How We'll Get To Know Each Other.

"That's the best sound," I say, nodding in the direction of Mr. Coffee, as he calls the court to order.
"Mmm-hmm!"

But I've changed my mind.
You don't have to agree with me this time.

Because the coffee is brewing in the kitchen, and you're singing in my shower.

Now, that's the best sound.

***

("Is it raining?")
("I'll check. It's pouring!")
("That's just fine.")
("But how will you get home?")
("Oh! With - ")

(For the record, I've never had to suppress the impulse to recite Shakespeare, mostly because I've never had the impulse to recite Shakespeare. But you looked so sweet and so concerned and so unmistakably lovely that, upon taking your hands in mine, all I could think to say was, "With love's light wings will I o'er-perch these walls...of...uh...rain...")

(They say that you're only permitted to bastardize Shakespeare when you're hopelessly, foolishly, despicably in love.)

(That's not true!)
(That's not what "they" say!)
(That's what I say!)
(What I said!)
(Just now!)
(When I made it up!)

(I'm such a liar.)

(Thank God I'm charming, right?)

sunday morning.

"good morning! you're very beautiful! i love you!"

(even though i will never see you again, i thank you from the bottom of my heart.)

things i did today.

1. woke up to a landline phone call to a wrong number. went back to sleep.
2. decided my future (again).
3. brushed my teeth.
4. decided to wear a dress.
4a. a new dress.
4b. a dress from which i had to remove the tag, which is always frightening and a process i hate. even though it said "no refunds or exchanges," and even though this dress is from a place i only travel to once a year, and even though i bought it way back in august, removing the tag somehow made it final, a real decision, yes, i will keep you.
4c. put on that dress and realized i am much smaller since i tried it on ~3 months ago.
4d. was frightened of 4c.
5. went to class.
5a. handed in a paper.
5b. watched a movie about riverdance.
6. bought a diet peach snapple.
6a. drank it.
6b. regretted the purchase. it was disgusting.
7. went to another class.
7a. ruined the middle of dracula for a friend.
7b. had the ending of dracula ruined by the professor.
7c. took six pages of notes with a pen that is not the same pen i have taken all my other notes in, which, in addition to learning many things about the ending of dracula i had wanted to find out for myself, perturbed me.
8. rode in an elevator.
9. took a bus.
10. cheated death.

(in which nothing but sadness makes sense.)

"1 July. — His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and today I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events."

my heart broke.

this is why i should never read fiction.

Why I Broke The Silence:

I thought that there might have been candy inside.

I haven't a Ken! Leave, off, mice, and say: "Aye, V killed him."

In Which Pied Piper Barbie™ Seeks Revenge Against The Masked Freedom Fighter Responsible For The Death Of Her Boyfriend.

"I haven't taken leave of my sensei. I've killed him."

take that, this particular katie.

"I Haven't Taken Leave Of My Senses. I've Come To Them."

This morning, I slapped my coffeemaker upside the head.
Don't give me that look.
It was being difficult.
And I wasn't in a childish enough mood to pretend that it was a dragon (as I'll often do when it starts steaming and sputtering, even though we both know that it's just for show, that it's all bark and no bite), but I wasn't in an adult enough mood to admit that, well, gee, maybe it's time for a new coffeemaker.

I've never been very good at taking care of things.
Luckily, I'm quite good at making it look like I'm very good at taking care of things.
But don't you see, when I make those pretty little odds and ends for you and her and him and them, that I'm just distracting all of us (me, mostly) from everything that I'm neglecting?

Tonight, once I'd finished washing the dishes, I finally cleaned the coffee pot.
Thoroughly, I mean.
I took a cloth and gently wiped away the umber stains on the inside of its round little belly, the stains that I've never seen fit to remove in the year or so that I've had it.
"Because I'm the only one who uses it."
"Because they'll just come back next time I make coffee."
"Because it's just a coffee pot."
And I realized that I spend a great deal of time playing house.

When you're young, you practice caring for important things by caring for what you're told are not-so-important things.
You care for a baby doll to practice caring for a baby.
But what about the baby doll?
It's only when you grow up that you realize this, I guess.
That the not-so-important things aren't just stand-ins: that they're important too, and that they deserve care in their own right.
And so it goes: we must care for the supposedly not-so-important in order to practice caring for the important, only to learn that the not-so-important is what we could, and probably will, find important someday.

I've always been "the artist" in our family.
It's never been a title that I've had to defend.
So, tonight, when my sister contacted me and mentioned that she was "trying in vain to draw a picture of Frankie," I didn't think much of it.
Until she showed me what she'd drawn.
And let me tell you:
It's absolutely beautiful.