I had a box of crayons when I was small, and I would draw on whatever was handy, scraps of paper floating around my room. My mother would find them later, wedged into the pile of the bedroom carpet or cast into corners. I drew faces mostly, when I drew shapes at all - always a girl with one eye full of tears. But more often than faces, I left small folds of paper, guileless declarations, "I love Mommy" in every color in every corner of my tiny little world.

My wonderful parents sold their house today, and soon they'll move far away. I know that home is not a building - my home travels wherever the people I love go - but it's hard to remember when I think of this house, the most beautiful one I've had or even seen. Mom and Dad bought it when I was in college; I didn't grow up there, none of my defining memories happened there. It was simply a place of comfort and happiness. It was proof that no matter how old I get, no matter where my mail goes, I can still go to a place that's more home than my own home. I am someone's little girl within the walls of my parents' house.

My bedroom isn't next to my mom's anymore, and it probably won't ever be again. She'll never clean my room and find the scraps of paper hidden under laundry and clutter. I don't think scribbling "I love Mommy" in crayon would have the same unconscious sincerity at 29 as it did at six.

This is the best I can do. I don't think she reads my site very often, but when she does, she'll find this here, the sort of folded note I can still leave with the greatest sincerity.

I love Mommy.

I had a long day, last week. I tangled unpleasantly all morning, first with the F train and then with the Angry Ineptitude of Port Authority. I had a pleasant day shopping with Gail in New Jersey, but I returned to Brooklyn worn out from travel, smelling faintly of anxiety and bus. There was no time to rest; I was rushing to Svet and Dave's to make gingerbread houses, eager to escape the biting cold and get to the party before all the good candy shingles were gone.

It's a long way down 7th Avenue and New Jersey Transit buses have no bathrooms, so I stopped in Barnes & Noble on the way. That's where I saw it. It. In the stall next to me, a pair of exceedingly large sneakers, larger than the largest women's shoes. Larger than the average man's shoes. Unmistakably the wrong shoes to be in a stall of the ladies' room of the Park Slope Barnes & Noble. I mentally rewound, remembered the girl-symbol'd door as I walked in, realized it was not I who was out of place, and noticed the shadow of my neighbor's hand. Moving furiously up and down.

I checked, of course, to see if any peeping was in progress, but nary a roving eye was found. I suppose the owner of the unnaturally large sneakers was simply enjoying the forbidden environment. I should have shrieked "merciful heavens" and swooned or at least alerted the staff, but I didn't. I thought, "What if I've encountered a freakish mutant female with enormous boatfeet and terrible hand tremors, and bringing the manager to accost her will not only ruin her night, but might actually directly contribute to her impending suicide?"

On further reflection, it was absolutely a man abusing himself in the women's bathroom of a national chain bookstore.

I washed my hands especially carefully as I left – to banish the bad touch to my soul – and raced off to make a gingerbread house.

It was the first I'd ever made, with a pointed roof and a gumdrop trim. And it was quite nice and very, very wholesome.

Boredom breeds ridiculous little projects like this one: a collection of camera phone pictures taken by me or taken by my friends of me.

The project will be less ridiculous when I get a better camera phone. Don't hold your breath.

Favorite Coworker — Why does Tech Support always talk to you? They don't talk to anyone!!!

Lupschada — I've got two words for you: Boobs.

Ranjit and I had dinner at Dizzy's last night, and since the last time I was there, the tables have grown paper covers and tins of crayons, two of my favorite things for tables to have. I was so happy that I drew a saucy pirate with an unfortunate eye condition. Here she is:

The odd lady at the table next to us asked if it was a portrait of Ranjit. Reflecting on it, while it was unintentional, the resemblance is uncanny. Ranjit wears an eyepatch, a headkerchief, large hoop earrings, and is a woman.

Merry Christmas, Jerkface

How does the adage go? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything? I don't have anything nice to say at all. What I have to say is the very definition of not-nice. I write and rewrite it in my head, what I have to say, unable yet to commit even to paper.
I am angrier than I've ever been.
I can't seem to write around it; it's clogging my mindpipe. In lieu of something new, I will share something from the vaults, a happy Christmas tale of yore. I've been sifting through old emails recently (I know, I always say it's bad for me and then I do it again) and I found this gem from the winter of 2002. Enjoy, my holiday lamblets.
Sent : Wednesday, December 25, 2002 10:19 AM
Subject : there is no decency left in this world
Lo, it's a quiet, snowy Christmas morning, and someone has broken into my garage and ransacked my car and my father's. Broken. Into. The GARAGE. No, I know what you're thinking: "We know Brooke's parents' neighborhood. They like to break into cars on the street and take stereos." No. Broke into the GARAGE to do it. On Christmas! Actually, I strongly believe it happened last night, perhaps by people who were counting on the families who keep larger presents in their cars to hide them from the kiddies.
What a wonderful world, Clarence.
So, my father's car was gutted — he uses a lot of electronics for his job, and they live in the car because he travels for work. Nothing was actually taken out of my car, I don't think, but EVERYTHING was gone through. I mean, GUM WRAPPERS. I am hysterical about the thought of them opening the laundry bag filled with cat-pee-soaked clothes I'd yet to remove and wash, though. I hope it Lady MacBeths their asses, and they never smell fresh again, the bastards.
Merry Christmas.

