no hablo ingles.

swirly-eyed monkey
breakdancing in the moonlight;
he's not down with bees



it is 1:30 in the afternoon on a thursday, and i am loving life in my flannel pooh-bear nightie with nowhere to be and no work to do and a new built to spill cd and SUN, oh my god there isn't a cloud in the sky! i'd think i hadn't actually woken up yet if i didn't still have this creepy blister on my left eyeball.

so i'm talking to my invisible friend natey, and he's telling me how many of his closest friends are people he doesn't speak to in person, and i'm thinking about how two of the best friends i've ever had were only in the same room with me about once every six months, and just as i'm getting ready to pitch a whizzy about being emotionally handicapped and incapable of allowing anyone to get close to me natey provides me with something that might be an excuse, but that i choose to view as a revelation:

people who are writers by nature, who use the medium as an emotional outlet and would rather attend a poetry open mic than a concert, are infinitely more capable of expressing themselves successfully in print. it isn't that we don't want to make small talk; it just isn't our sport.

i literally can not think without a pen or something like a pen in my hand. my entire academic career turned around the day i realized i remembered five times as much information if i studied while holding a highlighter, even if i never once used it. generally, it takes me twice as long to write anything if i try to type it out right off the bat rather than write it longhand first. the only sort of artwork i've ever been half-decent at is pencil sketching. when i was born i didn't make a sound for two full days; i could read at a year and a half. this is my nature. this is who i am. the fact that i couldn't keep up a running dialogue with another human being for more than four minutes if that person were holding a gun to my head is not my fault in any way.

the problem is, the majority of the people i come into contact with are not the same. they're normal, and being such they want to meet for lunch and talk, or call on the phone and talk, or go out for drinks and talk, and when i send them postcards and letters they don't think it's sweet or comforting. they become quite frustrated, actually, and that's the end of that, as a rule.

i don't know. i don't know what i can do. i try to chat politely, i really do, but i always end up beginning some outlandish esoteric debate about nothing at all,

normal person: this restaurant is pretty nice, isn't it? i'm glad you mentioned it, i've always meant to try it out.

me: yeah. i like it.

(uncomfortable pause)

normal person: so, how's your dinner? is that penne?

me: mm hmmm. it's good.

(eerie airless pause)

normal person: *chewchew*

me: *chewchew*

(deafening apocalyptic silence interrupted only by the squooshing of the food in our mouths echoing in our own ears)

me: pasta's kind of sad.

normal person: what?

me: well, it is. i mean, to live your whole life in a box, only to know you're going to end up boiled alive. it has to be a downer.

normal person: (confusion tempered with mild alarm)

me: or maybe they aren't upset about it, maybe they know it's their destiny and they're at peace with it, you know, just happy to be able to do their part and come into their place in the world.

normal person: you're on crack, aren't you?

me: do you think the lasagna noodles feel superior to the other noodles because they know they're going to become a part of something greater than themselves, or do you think they resent that level of predetermination in their lives?

normal person: i have to go now.


i have known two people who were willing to participate in this type of conversation with me. one was, unfortunately, a paranoid schizophrenic whom i came to fear and hide from. the other was a lovely girl who met a terrible boy and joined a strange cult, never to be heard from again.

but my pen pals have never questioned any of my topics of discussion. the origins of jell-o, what faeries use your socks for when they steal them, my psychic connection to charles dodgson, it was all valid. apparently lots of things make zero sense when you say them out loud, but the same sentences in the form of familiar letters in black ink on white paper somehow become rational. i can't explain. i just know it's true.

maybe you're right, natey. it probably is the chicken.

bouquet: the conundrum

i think you'd be more
interesting to talk with if
i ripped out your tongue.




why do boys send girls flowers? what's the symbolism in that? do they do it just because they grow up thinking it's the thing that must be done? and why do girls like it? aren't flowers infinitely more attractive when they're in the ground thriving and growing?


boy: look, accessible vagina, i mean, honey, i've brought you these strange colored plants to prove to you that i love you! i know that they have nothing to do with you, being merely a reflection of a societal norm whose origins i know nothing about, but i can't ever seem to get enough blood in my brain to actually think about who you are and what you like! i know you don't care, though, because everyone knows flowers are the best thing to give any girl on any occasion!

girl: pretty! yes, i understand that now i must forgive you for balling that 13-year-old four times last week and for constantly calling me by the wrong name! come talk about how fun and hot every girl you've ever known has been while i put these in a vase!

(couple regains desired state of bliss. flowers shrivel and disintegrate in their browning water. cat eats decorative greenery and hacks up festive puddle of mucus on the carpet.)

is the majority of the human race honestly just a troop of consenting moo-cows? i must be so spoiled. i've had friends who actually put a little effort into things: my darling sarah ann, who made beautifully anarchisitic and disturbing collage art out of old natural history journals and then laminated them with scotch tape, who made me tiny men with terrifying genitalia out of sparkly pipe cleaners and left them in my car while i was at work; matty, who drew me comic strips in high school and wraps all my gifts in brown packing paper that he illustrates with black sharpies, who was the only person who believed me when i said that all i wanted for christmas was a fillerbunny toy; rory, who for years sent me almost weekly letters filled with random trinkets like peanuts and shredded notebook paper and made me plaques out of his old triathlon trophies; and so many other amazing people who not only knew me almost better than i did, but who made sure i was aware of it. always.

