July 2009 Archives

"The best camera is the one you have on you." - Photographer Dave.

The big problem with having the pocketcam die on me, I realize, is that the number of days on which my bike bag is light enough for me to add the Nikon to its load is relatively small. Especially during a summer as rainy as this one. Raingear isn't light.

Nor are locks. Tools. Hand pump. Laptop. Change of socks. Small stash of underwear, toothbrush, and condoms (hey, I'm a modern girl; it's best to be prepared). Contact lens solution and case. Little tin of various painkillers and other needful meds. Little tin of Cinnamon-flavored Altoids. Lip balm.

The pocketcam was obviously not the finest camera in terms of lens quality, but I find myself really missing it.

Because without it, I miss a lot of other things. I miss taking pics of random street flowers. I miss taking blurry barroom shots that give you that magical sense of movement and energy. I miss being able to show you what I see from the bike. I looked down through the bridge structure today and thought, "This is weird. That's water down there. Those are waves. That is a tugboat. I'm riding over a tugboat."

I miss giving you those small doses of my reality that make a blog worth reading. At least I imagine they do.

I look at other people's blogs, ones with interiors photographed in beautiful light, ones with evocative pics of something as simple as brightly colored yarn.

And I think, well....But my interiors never look like magazine spreads.

There's too much dust, for one. I'm not much of a vacuumer.

And for another, I'm a wee bit protective of my private space. I mean, if I want to let the dust-bunnies accumulate and fail to unpack my books for another month, I feel like that's my business.

What it means, though, is that unless I want to subject you to months of Kitwich pictures, I need to start shopping around for a new pocketcam, or perhaps a less-expensive higher-quality used replacement.

Can't really afford it, but I begin to think I can't afford not to, either.

When people introduce themselves, the first few questions are invariably the civilian equivalent of name/rank/serial number: What's your name? What do you do?

The latter being perceived as the most important, the real identifier. We are what we do. Presumably.

Why, then, do I feel so far removed from my self-identifiers? When asked, I usually say "I'm a writer." And occasionally, "I'm a writer and an artist."

But honestly, the only places I write lately are here, the fridge, and work. None of which align with the sort of writing that I'd expected - or hoped - to define my life, to be the conduit for everything I want to say and make for this world.

I don't think I'm finished or anything. Heck, I've hardly started.

But when I look at the things that occupy the bulk of my thought and conversation, they're like the joke someone made about me recently - "You're all about the two B's - bikes and boys."

Yes, I am.

At least, most of my surface-level thoughts are.

I suspect, though, that there's something more happening underneath. I think what the two B's have in common, and what may explain why they're so compelling to me, is this: PLAY.

I haven't played nearly enough in my life. I've been so damn serious, for so very long. SO SERIOUS. So serious, in fact, that last summer I had to consciously strive not to think so much. Not to make any big decisions, at least not with my brain. Last year was all about learning to listen to my body, to lead with hormones and chemicals and muscle.

This summer I haven't been quite sure what's going on, until now. Side note: It's interesting that I seem to do a lot of big work during summers. It's as if each has a theme, and at the moment, paradoxically, the theme seems to be about not working so much - and not only that but actively learning to play. Allowing myself to be all about play, and all about the two B's - my favorite forms of it.

So while that may seem shallow, especially to that judgmental part of me that's been so harsh, so demanding - it's maybe not a waste of energy, nor of my not-inconsiderable talents and brainpower.

I desperately need to play, I think. I don't think I can really write that great novel without it. My brain needs to grow some frills, some frosting; it needs pink.

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Some storms could be severe, with large hail, hail, damaging winds, gusty winds, and heavy rain. - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There is a very large, very dark cloud overhead, and intermittent dashes of rain against the street below. The fan is bringing in the smell of ozone and wet pavement.

Forty minutes ago I was sailing along on my track bike, my bag loaded down with groceries, having ridden most of the way through southern Brooklyn with one of the famous boys.

