Heal

This month's theme, Heal.

I have so much I want to say about this. I've thought about it quite a bit recently, wondered about the differences between healing and scarring, getting past something versus really putting it behind you and moving forward. I feel like I've done a little of each of those things over the last three years, with varying degrees of success. Mostly, I feel as though I've survived, and I'm proud of that, but it isn't always enough. There are emotional wounds that have closed up without completely healing. There are scars so tight that they're keeping me from being able to move the way I want to move.

This is shaping up to be a weird NaBloPoMo month. It might be the first one that truly feels personal to me. It will also be the first one that Mr. Wolf will be live-reading, as he's sitting just to my left as I'm writing this entry. I don't know how he's going to respond to some of it. I know it's not always going to be funny or witty.

There's just been so much. It's tempting to say, "Whew! That's over," and march forward. But it's all still back there, just waiting. I have to turn back and face it down.

The Head of a Pin

I bought this pin today. It's the most I've ever spent on a piece of jewelry.

It's in place now, but I've been taking it out every couple of hours to attempt to get a good picture of it. It is a larger gauge than any of my other pins, so removing it and putting it back in is painful, but I keep doing it, hoping that I'll figure out how to get a clear shot of the detailed metalwork. My eyes water every time I try.

One year ago today, right about this time of the evening, Peter leaned back against the sofa, looked down at his feet, and started the weeks-long process of telling me that we were through. I was sporting the scab from the screwdriver incident then; the professional piercing was still a few weeks off.

I can't explain why it's bothering me this much, this anniversary of a brief conversation. It wasn't even the most painful discussion that we had in those long few months of last year. I can't explain it to my housemates, can't explain it to the Amazon, can't explain it to Hardt. Maybe I can't explain it to them because I can't explain it to myself. Doc would probably be able to help me work through it, but, for reasons that will become clear, she and I don't delve too deeply into this corner of my emotional baggage. "I dunno. I'm just in a mood. I'm sure it'll go away once I get some sleep." I don't believe this, but I say it anyway.

Gun Time

I did it! I ran my first half-marathon last Saturday, and I’m walking and talking today.

Standing at the starting line, I was pretty sure that I was going to foul the whole thing up. My team didn’t do much work on pacing. After fourteen weeks of training, I still can’t run at a steady pace on my own. I run too fast, I hurt myself, I slow to a crawl for a bit, then start running too fast again. Half of the Walnut Creek coaches, including the pacer that I run with on weeknights, decided not to run at all during the race. “Allen? Why are you in jeans?!? ALLEN!!!”

Worried, but determined to run a good race for my sponsors and for myself, I ran along on my own for the first quarter of a mile. Then, my friend Nicole pulled up beside me. She and I have done long practice miles together, and, more important, she has one of those fancy watches that tells her if she’s running at the right pace. I was elated to see her. “I’m going to try to run without stopping for at least five miles, then switch to intervals. Is that cool?”

“Nicole, I’m so happy to see you that I’m cool with however you want to run this thing. Let’s do it!”

At mile marker 5, we agreed that we both felt good enough to keep going without switching to intervals. Nicole’s foot started to hurt, but we pushed on through. At mile 6, we saw the first of the half-marathoners coming back toward us.

“Have you seen any other AHA runners yet? I’ve been keeping an eye out for our team jerseys.”

“A couple of guys, but no women. I think we’re the top two AHA women running the half right now. Sweet!”

We ended up running all the way to the turnaround, stopping for a brief comfort break at the halfway point. A gel shot and some water, then we were on our way again. “How’s your foot, Nicole?”

“It’s…numb? Is that good?”

“Well, I’m no doctor, so I’m going to say that it IS good.” The big muscles in my legs had started to fatigue, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. If she was still going strong on one good foot, I didn’t want to do anything encourage her to slow down. The gel shot kicked in just as I thought I wasn’t going to be able to keep up, providing me with a critical boost of energy.

A few minutes later, we started crossing paths with our AHA Start Training teammates. “You’re really close to the turn! Keep at it! Good job!” It felt amazing to be running out there while cheering on the rest of our team. We kept at it, jogging and cheering and clapping, until we passed the last outbound racers coming toward us on the trail. Our teammate Sally can only walk, and not very quickly, but she was determined to try for the whole thirteen miles. Prior to the start of our training, she hadn’t walked more than half a mile at a time in thirty years. We came across her at our mile 8.5, which would have been her 5.5. “Incredible job, Sally! Wow!” I don’t know if she finished. I hope she’s proud of however far she made it.

