The Death of a Rabbit

The Death of a Rabbit

M.K. French

            “I need some paper.”  I half-whispered.  I plopped my book down on the lab table that I shared with the same person I shared everything else with.  As I was twenty minutes late, carrying out the duties of my illustrious post as sophomore class secretary counting money in the safe, the rest of the class had already begun working on the assignment for which I had missed the instruction.   I handed my written excuse to Mr. Sherwood, our twenty-something teacher who I was sure was in love with me, which was fantastic, since I was in love with him too.  I made sure to give him my most flirtatious, but seemingly innocent smile as I put the note on his desk, a little extra wiggle in my 16-year-old saunter and headed back to take my usual place next to Leah.  I hopped onto a tall stool; her small form was nearly underneath the table, as she was seated on a short one.  This exaggerated our difference in stature and demeanor—me huge and extroverted, her petite and demure.  Despite our physiological differences, we were Siamese—attached at the hip and everyone knew it.

            “Whose turn is it to ask questions today?”  I whispered, as I started rummaging through her bag for a pencil.  She took no notice—this was a usual routine.  I don’t think I ever brought any of my own school supplies during my entire high school career. 

            “Mine,” she whispered back. “But I’m already almost done—you haven’t even started.”

            “Girls—on task please,”  Mr. S’s chocolate pudding voice oozed out from the front of the room where he was writing equations for the next class.

            No way—your turn  I scribbled on the front of her notebook.

            It won’t make sense if I ask.  She scrawled underneath what I had just written.

 Fine, you crack!  I wrote, adding a smiley with its tongue hanging out to smooth over the abrasive term of endearment.   I was inwardly disappointed at Leah’s reluctance to play our daily game, where we would interchangeably fake (or in my case, not fake) our utter bewilderment about the assignment in order to get Mr. Sherwood’s divine butt bent over our table. The lucky one would get their fill of gawking while the other played dumb for as long as possible.  On rare auspicious occasions, one of the know-it-alls at the front of the room, Chris or Brandon, would ask a question. Though it didn’t take long for the boys to catch on to and be annoyed by our perverted exploitation of the young instructor. They had the audacity to start going up to his desk to ask their real questions, necessitating our fake ones.

            I expected her to giggle and write something equally or more crude back, but she didn’t.  She had her small brunette head bent over her work, trying earnestly to finish despite my shenanigans.  I made better grades somehow, but she was the better student.

I went back into her bag for gum, rooting around for at least another minute, unsuccessful.

            Gum?  I scribbled

            Out  she curtly jotted.

            “Gawd—you’re no help today.”  I teasingly whispered, garnering a disapproving look from Mr. Sherwood, now seated behind his desk.  I smiled and got busy looking busy.  I looked over the enigmatic problems and immediately became frustrated with the alien shapes and postulates laid out before me. I had no idea that a bigger problem was looming.

            Determined instead to do something I was usually successful at—making Leah laugh—I turned again and wrote  Why do we have to prove this crap?  I’ll take their word for it!   I thought for sure that this would be effective in distracting her so we could socialize more as the minutes of class dwindled.  She said nothing but worked on.  I looked again to my blank sheet of paper, wrote my name, Geometry 10, and the date on the top.  I put an Arabic 1 next to the red vertical line, circled it, made a few graphite flourishes, and turned back to our social graffiti.

            What crawled up YOUR butt and died? I scrawled. She lifted her head and flashed me a teary look through her unruly brown curls that was a mixture of irritation and misery. 

            “Sorr--REE,” I whispered, finally interrupting my own cheerful self-absorption to attend to my friend, who was visibly upset. “What’s wrong?”   She looked over warily at Mr. Sherwood, and then underneath my query about what had found its way up her posterior and died, she quickly wrote The rabbit.  She just as hastily scribbled it out.

            “I didn’t know you guys had a rabbit?”  I searched my confused brain through memories of my almost daily visits to her house for an unobserved rabbit hutch. I wasn’t all that surprised that I had missed it in her little sister Clare’s constantly changing menagerie of animals.

            She let out a faint chuckle.  That’s more like it, I thought. She then fashioned her face into a tilted, impatient gaze that said, “No, you dumb shit,” and now only mouthed the words: “I’m pregnant.”  The shapes and letters on my page became bleary as the bell intruded upon our newly-defined moment.     