It's nearly inconceivable to me that I have a unique smell - something identifying, under the shampoos and deodorants - that my loved ones know intimately but is a total mystery to me. No one will ever know me as I do, but this one thing - this one really important thing about me - I'm the only one in the world who can't know it. Well, me and the noseless. It's unsettling.

As are the noseless.

Likewise, apparently I'm the only one who can't feel the vibes I'm giving off. It seems that I've become an unwitting homing beacon; people are coming out of the woodwork in rapid succession. To wit: About a month ago, we went to see Jonathan Richman play at the Bowery. I saw a guy who looked remarkably like someone I used to know, eleven years ago. We were freshman at Brandeis together, then we lost touch - new dorm, new friends, some of us smoked our hobbies more than others. I don't think I'd thought of him in almost ten years.

It turns out he dropped out of school, at least for the time I was there. I know this because he emailed me a week after the show. It wasn't him, the guy I saw, after all. The old friend was firmly ensconsed in Chicago at the time. He found me on Myspace. The timing was random. It was completely a coincidence.

Within the following week, there were THREE more similar events, ranging from merely unexpected to nearly mind-blowing - there was a chance meeting with a very old, once-close friend - we parted nearly ten years ago over a stupid argument that would have ended instantly with a simple phone call that neither of us made, and we didn't make it, and we didn't make it, and after 5 years it's not really simple anymore. We ran into each other in a Target, in a city neither of us exactly belongs in. It was great.

So, listen: if we've lost touch and you want to say hi, but fear the shock will shatter my fragile heart, now's a great time. Nothing could shock my fragile heart now.

Let's get one thing straight: I don't care what he says, the kid from the Encylopedia Brittanica commercials has never touched a girl. I realize he must be in his late 30s now. I maintain my position notwithstanding.

The big city is wearing me out. I work 10-12 hours a day; this is an efficient way to lose a year of your life. It helps that I like my job. I get to edit exclusive celebrity interviews, I get free cds sometimes and on Friday, our film editor gave me an ugly Chicken Little baseball cap, so everything's coming up roses. The sky is falling but my STAR IS RISING. Take that, chicken little, you alarmist.

I'm exhausted but I'm happy.

Every morning I am pulled through the tide of fast-paced commuters and know that I am among my own kind, the impatient and snarky. I love to be in a place where something is always happening, a thousand stories reach their peak every hour, and the greenmarket sells grapes that taste like grapes should. Have you ever wondered how wine was born of those impotent, anaemic subfruits in the supermarket? You can stop.

I really love my new job. The parts that aren't interesting are fun, and I think I'll fit in with the people just fine. The office space, however, is cold as ice, much like the heart of the titular snake in Paula Abdul's reproachful anthem of 1988.

It's not true, what I said about bagels in my last post. I don't have the inside scoop. I apologize. Like Phil Hartman and thousands before him, I am just an unfrozen caveman lawyer; I know not what I do.

Whatever.

This week, Lupschada packs up her books and records, bundles them in a red-checked kerchief on a stick and slouches toward New York City to be born. This week, I will reconcile my split lives – I will have a simple answer when asked where I hang my hat. (Note to self: buy hat. And hat-rack.) Next week, I will brave the throng of the rush-hour metropolis with my elbows out, fearlessly.

I bid a gelid farewell to the squalor of Greyhounds! I bid you adieu, ill-tempered bus drivers! May I see you again, someday, in Hell.
 

People, seriously. You're sick of all the lies. You need someone to come clean. I'm here to come clean about depilatory cream.

I wasn't fooled by the ads. The two-pound girl in boyshort underpants and a beater is unusually ebullient for a girl having her body hair chemically burned off at the follicle. Did I say unusual? Nay, unbelievable. I'm half-inclined to think some "director" put her up to it. In any case, though I was certain that using a specific brand-name depilatory would make me two pounds and adorable, I suffered no illusions that I would have the time of my life in the process. I'm no rube.

I bought it on a whim. It was some sunny morning - I walked out of the house in a skirt and a daze, vaguely assured of smooth legs, as assured as one can be without bothering to look down. When I was properly awake, I saw I had been mistaken. I purchased a specific brand-name depilatory at the drugstore on the way to work.

There's something special about sitting perfectly still in the office bathroom, legs covered in a thick paste, tingling uncomfortably. It smelled strange, but not really unpleasant - half floral, half medicinal, half poisonous. It was 150% out of place. I sat on the toilet for three minutes watching my leg hair curl up and die. It was reasonably tidy and got the job done, but the stubble grew in ten minutes later and the smell held on all day.

I wasn't sold. And I hadn't gotten more adorable either.

