1.1

Dwight Nelson was on the television, talking about the past. You can't go back. You can't go back. Everyone constantly tries to turn back the clock. I've taken years to discover it, says he. Did you know there's a name for this feeling? For that impulse, that fear of the past, that constant nagging at the back of your skull that you've done something wrong?
Regret, says I, young and scarred and full of self-righteous hurt.
Guilt, says he.
Two sides of the same coin, says I. But I know in my heart that I'm wrong. Regret is for what you haven't done. Guilt is for what you have. The only thing that ties them is that you do both to yourself.

Happy new year.
I resolve to be. I've finished that sentence a hundred different ways, but the best one is right there.
From me: don't regret.
From Dwight: don't guilt.
From God: forgive.
From 2012: if you've failed the above, here's a fresh chance. Good night everyone.

12.28b

I'm not captivated by you, just so you know. I never sit in starry-eyed wonder and pine for your gentle caress. Furthermore, I can say with ultimate sincerity that I have never once thought you were "the one." How insipid that phrase sounds in my ears. It rings with a hollow tone--the same tone I'm sure your heart would make if I tapped on your carefully-constructed shell.

And yet I love you.
Explain that to me. I mean, really, there's no reason for me to stay. You've betrayed me before, and nothing stops you from betraying me again. You're hurtful, shallow, waspish, and terse, and I love you with a whole-hearted devotion.

Fine.
It's my hair, but you'd better not cut it like you have my heart.

-Sampson

12.28a

There was a slight limp in his speech, like he had been kicked too many times as a child. She didn't hear it when he talked to other people; only when he held her right up close to his chest and kissed her forehead and told her he loved her. It's how she knew he really meant it.

She made their bed every morning, cooked his breakfasts, ironed his shirts, smiled instead of raging at the dishes in the sink and the socks on the floor and the toilet seat and the shoes in the entryway and the lopsided way he parked his car. She mowed the lawn when he was too tired, massaged his shoulders when he was tense, deferred to his choice in movies, and supported his effort to make friends with colleagues. She tried at all times to be all things for him, and when, at the end of a long day, she threw herself into bed next to him and listened to his breathing. Of course, she had no way of knowing how little he saw the things she did, how often he overlooked her efforts, and how frequently he violated her wishes without knowing. She had no way of knowing that all he wanted from her was for her to hold him like he held her, and confess her love to him like he did for her.

There's no moral here; people are just different.

12.27

Leigh Clement was not an attractive woman. She never turned heads--not even when she was twenty and at the peak of health, fair and smooth-browed. She supposed that the men in her life chased her for the only reason boys ever chased girls: the scar left in her trousers from where a girl's future happiness was cut from her in the womb. Leigh took herself for what she was and never told herself lies. It made things easier when Seymour, Daniel, Barnaby, and Ritchie left her. Her truth made things easier to break off with Joseph, Nigel, and Christopher. She held it close to her. She said it to herself as she faced the mirror. "I am not an attractive woman." She said it when men tried to pick her up in bars. She said it when women looked at her enviously. She said it when her father complimented her appearance at Christmas. She said it when her mother questioned the viability of a single woman living alone.
What Leigh never recognized was that her hair was beautiful, despite mistreatment. Her legs were sensuous, despite covering. Her waist was apparent, despite jacketing. Her voice was soft, despite confidence. her hands were delicate, despite misuse. What Leigh never noticed was that she really was quite beautiful. So, when anyone paid her a compliment, she would repeat again "I am not an attractive woman" as if to make it an impenetrable shell through which no arrow could ever pierce.
This morning, Leigh Clement broke the heart of another man. She finished with him in the small restaurant around the corner from the park where the two had first met. Tristan was five feet and ten inches in height yet carried himself as if six inches taller. They hadn't quite fallen in love, but were at the awkward almost stage in which the man has decided his commitment but the woman, fearful, holds back the true depth of her soul for fear that she'll drown herself. Leigh had never drowned; she took snorkeling lessons most summers at a beach near her summer home. Tristan was nothing if not sweet to her during the whole of their relationship, but she felt herself suffocated by his constant attention and doting. When Leigh pulled out her own chair and sat down to announce quite plainly that she did not see a future in their relationship, thank you, and she felt that all this business of friendship was propped up on the back of an ill-begotten sexual desire, long ago forgotten by both parties, and seeing as how a friendship with no basis in reality cannot survive, she had thought it best if neither of them met anymore, don't you think, at that moment Tristan looked every inch of his not inconsiderable five feet and ten inches of height, yet was somehow greatly diminished. Leigh moved to stand, and instead Tristan grasped her hand quite urgently and finally sat opposite her.
He said, quite slowly, "Everyone is beautiful in their own way. Few people are the most beautiful in their own way, and very few are the most beautiful in quite so many ways as you."
Leigh allowed his proverb to run its course, then lifted her sunhat from the table, stood, and whispered "I am not an attractive woman."
She left, and hoped that the next man would fight her more when she said it.

