And/or

This is what I'm confessing today to the Great Google Infomanager, oh keeper of all secrets, facts, Wiki-facts, possessor of most of the world's porn collection and lots and lots of very wrong information and bad website design — to you, willingly I share my boring revelations that are none too flattering to myself:

I'm not the one having a birthday Saturday, but I am having a wedding anniversary Monday and an association of guilt with both occasions, as well as a third tier of even older memories associated with the same date-frame.*

Besides, it is the season of storms in this region; the day after we got married a number of tornadoes spurred my eastern guests back home. Perhaps our first in-house spring — it is now only our third — was when we lost roof parts and learned our inspector (and our savvy) were corrupted, and so I have reason to fear the merry, merry month of May. Is it not also Mary's month, in the Church? Flowers, insects, the coming of heat.

My mom is the one, for better or worse, who instilled in me a sense of overwrought awe at the power of nature. It is a good trait and has kept me from skydiving, mountain-climbing (not much, anyway, and counting fire-escape-climbing, not since I was under 23), deep-sea diving, driving recklessly, swimming in the ocean overall (though not dangerous rivers under irrational yet not quite illegal intoxication levels … again, not for a while now) — you get the point.

The one time I was actually only several blocks from a tornado that struck east campus in … you can do your own approximate math, yes? — I was living in a flimsy, foundation-less stick-made shingleville with thin metal door frames I could practically kick in. Yet, all was well. You can't count on much, at least in terms of predicting outcomes.

That brings me to my titled point. It is a starting place, actually; "Oh, great," you're thinking, "I just endured a half-dozen paragraphs and she's not even making a point yet." I always was more interested in introductions than completions, in 6-hour relationships than most that end up having to suffer the effects of distance, while time itself is not proportionately altered so as to keep old memories relevant, to keep memories from interfering with what is actually before one, with the events of merely and only the now.

Ah, she's been spending too much time reading choice-meat spinnings as Jean Baudrillard's no-it's-not-about-baby-formula simulations, representations, misrepresentations and simulacra.

It's windy out, and that troubles me. I'm sure you find it windy in here, too. No, but I mean that it is all relevant; Chang Rae Lee spoke about it, or at least was led to speak of it nearby the host at the library, of the faith in seeing written things, which are not always planned out to the letter by every writer, but which do come to their proper and full end. He mentioned that he thought everything one read or wrote became actually a memory itself, and it is impossible to unplant a seed (anyone's words).

So, earlier life seemed like a series of unlimited options.

The "or" of not being married is no longer my choice. The or of becoming some sort of scientist is also not within my realm; I have tested it. As for the former, it is a done-deal, neutral, for better or worse, and it's suiting me just fine. I mentioned to my friend recently that I despised being in love; I hated the illness, the gleeful anxiety that blocks all worries but of the other, blocks hunger and often, interferes with sleep. I used to get sick.

*the rest of you, perhaps are all innocent bystanders. remember when Jackie Childs, the Kosmo Kramer's lawyer, kept repeating that phrase at the New York-friends' trial … one of our topics about 24 hours ago during our last Art Now class was how 7-year-olds can't tell the difference between video games and reality … I swear, at least half of my classmates had children, and during the course, our teacher learned she was pregnant (second child); children-ness makes for an interesting slant during class discussions … so does racial mix — a fun classmate who reminds me of Diane K. in some ways declared, "So am I (Jewish), but we have to have our bacon," in response to another, one of the tallest men in the class, also-married and father of a 4-year-old, who was digging on the fried-pork sprinkles on the cream-cheese icing on the red velvet mini-cupcakes she had brought to class to share on last-class-not-really-learning-day and who felt compelled to announce "I'm Jewish."

April 10

Spring flower shot repeat.

You may know how I feel about this.

Summertime in the City: Preview (home for sale).

Trash container abuse.

Counting for parking challenged.

Back o'cherry contrast shake. (when housing market collapses).

Construction Dove, on the job.

Suspicious Chain.

Example of a reasonably-sized restaurant exhaust fan. ALL my desired needs!

Alley Violets.

Complementary Transit Stop.

Destination in Sight.

Apex / Vulcan "superburner." I'm too negligent to know what order to put their names.

Petition Man Rocks the Neon-Red Sweater.

Scalping is legal, apparently; you can even harass the disabled, who, we believe, would have planned ahead with tickets, don't you?

My camera seems racist. Fellow is homeless-like and wearing slippers outdoors. I saw some white, well-employed fellows doing that at You Say Tomato that Sunday. I called them on it. Holy gross America. "I am on Medicare, and I didn't vote for Obama." Conservative radio man would not concede (talked past me) that that entitlement was equally wasteful and/or effective and should be disparaged as much as the newer health care initiative.

She was with sign-man. See below.

Lost points with the hippie dentist b/c of profanity.

Bush lied: people died.

Did not know they made Velcro shoes any more. They do still kill abortion providers, though.

Call it! It's a sequential radio play!

Most comfortable bar stools ever. Plus, free food on Saturdays.

What happens when a girl misses the friends she meant to meet and ends up meeting an over-pseudoephedrined dentist and a younger and straight-edge journalist/ painter with a rescued chow-lab pup (that they let us bring in the bar! : ) PS, I pissed some people off, I know; and men who knew damned well they were not getting anything in return paid for drinks and a cab ride. I don't get it; honesty is a policy — does it work? Oh, and the "I'm retiring in 15 working days" bartender, she gave me a free drink herself. Is she not used to dollar tips?

She said she did it because I was nice. She's in the education business. "Italian by injection." I can only remember one of her son's professions right now.

