Mouse on the sidewalk.

While smoking on my fire escape I saw a man digging through the trash cans. At first I thought he was looking probably looking for food. After watching him a while I saw that he was pulling out only shoe boxes and paper bags and large black garbage bags that weren't too soiled.

I do believe that man is building himself a nest to hibernate in for the winter.

No ifs and or buts

If I stare at the doorway to the kitchen long enough she will walk through it.

If I touch her handwriting with my nose she will send me a letter.

If I call her old number on my phone she will answer.

If I squeeze my hand tight enough she will hold it.

If I cry hard enough she’ll feel so guilty for leaving she’ll come back.

And I know everyone dies eventually.

And you're probably in a much better place.

And I had 23 years with you, more than some.

And you knew how much I loved you, right?

And I know you loved me.

But I’m making meat in the crock pot and I'm awful at it. It doesn't taste like yours at all.

But I’m sending Christmas cards to all your friends and it feels so fake and sad.

But I got a new job in the ICU and it's a big deal and you should be so proud me.

But Nick’s having another baby and I don't know how to help.

But now strangers are living in your house.

But you didn’t want to leave me.

If I write this all down and you knew how much I need you you would be here, but you left to somewhere I can't go.

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to say this stuff.

I guess for her it really is about the cover and not the book. She would rather not read the book at all actually, she’d prefer to have someone summarize it for her and point out the parts that were the most shocking. Happiness, of course, means that you have a great answer to the question “How are you doing?” To her, it matters most what your life circumstances sound like while they hang in the air in front of another person.

She can’t tolerate loneliness. She finds no need to dig deeper into life’s complexities, she avidly seeks distractions from heavy silence and things resembling solitude.

There are cracks in this persona, however. There are times when all her efforts fail her and I can see something trapped in a cracking egg she stuffs deep in her pockets. It is a long, keeling wail that is partially visible when she opens her mouth in genuine awe. When she is caught off guard, there is a person who is present in my company.

She may never scream the way she deserves to; she may never empty her pockets all the way to the bottom, but I see how real she is. She clings to her life by absorbing herself in distractions and I don’t blame her. It is so wound up in her. The knots inside her couldn’t have been tied by human hands. The rope is too tough to cut and the slivers of twine cut your hands as a warning to leave things alone.

She protects the world from her secrets with 150 pounds of armor that she shamefully drags with her everywhere she goes. She is judged by strangers and her insides say, “Don’t you know I’m doing this for you?” She attacks them back by commenting how lovely the fall is and how stunning Oprah looks on the cover of her latest magazine.

This is the best time in the whole relationship.

I've got a date tonight. I'm actually excited about it. The guy seems like a real winner.

He is tall.

He has a job.

He knows people I know and they don't think he's an asshole.

He seems to really like me.

He is witty over text message (very important attribute).

He is in graduate school.

Did I mention he has a job?

I've been mentally listing all the things I'm not to say tonight.

"Well, since my parents died..."

"When my brother got out of rehab the second time..."

"Due to my step-dad's severe depression and unemployment..."

"After I got divorced..."

"Because of my brother's persistent mental illness..."

"When my sister got arrested for her third possession with intent to distribute charge..."

I'm thinking to refer to "Family" very broadly. As in, not mention any member specifically, except to mention benign facts about them. As in, "My sister is an excellent cook." Not mentioning, "My sister cooks meth in her bathtub in Spokane."

I'm also thinking of what questions he will probably ask.

"Why did you move to New York?"

Real answer: "My four year relationship exploded into a thousand shimmering pieces, my mother died without warning, and everything in Seattle reminds me of the wonderful and awful things about both of them."

First Date answer: "Just wanted to go on an adventure! And, it was an excellent career move."

Are you lying if you aren't telling all your business? I feel phony when I don't spill my guts, but I sound like a lunatic when I give the Oprah Winfrey tell-all ten seconds after knowing someone.

We'll see if I can stay planted on the barstool, not fall off and land on Oprah's couch.

UPDATE: The day after

Beside the fact that I slept with him, I did pretty well.

Didn't mention narcotics or death at all.

Ode to Smoking

I fucking love smoking. From what I hear from, well, everyone, smoking is real, real bad for you. But, God! Oh, Jesus, smoking is so beautiful in so many ways.