12.26

You're beautiful.
Why?
Why?! Why does a sunrise signify birth? Why does the color yellow make people happy? Why do plant's reproductive organs represent love? Some things are inexplicable, so just be happy that you're one of them.

12.25

[The only thing stopping me from Catherine is what I'm going to do next: assemble and re-read what I have]

She got that look in her eye (the one you love) when she looked at me yesterday. You didn't see it, but I did. I swear I didn't do anything about it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I don't suppose you'd believe me.
That's not all the truth. I'm avoiding telling you the rest because it won't help anything, I swear. So I'll tell you anyway. In all reality, she and I started kind of becoming a thing . . . when? Two weeks after you and she broke up? Something. She came to see you, crying and about to collapse on our doorstep. I was there. You weren't. I didn't see the significance of it then: I just wanted to help a friend, really. Then, last week, when she tried to kiss me at three a.m. after the party, I think I kind of recognized it all then. She wasn't just trying to be friends with you; she wanted to be closer to me. Because I remind her of you, and I was there when she was crying and you weren't. I put her off, I swear. Nothing happened, and I'll say it even though you won't believe.
Oh, and on Sunday, when you found her outside trying to decide if she should come in? That was for me, too. She woke up with one of those vivid nightmares she gets and she texted me at five in the morning and kept texting me until she finally drove over to our house at seven. She was waiting for me to wake up when you met her on your way to work. You won't believe that, either.

So I'm going to burn this letter, collect the ashes, and leave them on your desk. Because you deserve to hear the truth.

12.23

Kat enjoys the words of sad songs that nobody knows. Nathan pays to watch women on the internet put shoes on. Ingrid burns holes in her socks when she wants new ones. Bridgett has taken twelve sensory deprivation baths in the last three months, trying to develop synesthesia. Dj buys stamps just to lick them.

Martha makes cookies with chocolate chips and bakes them according to the directions.

Holly kisses other women in bars to attract men. Bradley lives in New York and counts the buildings he passes on his way to work. Luther tells his friends that he is lactose intolerant so he'll feel important. Wynne tries to pull her teeth out every night before bed. Summer eats pebbles.

Martha cries at the sad scenes in films and laughs with the cues in sitcoms.

Erik watches hundreds of music videos and catalogues them as “lyp-synched” or not. Brenda makes her own toilet paper. Harold stoops to walk through doorways, despite his dwarfism. Anatole plays instruments she hates so she can brag to her imaginary friend. Harriet tears the fortieth page from every publication she reads in public waiting rooms. Grant refers to every vehicle as “hoss.”

Martha picks up things on top of piles. She eats at restaurants because they are popular and cheap. She wears shoes that are comfortable and fit her feet. She owns several types of deodorant because she doesn't keep track. She sometimes sleeps on the couch with her feet on the coffee table. She constantly runs out of bowls and must wash dishes. She owns a plunger. She pays to have her oil changed. She drives to work. She gives to an annual charity drive.

You know the most about Martha and she's still the least interesting person on the page.

12.21

Attractive
Beautiful
Certain
Dear
Faithful
Gorgeous
Honest
Intelligent
Just
Kind
Loving
Mine
Night
Open
Powerful
Quiet
Respectable
Special
True
Unbelievable
Valuable
Wonderful

P.S. Zenith. And if that doesn't describe you, nothing does.

12.20c

[I promised myself I wouldn't go past C in a day. I haven't. I won't.]

