These are the conversations that can only be properly addressed with a basket of chips and individual bowls of salsa. There might be a drink or two, but probably not mine. I'll drink some of hers during the best parts of the talking. We'll take turns adding salt to the chips, the cheese, and the words. The setting stays basically the same, like our loyalties have these past several years.


Others have hinted, pouted, asked, and just shown up at these dinners. Those members of the emotional paparazzi are now relegated to hiding in the bushes, and we no longer feel bad about our exclusion of them and insistence on being allowed enough time for a couple enchiladas and some validation from our other.


It started--as so many things have--on the pool deck. As we contorted ourselves into awkward movements to paint the numbers on the deck we also stretched the limits of our sharing and found out that we can in fact be ourselves, but only rarely and in small episodes. She asked, I told. I questioned, she knew. I'm glad I knew enough of her to realize that this was a start, and it wasn't a quick one for either of us.


Everything now is easier because of then. I've never wondered if these talks would end. I guess I believe that if they would, so would I. I can allow for loss, for friendships that I know have run their courses, and for growing beyond the people that you think will never leave. I couldn't allow for that, and so we keep meeting, and stubbornly hang on to last time until the next one arrives. The transcripts of what she said before carry me through when every other sentence offered seems empty.


We have confidence, careers, families and fears. Intelligence and regrets and frustrations and rage. Soda and water wash down tears, and tortillas fill up the hungry spots. She and I sit, with memorized menus and parallel histories. She passes her knife and I am stabbed with sentiment and pierced with protectiveness. Not only of her, and not of myself, but of these evenings where we can finally speak all of our silences and show up for one another when the universe has walked right back out.


[It's my turn to pick up the check.]

My jet stream has changed courses, that's all...

Water is the element that has flowed through our years together. Still pools, downpouring rains and extended droughts of peace all come together on this back porch. It's the kind of day you almost have to grow up in Oklahoma to either appreciate or understand. The sort of not-quite-summer day you can spend in a swimming pool and get a tiny sunburn, but need a sweater while you wait for your steaks to finish cooking on the grill.


It's quieter looking out into the blank, waiting yard than it ever has been in our heads. The silent space is filled as it always is with the strength of a revolution we both signed up for, but only to march for the other. The chairs offer us a place to pull our knees up close to our chests and set the weight of the world down on the concrete porch beside us, even if it's only temporary.

We hoped for a storm and it came. Instead of going inside, waiting for it to pass and letting someone else have our front row seats to the misdirected jet stream, we faced it like we always do, the only way we really understand. Lightning and thunder aren't anything to be afraid of, and they never were.


Rain really does feel like starting over.

The {Seemingly} Inconsequentials...

Rain, especially when it's

Liner Notes...

I go back to Sylvia Plath when I'm unsure of what else to do. {She's constant, if nothing else.} She competes with James Baldwin and ee cummings, and they usually let her win. They have a place for me that no person can quite come between. I sleep in nights of Natalie Merchant and wake up to mornings of Portishead. I commute to Bruce Springsteen and home from Smashing Pumpkins.

I call up Jay Z and make plans with our friends for the weekend. I cancel my guitar lesson with Ben Harper because Jewel stopped by and I've not seen her in way too long.

I dream of surfing with Eddie Vedder then writing of it to F. Scott Fitzgerald. I raise my glass to that miserable bastard I adore so much, Mr. Hemingway. PJ Harvey meets me for coffee, but I have hot chocolate. We talk about the last time we saw Edna St. Vincent Millay, and wonder how she's doing now.

I take notes of Chantal Kreviazuk and keep them in a notebook I share with Billy Collins. I shop for Dorothy Parker, and pick up a Coltrane record for her in a thrift store I heard about from Lenka.

Natalie shows up again and I read to her my latest bleedings.

I grieve for Michael Stipe and blame Kurt Cobain.

Hemingway has this great line...

"I got better just like I lost my mind. Gradually, then suddenly."

--from Prozac Nation

For the few that remain...

...And so what happens now? I step back and punt. I don't let the bastards get me down. I ask for help, especially those times I have no idea what WILL help me. I pull my feet up on the couch and grab the hand he reaches out to me and wait for our dog to lie down and grunt her version of "It's gonna be more than okay"...



I don't want you to be interested in the minutae of my days. Because right now, they mean little unless I'm around someone I trust. I was guilty of putting work above all else, including my own mental health. I hid there, I believed I mattered more than I actually did, and now I have the freedom I never really wanted.



I will learn to want it. I will stop believing (self-righteously) that being a workaholic is a noble addiction; an acceptable one.



No one expects anything from me. For a girl who needs to be needed, that's dangerous. If I don't show up to a place, there might not be any concern. I may or may not be checked on. My home is my refuge, and entry is guarded by the one person who has waited to be allowed to help , and a dog who adores her mama.

I'll cut my losses, and keep the human punctuation marks I picked up along the way.