A Pale Summer

Once upon a time, a long time ago, when I was a carefree college student, I took a few summer classes. Summer classes are great if you want to get your schooling done quickly, but that's about all they are good for. While taking summer classes I ended up with a week long summer vacation. So I went home.

While I was home I did the usual summer things: hang around the house with my younger brothers and eat ice cream, take an hour to walk somewhere I could drive to in five minutes or less, and go to the neighbors house at night to play games if I got excessively bored.

One night while my brothers and I were over at the neighbors house playing games, I looked across the room at Brother S because he was talking loudly, as usual; but I noticed his skin looked awfully pale even though it was the middle of July. Maybe he has spent too much time playing video games this summer and hasn't gotten much sun. I am cursed with a red and freckled complexion. I wished my skin was that pale.

I noticed several odd things that week; Brother S who is usually loud, boisterous and willing to play ultimate frisbee at any given time of day or night, spent most of his time sleeping on the brown couch in his room, or laying on the couch in the living room. I often stopped outside his bedroom to listen for snoring. With all that sleeping it seemed he would fade into death. And each passing day he seemed paler, his lips lost color, his face lost life, and he continued sleeping more and more.

One day when I caught him awake, I told him there was something wrong with him.

"It is just allergies," he responded. "I just need my allergy medicine." And he laid his head back down and fell asleep.

It didn't seem like allergies to me, and I didn't know what to do. So I told my mom there was something wrong with Brother S.

"He is pale, and he sleeps all the time, and he is not getting better," I looked up at her from the foyer, as she stood in the upstairs hall, holding the banister.

"Well, I'll take him to the doctor," she answered absently, and went into her room. My mother, who is usually very attentive and responsive, had just started working full time for the first time in thirty years. Later I found this to be the basis of her reaction, but at the time I figured if my mom was not concerned than it must not be significant. So I continued furrowing my brow, and listening at the door for Brother S's snoring, until I went back to school.

Two days later, as I set my bookbag down in the kitchen, I found a note on the table saying my brother was in the hospital.

I called home. My mother said Brother S had passed out and cut his eye open and when they took him to the hospital they found him in serious condition. She didn't want to talk much, she felt guilty and upset. She would sent Brother B to drive the two hours and pick me up. As I waited in the living room, a little dazed and a little confused, Roommate R proceeded to tell me how her brother got t-boned in a car by a diesel truck and he was in a coma for three months, and the only thing that saved him was his awesomeness. I really wasn't in the mood to hear all this, and heald my breath until Brother B arrived.

On the drive home Brother B explained that Brother S had a part of his umbilical cord that usually shrivels up and dies in most people, still attatched to his large intestine. Not only did it not shrivel up and die, but it had grown and was producing stomach acid until it burned a hole in the intestine and all of Brother S's blood and bodily fluids were escaping into the toilet. Whoa! No wonder he was pale.

So after surgery, and several days in the hospital Brother S was back to normal, only after that he started eating a lot less, and he lost tons of weight. I always figure this was because he was no longer feeding a second stomach.

Making a Mistake . . . Part Two

So Roommate K was pregnant. It was positive, it was real, and it would change everything.

"What are you going to do?" Was the inevitable question.

"I don't know." Was the usual response.

"Are you going to marry Rex?"

"I don't know if I can."

But marrying Rex would make things so much easier. Roommate K was barely four weeks along. They could marry quickly, she had always planned on eloping anyway, and pass it off as a honeymoon baby. No one would have to know. She wouldn't even have to tell her parents. She would never have to show up to church on Sunday with a pregnant belly and no ring on her finger. She would not have to give the child up for adoption, or be a single mother.

"I am 31," Roommate K said later as we sat in the living room with furrowed brows. "I am not a teenager who just screwed up, and I didn't even have a boyfriend for seven years until Rex came along," at this point she put her head in her hands. "I'm just afraid if I don't marry him I will never get married."

