A summer or so ago

Ten thousand words swarm around my head, Ten million more in books written beneath my bed, I wrote or read them all when searchin’ in the swarms, Still can’t find out how to hold my hands....

The couch rustled as he shifted all his weight onto his one good leg. The mounted deer heads on the wall stared down with permanent fascination through glossy eyes. He reached his hand out and brushes the fingertips lightly up and down his arm.

"What are you thinking," he asks with eyes so dark it's unclear where the pupil ends and the retina starts.

"Nothing" I reply, which is only half-truth. I'd spent the week traveling back and forth multiple times across a three hundred mile stretch. I'd spent my nights taking care of others, and hadn't had a minute to myself in days. And to top it all off I had a conversation with a loved one that left me feeling like I had been slapped across the face. Mix it all together and I was restless and unsure, stuck in a permanent state of anxiety.

But he was fascinated by the adventuresome, brave, non-complicated me. Not the preoccupied one. In an effort to let the weeks worries drain away, I tried to focus on the T.V. I filled my glass with yet another drink, and swirled the ice. I even rearranged my legs on the couch to try and get comfortable, but nothing did the trick.

He sensed the restlessness, stared at me, then stood up and said, "let's go for a drive, now"

As I hike myself up into the passenger seat of his truck my mind immediately calms itself. He turns on his brights and rolls out of the drive. The soothing noise of gravel crunching under tires reaches out to console me. The miles roll by without even leaving the ranch. The lights catch on the desert sage and lavender, the cacti and even an occasional mesquite tree.

I roll down the window to remind myself what a temperature less than 100 degrees feels like, and let the wind blow away the last of the nerves. I pulled my barefoot onto the dash and stretched my toes towards the windshield, leaving ten little circles on the inside of the glass.

His eyes stray from the dusty deserted road, scan the length of my legs and land on my feet. The ones that are desecrating his truck.

'I'll have to detail the inside of this truck tomorrow' he says, as he rolls his eyes, mentally adding it to his to-do list. I laugh, knowing how much status in Texas comes from a big truck. Especially in his line of work.

He smiles, pleased with the rise he has gotten out of me. And we continue down the road, his dark black eyes gleaming in the cast-off light from the headlights.


...And after we are through ten years, of making it to be the most of glorious debuts, I’ll come back home without my things
‘Cause the clothes I wore out there I will not wear ’round you, And they’ll be quick to point out our shortcomings
And how the experts all have had their doubts

underpass

The train tracks run right through the town. They separate me from my work, and years ago I would have had to factor in the time I needed to wait for the train that comes through every morning at 9:45. A few years ago the town finished an overpass that let commuters drive under the tracks, whether there is a train or not.

Every morning as I pass the hospital and start slowing down to turn left onto an abandoned road that leads to my office, I see him. He sits under the underpass. He shows up with the morning train and leaves with the evening one. He is settling in when I drive by, and gets up to leave when I'm heading home. He's your stereotypical homeless man. Thin and small, most probably wouldn't notice him. His hair is cut short and curly, his beard is scruffy and his pack is full of plastic bottle and aluminum cans. He sits on a five gallon bucket and waits. Or watches. Or both.

Usually I wave, and think about him the entire drive down the empty road. Today I thought about if I had ever seen his name cross my desk. Did he have a past that I had catalogued? Was his name in our database? Had I been the one who told his potential landlord about his past?

Sometimes the job gets to me. There is only so many hours you can spend thinking about aggravated battery and indecent liberties with a child. I tend to start suspecting everyone. And I am pretty sure that just about everyone in Wichita is a convicted felon. I even have started looking into all the people I meet, to see if they have things to hide. The paranoia is slipping in....

When I left today, my friend wasn't sitting on his bucket, or watching the traffic. He was walking west, away from the tracks. I didn't wave today because he was walking away from me, and on the back of his sweatshirt were a pair of angel wings.

....‘Cause I heard Jesus, He drank wine, And I bet we’d get along just fine, He could calm a storm and heal the blind,
And I bet He’d understand a heart like mine...

Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, Flowing into the night, People so busy, make me feel dizzy, Taxi light shines so bright

The music blared in the background while I hesitantly put one foot in front of the other. My heart was pounding, my breathing sporadic and to be honest my deodorant had worn off hours ago. The bar was packed. People on top of people. Girls who couldn't remember to hold eye contact, or even stand for that matter. Macho guys teetering between a drunken stupor and a bar fight. The second I'm through the door the familiar faces start to pass in and out. The ones I've known from kindergarten. That's the reason my heart is pounding. I don't like those chance run-ins where you do the whole nicey-nicey "how have you been-I haven't seen or thought of you in five years" talk.

I said hello as I crossed paths with them. Gave my shortened life story. And then moved on. I didn't hang out with them at school. They didn't talk to me. I didn't particularly want them to, hence the sweating and pounding.

The only common thread we all shared was that they knew I didn't belong. They discussed my whereabouts for the last few years, and talked of my adventures. The ones that took me to far-off places doing great things.

It was a good feeling to know I didn't belong. I've grown up and really don't miss highschool. The only thing these encounters made me feel, other than the uncontrollable shaking, was the desire to be gone again. They are right. I don't belong with them, the question is where do I belong?