It was a lovely ride, though there were giant crackling thunderclaps now and again, even in a sunnier sky when we set out, and the air seemed just about to burst into giant drops the whole way back. I arrived home, carried bike and a zillion pounds of dried fruit and peanut butter and hummus and assorted necessities and a bar of dark chocolate and so on upstairs, put it all away, and looked outside to see the rain pelting pelting down. As if it had been waiting for me to get everything done first.

So nice of it. Thank you Rain.

It's been an unexpectedly beautiful day, the kind that surprises me. All weekend I've been up and down and all around about how I feel about this boy, and I have no answer, which might be a problem in and of itself. And yet, every time I go to tell him, "well, this is wrong and that is wrong, and I can't do this," I end up not saying anything. I end up falling right into his little slim arms again, and I don't know what to do about it, because I like it.

I can't seem to logic myself into a more straightforward situation with him, or with the world in general. And I don't know why I expect it of myself, anymore, since I've never been a very good Vulcan. I'm a creature of strong feelings, and perhaps happiest when I relax into that instead of fighting myself. It can make for some strained moments - eyes filling with tears unexpectedly in a movie theatre and then draining away just as quickly, only an instant in the dark, seen by nobody. Needing suddenly to vanish, to hop on my bike and fly home to the cat, who I know will have missed me because she always misses me, even if I'm only gone a few minutes. Needing to just hole up in the half-dark with the Tour de France, with Phil Liggett's voice, soft and erudite and familiar.

He's very tiny this boy, small and sweet and delicious, like a little tart plum. Acerbic. Fiery.

I will tell you this: I get lonely in the middle of the night.

Someone once asked me why I stay up so late, and I answered, "because I like to be alone."

"But don't you live alone?"

"Well, yes. I guess I like to have the whole world to myself."

I was thinking, recently, about the secret lists we make for ourselves - not the kind I often make here, but the larger kind.

The kind we live by, or strive to live up to, or live for. Like the list of things we hope to find in a lover, or perhaps more accurately in that more serious term - a partner.

Well, I don't want a partner - not yet. I am still tired from the last time, or maybe I am just still working that work that doesn't want anyone to get too close, because they'll only interfere, and it's vital that no one and nothing interferes. I'm fighting for my life in a very real sense, only not desperate the way that sounds. I've been working for a long time to clear out old rubble from under the structure of me. It's working in a way it never quite has before. It's grand, when I look at it from a little ways off and see the progress I've made.

But up close, it's ugly. And I don't want anyone to see that. I want to be alone with it.

The trouble is, I get lonely, being all alone in it all the time. With apologies for sounding like an ill-thought-out recruiting slogan, I've been an army of one for so long. I like watching war movies, but not for the usual reasons. I like watching because I can relate to soldiers - to men in a desperate position. To having to pull last bits of strength from hidden places. To bloodying my hands and my heart.

The difference is, they have comrades in arms. I don't.

I never have. I never will. It's not exactly that I feel outcast and alone in life; it's just that, for some kinds of pitched battle, there are no comrades. If there weren't then, there can't be now. That's just the way of it.

On some level, I accept that. I am okay with it. I am okay with knowing my own strength, and that it is all I ever had. I am fiercely proud of it some days, and sad about it others, and that is part of the shape of my life. If I look at it from a distance, like a work of art, I think it beautiful. I think, if this makes any sense, that as a person, I am glad to know me.

But damn does it make it hard to date.

I have 82 drafts. 82. That's a lot of uncertainty. 82 times I've started to write you something and backed off from publishing it.

I don't suppose it means anything in particular, other than that drafts are part of writing, even informal writing, and perhaps even more so with this weird diaric form.

Sometimes I write and then get this pang before I go to post it. I get this pang that tells me that something isn't right. Usually it's that I've written something I don't really feel comfortable sharing. Once in a while it's mere grumpiness, or feeling that I haven't been entertaining or witty enough. That I haven't told a story worth reading.

