That Little Notebook's Weblog

On This Day: January 11

That Little Notebook — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:34:04 +0000

School has begun again and I’m taking a class called “Intermediate Fiction Writing.” And so, to inspire myself/mourn over the necessity if writing without “inspiration” or any sort of plot, I’m re-reading fictional things I have written. I stumbled upon the following and figured it was worth posting 1) because I like it, 2) because it gives me a little bit more time to get courage up to write, and 3) because I wrote it exactly two years ago.

I am a silhouette this Salmon morning. You can’t see the cracks in the sidewalk or those black marks where people so rudely spat their gum. Right now, if I took a picture all that would be visible is an artistic glare of what appears to be a girl looking to the right, holding what appears to be a suitcase at what appears to be a bus stop. Those sun spots would be perfectly balanced and anyone seeing it would remark on its uplifting nature. “It speaks of the journey each of us is traveling.” “It shows how much we can accomplish.”

But in reality, I’m pathetic. My suitcase, so idealized in a silhouette, is actually tattered and not in the “cool” way. [define] My bruises aren’t striking, they’re a sickly yellow-brown. I’d like to think of myself as a silhouette: romanticized, idealized. Despite what I thought, there is nothing romantic about “running away.” I’m not being chased. I’m not sneaking. I’m just disappearing. And I doubt anyone has noticed.

Here’s what happened: someone died. And my boyfriend beat me up. Maybe he had good reason to; maybe I’m not that hurt, but I’m gone. I know where I’m going, or at least I think I do. (I’ve planned this for years). I’ll do what it takes to make a new life in this world. That or I’ll leave it. In any event I’m leaving this asbestos neighborhood and the familiar state.

Oh, Who Would Have Known?

That Little Notebook — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:01:20 +0000

On Friday, December 3rd, 2010–while working in the Borders Express at Fox Valley Mall–a guy named Miguel Muñoz struck up a conversation with me and eventually asked me out. I explained that I’d prefer to get to know someone a bit before I dated them. We exchanged facebook information. He added me that night; I accepted the request. I found out he goes by “Junior.” We talked from midnight to 2 and when he said “So do you think you would like to go on a date with me now?”I said, “I think so.” And we did. On Sunday. Somehow he thought I was pretty cool and said he’d like to go on another date sometime. And we did.

I’m not sure how or why he put up with all my emotional blockages and breakdowns, the fact we had to “practice” holding hands so I wouldn’t be anxious, not to mention I was too afraid to give him a simple kiss until months after we officially started dating. He’s the sweetest man, great at encouraging and fun to be around. I finally let myself start to care about him as much as he cared about me. And I freaked out about how much I could lose because of my affections. Many times. And yet, he stuck with me. I’m not saying he’s relentlessly stoic, though, and I’m glad for times when I get to take a turn encouraging him. He continues to remind me that friendship and romantic love are worth the risk of loss. I think I’m finally learning.

It’s been great to get to know his circle of family and friends. I am grateful that they accept me, “approve,” and many consider me their friend–as I do them. This past year has been a beautifully challenging adventure. I wouldn’t change it for an endless supply of chocolate, kittens, deadline-free homework, or anything else. Mom and Dad, thank you for your support and mentoring; I really think we get along better. Rachel, you always have the greatest things to tell me about and I love talking with you. Chris, it’s been nice reconnecting with you through music. Junior, God has used you to teach me things about Himself and myself that just weren’t making sense before, as well as how to trust Him. You have given me a greater awareness of God’s love: since it is infinitely vaster than yours, I have been greatly underestimating Him.

I can imagine spending the rest of my life without Junior–and it’s neither pleasant nor desirable–which is why I am so glad that he proposed on Saturday, December 3, 2011. While it once took me by surprise, it does no longer: I love you! And it’s an honor to be loved by you.

Elevator Friends!

That Little Notebook — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:35:45 +0000

It’s a phenomenon that terrifies my sister and boyfriend, it’s a compulsion I do not entirely understand. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains: I like to talk to strangers in elevators. This is no life-threatening circumstance. Indeed, I don’t get many opportunities to act on this compulsion, but when I do my sister or boyfriend tend to be around. Let me explain how this works.

The best example I have is the Glenn Ellen Public Library. This particular library has a basement where library book sales take place. Thought not quite the bibliophile I aspire to be, my sister certainly fits the bill, and I frequently accompany her to various library book sales. We always look forward to the treasure we may find tucked away in the shelves. It’s after we have found these and paid for them that the Situation usually occurs. There are no stairs. The library is very busy during library book sales and all the patrons leaving and exiting the sale have to take an elevator. One time, upon boarding the elevator with our spoils, I proceeded to address my fellow book lovers. There were no introductory pleasantries, I simply asked them if they had heard about LibraryThing.com and Bookmooch.com. People clutched their bags and moved little more than their eyes. I think there were a few mumbles. I took the remaining ten seconds or so to explain the merits of both websites and exited the lift with a spring in my step. Beside me my sister hurried to her car and with great consternation asked me, “Whyyyy?” Somehow, while everyone else was squirming, the awkwardness failed to impress me.

