Hammer Without a Master

Potential energy,right? The power something possesses while it just sits there waiting to be used. The sound of it is powerful: potential energy.

I am the epitome of potential energy. I can build worlds. I can make boys into men. I can teach girls to be strong! I can!

No one wants me. Here I am composed entirely of potential, but no one will take me into his hands. No one will discover that which I am capable of.

Potential energy. I sit here. I age. I rust. Potential energy crumbles into uselessness.

I Was Very Brave.

Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.

"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave." Mahatma Gandhi

Finding A Balance

Last night as I lay trying to sleep, my brain in a new kind of swirl because of the medication I'm on, I started to think about what I really want from love. It's a constant theme in my life. It will never go away.

There were two boys, let's call them Skeeter and Skippy, who followed me around like puppy dogs. They'd do anything I'd say. No matter how ridiculous it was. This is not what I want from love. I do not want a man who jumps when I snap. I am not interested in a follower.

There were two other boys, let's call them Satan and Snidely, who wanted me to follow them. Walk a step behind even. However, I knew they were not superior to me, and they knew that I knew it and were afraid of my power. I am not interested in a tyrant.

There ARE two boys, let's call them Spencer and Stefan, who realize that we are equal. Neither one feels he is superior to me. Neither one feels he is less than me. We feel in balance. Now, unfortunately, neither of these two are in love with me, but they have taught me that what I want from love is someone to walk beside me.

Love, don't walk behind me, waiting for me to lead. I'm tired of being strong.
Love, don't walk before me, I will not follow all the paths you want to tread.
Love, walk beside me and we'll find a way to bring it all into balance.

So What Am I Supposed To Do, Eh?

Advice to meet men:

Set a schedule! Do your shopping on Tuesday evenings or your laundry on Sunday afternoons! The guy who sees you there once but was a little nervous about approaching you might pluck up the courage when you’re there the next time!

Advice to avoid stalkers:

Never follow a pattern. Never shop at the same time on the same day. Never use the same Laundromat each time you do laundry.

Bats & Pschitt

“That was not a bird.” I thought to myself as something flew overhead in the evening sky. Three more followed from the direction of the chimneystack of my apartment building. They were bats. SWEET! I think bats are cool. Yes, I know. It’s completely contradictory when compared to my hatred of snakes and bugs of all types. Mostly they are lumped together in an “ew” category. But I think they’re cool. (That's a picture of a small brown bat which is the kind I believe is living in my apartment building).

Bats made me think about categories, actually. Bats of a leather flock together. Or something like that. Only, what if you don’t know if you’re a bat or a bird…perhaps I’m just a flying squirrel?

Where do I fit? Really. I don’t know where I am supposed to be. I feel like I’m forever in that awkward puberty stage of being too old for the kids, but too young for the adults. I don’t know where I belong.

I think that’s why I am searching for that one man who will love me more than anyone. Because then when these awkward feelings arrive I can say that I know where I belong. I belong in his arms.

I hope I give up hope soon. Or win the lottery. Either one of them is just as plausible as the last. Oh, buy the way, this is Pschitt.

It's a lemonade type drink they sell in France. I drank a lot of it there. I guess that makes me full of Pschitt.

Sex Toys...

Now that I have your attention, I have something to say on the subject of sex:

What every single one of us longs for is love. Sex is a bonus, but what our souls long for is that connection of love, trust and acceptance. I want to be loved because of everything I am. I want to love someone because of everything he is.

Anyone can climax sexually all by one’s lonesome, BUT…

• You cannot hold you own hand when you need a friend.
• You cannot put your own arm around your shoulders when you need comforted.
• You cannot hold yourself in your own arms and feel safe.
• You cannot cry on your own shoulder.
• And a tear wiped from a cheek by someone you love is always a better shed tear than the ones you wipe from your own eyes.

