. I had half an hour to check my email, and then catch the 10:39 train. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"To K-town," I said. As we walked down the street he pulled out his cigarettes.
"Do you smoke?" he asked.
"No," I said.

By this point Bilal had proposed a drink about a dozen times, and he was now waving to the Korean über-hipsters hanging out on the sidewalk at every storefront.
"Let me try it," I said, holding my hand out for the cigarette. He started to hand it over but then changed his mind. This began a discussion that lasted the entire walk to Net Zone. He did not want me to become addicted to smoking. I said I would not. He said I would. I said I would not, I would never smoke again. I just wanted to try it. He made me promise. I promised. He was not convinced. We stopped in front of the stairs.

"It would make my night," I said.
"Really?" he said.
"It would be like, I did something new," I said.

And so he taught me to smoke. Or, he gave me the cigarette and looked anxiously on as I figured it out myself, and asked him for clues.
"Like that?"
No answer.
"You didn't--"
"What?"
He took it back. He took a drag.
"I don't think I did anything," I said.
"You didn't," he admitted. I took it back. I felt the resistance as I sucked the cigarette this time. I let the smoke out of my mouth.
I gave it back to him. He had the look of someone who had gotten away with something.
"Wait-- do you have to inhale?"
I took it back.
"Like that?"
"Yes," he said.

He asked again about the drink. "Why are you so abhorrent to getting a drink?"
This started a conversation about the word abhorrent, and better words that might have been used.

"Oh, let's go to a café," I said. By this time it was too late to go up to Net Zone. I only had ten minutes. We went across the street and got a mini-cheesecake but they would not let us sit there if we did not buy drinks. Koryodang has weird rules.

We walked to Penn Station. The Dover train was already boarding. "I don't want this," he said, handing me the bag with the cake, "so I'm just going to give it to you."

"Okay," I said. It was my mother's birthday. She could use a little cake.

Posted by Lily at 12:07 PM

Fri | October 28, 2005

party city

Yesterday I got my Jedi costume at Party City. I don't know if it was just this Party City, or some sort of institutionalized bureacracy, but my visit went something like this:

I walked into the store and it was like a messy kid's room. I wandered around hoping I'd find a Jedi costume by myself, because interacting with store people can be somewhat exasperating. Besides, I had never been there and wanted to look around.

I became aware that everyone else in the store was relying on the staff to get them things from the back. So I got the attention of a man in a dark purple polo with an enormous beer belly. I wanted to say, "You should be 'pregnant movie star.'"

I asked him if he had any Jedi costumes.

"Adult or children?" he asked.

"Adult," I said.

He went into the back. Five minutes later he came back. "Nope, no more," he said.

"Do you have any children's?" I asked. "Sometimes I can fit into a large children's size."

He nodded his head and disappeared. Five minutes later he was back again. I wondered if he had a timer, to make you wait the same amount of time each time. "All we have is a medium," he said.

I opened it and it was a polyester print t-shirt and pants that were obviously the size of a seven year old. The pants were hopeless, but I tried the shirt on and it fit perfectly. I mean, it's not supposed to fit perfectly-- it's supposed to hang loosely. But, actually I think it looks better on me fitted like that.

The all-important light saber is absent from my costume because I had gone there a half an hour before a tutoring session and there was not time to engage the store person again. Notice how you can't just say, "get me a costume, everything I need at once." You have to ask for things one at a time.

At any rate I had fun because --well, the place was full of costumes. I looked around and tried on a lavender and white haired wig while waiting for the store guy. The place was full of trivial moms worrying about their children's costumes, but there were also a few guys just hanging around who smiled in approval of my wig. I think next year I will just be, girl in a wig.

The costume, which was not even a real Jedi robe, but a stretchy rayon shirt with the image of a robe printed on it, was a whopping $25. "Wow, that's really steep," I said to the cashier. She nodded.

Posted by Lily at 01:13 PM

Thu | October 27, 2005

the sushi place

Today I went to this sushi place for lunch, because I could tell it was going to be one of those days where unless I get out, I will do a little of everything all day, and thus do nothing. The best thing for me to do on such days is pick a book, pick a notebook, and leave the house. That way the only choices I have are read the book or write in the notebook.

The sushi place had tall booths made of bamboo and wood of the same tan color. It felt spacious and private at the same time. It was a great place to write and I was glad I went. I got there at about 2 and stayed til 3:30. I was a little uneasy about staying too long, especially since they had taken my order, brought the food, and given me the bill all really quickly. But I figured I was justified staying as long as I pleased, especially since it was the middle of the afternoon and no one was there. And so I stayed until I finished a writing exercise. I wanted to do another one but I thought I had better leave. It was my first time there and I thought, I will come back, and maybe stay a little longer next time.