But I don't feel afraid, As long as I gaze at Waterloo sunset, I am in Paradise

budding gumshoe

The office is tucked away between a few fenced lots and a couple shady storage units. It sits on the other side of the railroad tracks, so close actually that when a train rolls by, I have to reach out and steady the office supplies and decorations that are within my reach. There is no window in my back room, but I imagine if there were, it would let in light that would cast a sepia-type glow to the entire room. There are stacks and stacks of dingy papers that are covered in chicken scratch and lawyer jargon. Pictures of repeat offenders. Cartoons about process servers. Confiscated goods, and a nice collection of guns, which are most likely real and range from palm size all the way up to shotguns with sawed off barrels.

This is my new job. I work in the back of a private investigator's office. I'm the detail girl. I run background checks, track down car tags, and social security numbers, warrants and offenders. I report to the boss who is a tall skinny man who doesn't like people and always rubs them the wrong way. You would too if you've been kicking people out of houses, and finding people who skip out on their loan payments for the last 30 years. There is always work to do, and he works as hard at chewing the cigar that is always in his mouth as he does finding the person he has been hired to find. He requires you to do everything his way, no matter what it is. He dictates everything into his voice recorder, doesn't waste words, and changes the way he wants things done everyday. Most people get frustrated and give up rather than take his abuse. But I've always known him as Poppy, my best friends' grandfather. So each berating message just makes me roll my eyes, laugh, and get back to work.

I spend all day recording people's bad decisions. Some days all I do is enter arrests and evictions into databases. I see everything from stalking to prostitution, exceeding the maximum speed limit to rape. Some days I can handle it, some days I can't. I play a game to keep it from getting too tedious, I try to find the best name of the day. Xavier Mandragon won yesterday.
The game keeps my mind from thinking about the bad things that are actually happening out there. Or even at how, after two weeks I've become rather hardened, surprised really when someone's record is clean.

This is what is keeping me busy now. It's like professionally facebook stalking someone. At it always peaks people's interests when I mention that I'm working at a PI's office.

And don't worry out there.... I'm not checking up on anyone. At least not yet. I'm still too worried I'll uncover some deep dark secret that will ruin everything. So you're safe. For now!

purgatory

Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free? If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me,
I come and stand at every door, Then you've seen me, I always leave with less than I had before, Then you've seen me, bet I can make you smile when the blood, it hits the floor, Tell me, friend, can you ask for anything more?


I've never been very good at sitting still. I've always needed to be moving. Whether that be on to the next bigger thing, or walking the dog, or just finding something to do while watching t.v. It's not odd I don't think.

It's hard to explain to people why I feel so unsettled when I am by definition settled. Adjectives just don't do the feeling justice. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me, or chomping ice with super sensitive teeth. Grating.

Most people, when I explain my situation tell me how wonderful life must be. I have absolutely no deadlines, can sleep in all morning, stay our late or go to bed early. I have nothing to do, absolutely no reason to even get out of bed (don't worry, I am. I'm even showering everyday....impressive no?)

So why is it that I am absolutely miserable?

I'm being pulled in three directions but none are strong enough to make me move off the couch. What is my hesitation you ask? No idea. I've got the pros and cons list made for every single place and not a single one sticks out.

My adventures now consist of chasing geese with my dog, and finding long lost tennis balls in the river. Where will my new adventures take me, you ask?

.....as of now, nowhere.


These things that have comforted me, I drive away, This place that is my home I cannot stay, My only faith's in the broken bones and bruises I display

Wichita Day 7

Snapple "Real Fact" #762:
A duck has three eyelids

This is what my life has come to. Being blown away by the fact under the snapple lid. Wow.

words

Why'd you call me today with nothing new to say?, You pretend it's just hello, but you know what it does to me to see your number on the phone...


I was engaging in my one T.V. weakness tonight (it's one of those shows that it is so embarrassing that I'm not even going to disclose the name, i'll just say that it is produced by Morgan Freeman, which seems a little below him...)
The mother on the show is giving a teary expose on the failures of her family. Her speech is captioned, but I catch the Spanish that is peppered in with her English.

I'm in love with languages. Any language really. And culture. I would be perfectly content to spend the rest of my life people watching, and listening. I fell in love with the sing-songy portuguese language and recently i have always find a smile on my face when I'm speaking with someone who has learned english as their second language. I'm in love with how spanish always found its way back into the conversation. Most often the conversation would start in English and then seamlessly transition into spanish, which could explain the topic easier than the previous language.

My favorite, however was everyday conversations that were in english but every preposition was spanish. The 'pero' and 'luego' and 'entonces' somehow made the conversation deeper. It made it flow quicker and easier from one sentence to the next. It was like the periods and commas weren't needed, spanish prepositions were used instead. No need to translate them really, just let them fill the space between the english and do their job as spacers.

Maybe I don't realize these types of ploys that we use when speaking only english because I don't have to think about it, but when another language is involved, you are forced to think about each and every word. To mull each one over, taste it, see how it feels, and then move on to the next one.

Tasting words is the kind of thing i could do all day.


What do you want me to say?, That I'm content? That I'm on the fence? That I wish you would've stayed?, Oh baby what do you want, what do you want, what do you want from me?...