i've tried to do the same for everyone i've established some sort of connection with. more often than not, though, i only end up frightening them away. i can't imagine why anyone would fear things like glow-in-the-dark lollipops or crayon drawings. i suppose it would be safest for me to stick to traditional displays of affection.

but then i'd be a liar.

forget about that. here, guys, just, listen for a second, okay? if you don't know a girl well enough to be able to think of something to offer her that will really mean something to her, to HER, then, i mean, why are you giving her anything? why do you want to be around her? even if it's only because you dig her legs, couldn't you give her some funky tights? just think, would you? geez.


this public service announcement has been brought to you by my allergies and the number 9.

rainy season

rains here every day.
grass is lush and spring green, but
so? the mud...THE MUD!!!!!!



water is essential for the survival of all living things. this i understand, being the holder of multiple science degrees and whatnot. the flora need it, the little woodland creatures need it, even i need it, to a degree...

but the degree to which the skycover of this hideous city chooses to bestow it upon me from the months of april through october every year is obscene and entirely unnecessary. i wait all winter for a sign of spring, i get one warm clear day, and then the flood begins. last summer i almost believed the curse had been lifted, there were flawless blue skies and mid-eighties temperatures that were exactly right. i started to wonder if someone somewhere else had put up a magical storm barrier all along the city limits, it was that amazing.

well, whoever loved me a year ago is over it now. maybe my weather guardian thinks someone else is looking after me as of late, but no, it's still just me and these full-field-of-vision clouds that don't even bring thunder, only cold damp blecchh all the time, all the fucking time.

i have a pessimistic personality. this is the worst possible place for someone like me to be trying to live in. i don't want to wake up in the morning because i assume it will be ghastly outside. if i wake up and it's a brilliant, radiant day i can't enjoy it because i spend the whole of it in a state of suspicious, quaking anxiety, wondering when the first black storm-laden mass will start inching its way over the horizon like a low-budget monster-movie blob. i try to be rational about it. i tell myself it's just weather, there's nothing anyone can do. but drive just beyond the boundaries of worcester in any direction, 10 minutes east on route 9 or west on 290, and there is no rain. there has not been any rain. the people of these blessed lands gaze at you in blissful blankness when you say the word "rain," they have no idea, it's never happened, their cities are flourishing on the runoff from mine. i know the exact outline of the city of worcester, because heading back into it from any direction i can look up and see the halo of dark grey strata circling it minutely at all times. tell me you wouldn't feel just the teensiest bit persecuted.

well, one more year, i figure. since my most promising work prospect is in boston, odds are i'll end up there. i don't really want to live in boston, it's too tall, too full of straight lines and hard edges, the buildings and their inhabitants share the same sharp corners. but they have sun. and even when it rains it doesn't matter, there isn't any soil, the mud can't happen.

what sad, sad trade-offs this dreary land has made me willing to accept.

spider-man and me and . . . other

this is the beginning. once upon a time i decided to start every entry with a vacant haiku, in honor of all the girls that all the boys i've ever loved have opted for. definition of a vacant haiku = all form, no substance, for those not following. so.


death to kirsten dunst!
red hair ain't gonna save her,
trash can ho can't act.


i saw spider-man tonight. still, hours later, i am laughing contemptuously at all the silly people who tried to tell me tobey maguire was all wrong, especially since after about five minutes these same people would tell me that they didn't really know anything about spider-man. fools! but no matter, in my heart i never doubted him being The One, and so i am vindicated.

i remember being a little girl and thinking peter parker was the only boy i could ever be myself and happy with at the same time. i mean, when i was eight i stood up in front of my third-grade class and told my teacher i wanted to be a paleontologist; she asked me if i was pronouncing it correctly. all my classmates looked at me funny (again) as i explained to her what the word meant and received my disparaging "oh," and mrs. creighton went on bestowing limitless gushing praise on the surrounding aspiring pro athletes and movie stars and princesses--not that there's anything wrong with wanting to be one of those things when you're eight, but there isn't anything wrong with wanting to be a paleontologist, either. at least, there shouldn't be. anyhow, so here was this boy who couldn't make friends because his ostracized mind was teeming with obscure trivia about insects and genetics and other things nobody wants to base small talk on, and who accidentally became a superhero in a science lab and managed to still be a nerd. soulmates, i was sure. and so began my lifelong love affair with all geeks great and small--because it had to be, didn't it, that someone who had been tripped in the hallways and found a second home in the city library would forgive the flaws in me that other people couldn't? didn't it?

well, no. i can't shake the notion of there being a skinny, pasty bookworm out there who'll love me because i read the dictionary for fun and waste valuable weekend hours watching documentaries on the discovery channel. but truthfully, i know that even my peter, the root of all my adult desires, my first beautiful, downtrodden, four-eyed idol, would rather pine in vain over kirsten dunst in a wet tank top. to lean happily on the arm of my friendly neighborhood dork, to lie next to him late at night as he reads me bedtime stories from national geographic . . . i have not set such lofty goals. still, i get nowhere.

well, i won't be mary jane in high heels for anybody, spidey or tobey or not a one. i'll stick to jeans and sneakers, thank you, because in the end i'm the one who has to walk in them. and i'm gonna take my red hair and march straight down the first dark alley, and the bad guys won't know what hit 'em.

kirsten dunst. my god.