This morning, I woke up late. The only clean clothes I had were dresses and my yetti legs were a mess. I spied my specific brand-name depilatory on the shelf and thought, "How perfect! I will shower, slather on my chemicals and let them burn off my legs while I collect my clothes and fix my hair!"

It sounds great, of course. And I'll tell you that from a distance of two feet or more, my legs look smooth. What you can't see is the layer of cream smudged against every surface in my apartment. You can't know the time it took to clean up the mess. You can't smell the synthetic, botanic vapor settling over my things. The scent that seemed amusingly quirky in the office was positively noxious amidst the native satsuma and Garnier of my bathroom.

People, please listen. I'm not two pounds, I'm no cuter than when I started, my legs feel kind of bumpy and a little raw, it's possible I'm breaking out in a rash and I got into the office ten minutes late anyway. Forget the specific brand-name depilatory and go back to scraping your legs with the hunting knife, like I do.

Next week: the truth about BAGELS!

Bo Bice! King of mice! Likes to eat lots of rice! It is nice to say it thrice:

Bice! Bice! Bice!

Please enjoy this song about Bo Bice. I should mention that I've never seen nor heard Bo Bice, but the sound of his name brings me perfect joy. I hope it does the same for you.

I made a drawring today:

It loses something in the scan...

When I was growing up in Wisconsin, we had a neighbor boy, maybe 10 years old, who would frequently pelt our house with crab apples and yell "Go home, rabbi!!"

My dad would say,"Joey, we are home. And I'm not a rabbi. Go back inside." And Joey would, and that would be that, for awhile.

That's funny.

His sister later married a member of our tribe. That's funnier.

I worked in the mailroom during college, reading people's postcards and delivering mail. It was fine, as far as work-study goes. I had a lot of alone time. It paid for my Newbury Comics habit (for those unfamiliar with Boston shopping, that's cds, not comic books). It paid the occasional $400 phone bill. We who are spendy must work.

On slow days, I would leave cryptic notes in my best friend's mailbox. I would scribble on scraps of paper against the cinder block wall, slip them into the box and run away giggling. I was charmed to learn, yesterday, that Gail still has all but one of those notes.

The thing is - they're not so funny, objectively, yet she and I both laughed ourselves silly reading them. Maybe it was the memory of feeling young and loose, weird and unrestrained. Our friendship was not one of affectations or propriety. We had a habit of mimicking the sounds we heard in public, in fact: sirens and bird calls and what have you. I realize strangers may have thought us a little retarded, in retrospect, but we didn't care. We were bold and clever.

I like us plenty now, but I miss the us we were.

I wish the bulk of my early emails from Gail were not locked within the digital corridors of my ancient Performa, because they're hysterical. I can only offer what she read me yesterday, the mailbox notes I left so gleefully behind ten years ago. Our favorites:

I admit that I like you Extremely! And you can even tell people!

and

Oh, once upon a time, the most beauteous girl in the world, Schmail, received a rose from her fairy godpumpkin, Crooke, and all was well. Then, they beat up the space bunny.

and

Once upon a time, there was a special girl. She was real, REAL, special. In fact, she was so special, they developed a whole curriculum in school for special people like her.

and

Gail is a pineapple head! Gail is a pineapple head!

I woke up abruptly last Saturday morning
when reindeer burst into my room without warning.
They threw over my pants and said "Put these on."
They forced me outside to their sleigh, we were gone
in mere moments, in flight, and we sailed 'cross the sky.
I wondered aloud if they meant me to die,
and the reindeer in back - I think he was Max -
gave me some coffee, told me to relax.

"We're not taking you anywhere you wouldn't go,
so sit back, have your drink and enjoy the free show."
I didn't appreciate his devil-may-care
but beggars aren't choosers half a mile in the air.

We flew on, through low clouds, over birds, past the sun
It got brighter and hotter, my wristwatch read one
when we began the descent over sparkling water.
Stomach quaked, my eyes closed, caller ID showed my daughter.

I froze for a moment, fearing equipment confusion,
but avionics aren't present in Reindeer Intrusion.
My daughter was sheepish. "Hi dad," she began,
and I knew with no doubt who was behind this whole plan.

"Merry christmas?" she said, like it was a question.
"I think I messed up." A rather mild expression,
I thought as we flew, with my feet over ocean,
my heart and my gut in a violent commotion.

"What did you do," adding warily,"Honey?"

"Um, well, you see, Dad, I really needed some money.
And I couldn't ask you - it was for your gift!
I thought I'd just borrow and pay it back quick!"

"Mmmhmm?" I gritted my teeth in reply,
suppressing the nausea I get when I fly.

"Well, my friends were all broke, Uncle Jim-jim won't help me
And apparently the mob won't pay out under twenty,
so I thought I could just go right to the source,
but I think my idea went slightly off course."

We hung up when I promised to tend to her cause.
I said grimly to Max, "Deer, take me to Claus."

I met with the man, I emptied my pockets,
gave him all that I had and he gave me toy rockets.

"Rockets??" I said. "Like I had as a kid,"
I mused, and I saw what the little dear did.