I got up to go. As I walked by the other booths, I saw that there was one person sleeping in each booth. All the employees were napping. Well that is nice, I thought. Sincerely, I was happy for them that they had jobs where they could sleep in the middle of the day if there was nothing to do. There was also something surreal about it-- I felt as if I had walked into a private dormitory.

I looked back on the door as I left and saw a "closed" sign, and reading the hours, found that the place is only open from 11-2:30 for lunch and 5-9:30 for dinner.

Posted by Lily at 12:23 AM

Mon | October 24, 2005

City Life

I have noticed that I go through phases of what may be called cabin fever, though calling it that somewhat trivializes the state I am in at these times. I live in suburban New Jersey and I work part time for an income, and the rest of the time I am "trying to be a writer." I do not have nearly enough local friends and am always a bit socially hungry. However, most of my friends and acquaintances would be surprised to hear me say that, because I am fairly good at shelving this when I do see people.

These episodes of cabin fever come somewhat regularly, and I sometimes wonder if they may be attached to the third week of my menstrual cycle. At any rate I had the idea to intercept the cycle by spending a few days at my friend's place in Brooklyn. I called up my friend and he said, "sure!" and that he gets lonely going home to an empty apartment. I had told him that I wanted to try writing in a different setting, for a change of pace, or scene, to see if I would get more done that way. This was true, and was really just another way of stating the same problem. If my cabin fever did not result in distraction, unproductivity, and finally despair, with respect to writing, I would not mind it at all.

My friend happens to be my ex-boyfriend, and he happens to have absolutely broken my heart about a year ago. Because of this I do not feel guilty asking him for anything. Nothing short of a donated kidney could make up the balance sheet between us. That makes it sound as if I am not really over it, but I know myself pretty well, and I know the relationship even better, and I am well over it all. I have forgiven and forgotten-- but I have the archives should they ever need to be retrieved.

We sat on the couch in his living room-kitchen, after having gone to dinner, after he met me, much later than he had given the impression he would meet me, at the cafe near his apartment.
"Do you want to sleep here, or in there?" he asked, pointing to his bedroom.
"And you would sleep here?" I asked hopefully.
"No, we would both sleep there. I think we could manage it," he said, without the least bit of suggestiveness.
"I think I had better sleep out here," I said neutrally.

That night I woke several times to rustling. Was it the shades? The windows were closed. I could see the streetlight through the interstices of the venetian blinds. There was no movement, although I stared until it seemed there might be. I feared that great New York fear, the everyday fear, of vermin. It sounded like the rustling of plastic bags or foil. It took a few wakeups to think of this. My senses were heightened as I tried to localize the sound. I could only fall asleep by saying to myself, it's only the wind.

In the morning I got up and brushed my teeth. Eric had left his dishes in the sink. I washed them. Then continuing with the cleaning theme I took a look at the counter. He had left the cutting board out with crumbs on it, and more crumbs on the counter. I remembered noting this habit of his a year ago when I had been there last. I emptied the cutting board into the sink and then used the board to catch the remaining crumbs as I wiped them off the table with a paper towel. It was then that I noticed the unmistakable sight of mice droppings on the counter by the wall. They are like dried henna, as it chips off your skin-- except they are shaped specifically as tiny long thin pellets. I swept them onto the cutting board and considered whether I would tell him what I had found. He would question how I knew those were mice droppings and I would say, when I worked at A&G we had a mouse problem and it kept us engaged for a few weeks.

I did not come to fill lacks in Eric's domestic duties, and I knew I must stop or I'd be cleaning the whole apartment. I did one more thing-- I wet the paper towel and gave the steel counter a wipedown. The upturned towel was black with soot. I felt a renewed gratefulness for my mother's neatness at home. As well as my own.

The rest of the day was much like any other day, with writing alternating with what must be called daydreaming. The difference was that I took the subway into Manhattan at around 4, to hang about a different cafe, and meet with a friend for an hour at around 5, and then go to Kurt Vonnegut's reading at around 6:30. However the reading was cancelled and I only met with the friend.

That night during the course of our conversation I diplomatically related my findings of the morning. "Oh, I know," he said.

"I thought I was breaking bad news."

"No," he said.

"And last night, I heard a sound like rustling, of aluminum foil--"

"I had a roll in a plastic bag," he said, "and there was a hole in it this morning about this deep." He held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. I was vaguely reminded of fish stories, wherein the teller brags about his catch.

He had gotten out two conjoined glossy styrofoam squares. "My landlord gave me these about a year ago," he said. "They smell like bananas and peanut butter."

"Your habits make the mice come," I said. "That won't really change anything."

"Well," he said, ignoring me, "should I put them out now or--"

"Wait until I'm gone," I said.

"Right."

Now I am back in New Jersey and the rain is clean and refreshing. I slept very late this morning. I might have had some catching up to do, because Eric's place also has a lot of street traffic noise, and I have never slept really well there, mice or no mice.

As I was thinking it all over I realized that he must have eaten the roll.