*****

            A few weeks passed. This was more than a crisis for the daughter of a foot-washing deacon.  This was certain death.  It came down on us like the coal that killed the children of Aberfan, black and smothering.  Despite much intense deliberation, we were still found ourselves gasping and grasping—but no answers were made to us.  None of the so-called “options” seemed that at all.  I didn’t bother to offer anything closely resembling telling her parents—as I knew this was not one.  In absence of a solution we did nothing but wait—for an uncertain outcome. We went to class, to volleyball practice—we tried to talk as if this “thing”—in our minds not even another being yet but just—a thing, wasn’t there threatening to destroy all the plans we had made.

            Finally, the time arrived when no conscious choice had to be made. Leah had inexplicably failed to board the bus for an away game one Saturday morning.  I played a shitty game and couldn’t get to her house fast enough after a day of worry. My anxiety was exacerbated by a dreadful secret about a dead rabbit that she refused to share with anyone else, even with the stupid boy with whom I was very angry for putting her in this condition, though I knew that Leah was just as much to blame.

But I was honor-bound. I kept my word. As an adult I will never cease to question and criticize the wisdom of my choice. As a teenager I loved my friend too fiercely to betray her confidence in me.

I don’t remember what the weather was like the day of that game against Noxon.  I don’t remember if we won or lost it.  I don’t remember what hour the next morning I was finally able to take my hand from her forehead and sleep. I don’t remember how long it took me to clean the bathroom.  I don’t remember what excuse we invented for the missing linens—the ones I took home with me and threw away. 

But I do remember finding her, arms folded against her small tummy, among piles of saturated red towels and chunks of vomit on the floor in the bathroom.  I remember the fear and self-hatred surging inside me as I stayed there, holding her—skin searing my hands, on the stained linoleum fighting every urge that I had to run and get her mother as she begged me not to tell.  I remember how liver-like clots broke up and pinkened the water as I bathed her. I remember putting her to bed in an improvised diaper. I remember feeling certain she would bleed to death.    I remember waking up with her still alive and thanking God.  I remember later realizing that what she, what we—had lost was not just a thing, but a soul.  I remember feeling guilty that I was glad it was over. I remember us afterwards, trying to carry on with our adolescent lives as if we were still adolescents.

            

Texting Love

Texting Love

m.k. french

if i wr 2 say

I ador u ths way

Wd it mn lss thn

n a time

whn ppl ddnt T9

to say

143

(luv u)?

Mail Phobia

Mail Phobia

(And my apology to Postmistresses)

by M.K. French

I have a strange fear of the mail. Though I have researched this thoroughly on the Internet, I cannot seem to find a name for this irrational psychosis amid all the other crazy phobias. It’s maddening. There’s a name for the fear of bright colors (chromophobia), the fear of butterflies (Lepidopterophobia), and even the fear of chewing gum (Chiclephobia), but none for what I have. (If you would like to read about these “absurd phobias and the people who have them,” see the link at the bottom of this post.)

I did find one comforting site (see other link) in which someone else actually discusses their fear of the mail, and a therapist’s advice to that person, which means at least I’m not the only one. The biggest difference is that this anonymous person doesn’t seem to know what’s causing it, and I have at least one story (following) through which I can trace at least one experience which contributed to my phobia.

Because of this bizarre fear, postmistresses hate me. I say mistress and not master, because even though it might be more “p-c” to say master for both (I once received an ass chewing from a female actor for calling her an actress. She scolded, “you [meaning I] wouldn’t call you a teacheress, would you/I?”) To which I responded that she could if she wanted to).  All of the postmasters in the small towns I've lived in for the majority of my life have been women. Usually fastidious (a quality probably very necessary in their profession), with zero tolerance for irresponsible flakes like me who don't check their P.O. box for weeks on end, leaving the mail to pile up, until it’s jammed and crammed into every available pocket of space in that damned box, so tight I have a hard time getting it out even if I want to (guess it serves me right), and then overflowing into some rubber-banded pile that they've started in the back for me. Finally, I get up the courage to face their disapproving faces, enduring the self-inflicted turmoil of having to be gracious during repeated reminders of their magnanimity towards me for bending the rules and keeping it longer than they were supposed to, saying, “you know we're supposed to send it back after so many days.” And I try to smile a grateful smile while when they hand me my accumulated pile of anxiety, name in all caps, accusatory black letters.