The deer took me home and I grounded my child,
though I think my punishment was incredibly mild.
The lesson she learned was hardship enough:
Santa's made of some dangerous stuff.

6 overwhelmingly musical questions by Jon, 6 answers by me

1. What's the first album you remember being given? What was the first album you bought with your own money?
It all depends on how literally I take the question. I remember owning Thriller, but it's just as likely that it was my brother's record. I remember buying The Beatles 1967-70 on cassette, and though I later stole it for myself, it was technically a gift for Andy. The first clear memory of not just owning, but receiving music was in 1988, when a friend gave me Green by R.E.M. The first album I bought for myself was... oh, let's see. Peter, Paul & Mary's Greatest Hits?

2.You're given the chance to sing any song with any backing in any venue in the world. What, where and with whom do you want to perform?
My stage fright is so potent that just reading this question makes my chest tight. You see now, don't you, why I hid my voice in a box and shoved it under the bed with the dust bunnies and empty soda cans? In spite of that, I'd sing "At Last" with a full orchestra, if I could fit a full orchestra and a few close friends in my shower. If not, I'd settle for a smoky bar and a handful of people who'd love me even if my mouth dried up and not a sound came out. Not that that's ever happened... in the perfect world that exists in my mind.

3. What religious figure's ass would you most like to kick (doesn't have to be biblical, just religious)?
The PAP - Protestant American Pope, sometimes known as The Great Reuniter of Church and State, O Holy President, son of God. I'd short-sheet The Zinger, too, if I got a bonus turn.

4. In a world where no one is mocked for their name, what would you name your children?
I don't think the names I'd choose are more than usually vulnerable to attack. I shun the outlandish — there will be no Sharmonica among my progeny, if you were concerned. I've wanted to name my girl Zoë for about as long as I can remember. Until the movie came out, it was to be Zoë Amelie. In a world where no one would ask if I'd named my daughter after a saucer-eyed imp, that would still be it. If I have a son, I'm not really sure. Maybe Frankenstein.

5. What songs makes you shiver and tear up every time you hear them?
September Song (as sung by Willie Nelson - my grandparents' song), You Needed Me (as sung by Anne Murray - my parents' song), Mad World (as sung by Gary Jules) and Philadelphia (Neil Young). If I need a cry and I'm having trouble getting the first tear rolling, I put on Mad World or Philadelphia - or I sing the first couple bars of September Song or You Needed Me. That's as far as I ever get.

6. What song scares you most by perfectly expressing a moment in your life?
"Fast as You Can" by Fiona Apple or "Two Points" by Deb Talan or "Breakable" by Fisher

5 questions by Maria, 5 answers by me...

1. If you were handed a blank check that had to be used solely for travel, how would you spend it?
I would encourage a very few of my most compatible friends to take as much vacation time as they could afford, and pay for us to go to New Zealand and live like hobbits. But really rich and indulgent hobbits. And then to Japan, where we would live like hobbits who are in Japan.

2. What's with all the Bs (Brooke, Boston, Baltimore...) If you had to move to another B, where would you go?
Brooklyn, baby. My namesake is calling me home.

3. Do you feel a wolf-ish affinity with Remus in Harry Potter? Or does he have it all wrong?
I felt he was my brethren.

4. New England Lobstah or Maryland Crabs?
Neither, since I don't much care for shellfish things, but New England seafood over any other, for all time.

5. Nerd or Geek? Explain why.
I was a smarty-pants in my school days, but I was never quite a nerd. I had an aversion to homework and studies that was distinctly unnerdly. A geek for sure, but that specific kind - a pop culture geek, I guess. An ironic t-shirt-wearing, indie-band-loving, hobbit-referencing geek.

Here we go again!!

5 questions by Lauren, 5 answers by me...

1. If you could have any job in the world what would it be?
I would like to work for the Weekly World News, writing articles and photoshopping the face of Bat Boy into new and exciting locations. Equally badly, I want to write for The Simpsons or Sassy Magazine. You know, if Sassy Magazine still existed. Hey, you didn't say it had to be this world.

2. If you were on the plane on the show Lost, where would live? The caves or the beach? Why?
I'd move to the caves with Jack, because his air of capability soothes me. I'm a born follower.

3. If you had to pick your favorite pet ever which one would it be?
My brownest neen, my labby queen, the chocolate Dylan of my heart. Please do not tell Toast or the others.

4. If you could spend a month living anywhere in the world where would that be?
Rome, please.

5. If you had a superpower, what would it be? What would you call yourself?
I'd like to read minds, but I fear what I'd learn. I'd like to fly, but I fear heights. I think either I'd teleport, or have the ability to unfurl my teeth out long and use them for weapons. I'd be called Omni or The Fang, respectively.

Quote of the week:

Ranjit: "Ha! Your resume makes you sound like a big nerd, but you're so not!"

Oh, aren't I, though? Aren't I?