Posted by Lily at 10:47 PM

Sun | October 09, 2005

KGB

I ran into Todd at KGB. This doesn't happen to me, I don't run into people, mostly because I am not out that often.

I mostly remember Todd Zuniga for channeling Willy Wonka in a dapper suit. Or maybe that's what I envision because I friendster stalked him and he's wearing a velvet blazer in his photo. Or maybe he's not but this is how I envision him in my head. No, I'm not in love with him. I don't know him. I can count on my fingers the things that I know about him. One— if he won 3K, he would "go to Paris, ASAP!" That's what he wrote to me in an email. I had written, "if I won 3K I would throw a party. what would you do?" He had emailed me about a writing contest, which expired about two seconds after he emailed it to me. I mean, not me personally, but, me and however million people he knows.

Two, I went to his Opium reading and he is kind of effeminate and flowy in his movements, shall we say gay? without actually being gay, while being clearly straight. Which you know by the way he looks at you. That, really, is how you tell. Like my MCM TA in college. I knew she was gay because of the way she looked at me. I can still remember that moment when, after class, when a few people were standing around to ask questions/ discuss things, and I was waiting my turn, she looked over and winked at me. Twice.

In retrospect that was really obvious. But Chrissa disagreed, years later, when I told her on the phone that that had happened. Maybe she had something in her eye, she said. No, I told her, she turned her head and winked. It was very deliberate. Chrissa didn't think it necessarily meant that, but she wasn't there. I mean, actually, she was, right next to me, at the time, but she didn't notice it. I turned to her to see if she saw, but she hadn't. She was thinking about film theory while I was formulating personal theories about everyone. I did this especially in humanities classes, rather than science classes. I hardly ever speculated about the people in those classes. Except for Hannah, who seemed to hate me for no, fucking, reason. Like she hated me. I swear, I have no idea why. I have turned this puzzle around in my head for years.

I would have doubted it except that she did it twice. Did it once, went back to talking for about thirty seconds, then looked over again. Why did she do that? So that is my gay experience.

The reason I am perpetually single, perhaps fated to be permanently so, is that I live off of these snippets. If I had a real relationship, like with Eric, there would just be too much to analyze. so much would be happening at once, all the time. He could never keep up with me, in the number of thoughts being had about the relationship. I always had a million and he had none. I think, in a way, you are only evenly matched, well matched with someone, if you have about the same number of thoughts in your head about something. or at least certain things, that are very important to you. or at least, about the relationship itself. if you don't have equal amounts of thought, one of you gets frustrated.

I said goodbye without even talking to him. There's that part of me that doesn't want to admit that I want anything.
This is why when Nick said, "I hope to see you again," I said the alienating conversation stopper, "I hardly ever go out. I live in New Jersey."

I really said that, I swear. I didn't even mean it as a back off (as opposed to a come on). I just said what was in my head. Nick is this other guy that was there.

I am a writer because I always say the worst thing. And then I rewind and revise it in my head on the train ride home.
"I hope to see you again," he says.
"Well do you want my number?" I say pleasantly.
You know-- he said it casually. "I hope to see you again," while, like, moving, like already on his way out. There was no stopping for the collection or exchange of numbers. That's why I kind of said whatever the hell I felt like, which was completely the wrong thing to say.

And then he looked put off, about new jersey, and I said "it’s ok," because I really am ok with it, now, for the most part. and he said, "well denial is a stage," or something like that. He was putting on his jacket. "I’m past it," I said. we were still acting friendly. we had just started to say mean things. but they didn't feel mean. they only look mean on the page. I swear the conversation was pleasant and cheery. But he probably felt like I had put him off when I was just like, you’ll never see me again. God, the more I review it the worse that conversation was. This is why I never talk to people.

Real life isn't like Sex and the City (or any television show or movie I've seen recently). Sex and the City is this La-La Land, where people just say and do these impossible things and relationships start in these impossible ways. They start just like that. It's a snap!

Everything is snappy on television and horribly wrong in real life. If even writers can't say the right thing, how will anyone end up with anyone?

After Nick and Tao went, I put on my jacket and left also, immediately, like in the next twenty seconds. Then I realized I was inadvertently following them and so went in a deli and stood there for about thirty seconds, and then resumed walking. And then I regretted being so honest because I actually wanted to follow them, but knew that I shouldn't, but that they would never have found out.

I am not religious but I say, "oh my god," "I swear," all the time. I picked it up from growing up in waspy chatham.

I am a writer because I analyze what I just said, and say, why did I say that? where did those words come from? They came from my head. But they also came from everything I've heard previously.

It never ends.

Three, he's tall, reminiscent of string, and kind of a goofball. He is allegedly like, 30, which I neither believe nor disbelieve. It's a hypothesis to be tested. Shirley's friendster says she's 41, because that's how old she feels.