We slowed at an aid station to pick up some gummy bears, a surprisingly effective source of mid-race glucose, and happily gnawed on them as we trotted along under the trees for a few more minutes. Finally, we agreed to drop back to a fast walk for a hundred yards or so. We checked her watch and saw that we’d jogged straight through for almost ten miles, farther than either of us had ever gone at that pace.

At about 10.5 miles, picking up the pace again, she pointed off to our left. “Hey, who’s that guy waving at us? Is that your boyfriend?”

“Yes! Unless we’re hallucinating. Are we hallucinating? How did he get out here? I need more gummy bears. Wait…yep, that’s him. Ten second hug break!” I skipped off course and threw my arms around him. “C’mon, Nicole, you hug him, too. He’s really good at it!” Hugs all around and a laughing “keep running, sweetie, this isn’t the end of the race”, then we were back on the trail. She said that I should have kissed him some more, but I replied that it would have added too much to our chip time. “Plenty of chances to kiss him after we cross the line. Finish strong, girl!”

We walked a good bit of the last two miles, but sprinted when we saw the cameras and heard the announcer calling out the names of the racers as they came in. (If any of you have ever run in an event organized by Brazen Racing, you know how great they are about personally welcoming you across the finish line.)

We ran under the arch at 2:44:46. I know that it’s not supposed to be about the finish time or where I placed in the results, but I’m still proud to say that I was near the middle of the pack overall, and finished faster than half the women in my age group. Not bad for my first long race.

48 hours post-race, I’m happy to report that I’m not in any danger of losing any toenails, and my legs feel good enough for me to consider running again within a couple of days. I’m running another half-marathon in less than a month. I feel fantastic.

And, yes, there was plenty of post-race kissing.

Bath Time for Castro

I did not pick that fountain at random, or because I thought you’d be able to easily recognize it. I did not pick it because I knew I’d have several angles of approach where I’d be able to see you before you saw me, which meant that I wouldn't look silly if I didn't recognize you. I did not pick it because I was thinking that, if we didn’t hit it off, I’d use it as my meeting place for all of my future dates, too. All of those things are true, but that isn't why I decided on that spot. I picked it because of a dream I had eight years ago.

…

The sculpture is an inverted, rounded ziggurat with alternating layers of yellow and black, like a child’s drawing of a bumblebee. The water flows down from a pool at the top, forming a sheet that partially obscures the body of the fountain, and creates a rat-a-tat sound as it hits the lower pool. Everything else at the mall is Italianate cast concrete. This bright, modern piece stands out, even though it is tucked in behind the Starbucks and the California Pizza Kitchen. I’ve always loved it.

In my dream, the fountain had been elongated into a tub in a gorgeous bathroom suite. I was one of several personal advisers to the owner of said suite, and we were all standing around patiently, clipboards and notepads clasped to our chests, while he enjoyed an afternoon soak. His name was Fidel Castro.

He was sitting in the bathtub, wearing an olive green cap and a pair of swim trunks. He had a rubber frog in one hand and a loaded revolver in the other, and he was happily playing with both, splashing them through the water and covering them with bubbles. We watched with amusement as he had a sing-song dialogue with the frog while pressing the gun muzzle to its bulging eye. He must have then decided that they’d reached a truce, his amphibian captive and he, because he made a beard and bushy eyebrows for it out of the suds. “¡Viva la rana Castro!” He was having a ball.

We’d let him stay in there for as long as we could, but time was running short. “Fidel, you have an appearance in a few minutes, and your fingers are going to prune. C’mon, jefe. Time to get out.”

The shot startled us all, but none more than Castro himself. We all jumped, then froze in place for several seconds, nobody sure who had fired or who had been hit. Castro had many enemies, but there was no sight line from outside the palace into his bathroom.

His advisers stared wide-eyed at him, and he stared back at us, suds clinging to his eyelashes and the end of his nose. He looked comical, but we were all too shocked to laugh.

The ringing in my ears went away after a few seconds, allowing me to hear the steady stream of bath water hitting the floor. I looked from Castro’s blank, stunned face to the small, round hole in the lower left corner of the tub wall. I looked back at Castro and saw that the gun was still in his hand, pointing down between his shriveled feet.

“What did you do, Fidel? What have I told you about guns in the bathtub?!”

I don’t know how the gun - steeped in a warm froth of Calgon and scoured by bath salts – was able to fire. I don’t know how he didn’t shoot one of us, or shoot himself in the foot. We all knew that we had quite literally dodged a bullet. The tub had not been so lucky.

