Nudged by North Carolina

It ended with The Fair. Or maybe started... Eyes opened to only half-slits, I narrowly slithered my way through the swarms of fair folks, requesting only two things from my companions- Funnel Cake and the Ferris Wheel. I must have looked as fucked up as felt- mouth wide like a child lost in wonderment. I slowly regained my composure while trying not to lose my mood. Giddy, drunk and surrounded; for once I was too distracted to be judgmental, but that could have been the pills and the bourbon. Or maybe it was slipping into the familiar warm feeling of a sense of belonging (almost overwhelmed by a strange tickling desire). Home. I felt like I was home. But I think that welcoming had long settled before I set foot among the freaks.

If I hadn't loosened up by the time Monday rolled around and the idea of going to The Fair was first presented, then that day made it all possible. But trust me, I was loose. Saturday morning landed me in cool and crisp North Carolina air. Sunlight splashing leaves with their last chance of green, I already knew every event all together would be delicious and inviting. Gelato 'round the campus, crisscrossing around town to bargain shop, a surprise pumpkin purchase, clamoring to catch up over a still-hot brunch at an ever-increasingly cold bench table, falling asleep reading, smoking weed to laugh at nothing and everything. Nothing could be more splendid than the people I love bringing it all back home.

So naturally, getting up with the boys on Monday morning was perfect. Not even noon yet and we were already high as a kite and headed to the neighborhood park. Mind you, plotting an out-of-town visit on somebody else's day off can be tough (much less adding another pal with an unexpected day-off), but this execution could be in the books. Once at the park, the boys played tennis and I flirted nearby. God how I missed the company of men! After doing a little yoga and pretending to jumping rope, I walked over to the baseball diamonds to investigate. By then the mowers had arrived and the grass and dried leaves were flaking dust everywhere. The mower by the Little League field and I exchanged obligatory waves. We exchanged admirations as well, he for my tight red pants, I for his sunglasses. It had become pretty bright out, and my eyes were naked to it. I didn't mind though, either the brightness of the sun, or his staring through the tinted lenses.

I watched him aimlessly for a minute as I made my way to the closest base- Third- and smirked at my stupid thought, whens the last time I've gone to Third Base with a man? Standing on the plate I decided it would be better luck to walk toward Home than Second (to increase my chances of figuratively getting back on the bases again) so I did. Suddenly it seemed I was upon the little caged cut out Home. My right black Chuck touched the plate far faster than I ever remember as a kid. Surely I just imagined it being that short, or maybe I was still stoned. I peered back at the boys and decided to continue on to First Base to double check my distance. Same results. Short. Unsatisfied with the results, I ran to Second. And then to Third. I rounded the base and trotted into Home, again planting my feet firmly on the dusty plate. Hmm.

Some things in life, I guess, seem a lot farther away when we're kids. I remember running my ass off to get to any base possible when I played softball- especially Home. Silly permed curls flapping from under my helmet, god how embarrassing. Now its just a short little walk through a big dusty field.

I stood for a moment and sighed. Then, after my seeming existential moment on the field, I stumbled back to the boys and we decided to go shopping for more existential moments, this time in the shape of words, not plates (i.e. the best damn used bookstore in Raleigh). More casual flirting ensued, this time amongst a dust of a different kind, old books and narrow aisles. There's nothing sexier than thumbing through text with a man you find attractive. Well, unless you're in bed together and one of those books hits the floor in a startling slap due to the decision to forgo reading.

This is where I should have known things would only get freakier. And we haven't even gotten to The Fair. Never fantasize about your best friend's best friend. Even if you know they delight in it too, because no matter what, it will always be a fantasy.

Anyway, so we leave the two dusty worlds and move on to lighter places of cups of coffee and afternoon movies, cocktails and clouds of smoke. We all decide The Fair is definitely on the list as it will cover dinner and the night's entertainment. The question of do you like pills comes up... pfft, of course... and sooner than later we've taken a muscle relaxer and had another stiff drink or two and are on the way to The fucking NC State Fair. Fabulous.