I am too old for him anyway. I gather he's two or three years out of school. He looks older. He looks like he could be my age. I look like I could be his age. If you want to see me again you must have my number, I say archly. At any rate I want more writer friends, they need not be love interests. They need not be older; I am young as a writer.

I would know if I were in love. I am just crazy, I replay all these things in my head for no reason. And now I type them out for no reason. They're not even important, they are a look, a glance, a movement of the arm. I look at them again and again. I am not in love with them, but in a way, I am, in love with all of them.

I walked briskly home tonight. I walked faster than usual because I felt happy. I wondered, is the pace that people in general, walk, in the city— you know, there is a definite pace, that people generally walk, en masse, on the sidewalk, and you run into trouble if you are walking slightly slower or slightly more quickly— is that a reflection of the city's overall happiness?

Posted by Lily at 11:30 PM | comment

Thu | October 06, 2005

come again

Who reads this anyway? I can see in my site stats that a number of different IP addresses visit the site, but have no idea who any of them are. The reason I ask is, I am about to tell about my little trip today. It was all in the name of writing, I swear.

I went to an 'erotic emporium,' for a book reading, which wasn't a book reading, but a book signing, or a prostitute (sorry, I don't know the euphemism for the word) sitting on a stool by the counter, surrounded by plastic penises and other sex toys that were mostly some variation on that same theme. And then there was a surprisingly steady flow of creepy men, just slimy, gross men, I mean who literally looked slimy-- moist, clammy-looking, with oily skin, or just, long-unwashed hair. and long hair. long and long-unwashed. ahh!

I'm fairly unadulterated and this was out of character for me. It was scary. But also silly and exciting at the same time. I felt like I was another person. I certainly had never met people like that, only ignored them, as best I could, on the subway, or wherever they lurk. Somehow in the context of the store they were talkable. Talkable meaning, I could talk to them. Don't tell me that's not a word.

Oh and there was a book, which as far as I could tell was soft porn packaged in a cheery tone. It reminded me of that exercise we did in writing class, where we took a story, and wrote it in different tones: sad, happy, old, and young. I wasn't really great at that.

Actually-- it's not soft porn, it's just porn. I bought the book, it's right here, I've taken it out. I opened it and read just the first page. I don't even know what soft porn is, but this seems a bit too frank to be called soft. Anyway, the book is a manifestation of Asian obliviousness. Starting from this blissfully white cover with its yellow condoms that are the eyes in this smiley face, it's hard to describe, here is the amazon link, and block of magenta color at the bottom. And ending... well I haven't read it, so I don't know where it all ends. At any rate I'm sure it never portrays prostitution as the demeaning act that it is. The position is that they're respectable professionals. That's right, position.

But wait, she's Asian, yeah, that's why I was interested, really, because I want to save Asian culture from itself, and from the problems it gets into by being itself, and this is definitely one of the problems. This author is an ex-prostitute, actually (she's made a career change to writing, hurrah!), but why are there so many Asian prostitutes? I think they are unaware of how degrading it is. Things I will sort out later. Why am I writing so much? I have to go.

But wait, why did I buy the book? To be polite, really, because I hung around for so long, and because I liked her. And because I wanted her to like me. It would be nice to earn her implicit trust, and become friends. I would be a good friend. I told her about the Tale of Genji. And she wants to be more erudite, I can tell. Ultimately I'd benefit her more than she would benefit me. Currently I have a lot to learn from her about how to go about being a writer. She wrote for salon.com, she had a sex column. And I have nowhere to go but up.

If it did happen, it would be very gradual, a Jamesian progress, and over a long period of time, just here and there. It would be nice if I just met one really great person who would work closely with me and guide me along. They don't even need to be that great, or that close. They just need to be there. But I think what will happen with me is that I'll have to cobble it together from what little I pick up here and there. From many of these little appetizers I will try to make a meal.

Posted by Lily at 11:26 PM | comment

Thu | August 25, 2005

Field of Flowers

This assignment was to write the story in a painting.

Claudia sat on the fold-up stool and looked at her daughter in the field of flowers. Her daughter Veronica had retained her figure despite having had a child. The boy, now four, played with Marie's six-year old daughter. They tumbled in the grass. They wrestled, and the girl straddled the boy in pure innocence.

Her daughter wore a pastel blue dress which flattered her graceful figure. Claudia had helped her choose the dress when they were at the shop in town. It matched the blue lavendar in the field. She could not make out her daughter’s facial expression, however. It was a blur. Claudia’s sight was deteriorating. The children were mere shapes in the grass. She saw that behind them, there were three slender trees with tall, dark trunks, but the leaves were indistinct patches of green and blue.

Veronica carried a parasol which completed the picture for Claudia. But for Veronica the purpose of the parasol was not to look beautiful, but to shield herself from the sun. Veronica was practical. She had been told since a young age that she was beautiful, and thus thought little of it.

"Veronica," she called. "I am getting old," she said as her daughter approached. She knew that this bothered her daughter but she could not help it. It had become as natural as 'hello' or 'how are you' and she could not open a conversation otherwise.