Culturally I come from a group that does not freely talk about sex. (And I come from extremely naïve and innocent parents!) That does not mean I am a prude. If you’d like to know my experiences follow this link to a bunny cartoon singing “Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me” http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/bunny.php Also, I was once asked if I was a virgin to which I responded, “Why do you need to know? Is there an angry volcano God somewhere?” You may assume what you wish. I just wanted to point out that there are far more important elements to two people touching each other than for the actually selfish act of orgasm.

If we don’t feel love with our heart...

...then how come that's where it hurts when someone doesn't love us back?

Everyone finds someone. That's how it's supposed to work, right? Right. But it doesn't. Unfortunately. Love is unlike anything else you can dream of. You can dream of becoming a doctor and work hard at making it happen. Love is something you dream but have absolutely no control over. You can make any dream come true...unless your dream is to be loved.

Here is a quote from Nietzsche; "One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by a heart that overflows." I'm one of the overflow-ers & I'm searching for a sponge. When I feel something, I feel it all the way. There is no halfway with what I feel. I wish there were. In fact, there are many things I wish I couldn't feel at all.

So, I tell myself to change my dreams. Dream something else instead. What else do I want in life? Mmmm...I'm thinking. And thinking. And for years I haven't been able to come up with any other dream.

The advice I most often get is "Get over it." You want to become a doctor? "Get over it." You want to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef? "Get over it." It's such a helpful phrase. As Colonel Potter would say, it's as helpful as "a one-legged man at a butt kicking contest." Get over it, huh? "It's the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don't get over it because it is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particular-ness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not erased by anyone but death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit. Why would I want them to?"

I think of Marianne at the dance when she sees her love with another woman. She turns to her sister and says, "Make him come to me, Elinor. Make him come to me right now." And all Elinor can do is take Marianne home. Then, the part that stabs me to the core, Marianne turns to Elinor and says, "Always acceptance and resignation. Tell me, Elinor, where is your heart?" And Elinor breaks down for the first time. She can no longer hide behind the façade she has built. I feel like Elinor hiding behind my own façade. I smile. I move on. I accept. And I resign. But where is my heart?

Someone said, "Wishing is good for us. Daydreams, fantasies, castles in the air, and aspirations all drive us forward, compel us to make things happen. They also tell us a lot about ourselves. Our wishes come straight from our core, and they are loaded with vital information."

And I can still smell him in my hair.

Why Are There Still Tears?

I called my brother last night. Just wanted to talk, really. And I suddenly found myself crying again. Why are there more tears?

Move on. Get over it. Bounce back. Call it quits.

You know what? I think I'm done with love. Love is an evil bastard.

You win I, I cede this ground to you. It's yours and I no longer care.

“When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love.”

Clean Floors and Corn Chips

I wanted to sleep last night. I wanted to sleep so badly. But I couldn’t. My brain just wouldn’t stop and the space in my chest where my heart was just hours before was aching so painfully I thought my ribs were collapsing.

Trying to make myself tired I ended up wandering my apartment at 2:00 am. I thought about trying my “running for my life” idea…but the truth is if you’re a woman and you’re going to run for your life, you’re going to want a good bra. And since it was 2:00 am and what I really wanted to do was sleep, there was no way I was going to put my bra back on.

So, I did some crying and wandering and then I went back to bed. I woke up at 8:30, took a shower, called Kylie and cried to her. I’ve known Kylie for six years-ish, and this is the first time I’ve cried to her. I think. I don’t cry…a lot. But this really hurt.

When I was walking to the post office this morning, I had my sunglasses on and I was walking really fast and crying. I guess one thing was good: I got some exercise. In the mail I got a package from a girl named Erin in Florida. She sent me some Easter goodies and a story about her adventure trying to bake a cake—which was SO much like many of my baking stories that I was LAUGHING out loud! (It was strange to sit there and think how a stranger saved me today. I’m going to write back to her. I think she’s my newest friend.) I also heard from my friend Erin in Seattle. Which was great, and slightly ironic.

In my attempts today to make sense of the nonsense I decided to clean my bathroom floor. I’d rearrange my apartment (like a certain friend of mine does when she’s having life issues: wink, wink!) but there really isn’t anywhere to put things. So, I was cleaning my floor when it dawned on me that I needed some corn chips.