For a brief moment, I thought that it would be possible to plug the hole with a towel, just to hold the water in long enough to drain the basin. Before I could even move to reach for the towel bar, the crazing around the hole spread wider, and the structure failed under the pressure. The stream turned into a deluge as the tub wall gave way. A wave of soapy water surged across the slate grey floor, breaking over our feet and flowing out of the doorway behind us to flood the Turkish rug in the hallway. Bits of black and gold ceramic littered the ground like broken shells on a beach at low tide. I was wearing a pair of leather and suede pumps, and I was furious that they were now ruined.

Castro was still seated in what remained of the bathtub, clutching his revolver. He hunched his shoulders and looked up at us sheepishly from under the brim of his cap, runnels of water flowing off of his scraggly beard onto his round belly.

“Dammit, Fidel!” I yelled. “Who’s going to clean this mess up? This was a custom-made tub. Do you know how much it’s going to cost to get a mason in here to rebuild it? Do you?! Dammit!”

Huge tears welled up in his dark eyes and rolled down his broad, flat cheeks. His toy frog let out a long, pathetic squeak as he squeezed it, its soapy beard dissolving into a stream that ran down his forearm.

“Squeeeeeeeeeaaakkkkththththtpffffft…”

Exasperated, one of the other aids sighed deeply. “Oh, Fidel…”

And then I woke up.

…

I was chuckling to myself about this dream as we were strolling down the sidewalk. I was debating telling you about it, wondering if it would make me seem too strange for you to like, if you’d take your hand from mine and wish me goodbye and good luck now that we were back at the place where we’d started. I was afraid that you, too, would think that you’d dodged a bullet. “Weird girl. At least she didn’t eat much, so I’m not out a ton of money for lunch.”

Then you said, “I want to kiss you, but not here.” All I could think of was how very perfect it would be to kiss you right there, in front of that fountain.

“Why not here?” I turned toward you, and you leaned into me and kissed me, and then I wasn’t thinking about the dream at all anymore, lost as I was in the feel and the taste of you, and hearing only the staccato rhythm of the water hitting the tiles in the shallow pool behind us.

Friday the 13th: The Miniseries

Well, here it is, readers. This is the official start of the end of my marriage. In this envelope, on less than ten sheets of paper, are Peter’s petition for divorce, my response, and two copies of the process server receipt. It was mailed out on Friday the 13th. I don't know why, but I find that hilariously appropriate. We went on our first date on Halloween, after all.

You might think I’d be sad about this. You might be thinking, “Aww, Suzanne, I’m so sorry! You must be crushed!” It might surprise you to know that this is not the case. I’ve got a lot of good going on, and I’ve never felt better. Let’s take a quick break from me falling behind A-to-Z challenge for an update, shall we?

I’ve dropped fifteen pounds since Thanksgiving. All of those sweaters that I knit that were just a little tight? They all fit now. It’s all been through exercise. I haven’t changed my diet at all. What magical new exercise could do this? Why, running, of course.

The Start Training team is coming up on week 12 of our program. We’re doing twelve miles this Saturday, then the half marathon in two weeks. This program deserves a post of its own, which I’m going to give it sometime very, very soon. It has changed my life.

My hand is almost healed enough for me to stop wearing The Immobilizer, which is a good thing, since The Immobilizer is a little the worse for wear after being in Winston’s mouth. Knitting resumes!

Alive, healthy, and relatively uninjured at the moment, I figured it was time to start dating. After what has to be a record-settingly short time online - a mere three days - I met someone amazing. This also deserves a post of its own, which I’m also going to give it sometime very, very soon. As soon as I can break away from kissing him. Readers, he's hotter than the sun.

Feeling fit, feeling strong, and feeling an unbridled happiness for the first time in years, I opened the manila envelope and filled out my part. It’s the end of something good. It’s the start of something else good. It’s all good.

Prep Talk

I sit on the bed for a long time with my jacket still fastened and my scarf around my neck. I know I should get some sleep, but I'm kind of...I don't know. It feels weird to be here by myself. Not at all bad, but weird. I feel like I should go back out and do something, like the evening shouldn't be over.

I spend half an hour carefully laying out my things for tomorrow morning, then rearranging them on the other bed to take this picture. I don't feel any less wound up.

I realize that I feel that way because this is the first time in my life - in my entire life - that I've gone out of town and stayed by myself without it being for work. This is my first solo personal trip.