He was trying to be friends. Really he was. He hadn't screwed everything up beyond repair. He knew that. How else could she have smiled at him so genuinely? Unless she was a psychopath. He hoped she wasn't a psychopath. All he wanted to be was friends. But not with a psychopath.

He took his chalk set and wrote on her sidewalk. Big, round letters of neon yellow and red.

Vikki

sometimes

it is good

to hold on

to happiness

and

it is better

to allow the

rain

to wash

away

your hurt

Take my chalk

use it please

make sure

you write

the good things

under awnings

and underneath

roofs

but

the bad things

in the open

on sidewalks

and streets

He left his chalk, then, in a square he drew for it right next to her door. Then he knocked on the door and ran away. She saw his back as he ran, so she left to throw the dishes and hope for them to break. She would have loved his message, if she had known. But it rained.

Vikki

sometimes

it is good

to hold on

to happiness

and

it is better

to allow the

rain

to smudge

smudge

smudge blotch

blotch smudge chalk

streak smudge smudge

smudge streak

smudge smudge

streak streak blotch

smudge streak

smudge smudge

streak

smudge

smudge smudge streak

streak blotch smudge

smudge smudge

smudge streak

She didn't know what he'd said. She wanted to be angry but found herself sad.

Her hot bold tears flew to obliterate what was left.

12.20b

[I keep looking for comments and then remembering I haven't written anything. So here you go]

Everything started with Daniel, age seven. No one blamed him, not at the time. Of course, they didn't know what it meant. Maybe, if he hadn't lived in the smallest part of the largest city in the area, it wouldn't have happened. But this is a story of fact, not speculation.

Daniel left to go to school extra early, wearing his best sunday clothes with his best church shoes and his hair trimmed and neat. His mother was proud; it was picture day. Daniel was at school all day (his mother checked) and walked his normal route home (the baker saw him). When he didn't show up at home at three forty seven or forty nine like normal, his mother began to worry. She soothed herself with the thought that “he must have stayed to show off his new shoes to his friends” or “he must have stopped at the bakery to spend his allowance on a sweet roll” or “perhaps he made a friend he wanted to visit after school.” None of this worked. She called the baker: no Daniel. She called the school ma'am: no Daniel. She called her husband.

The police had no idea where Daniel could be. “How old is he, miss?” I'm married, actually. “Begging your pardon, ma'am. How old is he?” Seven. Eight, this June. “That's fine. What's his hair color?” Black, but browner down towards his neck and ears. “How tall is he?” Just so. “Big for his age, isn't he?” She choked back the tears. “Sorry, ma'am. Just a few more questions.” That's fine. “He hasn't been in any trouble, has he?” He's my baby boy. “That's fine. That's fine. We have all we need; we'll keep an eye out. You call us if anything changes.”

Daniel's mother left the front porch light on, just so Daniel could find his way home, just in case he was outside, just in case he was lost on his way home and needed the light. Daniel's father said it was going to be fine, and she should just turn the light off and come to bed. Daniel's mother disagreed. She sat in the front room until three in the morning, and then she laid in the front room until five, and then she slept, but not well, in the front room until five thirty, and six fifteen, and again until six thirty.

The next day (and the next, and all the subsequent nexts) Daniel's mother sat in the front room with the porch light on, waiting for Daniel to come home. The neighbors turned their lights on, to show their support. The old man on the corner had a street light put in, and never flipped the switch. The whole street glowed every night. Farther down towards the city, the full service gas station saw its business double because of the light, so the manager had floodlights affixed to the corners of his building. The restaurant next door followed suit. The hotel down the street noticed the light-advertising and put up a new neon vacancy sign, made to order just for them. The glassworks manufacturer started pitching his wares to every business in town. Soon, every door had an “open” “vacancies” “beer” sign on the door. After that, the hospitals, banks, and university were fully lit for security from the thieves that had been driven from the business district by the light.

The city itself saw an increase in revenue from the motorists stopping in the only island of light on the highway. The next town over caught the news and voted to put in street lights. Within a year, cities from New York to Los Angeles were brilliantly lit. Paris and London joined in, and Tokyo decided to light every street and start lighting the bay. Tourist destinations started aiming floodlights at edifices. National parks started lighting rock faces with sconces. Rock concerts started sweeping the sky with searchlights.