I saw a dead dog on my way to work, his eyes wide open and a stream of blood from his mouth still wet on the pavement. I threw up a little and cried. The police said he would be collected within 48 hours. There's no particularly acceptable weather to keep a good dog out of heaven, but spring in Baltimore is certainly not it.

I have to find a new way to walk to work. It's all wrong there now.

I'm going to call him Ghost Dog and take his spirit with me wherever I go. "Get him, Ghost Dog," I'll say and gesture to some adversary. When the enemy stares blankly, I'll shake my head and add, "Let's go, Ghost Dog. No one understands us."

brunch drawing:

Yesterday I got a lovely note, as I sometimes do, from Mofaha. He shared some of his new animations, which always please me to the gills. He's a dear, that Mofaha.

In his note, he mentioned: "The 'why is Frito crying' quote from your site is an often-quoted meme in our house. It still makes me laugh." It's funny he should say, as it touches on a conversation I had with my mom not two weeks ago. So many family jokes have their origin in some passing comment made by a stranger, or erstwhile acquaintance. Quotes that are so firmly rooted in my family's lexicon were first uttered by people who have no idea their words are the stuff of legend.

When I was nine, I invited a girl from my summer pottery class to play at the neighborhood pool. Sadly, she turned out a little understaffed in the brain department. Every few minutes, she would say "Wanna know something?" and then deliver some piece of personal trivia so useless it was embarrassing, even to my single-digit sense of whimsy, like "When I was 5 I got a sliver. Then my dad took it out.". Perhaps that's the day I learned the dark side of the "time flies" coin. My mom watched in amusement as I struggled for an endless afternoon not to grit my teeth and announce, "I do not. Want to know. Anything. Ever."

We've been annoying each other for twenty years asking if we wanna know something.

At least in my mom's case, she was being deliberately obtuse about Frito the hobbit. She brings Family Mofaha joy, which is a fine repayment indeed for hours of kittinjoyment. I'm sure I'm not so lucky. I have to wonder what useless, foolish, truly moronic thing I was caught saying in my youth that is endlessly bandied about in the family vernacular of people I don't even remember.

Well. I hope it makes them happy.

I need to buy a paper journal and relearn the delicate art of holding a pen. I haven't kept one in six years, and I feel that I've been missing something terribly important.

I stood in the journal section of a Barnes and Noble yesterday, picking some up and weighing them in my hands, running my fingers across the covers and spines, picturing my ugliest thoughts in their pages. None of them were quite right. I remember this ritual from Before The Internet, when paper was a priest to me, if not every day then almost, from the age of thirteen on. The books had to be perfect, inspire prolific unflattering honesty. I wrote everything in them, not just the periodic, sanitized musings I publish here or the more conversational mass-broadcasts of Livejournal. I wrote when I hated myself, and I wrote when I hated you. I wrote my most vulnerable doubts and the saddest birthday wishes.

Reading back now, I see how so little has changed — it gives me faith in the concept of my soul. It's heartening to recognize myself in the words I wrote fifteen years ago, to realize that there is a core of me which remains steady despite changing weather. Knowing nothing of philosophy, I don't have the words to describe the existential charge I get from seeing me in... myself.

And the perspective is invaluable. I've been sad this week and feeling lost. It's hard to be sad when so many nice things are happening to me, but I'm a real trouper; I'm diligently melancholy. I've been taking stock of my little world, and it doesn't look like it used to.

I moved far away. I'm not sure why I thought nothing would change. Maybe I've been spoiled — my best friend lives a billion miles away and I manage to feel close to her every day. But I've been putting most of my other friendship eggs in one clique basket for years now, and I just recently noticed that the basket's not in the best shape. It's coming unwoven, or there's a hole in the bottom, and maybe the basket doesn't call or write. I'm trying to come to terms with it.

Reading the old journals paints reemerging patterns of loss and gain, periods of frenzied socializing and insular silence. It's always been this way. It's good to experience those adolescent moments again, from a distance, as they repeat themselves. They wear unconvincing disguises, and I see them for what they are. Same shit, different decade. It's like having a mom on paper, telling me that everything will be okay. I can read my heart break and mend in the span of twenty pages, over and over. It will always be okay.

And the truth is, I love the friends I do have. My life feels full, and I don't need to pad some cosmic guest list. Some of my newer friends are among the best I've ever had, some of my oldest friends are always dear, and one never can tell about the erstwhile companions. History tells me they tend to pop up at the most unexpected times.

Oh, my chickens. I have writer's block like it's going out of style. I just don't have a single thought in my empty, pretty head. I'd like to tell you about something — anything — but I don't know what to say or how to say it. I'll bow to tradition and offer you a semi-annual irrelevant list instead:

Things that please me this week:

♥ Skype
♥ Piggie Stardust
♥ Jenny's delightful birthday dinner at a delightful restaurant in Baltimore, also starring Jen and Natalie.
♥ My delightful friend Jenny.
♥ This, which I i-messaged my brother not ten minutes ago: "That man is all the crazy ever. Other crazy people have to be sane now, because he's using every last inch of batshit."
♥ My beautiful new rose-patterned skirt, which was $140 off its original price and makes me long desperately for warm sandals weather.
♥ The existence of items that are $140 off their original price.
♥ The many, many mp3s which Jon gave me that I'd never heard before, which is well-nigh unprecedented.
♥ Jon
♥ My new-to-me digital Elph (thank you, Ranjit).
♥ Getting my first paycheck with the new raise and a fiscal year bonus on the same day.
♥ Left-behind shirts.