It’s good to know that my mind could find something so mundane in the swirling eddy.

Nicole Talks About Suicide

I want to talk about suicide. Not because I want you to feel bad for me, or try to rescue me. And not because I want your sympathy. Actually, it’s called suicide because it has absolutely nothing to do with you.

I want to talk about suicide because I am tired of feeling. I don’t want to feel anymore. I don’t want to feel one. single. thing. I don’t want to feel empty, or sad, or single, or unwanted, or fat, or tall, or blind, or deaf. I don’t want to feel jealous, or worthless, or hopeless, or aimless. I don’t want to feel anything.

You’re still thinking about you, aren’t you? You’re saying, “Well, don’t I matter to you?” Of course you do, and when I’m gone you’ll make more friends and think of me once in a while, but your life won’t change that much without me.

I’m not going to commit suicide just because I talk about it. I think the worry would be if I suddenly stopped talking about it. I can’t commit suicide because of what it would do to my family, and because, like every other aspect of my life, I’m too chicken. I lack the ability to follow through. Because I manage to worry about how long it would take for someone to actually come looking for me if they couldn’t find me in the real world.

You know, I think I’d be very happy to get absolutely pissed drunk one day. I’d like to know what it feels like to feel nothing. I think that’s why I like sleeping so much. Sleep is like death…only it ends every morning. Sleep with a sleeping pill is best because there are fewer dreams and I don’t even have to feel those pseudo-emotions. Because if I feel stressed in a dream, I wake up stressed. Scary dreams pop me awake and then I can’t fall back to sleep. Dreams in which someone loves me…right…then I wake up and realize that no one ever does.

You love me, you say. I know you do. You’re a great friend. I’m not talking about friend love. I’m talking about romantic love. And having wished for it for more than 20 years and never finding it is maddening. “What about so and so? Didn’t he love you?” Nope. He didn’t. One of them did, for a short time, but someone convinced him otherwise. And if he was that easy to convince, how much did he love me in the first place?

I’ll keep living. You won’t find me slicing my wrists in the bathtub (I don’t have a bathtub). And I’ve used all those really good painkillers slowly month after month trying to curb the pains of menstrual cramps (those wonderful reminders of all that female stuff that’s not being used…sloughed off eggs from unused ovaries…an empty womb to compliment an empty vagina) there’s nothing really I could use to kill myself anyway.

Is this a cry for help? Am I asking you to rescue me? Am I hoping to change your mind and make you into my knight in shining armor?

No, it’s none of those things. It’s me, unable to sleep because my heart is breaking again and I can’t fall to sleep.

Nicole Wonders If She Can Ever Face The Truth

Who am I…really? Deep down. What do I hide?

I’m afraid.

But not of the dark…I like to sleep in pitch blackness.

I am afraid of thunder and loud noises.

I hate bugs and spiders, but I can deal with those if I have to.

What if everyone finds out that I’m a phony?

What? I’m a phony?

Yes it’s true…I’m false.

I’m not happy. I’m sad a lot of the time…because I’m alone.

I’m very selfish. I don’t want to give anyone my time.

I don’t put as much time into teaching as I should…but I’m good at faking it…at making people think I’m good at it.

I don’t want to be alone. I hate walking around by myself. Never feeling someone’s arms around me…never having him hold my hand.

I read somewhere that women are attracted to men who look like those in her family. That makes sense to me. My father, my brothers, my uncles, my grandfathers…all wonderful, kind, gentle men. Why would I not be attracted to that? And for that reason, why would I not be attracted to you. You’re funny and sarcastic like my family’s humor. You’re kind and gentle and accepting of others. I do love you. So very much. I wish you could feel it. Or that I couldn't.

There are things I can’t write down. I can’t write them in my own handwriting…and sometimes I just write them with my finger. No proof afterwards that the words ever even existed. Mostly…what I write…invisibly…are my hopes that are so fragile, so heart-felt, that if they’re in words at all they may shatter and never, ever come true.