It is just as I imagine it would be. Return to my previous statement, by now I must look so fucked up that even the freaks are in hiding. A hot dog is in due order, but first the virgin ride, as the most important rule of The Fair is no puking. We buy our tickets and hop on some rickety monstrosity that immediately takes one soldier down. He is nauseated and not interested in riding anymore. He simply wants to smoke cigarettes and watch, maybe eat something and settle his stomach. So, we all grab a dog post-hast, and sit a spell, determining that there's no turning back- the flirt and I are both really fucked up and now left to our riding as a duo. These tickets must be used.

Now, maybe it was the booze talking, or maybe the pills or hell all of it, but I looked around the gritty Fairgrounds, and the man next to me and felt all at once dirty and sexy. In fact, I never knew The Fair could be so sexy. We climbed on one tumbler after another, the biggest Ferris Wheel on the grounds, the one that slides side to side, the roller coaster, the tea cups, we rode them all... meanwhile peering down at our Dad-like companion below, waving happily as each minute passed and his own tumbling tummy settled. On one screecher named the Wheel of Fire he realized that he forgot to hand over his glasses so in my sweetened state, I offered to tuck them in my bra for safe keeping. He of course excepted, and for the duration of our time clicked into medal chairs gliding through the chilly North Carolina air, I could feel the warmth of his face pressed on my chest.

We all walked away from the Wheel of Fire, the last and most violent of the rides, me and the flirt tumbled like a dryer left on too long, now feeling as woozy as Dad. And so the three amigos stumbled toward home, sharing a Funnel Cake along the way. Best damn Funnel Cake ever.

That night the flirt and I slept together. Not in the Biblical sense- we didn't even kiss. But just as warmly as I offered to hold his glasses, he whispered into the darkness, turn your body so I can nudge up against you, then pulled me tight to him and curled me into his nook. I felt at once warm and at home and slept all night.

Nudge. The perfect word. I had been nudged. By the flirt, by a well-needed vacation, by North Carolina. But now I am haunted by my former state, by the feeling of home. I know leaving Asheville was right. But, the feeling I have when I think of it, of all of it, is something I have tucked into my locket for safe keeping. A new image for that locked space. His fingertips carefully cradling the black frames, and I, trading the same care (accompanied by a sly grin) to slide them safely into the lace of my bra. Every time I see a man's glasses, I think of the NC State Fair, of a small, tender temple safe against my breast, and his arm across my shoulder where it came to rest in the darkness of night upon being nudged.

Maybe North Carolina will stay a fantasy, too. Let's hope Home will not be, where ever I can nudge my way into that.

Borrowed Life.

Riding the train back from Philadelphia, cruising at alarmingly high speed, I think the conductor must be making up for lost time. It was just fifteen minutes behind, I read somewhere, but now, as the train darts down the track, shaking toward home, I wonder what we are in such a fucking hurry to get to. Maybe its just the way trains work these days, or maybe its me.

This year made its way like a bullet too, gliding along easily as if nothing could stop it from just getting the hell on over with. Something has always urged me to hurry, hurry, hurry on up. Move it or lose it, toots. A frame of mind some people I know cannot, and will not for that matter fathom. Refuse is too strong a word, but its not far off. Time flies when you're having fun, but I would say that's too strong a word too.

I always liked the phrase working on borrowed time, even though I was never sure if I was borrowing the time or working on finding it. Right now I’m working on finding the pieces of myself that I lost while racing around so damn much. Or maybe they aren’t lost as much as just sort of jumbled up and now don’t make any sense. Perhaps its not time I’ve borrowed, but something else. I do borrow a lot, look for things to trade. Not just these untouchable things, but really that's what this is all about.

