The day started out with so much potential. Saralita and I both got second interviews at the REI job fair, I bought a pair of heavy duty hiking boots and basked in the afternoon sun on our adorable porch. But things never stay fair for long in this world.
I fucked up. That's right, strong language and everything. I had seven days to prove that I could keep my till at work within $2.99 of what the computer says I should have or I would be demoted from Front End Manager back to cashier. Today, on my third day, after two days of success, I screwed up the entire thing and was $20.00 fucking dollars over. I have the word zero written on my thumb with permanent marker. Every time someone hands me a stinking, wrinkly, wet bill from their pocket or purse or bra or whatever I cringe and take extra care to handle the thing with precision. But no, I can't even give people their fucking change back. Why do we let people get cash back with debits. You know that's what it was. I hate my job and being a Front End Manager and I don't want to work there anymore. I don't care that I am going to be demoted and I don't care that I'll take a huge pay cut and even get suspended for a day. I hate the principle of the thing. I still fuck up even though I take the greatest care and precautions not to. If I can see a way to improve, I'll step up to the plate and improve, but I've done everything right. Even my manager didn't have any advise for me. Fucking $ 20.00 over. They should be happy that I'm evening out all the fuckers who consistently are $2.00 under.

One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus

There are two elementary things that are nearly impossible to do without your left thumb. The first is buttoning up your pants. Now, if I had cut 2/9 of an inch off of my right thumb, I might not dread dropping my pants nearly as much. However, as it stands now, every time I have to button my pants, I have to push and pull with my other fingers to get the button out or into the loop. I'm sure you can imagine the close calls I've had because nobody has to pee worse then when they are in the bathroom trying to get their pants undone. The second is tying shoe laces in bows. For some reason, I tie my shoes in such a manner that it is crucial that my left thumb creates the loop of the tie and then pulls out of the loop smoothly. However, I have been bandaging my thumb whenever I do anything active and it just follows that if shoes are going to be tied on, that I am doing something active and therefore, have bandaged my thumb. The bandaid gets caught on the shoe lace and my hand gets stuck in a knot tied to my feet and now I'm walking around trying to find the nearest bathroom so I can somehow get my pants unbuttoned and pee! I guess, I'll just have to boycott pants and tie my shoes in knots.
What elementary things do you have problems executing or could imagine being difficult if a body part was damaged or missing?

[a ponderable from Chris]

I do believe that I have zero readers, which is fine. My ramblings don't need to be discovered yet. And...I'm not sure I want to be asked anything. Anything. That's a big step, and yes, I'm living on my own, and working and even been to a year of college, but anything?

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want. Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything. Anything.

Life seems to be so solitary, but I have chosen it to be that way. Despite the fact that I live in the heart of Seattle, the hub of the Northwest, surrounded by thousands of people, a few of which, no doubt, like to do the same things I do, like reading, writing, hiking and laying on their backs looking at the sky, ceiling or stars, I find myself alone. I feel ambivalent about this juxtaposition because I like to be alone, listening to music, really hearing the poetry in the lyrics, composing prose in my head, reciting things I've memorized and thinking and ruminating over past events and future ones as well. On the other hand, I want to share experiences with friends, making them more potent and plump. Sharing with someone allows you to experience double time, in that you are able to absorb your reactions along with your friends, and later revisit the occasion and relive it in yet another manner and dimension. I am happy that I am content when I am alone, but I have not overcome my loneliness.

Without Your Eyes

Through your eyes, the drab leaves
of November burst with vibrant green potential
to become causeways for chlorophyll in the Spring.
Simple songs, short syllables and azure, cloud-spotted
skies reveal profound, complex meaning and telos.

Through your eyes, your blue eyes, the fall
of rain, planets dancing between twinkling
stars, hushed giggles in the twilight and the
homeless who beg for one more piece of grimy
change are more than observable occasions.

Through you eyes, they are feelings that I can
prod, poke and comprehend like knowing that this
has happened before, feeling a small ant on my
scalp and watching fuzzy black leech into color
when I stand up too quickly.

Without your eyes, I am obtuse, self-absorbed
and loud. But through your eyes, I am grounded,
hurt, happy, hollow, content, sensitive and in love.
Mysteries don’t need solutions and I understand
lyrics, space, why I cry, time, this poem and God.

Through your wonder-widened eyes that droop in
weariness and crinkle with laughter, I see the apple’s
core, the animal’s skeleton and why there is truth,
sensitivity, compassion and exhaustion. Your eyes see
beauty in monsters, meaning in Haikus and green in brown leaves.

"First you jump off the cliff and then build wings on the way down." -Ray Bradbury

I can think of so many opportunities that I have passed up because the cliff was too steep, the landing below too hard, or the fall too breathtaking, too risky, too hazardous. I remember jumping off the high dive into Grizzly pool after swimming lessons. Sometimes my neck hurt, sometimes I worried I had really hurt myself. They eventually took away the high dive. I never found out why but I can hypothesis that there had been too many casualties and it was too dangerous for its own good. Fortunately, the jump off the cliff of opportunities is not as mortally dangerous as high dives and though the landing may be rough, the water hard as rocks, and the downward plunge breathtaking and heart stopping, taking a risk, taking the step into unknown air will ultimately be an elevation to higher plateaus. Right now my cliff is a soccer league I joined at the University of Washington, finding and establishing friendships with people (other than my lovely/ perfect/ awesome housemates), spending my Fall and Winter in a meaningful and life-changing way and realizing that things will never be comfortable. I guess, you can't think about the results of your actions too hard or you will always take the safer route. Jumping into things unprepared forces you to improvise, be creative and rise to the occasion. God, I hope I can still walk after soccer practice tomorrow!

This BLOG, this foreign word/concept, is like a message in a bottle. I am scratching a note onto a piece of cloth with a talc-like stone or charred stick. I am trying to communicate my thoughts and feelings verbally across an incalculable space and time to a person unimaginable. I don't know what distant shore my bottle will land on, nor do I know who will brush off the sand and salt, uncork it and read the dusty trash my fingers and mind created. Where did I get the bottle in the first place? And, assuming I landed on this solitary island with only a bottle and cloth and charred stick, did I drink the contents of the bottle before or after I washed ashore? Is it possible that I am stranded on an island because I drank the liquid from the bottle or did I drink because I was stranded? This bottle doesn't have a label or identifying mark. It is only an orifice of cold green and wooden cork without any fluid or bile and it is mine to fill with messages, stories, thoughts, feelings and poems. I am sending a message in a bottle to distant shores and I hope the ether carries it to alien shores far away. Perhaps my bottle can't rescue me from my isolated island but with it, I can communicate and share and preserve myself in a verbal, if not physical, form.