Everything was lit.

Daniel's mother was eighty when it happened. Her husband was dead. Her porch light was burned out. She no longer could contribute, but it was her fault. Earth—a rocky green globe, home to trillions of life forms—made the subtle transition from planet to star.

12.20a

[I haven't gone to sleep yet. I can still say it's the twentieth if I like]

“Pablo, if you could, you know . . . have . . . one celebrity, who would it be?”

“Oh, that's tough. You first.”
“No fair, I asked the question.”

“Hm. Audrey Hepburn.”

“No fair! Pick someone alive.”

“That was not stated in the rules, Casandra. It was not in the rules.”

“It is now. Pick someone alive.”

“Ugh. There are so many celebrities and only one me.”

“Pick a few then, and narrow it down.”

“I guess . . . if you're sure. Hm. Well, because she's funny, that girl on Community. Annie something. Allison Brie?”

“Really?”
“She's pretty.”
“I guess.”

“Um, well the woman from Requiem for A Dream. She's really beautiful.”

“She's old!”
“She wasn't then, silly face.”

“Old!”

“You don't like that? Fine, Cuddy from House.”
“She's mega old!”

“Mega.”

“Pick somebody real.”

“Katy Perry.”
“Too skanky.”

“Zooey Deschanel.”
“Who's that?”
“500 Days of Summer.”

“Too weird.”

“Briseis from Troy. The same actress is also in some new movie. What was it?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Woah.”
“Whoah what?”

“You got all defensive.”

“No I didn't.”

“Right. What's wrong?”

“Shouldn't you know what's wrong, mister I Know Everything?”

“Seriously, what's wrong?”

“Don't you think I'm pretty?”

“I don't . . . what? Where is this coming from?”

“I'm blonde. Why are you dating me if you don't think I'm pretty?”

“. . .”

“That's what I thought.”
“How am I supposed to answer that? How am I in the wrong for that? How is this my fault?”

“. . .”

“You're right, you're right. I'm sorry.”

12.13

She'll never be in the picture. I understood then as I understand now: it was a simple mistake. She stepped out of the room to use the restroom at the exact moment that we decided to take the group photo. There were fifteen of us in the room; we'll be excused for forgetting her. I didn't even remember to check for her until she came back from the restroom. By that time, it was too late. Patrick, Diane and Dennis had already gone. She said not to worry about it.

The funny thing is that I didn't - worry, that is - until recently. She and I fell apart. And you know how the poets say it's better to have loved and lost than never loved. Well, ok. But now I'm left here holding a picture without her in it, and I'm wondering if I should put it away in the box with her letters and the picture of her graduation and the perfume she bought herself with my money, or if I should leave it out on she shelf to mock me every day with the fact that she was conspicuously absent.

Do I let her take my past with me, or do I fight the loss with tooth and nail?

12.12

It's odd what sleep can do to a person. I swear she was fine when we rolled over, exhausted, off of the couch and into the bed. She was normal, you know, just normal. Like everybody else. Normal.
Here's the great frustration, for me: I liked her before. Nay, loved. You like that? I picked that up from a fancy play she dragged me to. Brighter of us wanted to go but it was the thing to do--there, that, you see? That was what I loved about her. Other things, like she hated to do the dishes and she always made me stomp the spiders in the bedroom but could always inexplicably stomp the spiders in the garage. Things like she snored in her deepest sleep, and she would fight you if you implied it, of course, but if I woke up at two am to take a leak, there she was, purring like a two-stroke engine. Oh, she was a thing of beauty. A real piece of work, all insecurities with the joy packed in around the edges. Normal.

When we woke up in the morning, well, when I woke up, that sleep, that too-much sleep, it really changed her. Bouncy. Happy. no fear, no desire, no longing, no buried fear of public speaking, nothing. Gone. All gone. I wish I could explain to you how much I miss her.

If I don't get my Sara back soon, I may have to sleep myself to death.

12.9

He gripped the pipe closely in his teeth. He didn't inhale. He was waiting for the right feeling to come over him--the same feeling that always did when he had the pipe in his teeth and his feet up on the coffee table.
Slowly, the feeling showed itself, cat-like, shy and timid. It broke into his consciousness slowly, like a single drop of pigment at the bottom of a glass of water which slowly diffuses and stains the purity of all. When he first became aware of it, the feeling had already fully gripped him, and he threw the pipe away and wept bitterly into his arm.