Scott is clever one. He collected some quirky spam names (by the by, the favorite from my own haul this week: Treachery B. Paroling), and posted them on his LiveJournal, asking us readers to chose some and write them small biographies. I chose two and here they are:

Numbers Cowan was a productive member of the colony. He counted faster and more accurately than anyone in the office, save perhaps his father, Numbers Corban. Sometimes, though, he couldn't stop himself from gazing across the alley, through the window at the endless stacks of paper in the next office. He was transfixed by the hand of Leaflet Grinberch, which would appear at the edge of Numbers' sightline at regular intervals to remove a sheet of clean white paper and reappear seconds later to place a printed sheet on the next stack. Often, he imagined he was born to the wrong family, but Numbers Cowan never lost count.
.........
Edgardo Butts is on his way to court. He has waited for this day for many years. He has long been ashamed of his name, known that it diminished his standing in social situations like a weak chin. "It's a family name!" His father would shout, too forcefully, as if a lash from the belt would make it true: "You should be proud of your family!"

But father has passed, and Edgardo Butts makes his way downtown, certain that today is the first day of his new, wonderful life. His new name will pave golden roads of success. He says it aloud for the first time, savoring it. "Harold. Harry. Harry Butts."

I think my iPod has become sentient. I begin to fear it. Not that I'm going to stop using it or anything. It's more like the way we're told to fear God. Or Apple. Whatever.

Forgive my pathetic i-fallacy, but somehow, it always knows the appropriate music to suit my activity. Yesterday, I took a walk to the art supply store on my lunch break. My gray wool detective hat was pulled low over my eyes, and my collar was pushed up against the cold. I was walking into a driving wind, and the iPod chose "Sour Times" (Portishead) and "A View to a Kill." I formed my hand into a gun within the cloak of pocket and kept my back close to the walls. I didn't speak to anyone on the way, but rest assured there'd have been a Russian accent, poorly executed.

On the way back, through brighter streets with the wind at my back, I was armed with glitter glue, silver paint pens and a sunny disposition. IPod delivered The Apples in Stereo, XTC, and Komeda.

Surely a coincidence.

But lo, the iPod continued its winning streak today at the gym. It shuffled through the main library without aid: Outkast, Deee-Lite, some uptempo Squeeze and that infernally cheerful "Steal My Sunshine" song.

Do my moods develop based on the random choices of the i-Pod, or does the AI-Pod pre-determine my needs? What came first, the music or the fantasy*?

* Of course, I paraphrase Nick Hornby. Thank you, nice Mr. Hornby. Pleaase write another book soon.

Here's a selection from ten years ago today. When did I get so old?

I hate ****. I love her but I don't want to be owned. Her smoking, drinking, pink fat face makes me sick, but I miss our moments of brilliance. **** doesn't mean well, but she isn't well, so it's okay.

Tonight, I even miss her pink fat face. I've been having petit mal fits of nostalgia all evening. I should not be allowed to dig into memorabilia.

I'm having one of those days. The dog woke me at irregular intervals through the night, pretending to need a trip outside. I can't think of anything worse than needing to pee and not being allowed, except maybe Celine Dion, so I kept getting up. It was always a lie. She'd stand at the top of the stairs and look at me stupidly, as if saying, "Hahahaha, I know, right?"

When I woke up for real, I walked into the bathroom and immediately broke a hand mirror. How does the math work on seven years of bad luck if you're only halfway through your last sentence?

I was driving the streets of Boston behind my eyelids again last night. Past the Broadway Bridge and around the rotary, I pick up Alewife Brook and sing it to the tune of "Alouette" — "Ah-leh-weefay, gentille Ah-leh-weefay" — as per usual. I take Route 2 on auto-pilot and don't think about the turns to Waltham, but somehow I'm there, breathing in stale cruller and the fumes from midnight slackers' cars as I pull into the driveway. Inside, there is the barest breath of my own environment, the smell of my world, before it becomes too familiar and I can't separate myself from it. I painted these walls myself.

I don't want to go back, not now. It's too painful even to visit. I think I was in love with the city, actually in love, and I have to stop yearning before I can see it casually, as friends. Boston and I, we're not at the point where we can sit in a café together and share a chai and some memories. And honestly? If Boston's seeing someone else now, I'm just not ready to know. I wish it well, but part of me hopes it will never really get over me. I know it's not fair. I mean, I've been seeing New York City for over a year now, and I think it's getting serious. But the heart feels how it feels.

