Yowza.

I love flirting.  I do.  I love the stolen glances, the “accidental” arm grazing, the slightly exaggerated laughter, the deliberate “casual” hand touching, the involuntary grinning — all of it.  I love realizing, “Wait a second, this guy’s into me.”  I love realizing, “This is my cue to laugh at his joke.”  I love realizing, “That was bold of him.  Now it’s my turn.”

It’s great.

Good flirting is like a game of catch.  It’s like a dance.  It’s like jazz.  It’s give and take.  It’s a free-flowing, yet calculated volley between, “Hey, look at me,” and, “Well well well, LOOK at YOU.”

Good flirting is never obnoxious.  If things are going well, there’s no need for any, “I can bench 335″ or, “I hate wearing panties.”  Good flirting is all about subtlety.  You can say mundane things like, “I still haven’t deleted my Myspace” or, “We need a new Joe Strummer album now more than ever,” because as long as you and the other person are on the same page, and the “accidental” arm grazing and deliberate “casual” hand touching remains constant, there’s no need to mention bench pressing and panties.  It’s about wit and word play.  Laughing and listening.  No cheap stuff.  No sex stuff.  Just fun.

Good flirting.  Yeah.

::Sigh::

That being said, being flirted with can also really, really suck.  In fact, in many situations, I HATE flirting.  I hate being looked at, I hate being smiled at, and Dear Lord, I hate being touched.  Ew ew ew ew EW.  It’s all so gross.

Gross flirting is like a game of catch where one of the participants has no arms.  It’s like a dance where one of the dancers is doing The Worm naked.  It’s like Kenny G.  There is no give and take.  Instead, one person is doing all the talking while the other person is silently wishing she were dead.  

I’m not talking about being flirted with by someone who is perfectly nice, yet unattractive (which is entirely subjective).  I’m talking about being flirted with by someone who is so downright creepy, the very sight of him hurts your skin.  You feel repulsed.  You feel nervous.  You curse yourself for putting on makeup that morning and for wearing a tank top that reveals the classiest amount of casual cleavage.

Yes, this happened to me today.  I was flirted with.  Hit on.  Or, as the kids are saying, “creeped on.“

I met him today at a testing facility.  We were there to participate in a soda taste test.  I’m broke, and dammit, I needed the $25 that was being offered.  Christmas is right around the corner, after all.

Testing facilities are fascinating.  The people who show up to participate in taste tests are fascinating.  They all look beat up and tired.  They all have tattoos and funny hats.  They get confused when they’re told to “Sign your name here, please,” and they seem to love blocking doorways with their awkward, spandex-clad bodies.

After I signed in at the front desk, I took my pre-taste-test questionnaire and stood against a wall.  The door opened, and in walked two of the trashiest dudes I’ve ever seen in my life.  They stunk up the lobby with an odor that can only be described as a mixture of pot and ass.  One of them was portly with curly pink hair, wearing a faded black t-shirt and torn jeans.  He looked like Guy Fieri if Guy Fieri were a burnout from the valley.  The other looked like Matthew Lillard’s meth-addict brother.  I didn’t really catch what he was wearing, because I made sure not to look in his direction.  Why?  As soon as he walked in the room, he looked right and me and said, rather loudly, “YOWZA.”

“YOWZA”? 

I pretended I hadn’t heard him.  I looked at my questionnaire.  I played with my clipboard.  I studied my cheap ballpoint pen as if it were the most fascinating object I’d ever seen.  The whole time, I could see from the corner of my eye that the YOWZA dude was staring at me.  Rudely staring.

He walked up to me.  My stomach turned.

“What do we do with this paperwork after we’re done?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, in the most curt tone possible.  I didn’t even look at him.  I was still transfixed by my pen.

“Is this your first time doing one of these tests?” he asked.

“No.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert?”

“I hope not.”

I looked at him.  Oh GOD.  Oh SHIT.  YOWZA!  That man was HORRIFYING.  I couldn’t tell how old he was because his face was messed up from years of Lord Only Knows.  He had short, curly hair that was frighteningly pube-like.  His eyes were glazed over with a filmy funk.  He had a smile like a rapist hamster.