His wife found him there, curled in the fetal position and asleep. She picked up his father's pipe from the corner and put it back in the drawer where the couple kept their secret hurts--the love letters from his high school sweetheart, the locket her first husband gave her, the myriad photos of her failed first pregnancy, the stinging mail from his unsatisfied mother. She stepped over him to go to the kitchen, but stopped. Slowly she turned around again and walked back to the drawer. Taking the pipe, she sat down next to him on the floor.
She tried to cry. The effort wore her out.

12.6b

[Catherine (this will be how I introduce these from now on)]
Chronologically:
When I was born, my parents had planned on a girl. This was not uncommon for them, as they had wished for a girl as each of my four brothers was born. Thus (though I was a disappointment), it came as no surprise that they would have to ready a boy's name for me. After ten minutes of arguing, my father won out. I'm quite glad of this, because my mother wanted to name me Andre, and that name does not suit me.
If I had been a girl, I would have been Rose and called Rosalita. I know this because "Rosalita" was painted above my bed for the first ten years of my life.

12.6

I'm considering writing love letters and posting them to random P.O. boxes. These won't be love letters to the people who own the boxes, or (hopefully) to people they know. Credit where credit is due; this is not my idea. I saw it as I was perusing the weirder parts of the web: a woman has actually done this and taken pictures of the letters as she sent them. She took it one step further and actually pasted the note itself to the outside of the envelope, though I doubt that postal workers have the time to read a letter like that.
Anyway, the idea is to engage the reader in some sort of mutual voyeuristic relationship to which they cannot retaliate.
I don't know if this is a good idea or a terrible one, but I would like to try it, and make it mine.
Ages ago, a kid at camp took post-it notes and wrote "this is graffiti" on them and put them everywhere. I did that for a while.

I have a few things that are weird that I came up with myself, but they're few and far between. I feel like the cooler things I do are all stolen.
Thanks, Solomon. Thanks, Ecclesiastes. You make me feel better about myself.

12.5

Whenever I come home in the rain, she greets me with a smile. Whenever I can't find my shoes, she knows just where to look. Now, I'm not saying my daughter and I have a close relationship all the time, but she seems to love me just the same.
I don't know; I just haven't asked. She's two.

Someday, I'll tell her about boys and why they look at her funny. Someday, I'll tell her to "turn around young lady" and go change and she'll just sneak out the back way. Someday, I'll pick her up from a party where a guy dumped her. Someday, I'll pray when she runs from me.

Today is not that day. She's two.
God, let me make use of the time I have.
Amen.

12.4

If I were honest with myself, I could see the truths I'm missing. For instance: I broke mom's case at the age of three. It wasn't the dog. I never was nice enough to my grandmother. It wasn't her attitude. I stole a cd from the store. It wasn't a prank. I ran a car off a bridge. It wasn't the rain. I hit my girlfriend. It wasn't her fault. I'm addicted to liquor. It's not under my control. I'm not right with God. It's not his prerogative.

I'm dying in here. It's up to me to get out.
Too bad I'm not honest with myself.

12.3b

Rosalyn and I didn't often go to parks, but when we did, it was an event.

In our senior year of high school, we went to a local park near Ros's house and set up our tents and camped there until a policeman came to kick us out. When the poor man saw that we weren't hardened hobos, and were instead impressionable young girls, he basically shut down. We offered him a can of our cherry pie filling, heated on our fire. P.S. if you ever want a delicacy, hang out in a tent for a three-day weekend and then take the top off a can of cherry pie filling and stuff the butt of that thing in the coals of a dying fire. I mean, minutes later, the can is too hot to touch with bare hands and the cherries inside are the best thing any human has ever tasted and you can take my word for that.
After Ros's last final, she got back to the room, threw her books at the bed, and said "I'm in the mood for a park. You?"