And that gets me wondering. Why was that decided way back when? To use LETTERS. In this digital age, it’s considered shouting if you use all caps. SEE? DOESN'T IT FEEL LIKE I'M SHOUTING AT YOU? Or maybe your eye even came here, to this point, first thing instead if at the beginning of the story—just like the mail, shouting your full name, just like all those times long ago when you heard it at the opposite end of the house, MARY-KATE FRANCES!, and you knew you were going to get your ass tanned, except it's so much more...its PAY THIS BILL AT ONCE, FIRST MIDDLE LAST NAME!!!!! (If you did indeed start here instead of at the beginning, GO BACK AND READ FROM THE BEGINNING, FIRST MIDDLE LAST NAME!) I mean, please, if you would be so kind as to go back to the beginning and start there.

I kept thinking it was those damned capital letters that caused my mail phobia, but that's a lousy excuse to offer to the poor post mistresses, when you go to face the music, who you really do feel guilty about, for being such a pain in their collective asses. (I’m sorry ma’am, but it’s the letters….they scare me! Not the letters, the LETTERS. See how ridiculous that sounds?) Yes, I really did think it was the LETTERS. Until one day in a weird flashback, when I remembered why I hate the mail. I humbly offer my apologies to you, dear rural mistresses of post...I only have this excuse to offer you. And though it's a bit late, please indulge me while I offer an explanation as to why I’m really not trying to be a pain in your asses, just trying to work out my mail phobia:

When I was a kid, I used to love getting the mail (didn’t everyone?). Especially junk mail. There were always big slick colorful printed advertisements. Sometimes they had stickers in them. Sometimes they had neat pictures to look at. Sometimes there was a Highlights magazine. Sometimes they made “promises” that caused shattered illusions and painful realizations for a kid, just-at-that-age, feeling helpless to do anything for her distressed single mother.

We had just completed the post-school, P.O. Box check of our bi-weekly routine. My mom always took a few moments in front of the post office to sort the mail in our midnight blue Maverick, a car which I thought was hideous for some reason. I cursed it for its lack of reverse. At some point, the transmission had acted up and she couldn’t afford to fix it. Mom still drove it, she just became an expert at parking it only in places where she wouldn’t be required to go backwards.  Every once in awhile, some jackass would park in front of her (she would cuss them out and call them jackass, even though, at first, they obviously had no way of knowing that we didn’t have reverse, though this came to be an embarrassingly well-known fact in our small town). She always shuffled the junk over to me, knowing my innocent aesthetic attraction to all the commercial propaganda. On this particular occasion, it was one of the rare times that my brother, two years my senior, had either allowed (or been ordered to allow) me to ride shotgun, making riding in the embarrassmentmobile mildly tolerable. The first time I saw Karate Kid, (which would have been right around this time) specifically the scene where Ralph Macchio has to get out and help push his mother’s car when he’s on his date with the object of his affection, I could so feel his pain. I was far too young to date, and young enough to be unable to separate Ralph Macchio from his character, but I knew that if we ever met in person, we would be perfect for each other simply based on this singular shared humiliation. I would love to have that car now.

As we made our way up the hill towards home, I did my own sorting, looking first for any treasured magazines. I didn't realize what a luxury they were at the time. As I reflect on this, I feel yet another appreciation for my mother for making such little expenditures for my benefit, even though, as you’ll soon see, she really maybe couldn't afford them. We didn't have reverse in our car, for Christ’s sake! There were no magazines, no stickers this time. But something else caught my eye. Through cellophane, it was the LETTERS.  They said, MY MOTHER’S NAME, YOU HAVE ALREADY WON ONE OF THREE FANTASTIC PRIZES! 

We pulled up in front of our house. I greedily tore into the envelope. It was understood that any mail that had been given to me was destined for the garbage, and therefore I was allowed to open it. My excitement built as I scanned the cardstock’s pictures and accompanying letter. How could my mother have overlooked this? No matter. I would get to be the bearer of this grand news. As my eyes jumped around from a colorful picture of a sports car (I bet it even has reverse!), to the silhouette of palm trees against a tropical sunset, to a pile of golden coins, I took no notice of mom’s first opening until I heard her gasp.