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a.k.a. the Mormons, in situations like this we are counciled to marry the father of the baby, if at all possible; if not, then give the baby up for adoption. However, at this moment I thought only of how sad it would be to be tied to someone I was not in love with.

"It seems the only reasons you want to marry Rex are fear, pride, and pregnancy. Those are bad reasons to marry someone," I said wanting to help her make the right choice, but not knowing what that would be.

Roommate K nodded. She sighed, laid her head back on the chair, and closed her eyes.

Two weeks later, after Rex and Roommate K went on a two week vacation together, she came home, sat across the living room from me and said, "I can't do it. I have to break up with him. I can't drag it out any longer."

That Sunday morning, before I woke up, they sat in the living room and talked the talk.

"He was bawling, L, bawling!" Roommate K told me quietly as we got ready for church. "I have never seen a grown man cry like that. I cried too because it was hard for me to hurt him, but now he wants to talk again after church. He says he has more questions."

"Oh." I was feeling sick. I did not know why. You would think I was the one pregnant, or being broken up with.

After church I took a nap (I am constantly sleep deprived; I blame The BF for that). When I woke up, I went into the kitchen to eat more cereal. I sat at the table with my bowl and spoon, and found Roommate K and Rex sitting in the backyard under the crabapple tree looking serious. He leaned forward, she had her arms crossed. I tried not looking at them as I ate, but the more I thought about it, the sadder everything seemed. My cereal lost its flavor, sitting in my mouth like sand. I wanted to cry.

Roommate K was pregnant with Rex's baby. Rex was in love with her and wanted to be a good father, unlike the father he never knew. She didn't want him to be a part of her life, yet this baby bound them together. Breaking up with him now would break his heart for the rest of his life.

I couldn't eat any more. I pushed away from the table, and went downstairs to cry my own tears.

Making a Mistake or Two . . .

One night I came home to my dark house in the middle of farmland country. I live miles from everything in my life, except for Roommate K. We have been friends for years and now we roomed together in a shack, in a cow pasture. Not really, but basically.

So I went inside my abandoned looking house, even with the four cars parked in front, went into the kitchen, poured a bowl of cereal, and began eating. Roommate K emerged from the dark hall.
"Hey," she whispered and sat across the table from me. "I am so glad you are home. I need to talk to you."

Roommate K and I tell each other everything.

"Are your parents here?" I asked, referring to the extra cars out front.

She nodded absently and said, "They are asleep in my room." She then made a whimpering sound and laid her head on the table.

"What's wrong?"

"Rex and I had sex the other night," she confessed.

This came as no shock because Rex spent most of his nights in Roommate K's bed. I know this because his truck is out front when I come home from work late at night, with her bedroom light off and her door shut. The surprise was that this had not happened sooner.

"And," she continued, "I think I might be pregnant."

I stopped chewing. Yikes.

"My cycle is like clockwork, and if my calculations are correct I was fertile when we did it. But it is too early to know for sure. I just have to wait until Friday when my period should start. I have never been more anxious to menstruate in my life."

I tried digesting everything this meant. Rex wanted to marry her, but she was not so sure about her feelings for him. If she was pregnant she had a lot of choices in front of her.

"But I really don't think I am pregnant, I am having all the signs of starting my period, like I am breaking out, I am irritable, I feel bloated. And really I mean, what are the chances, after one time?"

I decided we would paper, rock, scissor it. Paper, rock, scissors never lies. If she wins, she is not pregnant. Best two out of three. Go!

She lost.

That Saturday, while I vegged at The BF's house, my phone rang.

"What are you doing?" Roommate K asked.

"Just watching a movie."

"Do you want me to let you go?"

"No, I'm just laying here, feeling kind of queasy, The BF is paying his bills. How are you?"

"I'm okay."

"Did you start your period?"

"No."

Gasp!

"And I took a pregnancy test. . .positive."


To Be Continued . . .


I guess paper, rock, scissors really doesn't lie.