He smiled some more and laughed.  I looked away.

“I’m Michael,” he said, and he held out his hand.

“I’m Stephanie,” I said.

As soon as I shook his hand, I couldn’t wait to go home and wash it.  Great flirting?  I think not.

“It’s nice to meet you, Stephanie,” he said.  “Do you live in this lovely town?”

“Yeah,” I said, still not looking at him.

“What do you do?” he asked.

In the split second it took me to answer, I considered telling him the truth.  Then I figured it would be too painful to try to explain to him what kind of company I work for.  Plus I didn’t want to engage him.  I thought that maybe if I told him I was a lawyer he would back off, but then I realized that lawyers don’t have to participate in taste tests for $25 checks.

I took a breath.

“Not much.”

He laughed.

“Not much, huh?”

“Yeah.”

I needed an excuse to walk away, so I decided that it looked perfectly natural for me to walk to the front desk to turn in my questionnaire.

“You filled this out in pen,” said the woman behind the desk.

“…Was that wrong?” I asked.

“Yes.  It needs to be done in pencil.”

A voice behind me said, “Come on, Stephanie!”

Michael “Meth Head” Lillard was standing behind me.  He had followed me.

I grabbed a new questionnaire and scurried back to my wall.  No one followed me, thank Goodness.

I understand that I assumed a lot about Michael.  I assumed that the lines in his face were the result of fast-living instead of age.  I assumed he was a loser.  I assumed he was a creep.  Was that fair?  After all, I was there for the $25, too.  Does that mean I looked as weird to everyone as they all looked to me?

The fact is, if it hadn’t been for the “YOWZA” and the excessive staring, I would have found his overture annoying as opposed to vile.

I may be $25 richer, but I’m also a bit pissed off.  Great flirting.  Where the Hell is it?  I know that it probably isn’t anywhere to be found at a testing center, but come on.  Starbucks?  Some bar?  Some nightclub?  Dear Lord, I’d rather encounter a creep at a testing center than a nightclub — dancing creepers are worst.  I only like dancing if it’s, you know.  Like jazz.

::Sigh::

COLLEGE POEMS V

I opened up one of my college notebooks to a random page.  There’s no date written on it, but a few pages beforehand I have the date March 6, 2007.  Scrawled in purple pen and separated by squiggly lines are the following musings:

(QUICK NOTE! DUE TO THE VOLUME OF COMMENTS REGARDING HOW BEAUTIFUL THE POEM ABOUT “VIENNA” IS — I DID NOT WRITE THAT.  IT’S FROM A POEM BY FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA THAT WAS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY LEONARD COHEN.  I EXPLAIN THIS AT THE END OF THE PIECE, BUT HERE IT IS AT THE BEGINNING NOW, TOO, JUST IN CASE.  WHY DID I SCRIBBLE IT IN MY JOURNAL?  BECAUSE I LOVED IT.  STILL DO.)

“I could still make it to class

But it’s such a fucking

beautiful day.”

————————————-

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

————————————-

“The song they’re playing right now

Is absolutely beautiful.

I can’t even understand

What the singer’s saying

but his voice is still great

And I love that I can hear

someone playing the triangle –

Or are they chimes?

Maybe it’s some indie band

that someone put on a CD

titled “Tuesday Afternoon Mix.”

If that’s the case, I would love to shake that person’s hand.”

———————————————–

“I don’t think too many people

look attractive in shorts.

I myself haven’t worn shorts

in public in at least five years.

I don’t have long, skinny, supermodel legs

and I don’t pretend I do

So I save people the terror

and always wear jeans.”

————————————–

“Now in Vienna

there’s 10 pretty women

There’s a shoulder

Where death comes to cry

There’s a lobby with 1200 windows

There’s a tree where the doves

go to die.”

—————————————

“I love you like

sitting outside at sidewalk cafes

watching people stroll by

while I sip at a mug

of coffee and scribble in my

notcebook.

I’m wearing sunglasses that

reflect back an image of

you smiling and then closing your

eyes to breathe

Just for a second.”