I reluctantly turned from my own happy task to see her furrowed brows, her look of worry, her trembling hands holding the contents of one of those ominous envelopes with the zig-zagging blue lines, a security envelope. I had seen these envelopes before, usually as she sat at the table paying bills. I knew they were from the bank. She always kind of looked unhappy when she opened these envelopes, but I couldn’t comprehend why she had chosen to open this one while still sitting in the car outside our house.

I turned back to my own reading. My momma was going to be able to pick one of these three prizes! My days of riding in the embarassmentmobile were over! Knowing how hard she worked, all those long hours grading papers in her classroom, planning lessons. I knew she could probably use a real vacation. I momentarily thought I would unselfishly recommend the vacation. But just as quickly my own selfishness prevailed. I would do my best to convince her to choose the car. I hopped out of the Maverick and ran to my brother, who was already in the yard throwing a baseball against our pitching net.

“Look, Bobby! Look what mom won!”

He stopped throwing the baseball, took the envelope from me and glanced over it. “She didn’t win anything, stupid. They send those to everyone. They’re just trying to get us to buy stuff.”

“But—“

“Throw it in the garbage.” He threw it back at me.

My brother was obviously the stupid one. Why would they send something in the mail that was a lie? I ignored him and his blasé attitude and ran back to the open window of the car, where my mother was still sitting with the zig-zaggy envelope letter. If it’s possible to have two expressions, she now looked both worried and shocked.

“Mom! Look, you won a prize! You can get a new car!”

She ignored me, still staring at the letter, now digging in her purse for something.

“Mom!” I insisted, brandishing the letter.

She found what she must have been looking for, her checkbook. She pulled it out and began looking at the place where she always wrote down numbers after she wrote a check. The ledger, as I would later be instructed. She held it against the steering wheel with one hand, the zig-zaggy letter in the other.

“Mom!” I now began thrusting my letter through the open window at her. “You won a prize!”

“Mary, be quiet. I’m trying to figure something out.”

“But Mom!”  I opened up the door and got back in the car. I didn’t understand why I was the only one who could see what a treasure I was holding in my hand. I was not going to let this piece of news go unnoticed and uncelebrated. I tried to wait patiently for mother to be finished. I sat mute, kicking the dashboard.

My elation turned to confusion as I heard my mother sob, cross her forearms over one another on the steering wheel, and lay her head down. I put my hand on her back, trying to be of comfort, knowing that whatever was wrong, it would be remedied by my discovery.

“What’s wrong, mom?” I asked.

She picked her head back up and shoved the villainous piece of mail into her purse with her checkbook. She looked up, staring through tears at nothing on the horizon.

“Mom?” I questioned.

“I overdrew my account.” She said after a pause.

“Overdrew?”

“I made a mistake.” She seemed angry now. “A big one. I accidentally spent more money than we have.”

“It’s okay, mom, everybody makes mistakes,” I soothed, echoing one of her own generous aphorisms. The mechanics of a checking account were a complete mystery to me. Some might argue that they still are.

“This was a bad mistake, Mary. A four-hundred-dollar-mistake. My ledger was wrong.” She tried to explain. I was unfamiliar with money as an abstraction. I did not yet grasp how you could spend more money than you had, and so, failed to see the urgency of the situation.

“How could I have done that? What am I going to do?” I erroneously thought she was talking to me, even though she was still looking off into the distance.

“Mom, look. It doesn’t matter.” I again offered my piece of mail. My dream of a new car might be already over, but I knew that the promised shiny pile of coins would fix everything for her, and seeing her that upset made me forget about the car.

“Mary, go in the house and start your chores.” She said sternly.

I got out of the car, and slammed the door in frustration. Slamming the door was a no-no, but I wanted her to know exactly how frustrated I was that she was not seeing my solution to what she took all on her shoulders as her own problem, but what I was willing to share, in my own little eight-year-old bravery, as our problem.

“But Mo-omm! We won some money! LOOK!”

“Mary, go in the house and do what I asked!” she yelled.

Now I was angry. “Mom, why won’t you lis—“

In a violent, hysterical burst of energy, she began to shake her permed head from side to side. She grasped at her ears and then beat her fists against the steering wheel repeatedly, crying, “Just leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

I stood on the sidewalk, stunned. I felt my own hot tears rolling down my cheeks as I clenched false promises in my hand.

She grabbed at the ignition, the engine turned over. She drove off in the only direction that she could, forward.