He told me that he wasn’t interested. He told me kindly, gently… And I’ve tried to get over him. I have. I really have. But he’s so…good. He’s kind, gentle, handsome and all the things that I have always hoped for. And everything new I discover about him makes me less and less inclined to get over him. I wish my head would tell my heart that it’s no use to hope.

The Loudest Emptiness

“There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it, it got even stronger.” —Saul Bellow Henderson The Rain King

This same feeling has been beating within my heart over the last couple of days. My heart, my soul, something is feeling strangely empty…

It started quietly…and I could fix it with a piece of chocolate, or a hug from a friend. But it’s been growing…spreading…becoming more than I can deal with.

I tried to buy it a few more things, every time singing to myself, “What can I buy to make the sky turn blue again?” I guess whatever this is inside of me knew that it wouldn’t be satisfied with things.

For a few days I was able to ignore it. Becoming so busy with life that it just seemed to disappear. But here in these quiet moments when I’m working on my art or my homework or my writing, it peeks around the corner and, finding no immediate resistance it leaps. Teeth bared, claws raised and it begins ripping into this emptiness, making it bigger and deeper all the while screaming “Fill me! Fill this empty space!”

Part of me knows what this apparition is seeking. Another part of me won’t listen to that—because it knows that no matter how it protests there in nothing in my control that will allow me to fill its ravenous need.

If I could have anything…it would be the ability to turn off my emotions and not feel a single thing. Why don’t I ask to fill the emptiness? Simply because if it isn’t filled by the will of someone outside of me then it will become forever insatiable.

How can I continue like this? How am I, filled with this void, supposed to look you in the eye without your seeing the emptiness behind them?

“Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.” —Eric Hoffer

Beautiful Empty

I’m supposed to be doing a play analysis of the opera “Elektra” but it’s just not in me! Instead I’m reading and writing and cutting and pasting and NOT analyzing.

So…Rob Caisely told me about some play or something he’d read that talked about the idea of hell being a love triangle consisting of two women and one man. He loves her, but she is in love with the other woman, and that woman is in love with him. No one’s love is ever returned. It is cruel and piercing. But it’s true, isn’t it?

I think about him and wonder if he’ll ever think of me that way. While he thinks of her and she’s already gone with another him. (Or he’s already with another him. Whatever the case may be.)

This is hell. Knowing that his empty and my empty can’t ever cancel each other out.

I wish they could.

“And every occasion when a mask was torn off, an ideal broken, was preceded by this hateful vacancy and stillness, this deathly constriction and loneliness and unrelatedness, this waste and empty hell of lovelessness and despair, such as I had known it.”

Hermann Hesse

I call it "my crazy"

I know exactly what it is. It’s me trying to control situations outside of my control. It’s me trying to make the world fit my schedule. I’m usually aware of what I’m doing…making a choice to be “crazy.”

I see it in other people, too. The other night I was talking to my friend and I saw her “crazy.” And I understood it. I knew exactly what it was.

Sure, it’s trying to be in control…but it’s also a defense mechanism. It’s perfect. It’s “I know he’s going to reject me, so if I do this he’ll reject me…and he did! See, I’m right! He rejected me! All men reject me!”

Just because I see it, doesn’t mean I can stop doing it. Brian Hopper told me that men like to do the chasing. I know that. How can I not know that? But the thing is, in my mind, they do it wrong. So, I let the crazy out trying to get them to do it my way. And I scare them away.

I want to stop. I want to be “normal.” But in all honesty the only time I can play “hard to get” is when I’m seriously not interested in getting got.

Is anyone out there brave enough to wade through the crazy to find the real me?

My Dad forbade me to marry a "Stupid Yankee"

“Ever wonder why some of us melt over tall, dark and handsome while others get weak in the knees for a Hercules-built blond? In a recent study, researchers found that women tend to be drawn to men with a genetic makeup similar to that of their own family.” (Source: Biology Letters Journal)

My Dad never yelled at us. I can’t remember him raising his voice ever. He never spanked us. He was a very gentle man. He was kind and good. But the thing I loved most about him was his innocence.

