Closing Shop

I'm just writing this post to close out the year.

Blogs are a strange thing...

I used to write when spirit moved me-

Then I found myself writing out of discipline.

I've been taking a break to get back to myself.

I am refraining from saying what I really feel...

which is a pattern I've started.

I want to write for myself again.

I don't think a blog is the place for that.

Best wishes for the New Year.

Passed Smog!

In California, when you own an old car, smog check is the lord looming over you with a certain sort of dread.

So when I had my smog check today and I PASSED, I was more than ecstatic-I went to Trader Joe's and bought champagne to celebrate.

The death of my last Volvo was when I spent over eight hundred dollars and it still didn't pass smog. I retired her to the state and took the check to buy another Volvo-a '93, but this is the year they stopped making the 240, the only car I've owned since college...so I don't know what I am going to do when this car doesn't pass smog because they just don't make Volvos like they used to. I am so old saying that.

But I have at least two more years. Hooray!

I called chemo to tell him the good news.

He didn't answer.

He sent me an email and said he was sorry he wasn't home.

There's a certain anxiety in owning an old car. Like the certain anxiety in our cancer ridden relationship.

But there's also relief when you realize there's a little life left in it.

The Day My Sister Died

Fourteen years ago, my sister was killed in a car accident.

I wouldn't find out until the next day.

Go Away

My high school English teacher had a tumor in her chest and it went away completely with radiation. I knew she had cancer, but I didn't know those details. When she visited my best friend's mother who had cancer at the time, she gave her hope that she could beat it and live for her children.

That was over twenty years ago. I am still talking with her today. She asked about his chemo and radiation.

So I wrote him the story in an email.

He wrote, "im glad to hear the tumor went away with rad. if i shoot u with rad will u go completely away??? i hope your friend has a full recovery. once i get better then i guess u can give her 100 % of your healing vibes. its a ruff road so hopefully she can stay positive and hopeful."

He makes me laugh.

I was playing with my friend's iphone tarot card application while she was in the bathroom today. I was dealt the sun card.

I think about the sun radiating its light.

"Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right."

Feeds

A hand is put out for Gazelle to feed from.

Phone Conversations

I asked him today if his tumor had shrunk from the radiation. He said according to the X-Rays, it had.

Years ago, the end of the affair came when we were talking every day. He said it was too much like a relationship.

I called and left a message for him after talking with my best friend's mom. I hadn't talked to her since her heart surgery two months ago. She told me how while she was in the coma, she said she was ready to go...for God to take her. And then she was sent back. She thought she was at a party. The nurse had to tell her she was in intensive care at the hospital. Everything is swollen from the lymphedema. After a battle with inserting a catheder, she is bleeding from her crotch and it may need to be cauterized. Meanwhile, her husband is complaining about the price of her latte from Starbucks.

I could barely leave a coherent message for him—I kept crying. I can't explain why I was so emotional. Maybe it was just my period. Maybe it is because I feel such a deep connection after speaking with her, and I am afraid of losing the people I love.

He said he was calling back just to make sure I was alright after hearing the message that he couldn't really make out, but knew I was crying.

I didn't really know what to say to him. So we talked about Tiger Woods. He said I needed to find a rich man to turn out like Tiger Woods and then steal all his money. He thinks his wife should leave him. Only poor women need to stay with a man that cheats because they have kids to support and can't do it by themselves. I said, "But what if she loves him?"

Years ago, I used to love the show Cheaters on Saturday night. I found out he watched it too. I think it said something about how we spent our Saturday nights.

He asked if I thought I could turn out Tiger Woods. I said I wasn't his type.

He admitted that I turned him out for a split second.

I miss those phone conversations we used to have—the ones where he would tell me about his day and make jokes as I told him about mine. The ones that ended the affair because it was too much like a relationship.

Hello Kitty Replacement

About four years ago, my passenger’s window of my ’87 Volvo was smashed while parked on the street overnight in Venice.

It was my own fault, really. I had done the ole cover up stuff with a sweater on the seat trick, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. An empty Hello Kitty purse, my navy hat, my bag with my student anthologies, and my Thomas Guide were taken. I felt so violated.

I had almost driven off with my coffee cup on the roof of my car, I was so in shock. Someone had stopped me to tell me it was on the roof.

I told my students about the robbery when I arrived at school. One of my students said to me, “At least you have a hat to steal.” I pondered this.

What upset me the most, were the student anthologies. I couldn’t replace this one drawing that was an original in my copy. The student had drawn a skeleton, an ode, little pieces of class which she would take away.

So when I was on my way to dinner for our last blog class, I passed by a Sanrio store. I couldn’t not go in, as I was fifteen minutes early and had time to spare.

There was a pink cheetah furry purse. It’s almost Christmas! I haven’t had a new purse for over a year! I’m still not over the loss of the Hello Kitty theft! It had a matching wallet. Well now, you can’t get the purse without the matching wallet. Then, I had to ask, “Does it have a matching pen?” Another five dollars. The thirty dollar purse turned into a sixty dollar purse.

It’s amazing to me how material I can be. But these material things somehow have more meaning than just their material value. I had just had a fight with my mother over money—Christmas gifts between my angry lesbian sister and I. When I was young, my mother and I would go to the mall. I would lose time looking at the small selection of Hello Kitty paraphernalia, a world unto itself. When I arrived home, there was a message on my machine from my mother saying how much she loved me.

Now this new Hello Kitty purse has its own story, found on the day I was leaving my blog classmates, purchased by a professional pursuing her Master’s Degree.