As the dust settled behind her on the gravel of Alpha Street, I stood paralyzed in fear and perplexity, struggling to understand what had just taken place. In the span of ten minutes I had felt both the highest exultation and the lowest dejection. Where did she go? Was she coming back?

My brother stopped what he was doing, and surprisingly, without the usual insult or condescension, silently turned me and ushered me up the wooden steps and into our house. He began a pot of some kind of tasteless and forgettable soup on the hot plate. Though I didn’t feel like eating, I knew better than to reject this uncommon gesture of care. I ate the soup, which I salted with the burning drops rolling down from my eyes and into my mouth, vacillating between a fearful and pouting state.

It seemed like forever, but it was probably only about an hour or so before my mother returned. I had left the letter on the table next to my plate, still foolishly hoping it might rescue us from this predicament.

I said nothing as she entered, now composed but pensive. I expected both an explanation and an apology and got neither. It was only eight o’clock, but I saw her readying herself for bed. My brother instructed me to finish my homework and do the same. It was one of the few times I ever did as he told me. I was angry that he somehow knew what was going on and I didn’t.

As I lay in bed, my anxiety grew. My precocious knowledge of Charles Dickens and the debtor’s prisons of England weighed heavy upon me. Would angry bankers appear at our door and demand our meager worldly possessions? Was mom going to jail? I tried to select a non-Victorian book to get my mind off things. After a time, I fell asleep with the light on, not realizing how this common practice of mine was further contributing to my poor mother’s financial struggles.

The next day, we spoke nothing of the awful letter, or the other one. I continued to go to school and do my homework and chores for about a week without being asked, awaiting some unknown terrible fate that never came. I do not know how my mother resolved the issue, although I expect it was through her ingenious ability to “rob Peter to pay Paul,” as she called it.

A few years later, my mom was able to replace the blue Maverick with a little white Toyota pickup, with a manual transmission. Although not nearly as glamorous as a sports car, I learned to drive in it.

Sometimes you can pinpoint the specific moments when you learn the really profound things that you learn; sometimes they’re layered on you through “wisdom of experience.”  Obviously, I eventually came to understand that just because something is proclaimed in bold capital letters, or in any other manner, doesn't necessarily make it so. You find out that some letters are lies, whether printed on an envelope or strung together in words and spoken. Some bring bad news, but some bring good. I think we all still kind of hope for things that are too good to be true. That’s the trick, isn't it? Balancing unbridled hope with necessary caution, and learning from our mistakes.

To this day, I still hate getting the mail (but I also still kind of hope for a sports car).

http://www.cracked.com/article_16472_6-absurd-phobias-and-people-who-actually-have-them.html

http://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2010/07/29/fear-of-mail/,

To Give Away

To Give Away

Words:

ever-so-gently used

many previous owners

but in this feverish possession

black inkblot composition

in fair condition

I give you

wistful penstrokes

hope for lovely discovery

of insight or utilitarianism

infinite possibility for rearrangement

if only you pick them up

left to right immediacy

horizontal haul; or however you will.

your desperate search for a couch

over coffee, and maybe a cigarette

could wait just a bit?

I implore a minute more.

A Soul:

poetry-prose X—older

pedigree unknown

a beautiful Anima nevertheless

will you take her in?

or proceed in need

of a different breed?

Also:  new litter of letters expected,

must find good homes

call 531-7372.  Ask for M.K.

DiaMonologue

DiaMonologue

By Mary-Kate Nienhuis & her Hypercritical Self

Why do I need to write? I feel like I’m a writer.

But you don’t write anything, so therefore, you are not a writer.

But I have. And it’s been good.

What your mom says about your stupid little poems and wanna-be epics that you wrote when you were eight does not count.

Yeah. I’m not really talking about that stuff.  Since then--I’ve written things.  And I think they were okay.

Well, you’re not now.

I know.

Why not? 

I don’t know.  Reilly’s coming home.  There’s laundry in the dryer, a stack of papers waiting at school.  I need to clean the upstairs bathroom and the guinea pig cage, and then go get the mail so I can pay bills.

Excuses, excuses.  You’re not doing any of that either.

I know……………I’m afraid. 

You should be.  I’ve seen your upstairs bathroom.

Not of cleaning the bathroom. 

Afraid of what?

Afraid that I’m not really a writer.

Anyone who writes anything is a writer, dipshit.