He loved trees. He planted them all over the yard. He loved to look at them and listen to them. Smell them. And hear the birds chirping inside of them.

I’ll never forget our Yorkshire Terrier, Max, who loved Dad so much. He was the family dog, right? No, he was Dad’s dog. As soon as Dad walked into the door, Max followed him everywhere he went. I was young and I’d pick up Max and take him with me…but as soon as I’d put him down, he’d find Dad again. Only a truly good man can have that kind of love for…and from…a tiny dog.

Dad found joy in simple things. One day he picked the perfect tomato off of his own vine in the backyard. The tomato sat proudly on the kitchen table for a while and Dad showed it to everyone. He ate it for lunch, slicing it into pieces with his pocket knife and sprinkling a bit of salt of each piece.

One day my brother asked Dad what his idea of Heaven was. Dad thought for a second and said, “A small house with a yard. A cow, a pig, a goat and some chickens. And your mother inside cooking something for me.” A beautiful, uncomplicated simplicity: that is Heaven.

Dad liked to sit on the porch in the evenings, listen to the world and feel the warmth of the sun as it set. Once I was sitting next to him…we didn’t talk a lot. We’d just sit. The birds were chirping in the quaking aspens and the tiny brown and black chickadees would hop down into the bird bath in the shade. He turned to me, holding out his hand with his index finger extended and said, “I wish a little bird would come sit on my finger and be my friend.” That sentence perfectly sums up everything I love about my Dad.

I miss him. I miss him very much.

They say that we’re attracted to those that remind us of our family. So does this help you see why I love you?

Black hair, black heart and when do I really need a man anyway?

On Saturday I got my haircut. It's in an a-line and I really like the cut. Then I had my friend, Daniel M. help me color it. It's purple underneath and blue/black on top. It's GORGEOUS if I do say so myself.

So now, for valentine's day, I have black hair. To go with my bruised, blacked heart.

But I have to ask myself, when do I really need a man, anyway? The truth is that I need one very rarely...

Car problem...would be nice to have a man deal with it. Not because I can't, but because I don't want to. And because the other men at the repair shop treat me like a brainless twit.

Repairs around the house...sure again, nice to have a guy do the work...partly because I'm not really strong enough nor do I know how to run any of power tools.

I'd like him to do the driving...

balance the checkbook...

sing songs...

The truth is that what I need, is someone who needs me. Someone who when he's sick he asks me to sit with him. Or when he's sad he asks me to listen to him. I can get through life doing all the dumb crap that life expects of me. We all do it. Alone. Together. It doesn't matter, we all have to do it. What I don't want to do is to spend my life never being needed by anyone. Never being needed by that someone.

Valentine's day sucks.

check this out: http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2007/02/valentines_day_.html

and keep in mind that one of my nicknames is Mango!

Why am I such a GIRL?

I just got home from watching the two-parter "Criminal Minds" over at Daniel M.'s house. It's the one that they aired just after the Superbowl (I only know who was in the game because I was waiting for "Criminal Minds" to come on). Anyway...I am so crushing over the character of Dr. Spencer Reid (played by the beautiful Matthew Gray Gubler) and wishing I were the one who got to have his mismatched socks lying on my floor.

Why don't I just grow up and stop having stupid crushes? When will I bloody grow up? I keep thinking how much I'd like to write a play about love...about someone falling in love...but I can't. Why? Because how can I write about falling in love with someone and having them love back when all I ever get is unrequited love and celebrity crushes?

I was trying to write down my most romantic moments (kind of a valentine thing I wanted to do in my zine) when I realized all the romantic moments I could think of were from Jane Austen! Okay, so there was the time I danced with Daniel R. on the beach. That was kind of spiffy...but it was AFTER I knew he wasn't in love with me. There was the time that Daniel M. got the grasshopper out of the spiderweb for me and I thought he was the most heroic character I'd ever met...but that was just before I found out he wasn't interested in me. Then there was the time I was stuck in my coat because the zipper was caught and Pablo helped me get out of it. But that was also AFTER I knew he wasn't interested, either. And on the grand scale of romance, grasshoppers and broken zippers do not rank high. Nor should they really.