—————————————–

1.) I wonder what I was doing in that moment that was too good to give up for the sake of going to class.  I suspect I was sitting at The Kresge Cafe, because I know that’s where I was when I wrote the ditty about the “Tuesday Afternoon Mix.”  Was I somewhere else when I wrote the first blurb?  Was I outside, or was I just content?  Finally…did I end up going to class?

2.) “I don’t know what I’m doing.”  Whoa there.  What was I talking about?  Whoa there.  Don’t even get me started on that one.

3.) How funny that I just posted the final draft of this one.  It’s interesting for me to look at this draft.  I guess I didn’t change too much of it, but I still think the changes I made were the right ones.  Go Steff.

4.) Ha.  Oh, wow.  I still haven’t worn shorts in public.  I wonder why I felt the need to write this down.  I probably saw someone wearing shorts and felt inclined to write about…shorts.

5.) No, I’m not secretly a brilliant poet who’s been hiding her true capability from the world.  This is a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca that was translated into English and made into a song by Leonard Cohen.  This song was my JAM when I was 20.  My JAM.  I’m still every bit as hopelessly romantic now as I was then.  ::Sigh::  Only question: “12oo windows”?  It’s “900 windows.”  I mean, “TWELVE” doesn’t even SOUND like “NINE.”  If I had written “FIVE HUNDRED” I would have understood, as “NINE” and “FIVE” sound similar…but “TWELVE”?  Pretty dorky, Steff.

6.) I blame my love for Jack Kerouac and Ani Difranco.

Dear God, was I being serious about all of this?  Or was I just having fun?

Why am I evening worrying about it?

Aren’t I doing this for fun?

Neutral Milk Tradition.

On Thanksgiving, when I was 17, my big brother changed my life when he handed me a brand new copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.  At the time, I only listened to bands who had reached the height of their popularity in the late 1960′s or early [to mid -] 1970′s.  My favorite movie was The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus.  I still felt buzzed from the David Bowie concert I had seen months earlier.  I had written my 11th grade research paper on the cultural influence of Punk Rock, for which I received — and didn’t care that I received! — a good ol’ mediocre 75%.  Why, dear God, did my brother hand me a copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea?  All he said was, “I think you’ll like it.”

I’m positive the only reason I listened to the album was because my big brother told me to.  We weren’t little kids anymore, but that didn’t matter; handing me that album incited the same sense of urgency and fear I felt when I was seven-years-old and he handed me a copy of Soundgarden’s Superunknown.  I was given a task, and if I followed through that would mean I was Cool.  I took my copy of Raw Power out of my CD player, and replaced it with the CD my brother had just given me.  What I heard was all at once everything I loved about my classic stuff, as well as unlike anything I’d ever heard before.  It was dark in a Jim Morrison way, but not at all Bohemian.  Could Bob Dylan have written this?  Leonard Cohen?  Patti Smith?  Maybe, yeah, in another world…but that’s not how things panned out, was it?

Somehow, the rest of my family got turned on to that album.  Perhaps it was because my big brother also gave a copy to my little brother — or was it me who did that? — and then it was eventually played for my parents.  Regardless of the real explanation, it eventually got to the point where all five of us were singing, “What a beautiful face I have found in this place…”.

(My family’s love for this song gives my love for this cover a bit of extra umph).

A few weeks later, when my big brother was home for Christmas, he handed me a copy of On Avery Island.  Similar to the Aeroplane phenomenon, the remaining family members fell in love.  I distinctly remember listening to “3 Peaches” as a family on our way back home from a car trip somewhere.  Was it Vegas?  How…appropriate?

As I became a bigger fan, I learned that the band was formed in the 1990′s and that the lead singer’s name was Jeff Mangum.  When I learned about the band’s indefinite hiatus, I really, truly felt sad.  Bowie Buzz be damned, I wanted to hear “Oh Comely” live!

My prayers were answered, in a way, a year later.  I was a freshman in college, and my mom came to Santa Cruz to drive me home for Thanksgiving.  To keep us entertained during the six-hour-long trip, she brought a copy of Live at Jittery Joe’s.  She was especially excited for me to hear, “I Love How You Love Me” because it was “nothing like the original version!”  She also loved how the crying baby in the background punctuated Mangum’s performance.  “Isn’t it just so good and weird?” she said.