Dialogue we met on (I began, after I saw the "cash only" sign taped up under the top shelf, which is really only the second one, the top's being occupied with a faded badger and cobra-mongoose motif):

"How much is the Bushmill's?"

"What's a Bushmill's?"

"It's a whiskey you have over there."

: )

It was $4 then and $5.50 later after the Jello-shot-pusher girl came on shift. Someone bought a number of the customers a shot made of something called 53 (or so, from Spain); one adds half-and-half to it and it looks like a tiny beer and tastes like vanilla ice cream. Good lord.

I am not the sharpest crayon in the box. But duller crayons are the ones that are used more (and by both those who do and don't have the biggest box alike, the one with the sharpener. Still, I had some of the most satisfying conversations that day that I've had in ages. You might know the value of that. There is more, but it waxes negative, reflecting poorly on the "art community," and it is of little entertainment value). Me and they are fairly severed. In that way, it was like being on vacation; you may collect addresses (and even use them once or twice, but that will be the end of it).

Above: Two out of three; dentist not found.

In the alley

It's where the nails can be found. It's where the college students' drunken babble echoes on Thursday nights.
Perpendicular to it in a driveway, clean neighbor is vacuuming out her car.

A little while ago, she was pulling the arm of a man, helping him up, from the alley.
He: Shirtless, tattooed, sunburnt, with bowed and poorly functioning legs.

Thank you, ma'am.
You bet.

He stooped over unsteadily five times to gather the pieces of something he dropped when he fell.
A case like a little space heater, but with wire pans with handles of some kind.

You know my eyes are bad.

To fall there, when there was someone around to help him … I suppose he might fall frequently.
Yesterday driving home down Troost from a gallery, we saw a person crossing the street whose legs were similar.
And last week while walking to work, I dialogued with a fellow with nearly the same limp.

I'm glad my legs work, even if they are inelegant and usually shod against all fashion.

The rest of my Friday

He was shorter than I

But on the upside (to those who follow race- /geo-politics) is a non-practicing Jew from New Jersey with a broadcast history and a future in print or education. Has the same first name as the artist whose show I came to visit as part of my job; he and he are friends and in the same graduate program in my faux profession. I did address the artist (my goal and whole point to being painfully out in the world and not acting like a snail) as often as possible. We did o.k., but he had fans/patrons who had questions, and it's up to another writer to get that copy in anyway.

You know, of course, that I do not have that J-degree, but I call them colleagues just the same. It may be why I stuck around for those 20 minutes at all.

Perhaps he was merely charmed by how I stage-whispered "I went to MU" to his Jayhawk-transplant ear (from a distance of 2.5 feet). I had already done the same with a woman, the one running the gallery space, who was flattering in saying to me, "I thought you were older." Oh, for the candid lovely things people say, especially when you've had a 2+-year e-relationship and find them amazingly younger in years than you expected them to be, based on their e-content, too. Yay for the smart and young and the smart who merely look young!

My telling her, "I'm almost 36," was not at all painful. I balance all that with frank admissions of having social anxiety, of being hand-flighty, of slipping in and out of serious "this is my business question" mode.

I tried to stay on task with this fellow … who, come to think of it, was all very forward in his method. It could have just as well been merely the only way he knew to talk to women at all. I was pretty much going on that assumption, until the e-mail came tonight.

It was charming, and I told him so, to receive a veiled and diplomatic invitation to see one another again — he'd even drive the hour out to my "neck of the woods" to grab a bite, or, "perhaps a drink." See? — how diplomatic!

Ah, while he could not fail to notice my giant label-free repurposed Gatorade bottle of tap water, he did, admittedly, fail to judge which hand (he said he looked for it) my ring was on. Another sign of youth and/or my (ha!) powers of distraction / failure to have learned to act my age and position.

I replied within e-minutes, with text you won't see until I am dead and have a biography out (another ha! is in order), indicating in the first paragraph a religious joke (5th day of Passover … as much enthusiasm as I and my husband spent Easter with his parents, etc.) — and he replied back with a decent and lighthearted apology … to which I sent a "seriously, keep us in mind re: student writers who have an art-bent" … to which I seriously never expect to see/hear another reply.

Since most of the males who express interest in me fall into the "weird man driving down the street looking out of the non-windshield and risking hitting potholes or dogs or whores," or "penniless immigrant who culturally misinterpreted her eye-contact or smile," or — since I'm white I can say this — equally penniless white trash-esques … this is a small triumph.

It's my first confirmed and actuated, "A younger man liked me!" that I've ever had. Cougar-T (who has three known hairs that happen to be white and are destroyed often) is TMI-ing it your way.

I shall not be satisfied until someone I care about (care, in the 1870s sense) looks back at me, male or female., but that's all pretend, not necessary and not going to happen — because I'm decreasingly paying attention.

I still maintain a terribly non-Buddhist (disappointed) vanity, but I have a devoted spouse who worships the ground I complain on; and while marriage, as I have told some of you personally, is no better or worse than being alone, I would not trade this or change it or end it for the world.

And not just because I think the world is stupid.

It's the most marvelous thing to have someone who has your back no matter what and vice-versa. Young is passing. New is nothing. Love is something. Commitment is everything.

I like it.

Fool's day

Heard the vroom, heard the siren, heard the cops turn off the siren, heard the helicopter, heard the vroom, hear the helicopter, heard the vroom, hear the helicopter.

Choose a winner.

Saw a robin couple when I went to the yard today at 3:40 p.m., when it was nearly 80 degrees and there was no shade. The sun blared right into the west-facing windshield at 7 p.m. Spring, fall, they have their downfalls, but at least in spring there are robins, wide-mouthed and singing.

Hear the helicopter.