"Stop saying that," said Veronica. "You are the healthiest sixty-year old woman in the world."

"What would you like to have for dinner?" Claudia asked.

"I’d like to try that bistro we saw in the town," said Veronica.

"Ah yes. I am going to order the duck. And afterwards we can go to the theater. Marie will take care of the children."

An artist had come to the field and the children gathered around to observe him. Soon their little hands grasped at the pastel charcoals and the frenchman courteously prevented them. "Désolé," said Veronica as she swept both of the children up in her arms and took them away.

As they departed Claudia remarked, "When I was young I wanted to be a painter."

"I never knew that your appreciation of art had that connection," said Veronica.

"I was very young. Until I was ten, twelve, and a little beyond that. I liked to draw. I drew and I painted all day, for hours on end. When I was not drawing or painting I was imagining how I would draw or paint whatever was around me."

"And what happened?"

"Nothing. I was a child. My mother told me I spent too much time with my drawings and I should spend more time socializing with friends. So I did."

"I liked to draw a bit too, when I was a child."

"I was pleased when you took that on. But you did not continue. Did you ever want to be an artist?"

"No, I thought of it as a small hobby."

"I would have given my life to it, and not known it had passed."

"I am sure you would have made a fine artist, mom." She had not received the intended impact of her mother's statement. Like many people, Veronica did not take the talk of elderly people very seriously— especially not her own mother's. This is how Claudia knew she was getting old— she could say anything.

"If your child shows any inclination for art you will encourage him."

"Of course."

They walked through the field of flowers. The golds and the greens were like an enchanted land in a fairy tale. She marvelled anew that her daughter, herself so exquisite, did not feel inspired and uplifted in the presence of beauty. Veronica did not notice things. The frenchman had thrown her a mischievous look but she had barely seen him. They progressed slowly. The mother and daughter walked in a straight line, and the children ran ahead and around them in all directions.

Claudia and her daughter had taken this trip to France for her sixtieth birthday. They were in Provence, away from the asphalt they saw daily in Pennsylvania. At the edge of the field they sat waiting for the car that would take them into town.

"I am weak," said the mother.

"You've had too much sun," said the daughter.

"That's not what I mean," said Claudia. "I am weak in spirit. I never had the audacity to do what I wanted. I found a decent man to marry and I married him. Then I lived a mundane life of petty, trivial problems. How to arrange the furniture in the living room. What kind of toaster to get. The things to cook for dinner. How to liven up the salad. I know a million variations on the theme of dinner."

"That's what life is."

"I wonder if I could have been a painter. A great one. I was afraid to even try. And you- have no such desire."

"I have a great appreciation for art but I have no desire to create it myself. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"No, nothing at all," said Claudia. She saw the car approaching at a distance and nodded towards it. "Let's go have that duck."

Posted by Lily at 02:23 PM | comment

C said on Feb 6, 07 03:15 PM:

I thought the story would more interesting if you focused more on the theme of the child missing the point of most of what her mother is saying. A commentary on how we often hear but do not listen. But, don't point this out in the story. Make the reader figure it out.
Or maybe that's what you are trying to say. That last line with the mother saying - Let's go have that duck - is her giving up trying to get her point across to the child.

Sun | August 21, 2005

roommates

I don’t know why I wrote this. It has no place except here.

Whenever Shawn had a disagreement with Lauren, he said, "we’ll flip for it." Lauren always called tails. She always lost. The coin was double-headed. Shawn had gotten it awhile ago from a street vendor on Houston Street. When he saw it, he knew it would be good on her, because she always called tails.

"Let’s get a new couch," she had been saying. When he got home he went over to the couch and exaggerated his search for a good spot to sit. He sat demonstrably on the worn springs, letting his feet up in the air to show how low he sank. Sure enough she said it again. "Let’s flip for it," he said, taking out the coin.

It didn’t happen often enough for her to suspect. In this way he saved himself a couple of hundred of dollars he would have spent splitting the cost of a new couch, a 7 am run to the grocery store for milk, and Texas barbecue instead of pizza one Saturday night.

One day she said, "you always use a penny. Use a quarter." And sure enough, she won. From then on they always used a quarter.

Posted by Lily at 05:24 PM | comment

Tue | August 09, 2005

Flight

Kat Galette sat on the barstool with resolve. It was not her habit to note the décor of a place, but she now noted the plush red couches and the tulips of light cast by the lamps on the wall. Thus the name Fire Bar and Lounge, she thought to herself. She counted the bottles of liquor on the wall in front of her. I know too many of those names, she thought. She could not think of much else as she focused on simply sitting in that seat.

"Excuse me," the man had said. "There’s a private party here at 10, so you’ll have to leave in about a half an hour."

"Where am I supposed to go?" she said. "I paid for this drink and I should be able to sit here all night if I like."