As a result of all this, Thanksgiving makes me think of Neutral Milk Hotel.  When Halloween is over and it finally starts to get a little bit cold (here in Southern California, that is) and people start thinking about ordering turkeys and learning how the Hell to make cranberry sauce, all I can think about is trumpets and Anne Frank.  Every morning, afternoon and night, regardless of where I am, I am either listening to, or thinking about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

***

On Thursday night, after all of our esteemed guests had left the building, the five of us sat down in the family room to decompress and digest.  I was on the couch between my dad and my big brother.  My Big Brother.  My Big Brother who wanted me to stop listening to my Ren & Stimpy CD and start listening to grunge.  My Big Brother who changed my life when he handed me a brand new copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea…

I turned to him and said, “Thanksgiving makes me think of Neutral Milk Hotel.”  “Oh yeah?” he said.  I then told him that he had given me that album on Thanksgiving years before, and what an impression that album had made on me.  He said, “I loved that band so much in college and I was so upset that I would never be able to see them live.  I once had a dream I did.  It was very…emotional.” As someone who knows all about emotional concerts and emotional dreams, I felt very close to My Big Brother in that moment.  “Brother see, we are one in the same…”.

My dad and I mentioned that Jeff Mangum played at Occupy Wall Street.  “No way!” My Big Brother said.  “He did a show?”  He wanted to know when, where, and how we knew.  We explained that we had seen a segment on Democracy Now! where Amy Goodman talked about Occupy, and that during the segment she showed a few seconds of Jeff Mangum singing “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” for a crowd of people.  This really blew My Big Brother’s mind.  He didn’t seem to believe what we were telling him.  “I’m sure it’s on YouTube,” I said.

My Big Brother found a forty minute and fifty-nine-second long video of Jeff Mangum’s Occupy Wall Street set, and, as a family, we listened to all of it.  We sang along to every song: “Holland 1945,” “Song Against Sex,” “Two Headed Boy Part 2,” “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “King of Carrot Flowers Part 1,” and “Oh Comely.”  During “Two Headed Boy Part 2,” when all of us took a break from singing to just listen, my younger brother — who is awesome — couldn’t help but repeat after Jeff Mangum when he sang, “God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.”  “Wow,” my little brother said.  “God is a PLACE.”  At the risk of sounding like a sentimental nut, I have to agree; and maybe, just maybe, it’s a place I’ve been to.  All I know is that I spent the night of Thanksgiving sitting on my couch singing about “how strange it is to be anything at all” with the two people who brought me into this world and the two people who I will always be inextricably linked to.  Does it get much better?  You tell me.

It is now the evening of Sunday, November 27th.  Thanksgiving of 2011 has come and gone.  While I’ve had a great time eating mashed potatoes and pie and stuffing for the last three days (curse you, delicious leftovers!), I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I plan on ingesting some green vegetables and going to the gym.  The food binge may have reached its end, but the feeling of thankfulness will continue.  For as long as I have my Neutral Milk Hotel CDs, what ISN’T there to be thankful for?

Thanks mom and dad, for the obvious.  Thanks, little brother, for the awesomeness.  Thanks, Big Brother for more than you know…

And thanks, YouTube, for the sweet covers.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Leonard Cohen.

Turkey Day.

I made a promise to myself a week ago that I would do something kind of crazy tonight.  In the grand scheme of things, this “something” is not really that crazy, but it’s still crazy enough to make me feel like my stomach is made of tiny butterflies.  There’s a lot of nail-biting going on over here right now.

I may not keep my promise; however, despite the darkness, the night is young.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to go for a run soon, but then I think about how cold it is outside, and how cold it was when I took a walk one night this time last year.  A year ago today, actually.  The night my grandmother died.  A year ago.  Today.