I borrow patience, see. Maybe I tapped out my loan, as I seem to have so little so often. I had this idea for a story once about a man who runs a storage space rental company for sadness. His business went under because no one ever came to pick theirs up and he ran out of space. Maybe I need to find a place that is like that but stores other things like patience. Or time. Joy. Love.

Love. Borrowing love sounds like a bad idea. Really it just sounds sad. Like losing the ability to love and having to take out a loan for it might be the worst thing ever. Yet sometimes that feeling digs into my savings like I'm already borrowing love like I borrow time. Like I borrow love like a recommendation for a song- eat it up in every chord as if when I wake up the silence will be too deafening. As if when I wake and know he’s gone, the man who cupped me in his warm embrace left a space behind my back as cold and dark as the white tile of my bathroom floor. People always say white tiles a bad idea, it shows too much. Maybe I was already cold and dark; showed too much; not enough.

No arms can warm love on loan.

How do you even pay back a debt like that? It makes me tired to think about. I’m so tired I can’t even borrow sleep. Ironically, I sleep-walk through this morgaged time in my life, waiting for the purgatory I am in to end, until I can claim it as my own. The life of my own where the only storage space necessary will be in my back yard, and that borrowed time will be time well spent. Its easy to dream when you don't sleep because they are lucid and built on the lessons of your current mistakes and the fantasies of never repeating them. At least I don't have to borrow those, dreams that is; just slumber. Though the sleep part won't change, I can stick to the dreaming, and one day pay back my debts to get out of this interim of a borrowed life.

Pocket Heart.

Spring Fever came and went with a cool breeze, and Summer Fling reared its pretty little head with little more than the standard sunburn. Now here it is, Fall, and all I've got, all I suspect to see- unless something in me changes like the leaves soon will- is this set of light bruises where my skinny hips met his. Whether it was the weight of him on top of me hoping for more against my relentless foreplay-to-nowhere, or the weight of my disinterested mind seeking solace in dreams of someone else that pressed me into the mattress and actually left them, I'm not sure, but all the same another man left some impression on me.

I pitied him for embracing my disinterest. I know he sensed my mood shift like you can tell the first Fall temperature drop. He could feel my mind weave in and out, his heart searching for mine, even if just to engage me a little more in the moment and make me change my mind about getting a little bit more undressed.

Perhaps some people think that hearts are available if you just reach in the right pocket. But some pockets are sewn up, no matter how hard you try rip the stitching. He dug around a few times, but came up empty-handed. I suspected it wouldn't be worth it so just nodded my head "no" and watched his face fall like a little boy whose just knocked his ball into the neighbor's yard and would rather let them bring it back then go and get it to keep on playing. A little saddened by his defeat for a moment, I was relieved and tired of playing too.

Maybe I need a better pick-pocket. Depending on what I wear, sometimes those pockets are just hard to find.

Here kitty, kitty.

They say curiosity killed the cat... well I think that damn cat was just bored.

The So-Called Day of Rest

Sunday.

I feel funny about Sundays. Like the way you feel about a man you just don't trust, an ominous cloud in the distance, the too-quiet office, a Chinese place that serves hamburgers and Philly Cheese steaks. Somethings just not right. Some of my best days have been Sundays, and some of my worst. I forget a lot of things, really its terrible; but Sundays I just can't shake, like a fucking bad habit.

I used to spend Sundays with my ex - almost two years tangled up in the ritual of it all. Breakfast in and out of bed, NPR, showers together, conversations of futures, orange juice and coffee, music. Complete with a little afternoon delight and his isolating state of anxiety and inexplicable depression. Turns out he was just trying to figure out how to go back to his former life and didn't know how to break the news to me. I guess that can bring a perfectly good Sunday down for anyone.

So much time has passed since then; but even now I crave that ceremony in my Sunday; and yet want to bury it. I have new Sundays, new rites, but some where along my lazy day those hours spent with him rear up like the memory of a sin in church. Perhaps being a good Catholic girl has the same implications. I don't know what that means exactly as I have long attended tradition burials instead of Masses, but I continue to keep my spirituality undead (I suppose that implies that my faith is a vampire? Hmm.).