I set the alarm clock and two separate alarms on my phone. I try to get the alarm for the Touchpad to work, but it refuses to make a sound. I spend longer than I should trying to get onto a network so that I can look for a better app for it. I give up after twenty minutes, when I realize that I'm just procrastinating, that I won't need the Touchpad. If I'm this nervous about waking up on time, I'm not going to need more than two alarms anyway. I'll wake up every hour between now at 6:00, anyway. That's how I am.

Everything is ready for tomorrow. I have my gel shots, my water pack, my spare socks, and my D-tag. I have my headphones, and my rain hat, and my race bib. I have Belligero ready to go into a secure location so that he can run with me.

I don't feel ready for tomorrow.

As Clear as the Sun in the Summer Sky

"I'm not happy. I'm not a happy person. And I'd challenge you to ask yourself whether you're actually happy."

I paused for half a second, then answered, "Yep. I'm happy."

"I don't see how you can say that."

"Other than what's going on right here, which obviously sucks? Yeah, I'm happy. Everything else in my life is great. I have great friends, I have two awesome dogs, I look around this house and love the way everything looks, and I feel great. Happy."

I don't think he believed me on that afternoon a few months ago, and I don't think he'd believe me now if he asked again, but I know it's true.

I've been catching myself whistling as I walk to the cafeteria. When people ask me how I'm doing, I reply, "I'm good!" and don't have to force it. People tell me that there's a brightness about me now.

The biggest happiness tell is that I sing. I find myself scrolling through my music player before I get on the road, making sure that I have a good selection of songs in my range queued up. I sing most of the way to work in the morning, and all the way home. I make up jingles and serenade the dogs while I'm getting their dinner ready. It just comes bubbling out.

Yesterday, stopped at a crowded traffic light and belting out 'More Than a Feeling' while accompanying the clap track by pounding on my dashboard, I started laughing. "You're welcome, fellow commuters! There's no way this isn't f&$king hilarious. When I hear that old song play...more than a feelin'..."

"I challenge you to ask yourself whether you're actually happy."

Challenge accepted, and I've already won.

Winston's Review: Suzanne's Purse

Hello!

It's me, Winston J. Schmidt.

Suzanne's been going through a weird time lately, so I've tried really hard not to review any more of her yarn. Also, she started keeping it behind a closed door, so I can't get to it, but, even if she hadn't, I wouldn't eat her yarn right now.

But you TOTALLY should, because guess what? It all tastes GREAT!

Molly? That's not cool, because eating yarn makes Suzanne sad, and...

She didn't look sad when I tested the mouthfeel of that 600-yard ball of Interlacements superwash, or when I helped her out with a stress test of that ball of Pure Merino. She said it wasn't my fault, and she patted me on the head and said I was a GOOD DOG when I let her take it away without trying to grab it and run. Maybe it makes her sad when YOU do it, but when I do it she thinks it's adorable, because I'm a loveable scamp! Yaaaay!


O.K., um, anyway, some of us have been trying really hard not to do yarn reviews. I moved on to other media, because a guy likes to express himself through his art. I hope you like it.

Winston's Art: Suzanne's Purse

Materials: Corduroy, hard plastics, paper, leather, cloth, wood, nylon, foil, ink

My Process: I was trying to express my longing for Suzanne's steady presence in my life. Everything's changing, and a guy gets nervous, you know? Accountant Boy just stopped coming home one day, and I don't get why, because I only took a dumper in his shoes one time, and that was a long time ago. How do I know Suzanne's not going to leave me, too?

So, she went out for like, thirty-seven hours (three hours, down the street to a disaster preparedness meeting - ed.), and I got lonely and scared. My first thought after undoing the latches on my kennel with my tongue was, "If she were here, I'd happily lick her nose so that she knows how much I love her. What smells the most like Suzanne's face?"


I came up with eyeglasses, and I know she keeps them in her purse, because I've tried to eat them before. They were in a delicious rawhide case, which I gnawed to pieces, and the frame was hard and smooth, like a thin Nylabone. I only got a tooth mark on them last time I tried, but I was really able to go to town on them during this session. I popped out the lenses, then I mangled the ear pieces so that they couldn't be fixed again. The case wasn't tasty rawhide, because she's picked a cloth one when she had the glasses fixed the first time, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. It still tasted like the inside of her purse, which tastes like Starbucks pastries and sunshine. I was pretty proud of this work, so I left it in the middle of the carpet in the front room.