My grandparents haven’t had the greatest timing when it comes to the whole dying thing.  In 2006 my grandfather had his heart attack right before Christmas, and in 2008 my Papou had his heart attack right before my father’s birthday.  I, like my mother, assumed my grandma would never die, but she did — last year.  Three days before Thanksgiving.

Maybe she wanted to make sure no one came over and bothered her.

I admit, I got a good chuckle out of writing that last sentence.  It was a little twisted, a little shocking, and a little harsh.  Just like Her.

Just like Her.

When I was a kid, that was all I wanted to be — Just like Her.  I’m not really sure why.  Maybe because she said funny things, like “Goddammit.”  Or because she made really good grilled cheese sandwiches and always had soda in her house.  Or because she used to let me play with shaving cream.

Now that I’m older, I can’t help but notice how many ways I already am just like her.  Whenever I say or think the words, “To Hell with ‘em,” I smile and think of grandma.  Whenever I make damn sure to have the last word, I smile and think of grandma.  Whenever I’m faced with situations that range from somewhat scary to utterly terrifying, I take a deep breath and tell myself, “Think of grandma.”

This act is something I like to call harnessing my Inner Polack.  As someone who is 1/4 Polish, all thanks to grandma, I’m allowed to say that.

I think my height is also “thanks to grandma.”  So’s my foul mouth.  So’s my love of donuts.

Good Lord, she was always the first person to tell me when I “looked great” or when I “looked fat.”  She was also the only person in the world who would offer me meatball sandwiches after I told her I just had lunch.  “You can do it just this one day,” she’d insist.

Dear God, it was no use telling her what was what — she invented What Was What.

I’m giggling right now as I remember Classic Grandma Moments.  I remember sitting on a bench with her at a shopping mall in Downey.  I must have been about four-years-old.  A woman wearing a gigantic back pack walked by us — she had a funny walk — and a bottle of lotion fell out of her back pack.  When my grandma told her she had dropped something, the woman didn’t understand.  My grandma eventually communicated to the woman what had happened, and after the woman picked up the bottle and walked away, I asked my grandma why the woman walked so funny.

“Well…” said my grandma, in her Rhode Island accent, “she’s re-tahted.”

I didn’t ask her what it meant.  I just assumed that everyone who walked funny was re-tahted.

A few years ago, after my grandfather had died and my grandma was practically bed-ridden, my younger brother, Michael, and I went to her condo to say “Happy Thanksgiving.”  At that point, visiting grandma was pretty hit or miss — I either came out of her condo smiling or sobbing.  This time, I’m pleased to report, was somewhat upbeat.  The three of us had a good little visit, and somehow the subject of Women vs. Men came up.

Michael said, “You can’t trust women.  They’re devious.”

My grandma paused, took a breath, smiled, nodded her head, and said, “Yup.”

Michael and I laughed, and then grandma looked Michael right in the eye and said, “Ya think ya smaht, but ya not as smaht as a woman.”

Years ago — and I mean many, many years — I thought that the day my grandma died would be the worst day of my life.  I knew it was inevitable, but I couldn’t help it — the very idea of it was enough to make me tear up.

Then my grandfather died and my grandma had a bad fall and everything changed.  My mother worked herself sick trying to do the right thing and grandma just kept getting older.   I was away at college and phone calls from home became depressing.  Every time I was in town, the phrase “let’s go visit grandma” inspired nothing but pain in my heart.   The days of grilled cheese sandwiches and shaving cream were over.

Last year, I was standing at the stove stirring a pot of homemade vegetable soup when the phone rang.  My mom answered it, and she just said, “Yes, I’ll be right over.”  It was my grandma’s caretaker saying there was something wrong.  This had happened hundreds of times before.  My mom got in the car, and I kept stirring my soup.

Fifteen minutes later I sat down at the kitchen counter with a steaming bowl of my homemade vegetable soup.  I heard the garage door open.  My mom came in, and she told me that my grandma had choked.

“Grandma didn’t make it,” she said.

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.  After four years of going to visit my grandma One Last Time, she was finally gone.  I hadn’t seen her since her 94th birthday two months earlier.  I cried for a minute, and then my mother had to go back to the condo to deal with…ya know.  Everything.  As usual.