Journal vs. Blog: and more like a journal this time

I hoped to post a blog every day, that would make me a writer, right? Well, when the exhaustion hits hard writing becomes a painful chore with mediocre results. I didn't want to suffer just to bore you. So here I am today, writing because I am not as tired as I became last week. I feel good again, but I don't know if I can hold out until the end of the week. We shall see. The more I write, the better these posts should get.

So enough of this blah blah blah. I thought about writing a blog for a long time before I actually did it, part of the reason for this is the vulnerability of puting my soul on paper and sending it out for the public to read. I suppose that is the whole point of art of any kind, exposing your soul to reach others. I guess vulnerability makes things beautiful.

I have always been an avid journal writer. I supposed a blog would just be a public journal, and for some I suppose it is. I believe everyone has something to say and wants to feel heard, and when we write, no one interupts us. But for me journal writing is a place to let my soul fly out of my head and onto the page, it is a way of being free. It is a place to reveal every secret I am too embarrassed to tell. I really wasn't sure I wanted anyone, strange or familiar stumbling onto my soul, ready to leave comments and tear it apart. Scary!

But when I figured a blog could be a completely different medium for writing, it made more sense. People write differently thinking someone will read it. I think journal writing can be very theraputic, and blogging can be borderline exhabitionist. We shall see what this turns out to be.

Personally, I can't say that I am extremely fond of every post on this website, but it is a work in progress, must go forward, must press on. Hopefully it will get better to the point where I will tell people about it other than The BF and Sister A. Thanks for your support guys. Stick with me, these posts should get better.

Imaginary Friends

In general, it seems that people with imaginary friends are thought of as crazy. I would like to dispute this assumption for several reasons.

1. Imaginary friends might be the closest someone gets to a real friend, and everyone needs a friend.

2. These "imaginary" friends might not be imaginary at all, you just don't see them.

3. It is quite possible that the person is making up the imaginary friend to trip you out. (And what a funny joke that would be.)

When I was a wee lass, no more than five or six, I found a picture in the front pocket of my favorite overalls. This picture had lots of people in it, and someone in a giant bear suit. I stared at this picture for a long time. Not knowing where it came from, I concocted a story surrounding it: they were all kids in my school class, even though I hadn't started school yet, and the giant bear was our teacher. I made up names for all of the kids, which ones were my friends, which ones scored high on all the tests, which boys I had secret crushes on.

I thought all these stories were very interesting, so I took the picture to my mom, and proceeded telling her about the "kids in my class". Apparently she thought the stories interesting too, and told everyone else in the family to gather 'round so I could tell them about my classmates.

Well that was it, my storytelling was so convincing my siblings believed that I had made myself imaginary friends. And they mocked and laughed at me for hours.

This kind of thing is infuriating to a six year old, or five, maybe even four, how am I suppose to know how old I was? I was young, let's leave it at that. So I decided the only way to get my vengance was to ham up the imaginary thing. Sometimes I talked on the phone to a dial tone telling my "friend" all kinds of interesting five year old things. When I started school it took me a long time to walk home (because I liked taking my time, and looking at everything), they would ask me what took me so long, and I would tell them I was talking to my teacher the giant bear. Who later morphed into the crossing guard.

I thought it was all very humorous conning my family in such a way. But all of this changed one day when I was in the front yard with brother B pulling me in our favorite red wagon. Mom called us in for lunch, and brother B promptly ran inside, leaving me to put the wagon away, and meander inside myself.

As I prepared to slowly make my way to the house, a little blonde girl with a little blonde doll walked by. I thought she was very pretty and was quite surprised when she stopped to talk with me. She sat on my front lawn stroking her dolls hair, while I stood by holding the handle of my clunky red wagon. I would love to have a pretty doll like that, but I kept thinking the girl would stop talking and walk away, where was her mother? Why was she talking to me like I knew her? Did I know her? When she sat the shiny blonde doll in the wagon, I decided to forget lunch and play with my new friend. I don't know how long we were out there in front of the house, but when I finally went inside I was happy to report that I had been playing with a real friend, her name was Emily, and she was real.