I love getting that feeling of dark brooding and then knowing that I have a dear friend who will always brood with me. Who will smell horrible, who will envelope me in foul, curling smoke. It winds and sways with the wind. I feel sweet guilt the entire time that I’m inhaling the nicotine/rat poison cocktail.

Phillip Morris' little soldiers are always waiting for me at the mini-mart on 35^th and Roxbury. I walk, talking on my cell phone to people I don’t want to know that I smoke and smoke and smoke.

The feeling of, oh yes, everything is going to be fine. Forcing me to do methodic breathing, but in the most ironic way. A deep yoga breath that is filled with foul and everything that I’m sure any yoga master would disapprove of.

I mean, what are commercial breaks made for? What are awkward social situations made for? What are long, hot lonely August days made for? What are walks around the block made for? What is legal, rebellious, bad for you and not allowed withing 25 feet of a public building? What leaves you with the linger of death in your mouth and single handedly removes every sweet smell from your hair and hands? What fits in your purse, allow you to play with fire and inspires drunken conversation with skeezy men outside of bars?

Smoking, of course. Smoking.

A poem as a list

My mother believed panty hose and fake pearls were fancy.

My mother cried in the car listening to Tammy Wynette.

My mother painted Donna Dewberry "One-Stroke Flowers" on everything. Eventually she expanded to an occasional bluebird.

My mother was saddened to hear I was becoming a nurse because she honestly believed I could be rich and famous or, at the very least, marry a millionaire.

My mother rubbed in lipstick on each cheek every day instead of buying blush.

My mother believed toasted french bread was a food group.

My mother saved her students life by giving the Heimlich maneuver when he choked on a quarter.

My mother hated animals.

My mother hated eggs.

My mother told me my goldfish was just "sleeping." She then flushed it down the toilet.

My mother was scared of the sound of the upstairs door made swinging open when it wasn't latched.

My mother cried herself to sleep sometimes because she was so worried about my sister.

My mother planted plastic flowers in pots in the front yard. She left them out all year long.

My mother believed that her grandson became a purple pansy after he died.

My mother filled plastic wine glasses with fake sand and bleached shells and gave them as presents.

My mother came to every performance of every play I was every in.

My mother would laugh until she cried if she could read this.

I get the call from Mike, the handyman, that he has arrived. I walk down East 7^th street I see a medium sized man, long dark hair pulled into a greasy pony tail, standing by a bicycle holding a bag of tools.

He regards me, looks as surprised by me as I do by him. I’m not sure why we are both so surprised by each other. People’s phone voice never seems to match their appearance, I guess.

I unlock the door to the building and we walk up the stairs. PSA’s flash into my head about the young single girl letting the strange man into the apartment, and horrible things happening that the girl later tells Oprah about. I suddenly hope the strange man I live with is home. Maybe intimacy is always defined by a lack of intimacy with someone else.

I show him the door frame, make awkward small talk. He doesn’t have a tape measure. I open up my drawer to loan him mine. We both look at the contents of my drawer: a St. Anthony necklace my best friend gave me, Ultra-Thin Trojans, Marlboro Lights, eye drops and water proof mascara. I’m struck by my lack of organizational skills, how those items seemed to naturally belong together when I put them in that drawer yesterday.

I quickly grab the tape measure and shut the drawer. As he takes the measurements he says, “If you don’t mind my asking, Sarah Jane, that really is a lovely name, by the way, how do you keep your self occupied, I mean, how do you occupy your time?”

I ignore the fact I find it a weirdly framed question possibly based on condoms next to a tape measure. I say, “Oh, uh, I’m a nurse. So, I, you know, got a job here as a, uh, nurse.” Just as I’m hoping he’ll hand me back my tape measure and ride off on his bicycle, his whole face lights up.

“Wow! I mean, wow, that’s quite a job, really difficult. You have to lose a couple patients at work and then just come home like nothing happened. That’s tough. I think you’ll agree, don’t people who get a lot of cards and flowers like, live? You know, get out of the hospital and live? Then the ones that don’t have any friends or visitors, they just, like, give up and slip away, huh?"