Yeah I know.  But I don’t want to be a bad writer, I want to be a good writer.

Well what does that mean?

I don’t know, people will want to read what I write, I guess.

Well, why would they?

That’s my point.

But then again, why wouldn’t they?

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just afraid of what will come out?!  What if I embarrass or scandalize myself?

So what?  You do that every Friday night at the Bar 100.

Well…now I think you’re exaggerating.   Wasn’t it Norman Maclean who said that drinking beer in Montana doesn’t count as drinking? And besides, there’s only like, two and a half grams of carbs in this.

Whatever makes you feel better.

WHAT?  DAMN!  Are you writing a friggin book?

No—but you’re the one who thinks they ought to be.

Shut up!

Oooh...Good one!

I don’t know.   I just can’t seem to sit down and make myself do it.  I’m not sure what I’m waiting for.  Dr. Bolton said I should write a monologue.  Maybe this could be one.

I don’t think this qualifies as a monologue. 

Why not?

Well, because a monologue is one person talking, moron.  Aren’t you supposed to know these things, “teach?”

Yeah, but technically, you’re me and I’m you, and it’s all inside my own head.

Yeah, but it’s still a conversation—So really, it’s a dialogue.

With myself.

Yeah. I think this is where professionals usually step in. 

What?

Well, listen to yourself!

I am!!!! That’s you! I’m even writing it all down!!!!!

Exactly.  The next thing you know they’ll be finding someone’s body chopped up in your freezer and you’ll be blaming me.

That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  You know I’m not a violent person.  And besides, I don’t even have a chest freezer—just the little one on top of the fridge--and it’s full of pork chops, freezy pops and taquitos….how would I fit anything else in there? Although I HAVE been thinking about buying one so I’d have some room for some meat.

SEE!  It’s all part of your subconscious plan. 

It’s snot--- no wait--it’s not SNOT--typo, sorry.

Have another one, lush.

Shut up!  What I meant to say is that it’s not SUBconscious if I’m thinking about it, which I obviously am.  Who’s the dipshit?

Oh, right.  So you admit to premeditation. You’re just digging yourself in deeper and deeper.  That’s at least another 10 years on your sentence.

Can we save the speculation about my sentence for the hypothetical homicide I might commit until after I’ve said what I had to say?

Sorry, my bad……

…………………

I’m waiting…..

I know, I forgot where I was.  Oh. yeah, now I remember.  This is what I was talking about.  I can’t be putting stuff like this down on paper.  People will think I’m unbalanced—crazy!

Well I think it might be too late for that.

Shut up!

Is that your only comeback?  Just face it.  YOU CAN’T WRITE!………

………

………

I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean it. It’s just that I know you.  The only thing that seems to light a fire under your ass is when someone tells you that you can’t do something.  I was just trying it out.  I think you should write.  You know you want to.  You can.  I was only trying to help.

Thanks….

……………..

What should I write about?

I don’t know.

I’m hungry. 

That’s definitely something that nobody cares about.

I thought you did.  I’m going to go get a taquito.

Good plan.  They’re behind the severed fingers. 

Smartass.

Always.

Why a Blog

Why a Blog

By M.K. French

Blogging vs. Blehhhh…ging (insert heaving noise here)

It seems like it’s in vogue to be in a confessional mode these days. Some confessions seem to be kind of important. Take for example Angelina Jolie’s recent decision to have a double mastectomy (maybe somewhat instructional, if not a tad paranoid). You gotta admit, for a lady minus her “girls,” she’s got some balls (not to mention a great excuse to get some new, bigger, better ones—breasts, that is).

Some, like the decision to have any number of random things for dinner, (ala Facebook Status realm), almost seem involuntary, like vomit.  So I, too, feel compelled to confess and possibly even to justify my reason for starting a blog, because, let’s face it, there’s a lot of mental vomit being spewed all over us these days via a constant stream of media bombardment.  Sometimes it’s hard to navigate everybody’s spewing.

Do you remember in elementary school when it was the worst thing in the world to vomit in front of everyone? It was so mortifying for the janitor to have to come in and throw that weird sawdust stuff on it. If you’ll indulge my metaphor, imagine if everyone in the classroom was vomiting at the same time? It’d be pretty hard not to get some puke on you.  I guess it’s always been my fear that I might be that kid, vomiting out my thoughts and getting it on the poor person next to me. Making them endure the horrors of my humiliation.

