A Day in the Life, Part V"Washington becomes Oregon"

There's something altogether humbling about turning the page on a calendar.

I did that today for my home and work calendars (all five of them), amazed to realize the summer is nearly gone.

Next will come autumn, and then winter, and then spring, and then summer.

You know the story -- it neither begins nor ends, it just... keeps going. Sometimes considerably faster than we like; and some days slower than we ever thought possible.


But enough of that; you're probably wondering why one person would need so many calendars, in which case I feel compelled to say the quantity has more to do with an obsession with art, rather than an obsession with time.

Though it is most certainly both.


Every time I turn one of those pages, I'm as eager to see the next month's artwork as I am disturbed to see the previous one pass.

And I cannot help but think, too, how ironic it is that days drag on whereas years pass in a proverbial blink.


A marker of a life wasted, methinks. A failure to enjoy the moment and the desperation that comes when you realize months upon months are full of wasted days.

So stop wasting them.

I am reminded, too, of a recent communique from a friend, asking who the real me is -- the words and pictures he knows from this fiber optic anomaly, or the girl with an off-color sense of humor who takes pride in her life's misadventures (not the least of which involved getting lost in the hills of New England).

I've been thinking about that question, and now -- days later -- my calculated response is the same as my immediate:

I am both.

Look at it this way: we've all heard the tragic tales of our favorite comedians. These people who -- on stage -- made us laugh so hard we cried, though their personal histories were often of a much darker ilk.

I won't at all profess to contain that level of tragedy or propensity for fame -- because I don't -- but the comparison remains the same:

I'm the reverse, in a way.

Roughly half of the people who read me have never met me. And so, all they know is this... melodramatic voice.

Though in person, I'm full of jokes, terrible puns, and stories of woe that nearly always have a humorous spin.

I'm the girl who cackles with glee when she realizes a simple word has been transformed either by time


Or some like-minded imp.


The girl who thinks this street name -- in hippie city, USA (i.e. Eugene, OR) -- is too fitting to be an accident.



The girl who mispronounces a name she's known all her life when it's out of context, and realizes just how unfortunate (that is to say: humorous) it really is.



And so on and so on, for days upon days.


But you know what I most liked about Eugene? This statue, which seemed more alive to me than most of the people I pass on any given day.



It's the first little boy that most stood out to me. Because for all of my love of literature, and movies, and plays... I understand and appreciate his desire to turn away from the speaker.

It's not so much that he's adverse to fiction.

(In fact, I imagine the converse to be true.)



But that he's immersed in life.

A Day in the Life, Part IV"The Northwest Passage"

I don't often talk about my dreams — neither my aspirations for the future nor what happens whenever I close my eyes.


But last night, well... last night I came face-to-face with the very beast that's made it nearly impossible to write, or speak.


You see, the follow-up to my most recent apartment fiasco is that my landlady now turns the cold water off at night, long before I generally go to sleep.

That means no tooth brushing, no face washing, no showering and — last but not least — no toilet flushing.

And it was the final in that list that I attempted to do around 10 p.m. last night, only to realize my water was already off for the day.

[Yes, I realize what she's doing is very likely illegal — but I have almost a year left on my lease and moving is very time consuming and expensive].

I was so... frustrated... that I couldn't fathom any way to spend the remainder of my evening, except to sleep. I had no words for anyone.


No thoughts.


Just a simple tinge of anger and frustration, welling in the pit of my stomach.


My mind was a jumble of sounds and images, all of them indiscernible. And even as I crawled into bed, I knew sleep would not come fast enough.



How could it, with my pulse racing as it was?


But when it did — when finally the last drops of daylight faded from my eyes — I shouted in my sleep the very thing I'd been meaning to say.


My family was visiting. My sister and my oldest nephew were in my living room watching cartoons when I realized something was awry. I looked up and saw bubbles forming across my ceiling, spreading with pox-like rapidity down the hall and into the living room.

I grabbed my nephew and shouted for my sister to follow, as hole after hole burst through my ceiling and water spewed forth, ruining most (if not all) of my possessions (which are almost entirely sentimental in value).

I called my landlady to report the incident, and lost my temper for the first time — lamenting the photos and books and letters that lay in ruins.

"I just want things to be right — I want back everything that I've lost!" I shouted into the phone. "Life isn't meant to be so complicated!"

And I continued.

I'm tired of all of this.

[There was an exclamation point in my voice when I yelled this but now — in the world of conscious thought — a period and a pregnant pause will suffice.]

And that, as they say, is the rub.


I'm struggling to speak and write because everything is wrong, or even...

Out of place.



And I've come to realize that nothing I say or do will help to restore order.


What I see in this world — what I feel — is so often at odds with what I experience. It's at odds with every newspaper headline and every rush hour traffic jam.



And this streak of bad luck — if you can call it that — isn't a streak at all.


This isn't a phase.



This has been my life, and for as long as I can recollect.


So when does it stop? When do things get better? When do I stop being a doormat upon which other people shake their muddy shoes?


Or for that matter: when does writing about such things cease to suffice as a means of catharsis?


It stops when I stop.


All of it.


And that, I suppose, is what I fear.



That I'm stopping. That I'm giving up.


That for all of these traveled miles, for all of these experiences — however beautiful —



I have forgotten myself along the way.


I worry, then, that there is nothing left to regain.


(And so: no reason to try.)


And yet, even still,


I persist.

A Day in the Life, Part III"I Da Ho, U Da Ho"

Sometimes you can drive across an entire state and not see much of it.


All it takes is a mixture of persistent storm clouds


Extreme fatigue


And a confused GPS unit that keeps telling you to abandon the highway at every possible exit.



But even under the worst of conditions, a little beauty is bound to shine through.



And everywhere in-between, you amuse yourself with unusual signs you pass along the way.


From the juvenile


And the unintended racism



To the fallen.



Before you know it, you're 380 miles from where you started, and you realize you'd had GPS set to "pedestrian" — and not "automobile" — all the while.