We gathered our supplies and went to the mall because the park was too cold. In the mall, there was an atrium with trees in it, where the soft winter light filtered through the sad green of the tree leaves a world away above our heads. We sat down with our armloads of bags underneath the largest tree in the place. My mother always said to not be afraid to spend money on the things I find important, so Ros and I had spent more than a hundred dollars on craft materials (Popsicle sticks, glue, sparkles, paper, colored pencils, crayons, foam shapes, pipe cleaners, and beads. We devastated the craft aisle of a major department store.
We started building posters (mine had a cat on it who wore top hats for a living).

Ten minutes later, our ploy worked. A teensy girl walked by, holding her mother's hand, and made noises so high and so happy I swear my ears died. She struggled out of her mother's grasp and turbowalked straight to us. She landed somewhere in the bead bags and started sorting through the bags to find the fancy sparkle bag. The mother looked mortified. "Susan! Susan, come back here. These nice ladies don't want their crafts disturbed."
That was my cue. "Actucally, we don't mind. My name's Cath, and this is Ros."
"Hi." This, from Ros, who was fastidiously assembling a portrait of her favorite rockstar, replete with besequined suit.
"We brought our crafts to the mall because it's boring to be alone with a glue stick." I had been practicing this line all morning. I thought it was rather clever.
The mother looked defeated. "Susan, what do you say to these ladies?"
"My name's Susan. I'm this old." Four fat fingers flew up. I'm pretty sure she doubled her age on accident.
"The other, Susan."
"Thank you."
The mother sighed like she was tired from living through all the years of all of time. "Say please."
"Ok." At this point, I was ready to laugh right out loud. I didn't. Susan turned her big, round eyes on me and said "Pleeeeeeese?"
"Of course, Susan. Here, take this pipe cleaner for your beads."

Susan opened the floodgates. Soon, we had a dozen kids rolling through our Popsicle sticks and sparkle glue. A set of twins was collaborating on a picture of their house. A boy had made a dinosaur of pipe cleaners. A baby had turned a huge pile of paper into a mess of squiggles that his older sister was folding into swans.

Two security officers came to make sure nobody walked over the kids. Parents filled the benches of the atrium, happy for the test from running between stores. We stopped crafting and just watched.

It was a good parking, I thought.

Of course, malls being what they are, and my luck being what it is, Marco saw us. He walked in and sat down next to me and didn't say much of anything for a solid hour. Ros and I looked and said nothing at each other forty seven times. I didn't actually count. Marco made a cathedral from popsicle sticks and glue. When he stood up, he had a piece of construction paper stuck to his butt. I didn't laugh.

"Thanks," he said. "Weird thing you're doing. I like it. See ya on Friday."

Of course, I tried to be silent, but Rosalyn poked me in the ribs.
"Cath? What's this?"
"Oh, Ros, I think it's nothing but it might not be nothing, so I didn't want to tell you about it in case it was nothing, so Marco and I met up after my final on Tuesday and he asked me on a date, and--"
"What about the skin? Did you do what I said?"
"I did! I said I can't date boys I don't know but he said we should get to know each other so we're sharing autobiographies on Friday." I clapped my mouth shut and frowned.
Ros laughed at me. "Really? Is that it? I said only use the skin defense when a boy was asking you for sex!"
"I panicked!"
Ros shook with laughter. "So, are you gonna do it? Are you gonna write an autobiography?"
I shut up and put the finishing touches on my cat poster family.

Marco's cathedral went above my computer when I got home.

12.3

[I haven't written lately. I've missed writing. Then I read 1/4 of a good book and writing hit me as I was getting dressed for church. I'll be late, but I don't mind.]

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to go into town and write "no" on the walls
with the lipstick you keep in your back pocket.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but it's solidly ours and stolidly grows into
something we do together. Never apart--
both we and (the towntrips and wallwords).

Change.

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to fight on the porch about how much I drink
or how long you linger and trace circles with fingers
on other men's skin.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but the way that we argue makes the time slow
and crawl to a halt.
When time-lost momentum
and angry-face tantrums
sub-sequently end, we
fix all the blinds and pull all the curtains
and make love together on the semi-plaid couch.
It's angry and sad but it works, don't you think?

End.

There's no reason to get so dressed up
just to visit your folks in Chestervilletown
where the relatives glisten and shimmer and shine.

Why we do this, nobody knows,
but you, my dear, and that's why it shows
that you wear the pants,
ever since we wrote "no" to the world long ago in that corner of town where the beggars all go.