She surprised herself with that response. It’s because I’m here alone, she thought to herself. It’s because I’m alone and no one will catch me. She had called her friend Tara, but Tara wanted to hang out with her boyfriend. Then she had called Erica.

"Why are you still working at 8:00?" asked Erica.

"Lena came by at 5:00 with a three-hundred page document for me to photocopy and proofread," said Kat.

"Just say no. It’s like drugs. People telling you to do bad unhealthy things."

"I can’t say no. I’ll get fired."

"They won’t fire you."

"Yes they will. There are five billion people in New York who want to be paralegals. Just say you’ll come with me. I’ll have so much more motivation to finish this if I know I’m meeting up with someone afterwards."

"I can’t, Kat. I want to, but I can’t. I’m in my pajamas and I have to clean my room and do all this stuff."

"Oh fine." Kat had drawn a square with her red pen and was diligently filling it in.

"Kat—"

"Yeah?"

"I just said no just now, and you didn’t fire me."

"Well, I should fire you."

"But you didn’t. You understand, and we’re still friends."

So Kat faced the last hour with the document alone. When she reached the last page she decided that if she could face the document alone she could face a bar alone. She walked into Fire, and did her best not to note how many people were there, with their friends and colleagues, boyfriends, girlfriends and dates. She sat at the bar, ordered a mudslide, and thought, I have no friends and my job is eating me alive. Then the man in the suit told her she had to leave in a half hour, and she snapped back at him.

Kat was 24 and three years ago she would have said, "oh, okay," and left immediately. Three years ago she moved to New York City and got a job as a paralegal. Every day thereafter six attorneys and New York City drained her good will. It was a miraculous fountain that refilled fresh every day. Over time, she started to realize that she got very little back for her efforts.

Three years ago she would have said, "oh, okay." Tonight she had said something else, something confrontational, almost ferocious. She savored the words like a new dish. The minute hand moved quickly towards 9:30, the appointed time of departure, and she did not budge. She was bent on occupying that space.

She saw the man look in her direction, then again a few minutes later. She could see his shadowy eyes from across the room, and noticed his gelled spiked hair and dark suit. She observed again the lights on the wall. When she saw him walk in her direction she steeled herself for the confrontation.

He was soon next to her.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

"You want to stay?"

"Excuse me?"

He held out his hand. "I’m Max. I’m the manager. You can stay if you like. It’s okay for me to have one guest."

Posted by Lily at 12:11 PM | comment

Mon | August 01, 2005

the compromise

The eyebrow is of great importance-- a sign of beauty and refinement, and awareness of current trends. Plucked and arched, but not overplucked, to one extreme, or too heavily drawn, to another, good eyebrows enhance the face but are not immediately apparent. They are a sidekick, there to provide support but never to be the center of attention.

These facts were lost on Genny Waterhouse, whose unibrow was the first thing you noticed about her and the thing you then made a conscious effort to forget, but never quite could, and ended up simply not looking at her at all, talking instead to the wall, or at some object in the corner.

Genny plucked the hairs below her brow, but not inbetween. Her friend had told her that one does not pluck the hairs between the brows, and as an impressionable fifteen year old, Genny believed her. It was two years later, and she had still not realized that her eyebrows were an error. This mistake kept her at the lowest rung of the ladder in her social group.

She was already on the way there regardless of the unibrow. She was homely and pictures and portraits of her were the main decoration in her parents' apartment. Her face was round; her body was round also. It was not an amorphous blob-- it was curvy. She had breasts and hips, but they were maternal, rather than sexy.

And yet a senior asked her to the prom because he knew they could have sex and he felt safe doing it with her. She was into poetry and her brain was mushy and associative, and she would do it just for the sensation. There was no delusion of love involved. Or there was and there wasn't, on her part. She would imagine how it might feel if she really were in love. It would be like reading a poem. So she would get a certain amount of emotional juice out of it, even if it was mostly about the sex itself. It was this level of comfort with emotions and sex, that arose out of her reading of literature and poetry, that the boy sensed, and felt she would be a good date to the prom.

For her part she knew she was homely; when she looked in the mirror she saw she was not the beauty described in poetry. She had fair, luminous skin, though, and this was the one connection to beauty that she clung to and drew confidence and reassurance from. She also grew her brown hair long. She kept it in a braid because the private school she attended required that long hair be tied back. She imagined it was romantic and mysterious. She would only let it loose, she told herself, in the bedroom. But that being such a rare occasion and long in coming, she also let it out every once in awhile on a weekend.

At seventeen she had experienced many of the best things in life, or had acquired an understanding of them-- sex and relationships, mostly, but also love, and life, and careers. What was left but to execute them? There was newness but there was also jadedness. Awareness of process is a loss to those who are told, and told early, how the world works. Having the benefit of others' experience, they are denied the experience of struggle, mistake, and disillusionment. They have disillusionment but it is a letter in the mail. They never float, wondering what they are, in absolute space. There is instead always a sense of place within a system.