I thought about his question. I didn’t know whether I agreed with the cliché or not, but I thought this guy was actually saying something about himself. Our interaction took a sharp turn. We went from “Okay, it’s looking like a standard, hollow, pre-hung will do the trick,” to figuring out what immeasurable forces keep a heart beating.

I wondered if Handy-Man Mike saw himself as the person in the hospital with tacky Mylar balloons everywhere, and an overbearing mother telling a timid wife the proper way to hover. Or, did he see himself as the lonely, sullen, TV watching patient, who always tries to get the nurse to chat just to pass the time.

I decided that I didn’t know the answer to his question. I gave him a sing-song response that validated what he said without specifically agreeing. With a big smile I said, “Alright, then—we’ll be in touch, Mike, I really appreciate your work.”

He looked sad to be leaving. I felt guilty for not being more comfortable with the situation. Although I have a considerable amount of loneliness myself these days, I couldn’t indulge in conversation with him for some reason. I got no sense he had any mal-intention. In fact, he seemed very kind and concerned I have a proper door.

Type II Dens Fracture

As a nurse you see inside family's lives all the the time. You see intimate moments and are forced to evaluate yourself and your own family more often than most people.

Upon entering the room I see a young, well-nourished girl with thick black eyeliner mixed with tears that has turned both of her eyes into black circles. She is making high-pitched moaning noises and is squeezing her eyes shut.

Two women are at her bedside. One, her aunt, seems very capable, definitely in charge of the situation, and is telling this girl to take deep breaths and that the nurse is here now and she will feel better in a few minutes.

The other woman has a harder face that perhaps has seen more darkness or poor decisions. She is more distant from the girl, it seemed like she didn’t know what to say. This is the mother.

When I saw this girl being showered in attention it bothered me. When she called out for her mom in a terrified and demanding tone I rolled my internal eyes. When she started saying “owie-owie-owie-owie-OW-IE” as the pain rolled over her I felt like sighing and looking at the clock. This girl, the same age as me, cried out for “blankie” (her baby blanket that her aunt made for her when she was born) and “bah-bah” (her stuffed animal).

She gave no indication that she was thankful for her mother and aunt. She just called out desperately if they were not in plain sight. She cried because she was hurting, she asked for her blanket and stuffed animal because she wanted them, and she didn’t act grateful because she wasn’t.

She was just being honest and I hated her for it.

El Jardin Cultivado

The study abroad trip in early college is an important time of growth for anyone who participates. The Christian college's study abroad trip is an important education of how to sneak alcohol into prohibited places. Also, it makes any romantic encounter wrong, elicit, and there for incredibly hot.

Wandering the cobblestone plaza in the center of La Habana, I was struck by the beauty around me. The colorful sheets hanging from clothes lines, balcony to balcony. The children playing catch while the old men sit in lawn chairs and talk about baseball. The 6'3", black chiseled face, black arms, back, neck-- Jesus! Who the hell is that guy?

I, ahem, thought to myself as I embraced the culture of this foreign, dare I say, forbidden land. He leaned casually against the brick wall behind him. He is laughing, joking with his friend. He is facing the half wall the divides the city edge from the ocean.

It is not until he looks directly at me that I realize I have been staring, no, I'll be honest, gawking. I immediately look away and pretend to read a book off of a vendor's cart. I decide I love this country and must return as soon as possible.

A shadow covers my book page (which I couldn't understand anyway with my limited spanish). I look to my left to see the most defined triceps I had ever seen that not on television. I look up too see the strong jaw, smiling, looking down at me. Calmly he says, "Blah blah, garbldi-gook, mucho gusto, blah blah, eres bonita, me llamo Alain."

I was in love.

He took me by the arm and we walk to the edge of the square. I realize I had now stolen the book I was pretending to read. I say in stilted spanish, "Not so good, my Spanish." He says something I roughly interpret as, "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." I, in fact, have no idea what he said, and never will, so I choose to remember my initial rough interpretation.

He walks me back to the convent that was lodging myself and the rest of my study abroad group. I suddenly want to be fluent in Spanish in a way I never thought possible. If only my friend Christina was here, I thought, her Spanish is perfect. Although I barely understand anything he says, though some grace of God I understand loud and clear, "When can I see you again?"