I bloodly hate bloody valentine's bloody day!

It's harder to compromise when you know too much.

The other day I was talking to my friend Jeff Beck on IM. He told me about a date he went on and why he wasn’t interested in dating her a second time. Then he asked me if I thought that people our age could actually have a relationship with anyone. I told him it was a matter of compromise. That in our 20’s were optimistic and feel that we can work through any difficulties that may arise, but as we get older we have more experience with things that we know won’t work. We’re more pessimistic and less willing to compromise. After every heartbreak we cross off another thing that we don’t want or and another thing we must have. Here is my example:

When I was 20 I was looking for a guy who shared my religious beliefs, was taller than me and had dark hair.

Now I’m looking for a guy who: shares my religious and political beliefs, is 6’4”, has dark hair, blue eyes and a European accent, plays acoustic guitar, likes the same kinds of movies, music, and books as me, is an artist (any medium—subject to change), is great at massages (and gives them to me only), is kind, generous, and respectful, has no debt and is willing to help me get rid of mine, has a car that works, is good at working on cars, has a job that pays well, is handy around the house, never has to be asked twice to do something, remembers my favorite color, flower, food, etc., kills bugs for me (or at least gets them out of my immediate area), makes me laugh and is either named Brian or David because those are the names my friends seem to have had luck with.

So, yes, it is possible for us older ones to have a successful relationship…it’s just a statistical improbability.

Katie's letter keeps growing because I have no ink

December 19, 2006,

Well, the letter just keeps going because I still don’t have any ink! Although I have no ink, I still have stories to tell.

So, yes, cursed, I am. A bit Yoda-ish there, but it’s true. I am cursed. Even calling him “Spence” didn’t work. It’s cursed and although I always knew it wasn’t going to work out there was at least the hope. You know how girls are, we think that if we just wait long enough it will work, but we know it won’t. Why are we so dumb? Anyway. Spence & I are just as much Boyfriend & Girlfriend as my sister Sherri & George Clooney.

Thank God for Shirley Manson & Garbage. I love listening to her and thinking about going on a crime spree after I get my heart broken. I think I’ll start with smaller crimes. Like vandalism and arson. Or something like that.

I’ve got a couple of things to say on the subject (of heartbreak, not petty crime):

1. The palm reader was wrong. I’ve had my heart broken more than 7 times. (Not that I put a lot of stock into palm readers, I just hoped she was right on this one after I cried over number 7–you remember the story?)

2. No matter how many times my heart gets broken, it still feels like the first time...& it still hurts the same way.

3. No matter how many times I tell myself “this is the last time” I know I’ll be stupid enough to do it again.

4. Having your car tires wear out, your computer have issues & having confirmation that your current crush is not interested all at the same time really does warrant the number one slot on “The Grand List of Things That Suck”

Well, I did get some good news. That I still look at with a sideways glance and think it’s just a disaster in disguise. My play “Strings” got accepted into KCACTF for our region. I’m chuffed. I’d be more chuffed if my entire writer’s group didn’t also get accepted. It would be cooler for me if it were just ME but as it stands, it’s pretty cool for Rob and the department. I want to win. I always want to win. But I’ve been sending stuff in since I was 18 and nothing ever comes of it. It’s a problem with not winning, one gets too used to it. ACK!

ACK! I say. ACK! Katie, I just have to quote Judd Hirsch and say “Life is a swirling sucking eddy of despair filled with small moments of false hope in an ever blackening universe.” I’d trade everything I own and live in a box if I could live in that box with a man who loved me so much that he’d choose me out of all the other 3 billion or so women who live on this stupid blue/green planet.

I’d better get to sleep. I have to put a smile on my face and go to the radio show tomorrow smiling and telling myself that “I’m fine, I’m happy.” See, that’s the kind of research I do for my plays.