In front of my eyelids, things are much more clear. I'm having a really lovely week. I had two waves of houseguests. Bud and Lauren came first; We donned knit hats with characteristically wild abandon, and tossed coins of increasing value from a balcony into a fountain. Wishes made with dimes are guaranteed to come true. I know this, because Jon came just as my other friends were leaving. I spent a couple days trying halfheartedly to convince him that Baltimore doesn't bite kittens, but I failed. I can only assume my unnaturally good looks and vim overwhelmed the suck-factor of Charmless City. I hope.

I feel pleasant and serene, and I'd really like everyone to come visit as soon as possible, that they may take advantage of my pleasant serenity. Just, um, don't tell Boston you're coming.

Another guest entry, another exercise in self-indulgence.

Here are some words from Prince-of-a-Man Ryan Ruopp about Wolf-of-a-Girl, yours truly:

One of the best things about my friend Brooke is the way she can take a complex and ambiguous concept and compress it into a tangible, easy-to-understand form. Take, for example, the concept of "cool". This is one of those ideas that have been debated forever - questions like "what is cool?" and "how can you tell if x is cool?" are struggled with by each generation, or at least by that segment of it that doesn't get invited to the better parties.

One day, I was asking such questions of Brooke, and she broke it down for me. I will never forget what she said, because it was so simple and yet so indisputable:

"Ryan," she said, "I am MUCH cooler than you! Look how many earrings I have!!"

And in fact, she was right. I have no earrings at all, and Brooke has maybe 16, 000 of them at any given time. Thus, she is much cooler than I am. QED.

Now, there are some who would argue that a) my good friend Brooke was engaged in a little bit of self-aggrandization rather than legitimate philosophizing and b) it is entirely possible to wear earrings and look like a tool. These people, however, are probably jealous and definitely, totally, uncool.

At least, that's what Brooke says, and she should know.

It's a shame that clip shows only work on tv. You know, the filler shows sitcom writers do when they're out of ideas or they're lazy bastards or whatever. Yes, I'm sure there's a more complicated reason involving the number of new episodes ordered by the network and whatnot, but the point I'm limping toward is that I, myself, am a lazy bastard, unfettered by a single original thought. I feel like I haven't slept in days — likely because I haven't, really.

I was snowed in this weekend. In New York. I left the sanctuary of indoors only twice, reluctantly. It was bitter cold and I was improperly shod. I didn't get to make a snow chicken. But I did watch a lot of television. And there was cocoa. And I sustained an exciting minor hand injury while tussling with a zebra. I'm not complaining.

The train station was another matter entirely. I fully moved into Penn Station yesterday. The northeast, despite predictably annual snow, is unequipped to deal with it. I sat on my filthy patch of floor and watched the departures board light up with DELAYEDS and CANCELLEDS all morning. Thank the stars for iPods and wi-fi.

I'm back in Baltimore, and a little homesick. It's a good thing I have my rockstar friends here to soften the blow.

I love New York. I want to have a million of its babies. I love it at its dirtiest and its most dauntingly hip, I love the smell of burned pretzelair, I love how I never sleep in the city that doesn't either, I even love it when it's colder than the devil's icebox. Which it was this weekend. I am tired and thawing slowly, but very satisfied. I'll make a terrible jaded New Yorker someday. I'll be a snarkjelly donut, sarcastic on the outside and filled with a gooey sentimentality for home.

On the other hand, I despise Greyhound. I want to have a million of its babies too, except I will eat them all, even if I'm not hungry. I don't even want to talk about why it took me nearly six hours to get to New York.

Last spring, Scott and I decided to trade blogs for a day. We agreed on a topic and a liberal deadline. Scott completed his in a timely manner. I completed mine... in my imagination. I'm bad at writing what I mean to write. When I sit down at a keyboard, invariably something else comes tapping out. Eventually I'll do it. In the meantime, please enjoy Scott's lovely work. I'll let you know when I'm starring in his corner of the web.

---

for Lupschada.com, 3/3/04, by Scott Harris

I called Brooke the other day. I had been sitting in my apartment, trying to scratch out the last few lines in my travel journal before the impressions faded completely, but it wasn't coming to me. It was warm and I couldn't keep my mind on the words, kept setting the journal down and wandering around the room and I finally slipped the band around the cover to close it tight and instead picked up the phone and called Brooke.

The strange thing was she had known, somehow, that I was going to call, had told her family that she was expecting me to call, this even though it had been a spur of the moment decision on a long slow afternoon. And so I called her just a minute or two after she had predicted I would and we talked for a time. And we couldn't figure out how she had known I would call, but I knew why the idea had come to me. It lay between the jumbled, cramped words of the journal, in the margins of my story, fit into the spaces between the sites and the names of the monuments.

In September I went to France. Took the time off of work, bought the plane ticket, packed my backpack and off I went, alone. Some people told me not to go because France was full of assholes who didn't fight in Iraq and some told me not to go because of the heat wave that had killed 10,000 but most of those who were skeptical of the trip simply didn't understand why I would go by myself. Too dangerous, too boring, too lonely. I didn't think it would be any of these things, so I went off by myself, and as I flew and drove and walked I found that I didn't feel alone at all. There was a pen in my pocket and stamps in my wallet and postcards waiting blank for me to send off, from every stop, to Brooke.