I'm sure there are plenty of stories that do get posted that aren't especially entertaining or witty, that are simply the tale of my day, or of my date, or of something ordinary that struck me. I guess a blog is really a collection of those little moments in time, pages and pages of fleeting impressions, and that's what good about the format.

And that's okay with me.

It's not so okay to see that I have 82 drafts. I'm not sure why. It seems like a lot. I have almost a quarter as many drafts as I do finished posts.

I remember writing here, at least a few times, that I'd been asked what I wanted out of a particular situation, and that I hadn't known the answer. It happens to me a lot, or at least it has in the last year. Not being able to articulate, even to myself, what it is that I'm looking for.

I can talk about it in broader terms - I want to feel free.

I want space. Lots and lots of space.

I want that particular delight of being intimate with someone who cares about me and whom I care about.

And I want space. Both of them, together.

At the moment, what I want is for a particular boy to come out and admit, to me and to our mutual acquaintances and friends, that he likes me, and that he is, in fact, seeing me.

I doubt I am going to get that last one. But in case anyone is asking, that's what I want.

So I had this idea. It was a good idea.

The idea ran thusly:

Miz Fury and I would ride our bikes to the beach on a weekday, thereby avoiding weekend crowds and Wednesday responsibilities.

We met at the appointed time(ish) at my apt and hopped on our respective steeds, armed with a metric ton of sunscreen and considerably fewer snacks, and headed south.

Lalala, everybody's happy, the sun is shining....booom!

What was that? Did I run over an exceptionally loud plastic bottle? I stop and turn around and see a Very Large Screw protruding from my rear tire.

Me: No fucking way (or words to that effect).

Miz Fury: Wouldn't it be better to leave it in? Like a sword?

Me: (pinching tire) Nope, it's losing air already. I'll have to change it.

We pull over. I change the tube, pull out a dollar bill to make an emergency tire boot, and start pumping. Realize that my tiny hand pump will only get the tire to about 70lbs. (30lbs. less than I need). Pull out the CO2 inflator, realize that it's busted (blowing a $6 cartridge in the process). Try the hand pump again. Break off the end of the Presta valve.

Miz Fury suggests looking for a bike shop. I realize I already know of a bike shop nearby, and that one of my friends is a mechanic there. I call another friend to get the address, and we ride over.

The place is mobbed, but because I know the mechanic I get the royal treatment. Buy another tube, let the air out of the tire, change the tube (again), slip in the dollar bill (again), borrow a floor pump, buy a better-quality hand pump (just in case), and we get back on the road.

Ride the rest of the way to the beach. Pull out pocketcam to take some pics and discover that its little servo motor has developed an eccentricity and it first won't focus properly and then simply won't turn on. Alas Poor Pocketcam.

The ride home was fine, and my legs felt strong the next day. But no beach pics. And no screw pics, since I didn't think to save it for posterity. The Nikon is now interviewing for the job of pocketcam.

Oh fastboys, why is it so difficult to quit you?

Why do I simply have to dodge my way through traffic, following your swallow-like flight, pedaling my old(er) heart out to keep up? Why don't I just say no, thank you, I've had enough complications for one summer.

Well, I did say it. And then I kissed you anyway, like someone who didn't know her own mind (I don't). Or knew her own mind but ignored its better judgment because some other part of her was not in agreement with the streamlining-the-weirdness plan.

Damn oh damn oh damn. I don't even know why, other than that maybe I like pummeling my way through traffic, barely able to keep you in sight, skinny long-limbed leaf on the wind. Damn oh damn oh damn.

A friend and fellow blogger remarked that we've both been rather quiet lately, and I felt compelled to try and come up with an explanation for it. Everything I said to her was true (already written most of my Big Ideas here long ago, currently in an emotional whirlwind of upish-downishness, feel like I am repeating myself), but it doesn't necessarily explain why.

I am not sure why, in honesty.