Spence suspence

December 11, 2006

Dear Katie,

Hi! How are you? Things here are good. And right now here is the language lab & I’m giving out Greek Mythology tests. As of right now I have 180 tests to give over the next 3 days. Oh joy. It gets crazy in here some days...and not just because I’m crazy in here!

I’m sorry to hear about the boy...but I’m glad to hear that you’re happy about it. I’m trying to figure out a coded way to talk about the boy in my life without cursing it. Yep, anytime I talk about a boy I’m interested in I end up cursing it. How about we won’t call him by name. Let’s call him “Spence” after my sister’s imaginary boyfriend from when she was eight years old.

So, here’s the story:

As you know, I teach Comm 101: Intro to Speech. I love teaching the Tuesday night class, it’s my favorite. Last Spring as people were coming in I was talking with Ben Stellmon (Jade’s husband) because he was in my class & just watching people as they came in. Class started & I was my usual spastic self. Well, there was this guy in the class that has a definite sense of personal style (a trait I admire–I hate the guys who look just like every other guy) & glasses. He has dark hair (as you know I’m partial to). I made the class laugh, which is my instant feedback I crave & he smiled. & do you know what...when he smiles it’s like his entire soul is smiling. I swear it comes all the way down from his toes & comes out as a smile from his whole self. It’s beautiful. & I thought, “He’s cute. But he’s my student. The end.”

This was the year that I was really struggling with where to go to church & one day I woke up too late for the Quail Run ward so I went to the Shingles Ward. In passing in the hallway, I saw Spence. “Hey!” I said. & he said hey back. That was it. The only time I saw him at church but I’d see him on Tuesday nights in class. I’d talk with Ben & goof around with some of the students...the outspoken ones that I knew I could joke with. Spence was very quiet but he did smiled or laughed at my silliness so every once in a while I’d throw in a joke just for him.

The semester was over & I was done teaching. Grades were entered & I was officially no longer his teacher, so I sent him an email that said something along the lines of “now that I’m not your teacher, we should hang out.” He wrote back & said something along the lines of “sounds good to me.” So we got together before I left for the summer. Then we emailed during the summer & when I got back we got together. We’ve got some friends in common, so it’s cool to hang out with them.

Spence is quiet. If we’re in a group, he doesn’t do a lot of talking, but if it’s just me and him we talk together for hours! It’s so much fun. He’s got a great sense of humor & he makes me laugh. We spent some time together during Thanksgiving break to go see a concert in Seattle (which, by the way was AWESOME) & I was filming our trip & you can just hear me laughing at things he says, but the recorder didn’t pick up his voice. He’s great. He’s younger than me (he’s 28), but many people are. He’s studying horticulture, he has an early morning show on KUOI, he’s an artist, & a writer. He’s brilliant. & he’s got this smile that just kills me! & it’s hilariously funny that we have gotten together & have become such good friends, because he’s so quiet & I’m just not.

He’s a Gemini & I’m a Scorpio, which is a difficult combination...but Jade & Ben seem to be doing fine with it!

Oh, & just so you know, irony continues to rule in my life because Spence has so much in common with another person in my life. (But unlike Mr. Cheese, Spence has many things in common with someone I love instead of loathe...so he’s got that going for him!) They have the same name (currently: Spence), they’re both Geminis, Vegetarians, have dark hair, dark eyes, glasses, they’re nearly the same height (Spence is taller by almost an inch), love plants, & they make me laugh. & my favorite thing...they both have an ability to make me feel beautiful. I’m more accepting of myself when around either of them, instead of being so self critical as when I was around the likes of Mr. Cheese & his previous doppelganger.

Well, now the mushy love crap. It doesn’t exist. I really like him. He’s kind, gentle, handsome, wonderful & has been totally raked over the coals by the last girl in his life. He’s very protective of his heart right now. I understand. I mean, I can’t promise him I won’t break his heart. He can’t promise me that he won’t break my heart, either. None of us can promise that to anyone. I can promise that right now I have no intention of breaking his heart & would just really like to see if we could be boyfriend & girlfriend. I’m being patient, though...at least my version of patient...to give him the time & space he needs to heal or to trust or to whatever he needs. It’s maddening & I want to shout out loud that I love him, but I can’t. I’m a bit protective of my heart, too. I mean, one cannot be single for this long without having had many opportunities to build walls around one’s heart.