I wrote the first one before the trip started. I knew I wouldn't have much time at the airport, what with the increased security, so the night before my departure I sorted through my postcards until I found one from Boston and I carefully filled every bit of the blank space with tiny cramped writing. I worried a bit about what I would find to fill all the cards I meant to send, for I meant to send one from every location I visited and I meant to visit as many as possible, so I created some fictional characters to take the trip with me; I figured if I ran out of things to say I could make up stories about my imaginary friends.

I needn't have bothered. There was plenty for me to see and say and the presence of my fictional traveling companions wasn't half as real as the feeling that Brooke was, in a strange way, with me at each stop. Not just at each stop, but in the car and on the plane, as I thought ahead about what I would write on my next card or what I had sent in my last and listened to a cd that she had made for me or I for her.

I followed the setting sun across Normandy and Brittany, ending my night on the sharply pitched cobblestone streets of Mont St. Michel, empty but for the cats that came out under the stars to stretch when the tourists had at last left. I crossed salt water rocks under the shadow of the parapets and the next day I stood in the little post office and tried to put into words what I felt and sent off to her a card filled with prose purple enough to be claimed as relative by the most inbred royals.

In the craters of Pont Du Hoc and on the cliffs of Etretat, under the lion at Waterloo and by the windmills of Luxembourg I worked out in my head what I would tell to Brooke, back at home, about these things. About myself. Sometimes I worried about how she would like them and sometimes I wrote as though no one would ever see and sometimes I drew small pictures in the margins like furtive dreams. And I sent them all, by ones and twos, five, ten, twenty cards, I sent and more.

When we talked about swapping stories for each other's site I said to her "some of my favorite Brooke memories you weren't even there for". It was a good line, funny, it sounded like a dirty joke. But I wasn't thinking about anything dirty or weird or funny. I was thinking about standing in a phone booth at the Anvers Metro stop calling America and huddling over a keyboard in a hash bar after midnight in Amersterdam. I was thinking about standing under a tree in the rain behind Notre Dame and about the fog in the morning over the Iceland sea.

And I was thinking about a day when I chased a sunset all through the afternoon and the sun's fading rays cast highlights on clouds that flowed and tumbled like hair across the shoulders of her sky.

I am full of goodwill and good cheer. I feel like a bowl of milk after the Apple Jacks have gone. The weekend was rejuvenating as all weekends should be and few are.

Historically, most of my closest friends have been guys, but there's really no substitute for a group of smart ladies. [note: the word "ladies" with a drawn-out long 'a' never fails to crack me up.] Hollywood lacks examples of women who are affectionate to other women and don't secretly hate them -- such that every gathering draws an automatic comparison to Sex in the City. I'll admit the association gives me a subtle tic, but I'll also admit I've never seen more than five minutes of the show. I take it as cultural shorthand for a flock of bright, animated, savvy girls, and I'm basically fine with that part. I never kicked no one out for calling me savvy.

I dined with Jen, Jenny and Natalie on Saturday night. It was one of those gatherings. My friends, please know that these girls are of the absolute highest caliber. We had an amazing discussion about ghosts, boys, blood, etc. We ate like four little piggies, drank some wine, looked awesome, and it was the finest night I could imagine.

...

Laaaadies.

Confession: I didn't reapply to Emerson from the waitlist.

I'm sorry, Boston. My reasons weren't numerous. In fact, they were very weak. In fact, they mostly boiled down to laziness. It seems like as good a reason as any, though, if you think about it. Maybe I like my new job. Maybe I just didn't want it very much. A serious lack of motivation is a bad way to start a 200 page manuscript.

The revised application is due tomorrow. I won't be writing it tonight.

Lupschada's Movie Picks: Top Ten Weasel Movies!

House of Flying Weasels
St. Weasel's Fire
Godweasel: Part II
My Fair Weasel
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Weasel
Wea5el
The Importance of Being Weasel
Weasel and Maude
The Rocky Weasel Horror Show
and
The Hand That Rocks the Weasel

Addendum — Sean wisely notes that I am a fool to leave Pauly Shore off my list. In Sean's honor, I offer a bonus movie pick: the 1996 classic, Weasel-Dome.

My last post was fairly cheerless for a holiday, I think, and now I feel foolish. 2005 is off to an auspicious start. Unseasonably warm does not begin to describe day one of the new year, and the weather weren't too shabby neither. Best friends are good things to have. Dan came to visit for the weekend, and we took the camcorder out for an afternoon on the town. If you have the patience for downloads and shenanigans, I invite you to partake of the mirth.

In which it becomes clear you can't operate a camcorder without mention of the Blair Witch.

In which I almost say something dirty and Dan tells lies.

In which I think I'm still in college and Dan calls me old.

In which I am upside down.

In which we document the weather.

In which I finally avenge the hours I've spent listening to Dan yammer about baseball by being wicked goddamn annoying.