My mind is racing. I'm certain this is against every rule laid out by the Latin American study Program guidelines, my own university's behavior contract, President George W. Bush's War on Terror, and Jesus Christ's general expectations of young ladies.

"Seven o'clock tonight, bring a friend for my friend," I said in my most careful spanish. "See you tonight, I can't wait!" ("I can't wait" does not translate in Spanish. I actually told him "I am incapable of hope.")

I race up the wide, marble convent staircase to the room I shared with six other students. "Where is Christina?" I say breathlessly, attempting to be casual. A blonde girl I dislike greatly says, "Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing. Nothing." (pause) "Nothing."

Eventually I find Christina and inform her she has a date tonight and she's not allowed to wear a baggy shirt.

Christina's little face goes wide eyed. Her eyes are such an honest blue. Her tiny mouth and kind cheeks are pursed. She is one of the most pure and well-intended people I have ever known.

"It'll be great," I gush. "These really nice (sexy) boys (men) are going to take us out (try to sleep with us) to dinner (at someone's cousin's house)." I really can't remember which parts of the truth I offered her initially.

"Oh, I don't know, Sarita. Are we allowed? How did you meet them?"

I briefly tell her a story that sounds way less sketchy than what actually happened. Then, I tell her I'm sure that our teachers want us to study the culture in new and creative ways. That it is our gift to ourselves, neigh!, our gift to God, to be accepting of this culture and build new international relationships that could potentially completely repair the tensions between our two countries.

With great reluctance Christina joins the group for our double date. The boys were right on time, Alain brought his cousin, and most importantly, he was wearing a sleeveless shirt. The four of us strolled Havana. The lights were beautiful, glistening off of the water. People are dancing salsa in the street, music is spilling out of clubs and restaurants.

Christina is an impeccable translator. I learn that Alain is a volleyball player (hotttt), thinks that I look like an Elizabethan painting (but skinnier, right?), thinks that my hair looks like fire and sunshine (I'll show you some fire, Mr. Sunshine), thinks that we would have beautiful children (clearly), thinks that we should go somewhere more private to further discuss our new life together.

For a brief but terrifically exciting three minutes, Alain and I are alone. By alone I mean we are partially hidden behind a concrete pillar. We embrace, we need no words to express how we feel about US-Cuban relations. We are interrupted, however, by a ghostly pale Christina.

"Sarita, we should probably, um, you know, go," she said in freaked out english.

Seeing as how this was the first time on record Christina had ever requested anything, I squeezed Alain's fantastically bulky bicep one more time and we left.

Back at the convent Christina was somber and silent. We sat outside at a cafe style table in the courtyard and she slowly began to tell me what she had just been through.

"When I was a little girl," she began. "My pastor told us that all young women are gardens. That God has created each of us in a very special way. We all have special flowers in our gardens. There is a fence around our gardens, but there is a gate in this fence. And that each time," she pauses and her eyes avert to the ground with shame, "we allow a man to open that gate-"

"What the hell did he do to you?!" I ask far too loudly.

"He, well, he, uh, picked some of my flowers."

"What the hell did he do, Christina? I am so sorry. I never should have made you come, God, what the hell did he do??"

"He kissed me here," she points to her forehead. "And here," she points to her left cheek. "And he tried to kiss me here," she points to her top lip. "But I ran to get you and we left."

I sigh with relief. I sit back in my chair and try to find a way to explain to Christina that the church has irreparably damaged her and she will feel guilty the rest of her life. Then I decide that is the wrong approach.

"Christina, you know, your pastor is right. We are all gardens, for sure. I'm totally a garden. But, just like real gardens you don't want all the plants to get overgrown or the weeds will kill all the roses. You gotta let a gardner come in the gate every once in a while to prune the hedge. You know? You know what I mean? I'm a garden too, just," I break into spanish, "un poco cultivado."

Back to life, Back to reality

Not even thirty seconds after I step back onto Manhattan pavement, I am greeted in the typical New York fashion: "Hey- nice coat. How about you get on your knees and give me a blow job."

My coat really is fantastic.

Although he clearly has excellent taste, I decided to let that one go. Plenty of fish in the sea and all that.

Nice to be back. Really, though. It's very nice to be back.