And before you think I’m getting too high on the horse, please know that I fully recognize that I am probably doing exactly that, thus all the excuses that have, heretofore, prevented me from starting one, including a double helping of #1) the fear of how people will react to it (eewwww…Mrs. Bradshaw...Mary-Kate just puked!) and #2) the guilt for subjecting anyone else to it. (Suzy, I’m so sorry you had to see my half-digested Spaghettios, I think to myself as I’m being escorted from the room, head hung in shame).

And then I turned 35 (last year) and I realized, that if I live the average life span for someone born in “my generation,” my life is, for all intents and purposes, half way over, and I haven’t become the writer that I have always aspired to be (if you’re still with me in a minute, see also “History,” below). It then occurred to me how derailed that logic train was, because we never know when we’re going to die, so if I died in a week, really right now in this moment my life is actually 99% over.  As if my existential meanderings weren’t depressing enough, that just made it seem all the more urgent that I write.

It also occurred to me that such repetitive references to vomit in a person’s first blog post might be off-putting. If you’re still reading this, you’re either a really good friend of mine (thanks Nancy McDonald, for still reading this, and also for suggesting I blog), or exactly the kind of person who might like my blog (yay!), or both. In either case, I’m almost done talking about vomiting and we can move on to the rest of my self-indulgent, angsty-struggling-writer-shtick, and also the rest of my content, some of which will be about me, some of which will be about the interesting people I know, all in the context of our reality in rural America, our “rurality.”

More worries, and Blogging vs. Blahging

It also seems a little hypocritical for an English teacher to encourage her students to pour themselves out and then only be willing to do it privately herself, so, you know, there’s THAT. And P.S.: contrary to popular belief, English teachers don’t know everything, (nor do any other teachers for that matter). I’m going to be taking some liberties with my grammar.  You might find a fragment or two. Like this. Or this. I might make up words, like “blahging.” I’ll just put this out there: I’m an e.e. cummings fan. Sue me. It’s called style, people. I’m aware of the rules, and I allow my students the same flexibility in appropriate, non-academic genres…(like this) so there. Pthhhhh! (How’s that for an onomatopoeia?)

Here’s another one that’s not all that irrational: what if whatever I have to say is just plain boring? Well, the beautiful thing about this digital age we’re living in is that there’s a little white x in a little red box up and to your right, and you can click it at any time, and nobody’s feelings have to get hurt, least of all mine. It’s like inviting people over to your house instead of going to theirs. If you’re doing something in your own house that offends or bores them, they can leave if they don’t like it (even though I hope you don’t want to. Come in, take your shoes off, stay awhile. Heck, come every day).

History

I was a weird kid, probably not inordinately weird, because I know a lot of people who claim they were also weird kids, and I feel a special kinship with them. I read voraciously, starting at age 4. This isn’t that really in itself strange unless you consider the fact two of my favorite stories by age 7 were The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe. If you haven’t read these, I won’t spoil them, but I will tell you that both involve homicide.

My best childhood friend Sarah claims that I taught her how to read not long after I learned, though I think she shares my talent for exaggeration (I may have showed off a few of my Dick-and-Jane acquired words, while forcing her to “play” school with me, which she then demonstrated after observing the same words on a few household products, like a bag of Dog Chow or something. But obviously I had a teaching bent from an early age). As a stereotypically chubby kid with allergies, I developed an aversion to the outdoors and physical exertion (something else I’m struggling to overcome, but that’s another blog). Consequently, I read a lot, and developed a deep love of words which I wanted to share with others. I began writing little stories and poems, some of which, if I can dig up, might even find their way here.

And then came roughly 3 decades of excuses and half-heartedness. For anyone else reading this who pursues an art of any kind, I think you can identify. If you want to read a conversation I had with myself about 5 years ago, see my piece, DiaMonologue. You’ll see the disturbing influence of Poe.

Anyway, that’s all over now.  My blog was finally born; I’m spanking it on its little butt and sending it out into the world. While I can’t promise you that I’ll never metaphorically puke again, I promise that I’ll do my best to give my words away, (see also, my poem To Give Away) and if you can find anything amusing or useful in there, I’ll be humbled. If you find fodder for criticism, I now welcome it. I think I’ve worked that all out. Thanks for coming along with me while I did it.

Bring on the sawdust!