I was still unsatisfied with the scale of the piece, so I went looking for something else to add. She also had a pair of Wayfarers in there, and - lucky me - they were in one of those rawhide cases, so I ate the ear pieces off of them, then I resculpted the case. With my mouth. I didn't want my display to be monotonous, so I did this part in a different room, so that the two works didn't share a sight line. I placed everything gently on my downstairs bed, which was a commentary on royalty and privilege, because it was reminiscent of crown jewels on a velvet pillow.

It had been, like, forty-six hours (Three hours. Only three hours. - ed.), and Suzanne still hadn't come back, so I continued working. By this time, though, I was pretty tired, so I dragged her finger exerciser up onto the purple couch and chewed the palm pad off of it. I also got down a lot of the blue plastic, even though it looks kinda good here. (I incorporated that into subsequent earthworks projects for weeks afterward. I call that installation Le Poo Bleu.) I left the rest of the hand exerciser on one of the couch pillows, as a commentary on the push and pull between activity and inertia.

By now, I was getting really nervous, because she'd been gone for eighty-three hours (Winston! Dammit! It was only THREE HOURS. Wasn't the fact that the sun didn't rise and set on you while I was gone kind of a tip-off? - ed.), so I stopped thinking critically about what I was chewing. I ate her earphones, but they were hard to bite through and kinda stringy, so I got them stuck between my teeth. I moved on to a reuseable orange grocery bag, just because I thought it'd have some good flavors in it and it would have contrasted nicely with all the blue stuff I'd spread around, but it was hard to tear up. I only got the attached carrying pouch free. I pulled apart a couple of pieces of paper, but that was even less satisfying.



Finally, all I had left was the collection of stick-things. I splintered the wooden one into six pieces, because it smelled like Suzanne's hands, so I really wanted to take it all in. The splinters poked my face, though, so I figured I'd try the other stick-things to see if they were better. I'm happy with how that went, because I was able to use the blue stick-thing to garnish the carpet around the eyeglasses. The carpet was a pretty shade of azure when I was done, like a summer sky.

There wasn't much else to use after that. I was about to chew what looked like the very best plastic bit in her purse when she walked in the door. She told me how much it meant to her when she picked it up and wiped the spit off of it. "Winston? This is my car key. Do you know how much I'd have to pay to replace this if you chewed it up? Of course you don't, because you're a dog, but let me tell you, big guy. Several hundred dollars. What is wrong with you?" And then I felt bad, because I think what she meant was "What is wrong with you? This bit would have tied the whole thing together, and I can't believe you didn't use it."

She picked it all up, probably so that Molly wouldn't mess with it. I think she really liked it, because she spread it all out on the counter and started crying.

Conclusion: I’m happy with how this project came together. I’ve worked with some of this media before, but I haven’t had this much freedom to experiment with it. I still like working in yarn, but it seems kinda done now that Molly’s into it. I like to be cutting edge. I think Suzanne’s trying to keep my work relevant and fresh by holding it back from the public. She started putting her purse in the hall closet so that I wouldn’t get burned out in my new media. Sometimes she slips up, and leaves it on the counter though, so there’s still a chance that I’ll have an even bigger installation in 2012. Also, I learned that there’s other stuff in the house that gets my creative juices flowing, so look forward to my writeups of that in the next few weeks.


Anyway, thanks for reading along.

Sincerely,

Winston J. ‘Bug’ Schmidt

How to Disappear Completely

Two weeks tomorrow.

I spend most of the day clearing out the office, going through all of the drawers and little corners where things collect. I go through every pocket thoroughly, even when I get so weary of the task that I want nothing more than to close the drawer back up, put the lid back on the box, come back to it tomorrow. I sort through every stack of paper, pull down every picture and postcard off of the memo board, read every letter and birthday card. Many of them go into a box in the garage. I cannot bring myself to get rid of them, but I am compelled to pull all of them down.

I move around the rest of the house, but there isn't much left anyway. One drawer in the buffet and half a dozen snapshots in frames. I change out all but two of the pictures. If my printer worked, it would all have been done today. I resolve to find another printer tomorrow. I clear out the buffet, and there isn't even anything significant enough for me to set aside for him. Expired coupons and a handful of screws. Only clutter.

I wander around again with a home staging eye. Have I missed anything? If someone new walked through, someone who had never met us together, would they have any idea? Did I leave a note tacked on the refrigerator, or some little trinket that hinted at a marriage? But no, aside from those two photos on the stairs, there is nothing.

I have erased him.