Ninjas or Pirates?

1. She came home with a friendship bracelet and a purpose for her life. I came home with the confidence to change lanes on LA freeways but not much more than that. I feel like I am floating. Not like water lilies, afloat yet anchored to the nutritious muck below. I resonate with the dandelion seed, blown, unaware of up and down, of to and fro, of where I’ve been and what it is I am carrying. Gambol, little dandelion seed.

2. What motivates you? Is it money, peer pressure, fear of punishment, hope of healing? I don’t believe in altruism. A list of choices: A – Z is there. But right now only choice C and D are visible. D sounds as fun as jumping off the golden gate bridge so you opt for C hoping it will take you somewhere else with greater vision, and longer arms.

3. I am sandwiched between a gossip and listener of advertisement laced static radio. Sometimes I just have to walk away.

4. What is this alone business. My space. For me. No one to annoy me. No one to talk to. I have my thoughts to keep me company. And then my thoughts grow louder and louder so that even when people speak I can not hear them. My eyes are open but not seeing. I am a living parable.

5. I work not in the valley of the shadow death, but in the valley of the shadow of sleeplessness. My friends are as awake as computer screens. Twittering eyelids and constant complaints of exhaustion. Depression, hypochondria, stress are as contagious as the flu. I try to be as up to date on my vaccinations. I have a bottle of vitamin C at my desk. But my jaw has been tensed and my head hurting. Did I lock the back door?

6. Shards, opprobrium, pedantic, recalcitrant. I am alive in words unspoken. Rusted as the gate next door.

7. This Sunday I stood in the back of the school auditorium next to M, the homeless druggie and her boyfriend as A sang a hymn laden with her aged voice. M was crying. I surveyed the room. I saw my neighbors. I saw the man I met at the Laundromat. I saw M’s tears. Now that this dandelion is floating, she is freer. And I felt at home in the conglomeration of colors and backgrounds, young and old, well dressed and undressed. M went outside and rolled a cigarette. I went up and took communion. A continued “His Eye is on the Sparrow”.

8. When I left the house this morning I was greeted by the man rolling his shopping cart down the street pulling recyclables out of trashcans. He stopped and smiled. “You sho’ do look pretty today,” He said, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his glove. The morning air felt fresh. My car was almost trapped between a parked big rig and the trashcans, but I was able to maneuver my way out. “Thank you.” I said and smiled. A genuine smile. I felt welcomed by my new street.

9. My new street has many more trees, less apartment buildings and fewer cars, less drug rehab houses, more homeless people, a Honduran restaurant instead of a car dealership. It’s closer to the 10 freeway, church, and work. Farther from the F dash bus stop. Same amount of ice cream trucks. It’s wider, there are less cars double parked. More USC students. More well-painted exteriors, less police patrolling. Same amount of corn being sold. My new apartment is on the first floor. Has a million doors and keys. I’ve been upgraded to the United States type of toilet and can flush toilet paper. Rent is more. Space is more. Garbage disposal works. There is a professional gardener. The driveway is even narrower. A white woman lives next door and weeds her own garden. On the other side a dog, a big dog.

10. Amy Winehouse. So she has a song on the radio called rehab. I haven’t heard it played there, but I people have told me. I am in love with this girl but not for that song in particular. For the memories. My sister and I, car windows down, radio blaring and we are singing to Amy Winehouse. California races by the window. My sister and I tapping on the steering wheel or car door to the same beat. Amy mixes current subjects and beats with Billie Holiday’s sound. She is an intelligent lyricist. Although many of her songs are on clichéd topics of love, heartbreak, and cheating, the perspective and words she chooses are felicitous, concrete, and refreshing. Go listen to Amy.

11.Other peoples (ex) boyfriends: One texted me, somewhat of a goodbye text of appreciation and I am there for you. Another’s responded through email conversation and etc that as he is there for his daughters he is there for me. Another, not boyfriend, but patriarch, is forced into such a role by me asking questions and for help and waiting with expectation, as he is now the closest thing we have to a DECNMKR for the family. Blink. So touching all this male presence in my life. Typed. Texted. Questioned. None of it was free and it’s not gaining much interest. Well that’s not true. I may get a discounted surfboard. I have borrowed a dolly (for moving things, not for playing dress up with) and a water-vacuum. And rope, a flashlight, a shirt I will never wear, and an umbrella were what my grandfather left me. Along with the memory of going to the planetarium on Friday nights, drawing on napkins at restaurants the latest thing I learned in school.

12.“That is like saying Ninjas or Pirates and choosing PIRATES!” My cousin retorts.