Every Sunday after church when I was a kid, we went to Nana and Granddaddy's for lunch to eat a big Southern meal prepared by Nana herself. Mac n' cheese, creamed corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, pot roast, jello pie. The cousins, all 17 of us now, played in the yard, built forts, hid fake money, learned how to win at cards. The adults talked about adult stuff until they got bored enough to teach us something cool. Just as we never lacked in sustenance, we never lacked in love, and every Sunday we surrounded ourselves in food and thanks for the many and plenty of our brood. Those Sundays are now reserved for birthdays and Holidays and infrequently occur on the actual day of rest. People pitch in and make a dish - each time cheapening the recipe with canned this or frozen that instead of fresh.

Much like the recipes, the family is changing too. People have died, are dying, live far away, somehow don't make it home again. Another Sunday ship sailed off the map. For the so-deemed day of rest I seem to find little of it.

Today, however, this Sunday, I do find comfort in knowing that I have a fridge packed with fresh okra, squash and tomatoes that I plan to cook tonight for my own Ex-Patriot Southern dinner. I find it in that I did not spend my Sunday with a man I don't trust. In that, there is not a single cloud in the sky while I sit on my porch writing this post. In that, I have an unidentified spirituality untied from built ritual that is mine and mine alone. In that, even though Sundays make me feel funny, they make me feel fine.

Welcome to the Oven

Sylvia Plath would be disappointed, there's no gas in this oven. Its just pure, hot summer, baby. I mean, we ain't in Austin, but the Swamp's getting to people; making 'em cranky. I met a girl the other night who wouldn't shake my hand for a proper introduction because she was too sweaty. Come on now, I understand fore-going a hug goodbye, but damn, no handshake? We are all sweaty. We are all glistening, dehydrated, shade-seeking, ice cream-craving, arm pit-stained, hair-stuck-to-your-forehead-in-the-most-unattractive-way, swampy complainers. But damn, when you meet someone new, you shake hands. Make it official, man.

I don't think she was Southern (I say with an Elvis lip-curl scowl). I'm just sayin'.

My trip to Austin felt like I got dropped off in the middle of the flames of a brick oven, and my fingertips exchanged pleasantries with more palms than I can recall. Not that Texas is necessarily the South, but its something all its own and I liked the part of it I got to see. And that was June. Its now August, and hello...

Other things I find hot as hell: an August wedding in Tennessee, even at 7pm; booking it down the sidewalk on Park Street, late to an appointment because I jumped on the metro in a hurry- the wrong damn way; having to blow dry my hair so I don't look like a mushroom; Shia LeBeouf... mmmmm; making out in the pool to get hot (and keep cool).

Speaking of keeping cool. That's a good one, too. like the AC blasting all the time; listening to music when I walk down the street and hearing a song that makes me walk a little taller; a great haircut; an idea brewing; even on like reaching in the fridge to grab jalepanos as the last spicy topping on Black Bean Soup, just before discovering that your roommate has eaten the last of them. Oh wait- not cool.

"Live and Let Die" by Guns n' Roses

I sit, well I lay really, listening to bands I love cover songs that I love from other bands that I love. I feel at once warm by the compilation and yet betrayed by the break in pacts and packs of creativity. I am haunted by these covers, falling into my past, unsure if I want to be tucked in.

Smelling these crisp clean Spring sheets reminds me of Sunday mornings - sleeping late, twenty pounds ago, eating cheese grits, bacon and scrambled eggs. These voices seeping out into the night remind me of your stupid self. You're not unlike a cover song, charming yet dis-alarming.

I guess being in the covers of the past while in your favorite present isn't all that bad. I do love Guns n' Roses version of "Knockin' on Heavens Door" and "Sympathy for the Devil" - seriously. I might as well love my past and tuck it under the covers to go to sleep with my warm toes.