When she was ten she brought leftover pizza for lunch and her friends Lia and Vicky thought it was cool. They declared that every Wednesday must be pizza day, and that Genny would bring one slice for herself and one to split between her friends.

When she was twelve she was surprised to be the first to get her period. Lia and Vicky were so much more prepared for it, since they carried pads around with them everywhere they went. She waited for a month, and then another, to tell them, at which point she lied and said it had only been a month ago. It was the subject of conversation for the next month, during which Genny got practice describing things that are somewhat indescribable, or at least very difficult to describe.

She said yes when Rob Barnes asked her to the prom and she knew what it meant, or of the many things it meant she knew what was most important. It would be a strength, a contribution to her social group, for her to do it and tell her friends about it later. This is why they went shopping with her and all tried on dresses, even though they were not all going to the prom, and played most of the evening out in detail, over several shopping trips, in all its possible variations, up until the point when Rob and Genny would be alone in their hotel room. At that point things became a bit unclear.

Genny went to the prom in a black structured off-the-shoulder knee-length dress. The structure did its best to bring elegance and grace to her curves. The fabric was a textured brocade and her shoes were pointy Jimmy Choos. Her hair was down, and curled in soft waves. Her unibrow was the same as always. To avoid eye contact with the brow her date spent most of the evening dancing cheek to cheek, or talking with his friends.

Her date had rented a hotel room at the Hilton, as had his friends. They even hung out for a bit and extended the party into the hotel. The girls kicked off their shoes and those who were friends talked to each other, but not to Genny. She had no choice but to sit dumbly by her date's side. The television was switched on and it looked as if it would go on indefinitely. But Rob, for one, was determined to see it through. He wanted to get it over with, to have this experience and check it off his list. Genny, detecting his thoughts, and feeling the same way, said she was tired.

There wasn't a lot of kissing. There was touching and there was some hesitance and confusion, but then there was sex. When it happened they looked into each other's eyes and they smiled at the success.

She told Lia and Vicky what she could, as best she could, and found ways to make knowing reference to it over the next few years, in particular when she felt she might be around those who were less experienced than she was. She was ever the resource and gentle informer. Her ambition would lead her to try other things just to add them to her resume. But what she would never have was sex driven by its own force, its own need and its true nature, instead of as a deliberate experiment, act or experience.

--------
notes

This was sort of carelessly written, and not revised, but I don't like it enough to go back through it. There is a rush to it at points where I prolly should have written more, filled in more, especially towards the end/ second half/ last third. Perhaps some other day.

Posted by Lily at 02:27 PM | comment

Wed | July 27, 2005

Sake

so I am still not posting the dialogue I wrote for the 'breakup' exercise/ homework, but I wrote another breakup-related dialogue, that may as well go up here. I told myself I'd post the exercise each week and I'd better try, if at all possible, to keep my word.

the assignment was to write out a dialogue between two people, using only the dialogues, and no tags.

"I'm so annoyed at Max. I called him-- no, he called me-- yesterday and it took me an hour and twenty minutes to call him back, and he didn't pick up, but took the exact same amount of time to call me back."
"I don't think people are that calculating, Kat."
"No, he is."
"I met him. He seems like a straightforward guy."
"No, he does all these little things. When we're getting ready to leave he'll always take just a little bit longer than me, so that I have to wait for him."
"I hate it when people do that."
"The other day we went to this sushi place that I wanted to try, and I said I'd pay for it because it was my idea. But he didn't even argue or offer to split it. Oh and when we ordered the sake I wanted it warm and he ordered it cold."
"Just tell him you wanted it warm."
"He knew I wanted it warm but he wanted it cold so he ordered cold."
"You guys were sharing?"
"Yeah."
"I think I'm going to break up with him."
"You're breaking up with him over sake?"
"No, over all these little things. It's all these little things adding up and driving me nuts."
"Kat, you need to just let it go. Just don't keep track of those things."
"They're important. They're small but they mean something."
"I think they don't have to mean anything unless you let them. I think they probably don't mean as much to Max as they do to you. He's not doing it to annoy you."
"No, he is. It's a power struggle. I can't win and I'm sick of losing. So I'm just going to leave."
"If you say so, Kat. But I think it's not the right answer."

Posted by Lily at 03:44 PM | comment

Wed | July 20, 2005

a day at galaxy design

Jen works at Galaxy Graphic Design, a graphic design company that produces websites. Today she begins a project with Mira.

Mira isn’t even in yet, even though it’s 9:30 am. Jen wishes she had the audacity to stroll in at 9:36, as Mira does, wearing flip flops and a wrinkled shirt. It is part of the look, Mira would say.

Jen has the project outlined by the time Mira gets in— images need to be replaced, info needs to be updated, style sheet needs to be updated— which does Mira want to do?