I finished my soup, and then a friend of mine came by to get me for our nightly walk.  I told her what had happened.  She put her arms around me, and when I said, “I’m okay,” I really meant it.

I’m “okay” tonight, too.  The kitchen table is covered with pieces of dried bread that will eventually be made into stuffing.  Michael just got home for the Thanksgiving break.  It’s cold outside, and all I want to do is curl up on the couch with my family.  More than ever, I’m thankful that I can do that.  People don’t stick around forever, even though sometimes it sure feels like they will.

There’s no way I’m going for a run, but I think I will do that crazy thing that makes me feel like my stomach is made of tiny butterflies.  Time to harness my Inner Polack and say, “Hell with ‘em.”

Goddammit.

COLLEGE POEMS IV

I feel a little strange about posting this poem.

I’m not embarrassed.  Honestly, I’m having a great time sharing all of these dorky college poems with you.

Still, I feel a little strange about posting this poem, because this one was once very important to me.

I wrote it sophomore year, which I’ve come to realize was a time when everything was important.  I was 20 years-old — the oldest I’d ever been.  I was hundreds of miles away from mom and dad.  I was in charge of making my own meals and doing my own laundry.  I had my own room.  I was taking feminist studies classes and reading The Bell Jar in my spare time.  I was obsessed with Bob Dylan and Shane MacGowan and I felt so cool when one of my professor’s said, “Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Laurie Anderson.”  I loved my roommates and my apartment and my school.

In January, I started seeing a boy I’d been friends with for a few months.  By “seeing” I mean sneaking around with, and by “boy” I mean, ya know, a fellow consenting young adult.  We secretly kissed one night after a party, and instead of just leaving it at that, we had to repeat our mistake and make things complicated.

We liked each other and I knew that and he knew that, but for some reason we never really got it right.  One of us was always afraid of something and the other was always worried about something else.  One day we’d say, “Let’s just be friends,” and then after two days of being the kind of friends who stay up all night talking, one of us would say, “I can’t just be friends.”  We’d start over.

It was frustrating and painful and yeah, frickin’ exciting.  It always hurt a little bit after one of our “we need to stop this” discussions, but we’d always change our minds, which always meant a few more days of sneaky bliss.

We finally decided to commit, and things immediately soured.  I don’t know whose fault it was.  Maybe if I had just let him ignore me instead of barging into his apartment asking, “Where the fuck have you been for five days?” things would have been better.  Maybe if he had actually told me what it was that made him want to run away things would have been better.  Maybe it’s because we were both 20 years-old?

I tried to end it a few times, and both times I was talked out of it.  It was confusing.  It was frustrating and painful and I hated every second of it.

Things came to an end over the summer when we both had to go back to our respective suburban homes.  He broke up with me.  When he called me that day, I knew exactly what was going to happen — it had been ages since we last spoke.  He said, “I have to break up with you,” and I said, “Haven’t we been broken up for weeks?”  I was sad, but I wasn’t hurt — I had gotten all the “hurt” out of my system back in Santa Cruz.  Furthermore, I wasn’t about to let him think I was surprised to hear that we were through.  Looking back, I shouldn’t even have been that nice.  I should have just blurted out a big, loud, “DUH.”

I’m a huge fan of monogamy and commitment and intimacy and all that, but, I have to say, the best part of this relationship was the “sneaky bliss.”  It probably shouldn’t have gone beyond that.  Maybe we’d still be friends and I wouldn’t be posting a poem I wrote about him.

I wrote this one night after visiting him in his apartment.  A few weeks later, I decided to submit it to a poetry contest that was being held by The Beat Museum in San Francisco.  I didn’t think that I was going to win, nor did I really care.  The only reason I mailed the poem off to the city was because it seemed like a fun little creative outlet.  Despite my lighthearted feelings, I still decided not to tell anyone.  This was just for me.

A month later I called my mom one Sunday morning to ask her something — I really don’t remember what.  My older brother answered the phone.

“Hi Bobby!”

“Hey.  I just read your poem.”

Pause.

“What poem?”

“The one about the diabetic boy.”