I have been grumpy. I have been restless and not wanting to sit still and write. I have been feeling like I have nothing much to say. If I complain about something one night I might be over it by the next. If I wax enthusiastic about something one day I may have waned by the next. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I feel vaguely queasy at the moment, and I got a bit dizzy when I stood up. It's all a bit migrainey round here.

I have been telling myself (and others) that I think I should end an affair, and I have yet to deal with it.

I am, in fact, astonishingly bad at dumping people. Even (or especially) people I am not technically dating. It is hard, somehow. It is hard to say no to a cute face. It is hard not to want someone to be snuggly with. It is all just hard.

"She hates complications." - Nandi
"They do crop up, though." - Mal
"Such is life." - Nandi

With apologies to Juno for riffing on her line, I am having a heart and body problem. And I don't mean cardiac, though I have a smidgen of that, too.

At some point during any interaction involving a member of the opposite sex - well, at some point during any series of naked interactions with a member of the opposite sex - I start to wish for a robotic heart. Speaking again of heart in the emotive rather than physiological sense.

I'm sure I've said this before, but when a friend asked me what I want out of my current messy situation, I had no clear answer for her. Oh hell, I don't know. And I don't know how much of why I don't know has to do with an inescapable attachment to realism. I really don't think that I am going to get anything approaching what I might want, so I am unable to allow myself to even want what I might want. I just can't perceive possibilities beyond what I think is likely to happen.

I asked Boywich the other day if he'd use the word "innocent" to describe me, and he said, no, not anymore.

And I was sad, and a little hurt by that.

But maybe there's some truth in it. Maybe I've gotten so used to the way things go in the real world that I have become unable to imagine nicer possibilities. That sounds not only not innocent, but downright pessimistic, even though I never think of myself that way.

I dunno. (I always say that, too, especially where romantic things are concerned.)

It might have been a perfect day at the beach, had I had a robotic heart. As it was, Enh.

PS. Oh goody. Boywich just told me that I am actually still innocent in exactly the way I was hoping for: "You've still got your wonder." Thanks B.

This has been the damnedest summer. Rain, rain every day, to the point where I just realized I am still waiting for it to be spring. I was sick for a whole month. The rain came down. It was still not spring. June came and went. I was sick. I stayed inside. It rained.

I started to think about that documentary I watched, twice, which talked about The Year Without A Summer, an ice-age year where summer simply didn't come. The snow came down. The animals starved. The wind howled.

I started to do winter things. I made lentil soup. I watched a lot of TV and re-read Agatha Christie. I knitted, for Pete's sake.

I'm forced to admit that I rather enjoyed the knitting. Which just goes to show you how NON-springish it's been around here. (Note to those who've been reading less than a year: I do not knit in spring and summer. It's not that I don't know about the existence of bamboo, and cotton, and linen, and hemp. It's just that I can't seem to give a good god damn about knitting when the weather is warm.)

But I just finished a scarf, which was started long ago, in early winter or fall. It's a cerulean blue hand-dyed wool that Shan sent me, and which really looks to me like the ocean, and I just love it. It got laid by the wayside whilst I knitted a bazillion gifts for people, and then while I knitted the cobweb scarf, and so on. And there it was sitting in my knitting basket calling to me one very rainy afternoon.

It's a short scarf, and a very useful item I think it will prove. Most of my scarves are long long long. Certainly too long to wear on a bike. I may try this one out as a cowl-alternative. I think I can tuck the ends into either side of a jacket and it will warm both neck and chest. And plus, it is blue, blues, bluesy, bluest. I held off posting this until I could get a daylit photo of it, just so you could see the true blues.

Also because lately every time I go to write something here, I end up feeling like I've either said too much or said nothing very interesting. It's been a weird summer so far, and I am not just talking about the weather - though it occurs to me to wonder about the degree to which people's behavior and moods (including mine) might be affected by such a long spell of the drearies.

As I look out my window now, there are again the gathering dark clouds, and the fan is pulling in air that feels oversaturated with moisture about to break into big drops. I still haven't unpacked my books. I think I am waiting for the skies to clear.