Update the style sheet, says Mira.
OK, says Jen, I’ll work on the images.

Jen gets herself a cup of coffee from the break room and gets right to work.

Mira gets herself a cup of coffee from the break room and gets right to emailing. She tells the manager and every other manager that she’s working on the style sheet for the Gateaux Café project. Then she turns around and tells Marjorie, Justin, and Vanessa in the next set of cubicles that she’s working on the style sheet. She gets up, walks to her friend Brian’s cubicle three hallways over— and talks to him about the new furniture she wants to get for her living room.

At 11 am Jen has finished replacing the new images on gateauxcafe.com. Mira is just getting back to her cubicle. She looks at the clock on her computer and thinks, it’s almost time for lunch. And begins to plot this event. Her reverie is interrupted when Jen comes over to see how Mira’s doing.

“Fine,” she says, “I’m working on the style sheet.” She says a bunch of other things which amount to about nothing in Jen’s mind, and Jen cannot quite figure out what Mira has accomplished in the past hour. She notices that at 11:45 Mira goes out for lunch. When Jen goes out at 1 pm, Mira is not back yet.

At 1:30 pm Mira gets back from lunch and is ready to take a look at that style sheet. She realizes that—oh yeah, she doesn’t know anything about style sheets. She chose that part of the project because it had the coolest name. Style. She stares at it for three minutes and decides she needs help. She walks over to Jen’s desk but Jen is out. So she sits around until Jen gets back.

“I think we need to communicate more about what this project entails,” says Mira.

So Jen teaches Mira how to look at the revision sheet and find the matching code on the current sheet, and make the alterations.

“Ok,” says Mira. And she then goes and changes all the wrong things.

At the end of the day Jen has done the entire project, plus undone and redone the twenty five minutes of damage Mira contributed. Mira has become best friends with everyone in the office and six months later is promoted to management. She still knows nothing about style sheets. And Jen is furious, but screaming is not allowed in the office.

---notes---
what I wrote tonight at asian writing club.

Posted by Lily at 09:52 PM | comment

Sat | July 16, 2005

Virgin of Loneliness

thought I'd post my crappy exercises from writing class. or shouldn't I? I still have no idea what I'm doing with this blog. but I did resolve to stop having so many reservations and just do anything I felt like, even if it's inconsistent or doesn't make sense as a whole. this blog will just be, "stuff I wrote." it fits because I wrote it.
-----

Annie Lin had ready eyes, a seemingly infinite amount of coursework and an incipient affection for Henry Marsh. Their paths had coincided several times at the university computer lab, and they had begun to say hello, and then they had begun to talk. She did not remember when he first started coming to the lab. Perhaps he had always been there, like her, but she had not noticed. Now she would always notice if Henry walked into the room. She was always ready for it. She had started to hope that he was going purposely to run into her.

She didn't hope for a relationship. It did not occur to her. She was surrounded by friends and classmates she could talk to and busy with deadlines. In a real sense she did not know loneliness.

Though she didn't want a relationship the roots of one grew naturally between her and Henry. It was the best kind of relationship—one germinated by affinity and affection rather than one planted in fear of age and to plug a hole left by an unsatisfactory life.

Henry drew a comic strip for the college paper. They hardly ever talked about it though. One day Annie said, "Your comic was funny today."
"Oh yeah?" he said.
"Yeah."
"It isn't always funny?" he asked.
"It was particularly funny today."

Another day she told him that she had rearranged all the furniture around in her room for no reason. "Where do you live?" he asked.
"Anderson Hall. Where do you live?" she asked.
"McKinley."
"My friend Kris lives there," she said.
"Is he a good friend of yours?"
"She--" she corrected, "is a pretty good friend."

After that Kris became a better friend, since visiting her brought Annie geographically closer to Henry. She looked his room number up in the directory and walked past sometimes even though it was not on the way. Sometimes the door was not quite shut. It just touched the frame and music could be heard from within.

One night on her way out of the dormitory she ran into Henry.
"Come see my room," he said.
His room was pleasantly neat.
"Do you want to see some drawings?" he asked.
Henry brought a large tablet and they sat on the bed, their backs to the wall. They put the tablet on their laps. He told her about some of the characters and where he got ideas for some of the strips. After awhile he stopped talking and put his arm around her and she flipped through the rest of the pages.

"I have to finish this up now," he said, showing her an incomplete strip he wanted to submit the next day.
"Good night," she said and waved goodbye.

Posted by Lily at 08:10 PM | comment

Mon | July 11, 2005

evil mockingbird

my father used to be a farmer-- or a farm boy, as he calls himself. he says they used buffalo to plow the fields. I think it was not the american buffalo but a buffalo of a different sort. after school he would take the buffalo out to graze and then sit under the shade of a tree to study.

it is a remnant of my father's agrarian past that he spends much of his spare time surveying our small plot of lawn. he walks around with his hands in his pockets and looks at