That’s my story of Spence.

Now in other news:

I was wearing my “Somebody in Nepal Loves Me” t-shirt at work. Dr. Steckle (the oh-so-amusing German professor) walked into the lab and read my shirt. Then he said, “They found him, & shot him.” I said, “So, now I have to change my shirt to ‘Nobody in Nepal Loves Me’?” and he said, “Also take out ‘in Nepal’.” He cracks me up!

You’ll have to check out my blog...read my story about carrying a scythe across campus. Do you have the link to my blog? I think I’d given it to you before, but just in case: http://thesixthminky.blogspot.com/ & I finally posted some of my art on there. Some collages & some charcoals. I haven’t done any art for a long time. Just don’t have the time for it. That’s another reason I’m looking forward to Christmas break.

Speaking of Christmas break, I’m going bonkers deciding what to do! I don’t want to drive home because my tires suck. I can get to Boise with Daniel and then catch a plane out to Idaho Falls, stay for a few days and then catch a ride back to Moscow with a girl named Emily. But the whole trip will cost me over $200.00. I’m too poor for that. So, I decided not to go. But then I was talking to Jeff Beck and he said that I should get new tires for my car because it’ll be safer (for sure) and then it’ll make it easier to sell my car next year. My car’s not worth much, so I didn’t want to put much money into it because I want to get a new one next year. ACK! Sometimes I really hate making decisions and wish that someone would just do it for me. And drive me. But that’s easier to find: a chauffeur verses someone who can make decisions for me. But only when I want them to. I can make most of my decisions on my own.

It’s actually the next day. My printer is out of ink at the moment so I can’t print this letter so I thought I’d just keep going. Spence dropped by last night. He’s thinking of getting a laptop and wanted to see if he liked mine. And he wanted to burn something but we couldn’t get it to work. I think my laptop has achieved it’s maximum life. Why don’t things last longer. Poor computer. I named it “Chesterfield Snapdragon McFisticuffs and it’s lived a good life. If I get new tires, I can’t afford a new computer. ACK! Well, I could use my student loan money to do it, but I really want to use that money to get out of debt. But I really don’t see myself finishing school without a working computer. I’ve fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, the first is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line...or let your computer and your car both break down at the same time. Does anyone have any Iocaine powder I could borrow? I feel like building up an immunity.

Well, in continuing news:
Since I still don’t have any ink...

I was grading tests for Dennis West and I don’t know how I did it, but I was short one blue book. The girl had handed in the first part of the test so it made no sense that there wouldn’t be a blue book. I looked EVERYWHERE and went BONKERS trying to figure out what to do. Dennis didn’t make it any better by telling me what I “SHOULD” have done. Okay, fine, when they invent time machines you can tell me what I should have done and I’ll go back and fix it, but in the meantime I think that we need to look at where to go from HERE. ACK! It was so bad that I tied myself into knots over it and he made me feel like crap. I had to call him back about it, but I didn’t want to do so alone. I just needed someone in my corner, so to speak. Anyway, I went to where Spence was working and asked him to just stand by me while I make the phone call. He did. It helped. I don’t know why, but I’m much braver if someone just believes in me. And that was Spence’s second time at being my “Knight in Shining Armor”.

Anyway, because of some things that were happening in my life I have started making “The Grand List of Things That Suck. Right now this is it:

1. Having to get over a crush because you know, that for no matter what the reason, it will not be reciprocated.
2. Losing one of the blue books in Dennis West’s film class.
3. Not being able to DEPOSIT a check even when your name is on the account.
4. Having brilliant ideas but lacking the capacity to bring them to fruition.
5. The infrequency in which the word “fruition” is used.

If you have any suggestions, I’ll be happy to include them.

Well, you know me, I could go on indefinitely, but I will stop.
Love ya!