Yes.  My mother, being a Beat Museum enthusiast, had gone to their website that morning just for kicks.  Across the screen, she saw the names of the winners of that month’s poetry contest.  Honorable Mention went to Stephanie from Santa Cruz, California, for her poem “Sweet Love.”

March 2007

HONORABLE MENTION
Stephanie Callas Santa Cruz, California
Sweet Love

I know this guy who’s diabetic

Whenever he’s at my apartment

he has to go home every couple of hours

to check his blood sugar levels

I miss him during those few minutes

and I’m always overjoyed when he comes back

sipping his Capri Sun.

Once a long time ago at his apartment

he checked his blood sugar

right there in his room

and when the results were in

he shot insulin into his hip

I asked him if he needed a Capri Sun

“No sugar this time. Just insulin.”

He called me one night while I was

trying to write an essay

for some silly class

that I didn’t really care about.

My priorities don’t involve textbooks

“I need you to come over,” he said

“I had a seizure today at 4am.”

I was over an hour later

with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s

Double Chocolate Fudge Brownie

“Cause this time you where low, right?”

He grabbed my hand and said,

“Do ya ever have days when you

only wanna see specific people?”

Curled up on his bed

with the ice-cream close at hand

we watched the first half of a movie

and then we kissed for nearly two hours

Then I went home at 2am and stared at my

blank computer screen and told myself,

“I could love this guy.”

COLLEGE POEMS III

I’m really having a blast sharing these.

Maybe I’m the only one.

All the same, I’m kind of relieved that this is the last poem I shared on my Myspace, because that means I don’t have to keep signing into Myspace to copy these.  All this week I’ve been getting emails from Myspace saying that people (bands and porn robots) have added me.  So sad.

This one was inspired by a moment I had while I was sitting at the Kresge Cafe.  It was my sophomore year, so I think that by this time the cafe was called The Owl’s Nest.

I spent a lot of time at Kresge College because that’s where most of my Literature classes were held.  The Lit department used to be located there, but it moved when they built the Humanities building at Cowell.  Even after that happened, though, I still had to go to Kresge for most of my Lit lectures.

Kresge College was, and is, a very cool place.  They have a Food Co-Op that sells organic avocados.  I bought a cup of coffee there once.  It was cold because it had been sitting in the pot for hours and the paper cup they put it in was super beat up and there was a small bug floating around in it.  I still accepted the coffee when the cute hippie handed it to me (a habitual mistake), and in return I handed him a perfectly good dollar bill.

Owl’s Nest?  Co-Op?  Owls?  Coop?  “The Owl’s Are Not What They Seem”?  Agent Dale Cooper? 

Dear God, what a dorky epiphany.

All right.

So, the Kresge Cafe/Owl’s Nest was probably my favorite cafe on campus aside from the Stevenson Coffee Shop.  I mean, Stevenson had the best coffee and the best avocado and cheese sandwiches and baked goods really don’t get much better than Oatmeal Fudgies, but the Kresge Cafe had BURGERS.  Good Ones.  And sometimes, ya know, all I wanted was a Good Goddamn Burger.

I used to keep a journal next to me while I was eating Good Goddamn Burgers at The Kresge Cafe/Owl’s Nest.  THIS journal, to be specific:

How cool was College Steff?  Seriously.

I’d scribble in this thing before, after, and during Burger consumption.  Here’s a little ditty that I posted on Myspace in March of 2007.  The version found in this journal is slightly longer, but I fixed it up to submit to my Creative Writing class.  Yes.  Yes, I did.  And my classmates loved it.  Probably because it was a quick read.

Here goes nothin’.  Again.

 

“Café”

The song they’re playing right now
on the stereo at this cafe
is absolutely beautiful.
I can’t understand a single word
the singer’s singing
but his voice is still great
and I love that I can hear
someone playing the triangle
in the background
–or are they chimes?
Considering where I am
it’s probably some song
by some Indie band
that Someone put on a CD
titled “Tuesday Afternoon Mix.”
I would love to shake that Someone’s hand.

COLLEGE POEMS II

It’s time to share another embarrassing poem I wrote in college.