I thought her realness would convince my family that this one was not a hoax. But their reactions were always the same, with their looks, and their "yeah right" 's, and their telling me my friends weren't real. That was when I gave up the stories, they were turning me into a circus sideshow. As amusing as this was, it didn't seem worth it anymore. My imaginary friends became real, and they needed to be believed.

Without The BF

This entry is about love, and how odd it can be sometimes.

The boyfriend a.k.a. The BF and I are both a little older than the average 17 year old high school couple. I have been single most of my teenage and adult life. I have dated a bit here and there, and never really cared to do it much more than that. Having a boyfriend takes tons of time and effort, and I had a hard time finding someone who was worth it.

(I guess that could be considered cold hearted.)

Well, when I met The BF it was different because I enjoyed spending all my time and effort with him, which is totally out of character for me. Anyway, to make a long story short, we got together, even though neither of us were looking for love, we found it. It is almost like a Meg Ryan Tom Hanks movie, awwwww. . . . .

But after millions of nights of not sleeping, and millions of things I needed to do that I didn't because I was with him, like paying my bills, and doing my laundry, I thought it would be great if we had a little vacation from each other. I would get so much done and I would be well rested, and life could be simple again.

Well, that day finally came when he went out of town for a week on business. I stayed at his house to watch his dog and eat his food and be way closer to work than at my house. The first day I spent with my roommate (personal crisis), and didn't get to his house until late. The second day I just talked on the phone, it was awfully quiet there. The third day I just sat and stared, thinking of The BF and how I missed him. The fourth I sat on the floor hugging his dog and crying, not knowing how I could stand one more day without him. The fifth day I held my breath, knowing he would be home that night. And all this time I wasn't sleeping well, tossing and stressing, and thinking only of seeing him again.

When I finally saw his beautiful face at the airport curb, I practically knocked over the parking Nazi who was coming to tell me to move my car, as I jumped out of my car and into the arms of The BF. The Nazi moved on, as we held each other for eternity.

As I relaxed in bed that night I thought of all the things I didn't do that week. I am used to being alone and independent, and people getting in the way of my routine, but I have found I can barely function without The BF around.

I guess that's love.

Welcome to my Blog: an introduction

I am not computer savvy, nor am I hip with pop culture. That is just a warning that this blog will hopefully be interesting reading, but perhaps not so interesting looking.

The reasoning behind starting this blog is that as a writer who craves an audience I can pretend that people may stumble onto this and TA DAH! I have a reader. As for my endless journal entries, stories and poetry stored in this computer, I don't have much hope for those being read by people other than family and friends.

I call myself a writer because that is all I have ever wanted for myself. When I learned to tell stories by drawing pictures, I knew I would write once I learned how. And that's about all there is to that. I have not yet changed my mind, even though I haven't earned a dime from writing, it persists as my number one dream.

A blogger is born.

Let me introduce myself for a moment. I am a person working a boring menial job. I graduated from college with a bachelors in clothing design (not writing, more on that later) and I now work at an entry level job where my back and feet hurt at the end of every day.

Now before you throw your dreams out the window with the bath water, I need to tell you that I am happy, a series of uncontrollable events and conscious decisions landed me where I am today. And I truly believe I belong where I am.

As the title states, this is only an introduction and you will learn many intimate details of my history in this blogging process, not all at once.

I have a boyfriend: The BF. I have a roommate: K. I have a vast number of siblings, mostly brothers: all referred to by Brother or Sister and the first letter of their name ie. Brother T sent a picture of him playing soccer in South Africa. He looks pretty cool in the picture, which is interesting, because when he played soccer in his formative years he always looked miserable.
Mom and Dad will of course be Mom and Dad, or possibly the mum and big D, but probably not, because I don't talk like that, unless I really want to.

So that is it. Welcome to my blog! There will be greater fun and adventure on the way, although I can't guarentee that it will all be superb, I can guarantee that I will have fun writing it, and that is the whole point.