This one is actually still kinda funny.  To me. 

I found it on my MySpace blog, and it says in huge letters:

Written whilst sitting on a bench at the Stevenson knoll.

“Whilst.”  Oh, Steff.

Now, the Stevenson Knoll is one of the most beautiful places on our planet.  It is near the dorms at Stevenson College at UC Santa Cruz.  It is a grassy knoll that overlooks the ocean.  It is the perfect place to sit and watch the sun come up.  Or read a book.  Or stare out into space.  

It’s a holy spot…  ::Sigh::

As SOON as the sun comes out in spring, it becomes Bikini Central.  Everyone suddenly switches gears from “Let’s go to the knoll and sing songs” to, “Oh my GOD I’m so PALE!  Let’s go to the KNOLL!”

One day, when I felt like going to the knoll with my notebook, I encountered a group of giggling bikinis.  After observing their behavior for awhile, I wrote this poem.

March 19, 2007

“Spring Got Sprung”

Skinny, bikini-clad girls are
all over the place.
Can’t escape ‘em!
Everywhere I look
there’s another skinny white girl’s ass
in a skimpy bikini bottom.
BRIGHT pink, BRIGHT red,
and some blue or green.
I’m stuck in a tornado of tiny tits.
A scrawny chick in black is
playing with a lighter as if
to tell the world,
“I have every intention of
eventually smoking
a BAD ASS cigarette.”

I’d like to make her a sandwich
and take away her cell phone.

My Life.

UKULELE ANTHEM!

So.

I saw Jason Webley’s 11-11-11 show in Seattle last weekend.  Yes, Seattle is a good ways away from Agoura Fucking Hills, but I wasn’t going to miss the show for anything.  ANYthing.  When he played the opening of “Icarus,” a song Amanda Palmer has covered on more than one occasion, I got kind of…excited.  I thought, “Is she gonna come sing with him?  Is this gonna be the best performance of “Icarus” to ever occur on planet earth?”

This is what I managed to capture.  That’s me saying, “There she is…Wait…” and then screaming “WHAAAAAA!!” when she comes out.  Well, okay, I guess everyone is screaming, but my scream is the clearest, as I’m the person holding the camera.

After they sang “Icarus” together, they sang “Elephant Elephant,” which was damn jolly good.  I didn’t get any of it on film because I wanted to just enjoy the moment (someone else did, though…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQD_MbhwCbM), but THEN, oh then, THEN Neil Gaiman came onstage and read a poem about The Night Before His Wedding, which I did catch on film…and it did make me cry…just a little bit.

You can hear me release an intense “I’m absurdly single” exhale at 1:50.  And I apologize for the shitty video quality — I should probably save up for a new camera.  It could take me a few years, but I’ll do it.

The show went on for a good three hours.  All was right with the world.  Like…ALL was right with the ENTIRE freaking WORLD.

This was Friday night.  I got back to Agoura fucking Hills on Sunday night.  It is now Wednesday night.  I can do whatever I want with my time — go to the gym, go out to dinner, paint pictures of dinosaurs, etc. — but all I can really do is think about that damn 11-11-11 show.  I’m not going to go into the show’s effect on me — those details (a bunch of crap about FEELINGS and ENERGY and THE UNIVERSE and GROWTH and LIFE) are for my diary ONLY. All I will say is that it was a great time, and I will definitely tell my grandkids the story of the time when their crazy grandma was young and vibrant and ditched work to fly to Seattle to watch a skinny man in a hat play the accordion.

Interestingly enough, I haven’t really felt the urge to listen to any of Jason Webley’s music since arriving back home.  I’m definitely not over it, but I definitely do need some time to reflect…and listen to something else.

The feeling is similar to the one I get after I watch The Godfather — I can’t just turn on the TV and watch whatever comes on after sitting through the greatest damn movie ever made.  At the same time, I can’t just start the movie over…

So, what have I been listening to?

I’ve been listening to this.  And it rocks.  It rocks HARD.  It rocks HARD and it makes me want to spend a lot more time making SPANK paddles and writing poems and painting pictures of dinosaurs.  I suggest you give this a listen.