There have been other occasions–like the time in Sweet Tomatoes when I advocated The Library Mission, and the time in the Aurora Public Library young adult section where I regaled a teenage boy with the merits of Robert Cormier novels as he studiously ignored me. Obviously, the strange behavior of mine is not limited to elevators, but they certainly pose the biggest threat. While I can get through through most social events without intentionally creating awkward moments for those around me, elevators are my weakness. I can’t quite explain it… Recently I went to the Museum of Science and Industry. At the end of the U-505 submarine exhibit there is an elevator. Rather than walking back through the entire thing, my boyfriend and I decided to take it to the next floor. By the time it arrived several other people had walked up and were waiting with us. We all climbed aboard, and I leaned against the wall and held on to the railing. It was too much. I opened my mouth; I closed it. We reached the second floor and exited. The rest of the crowd walked away and I stuck around and looked at the old war posters. Junior stood next to me and I started laughing. I looked at him and told him how hard I had to try to keep quiet because I really wanted to start talking to people. He told me he was watching me, concerned the whole time that I would do something like that. We enjoyed a good laugh at my quirkiness. I suppose I’ll keep being conscientious… most of the time. What fun would it be if I didn’t keep people on their toes?

Protected: Looking Ahead: A Day in Review

That Little Notebook — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:52:42 +0000

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Enter Eliza – An Excerpt From a Work-In-Progress

That Little Notebook — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:07:44 +0000

When I was three, my parents told me I was adopted. When I was five I understood what that meant. I asked who my parents were when I was seven, and I wasn’t given an answer–of course, they didn’t know themselves. At thirteen my dad felt they owed me what they did know: my biological mother had died. But that still hasn’t answered the question I have today, four years later. The question I have yet to ask, because I know they won’t have an answer. I still don’t know why. If I was all that he had left, why did my dad leave me? No one can answer this. No one except him.

We live in Aurora–me, my two brothers, Mom, and Dad. It’s not a perfect life, but it’s a good one. Kyle’s the oldest. He and I have always gotten along well. It was hard when he left for college and it was just me and William. William never wants much to do with me unless Kyle is there. Kyle sort of acts as a buffer between the two of us because somehow, some way, things always go sour. You see, we’re the same age and he holds this against me even though I’m the one that’s adopted. I’m not really treated better. Any differences are probably because I’m a girl and he’s not, but that’s beside the point. Mostly we meet in silence, not daring to stir the waters, afraid of awakening some monster beneath the surface. In this way he’s much like Dad. Only Dad actually loves me deep down–often not even deep down, but right there at the surface. Even when he has his days.

My dad is a strong man and you know it by looking at him. He can make t-shirts look like Brooks Brothers just by squaring his shoulders, gazing down slightly with his head tipped to one side. He has magic and he uses it to keep people in line, like on Black Friday. Two burly figures were going to get into it over nothing more than the cold air that was eating at them both. All Dad had to do was step towards them and put his hands in his pockets. I could have sworn I saw electricity snap in midnight dark when they glanced at his face. And then they withdrew, releasing each other’s coats, just like that. Should something like that make my skin crawl even as my heart swells with pride?

William has the magic, too, but he doesn’t use it the same. I’ve never seen him do noble thing. It’s always shivers and fear, no warming glow. It makes Mom watch him quietly. I’ve heard her call it a “rebellious phase” on the phone, but I think he’s too old for that and so do the people whose car he dented in the parking lot last week. I say a prayer for him sometimes when I see Mom’s worried face, but who knows how much good that really does. It’s been ages since I went to Confession and Will’s only gotten moodier these past few years.

The house is empty today except for me and the dogs. I know Will gets off work in an hour and I don’t want to face him alone, so I grab my bag and head over to Jacqueline’s.

2 Things You Should Never Ask a Borders Employee

That Little Notebook — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 05:23:27 +0000

What is your store’s last day?

It’s a natural question–a natural question that about 1 in 3 people ask me. Doing the math… that’s oodles of times an answer is expected and, in short, I don’t have one. You can rest assured that when the liquidators have determined a proper closing date, it will be well-announced, ensuring a sporting Black Friday atmosphere.

Question to ask instead: Are you still being told your store will close sometime in September?
What I would say as of today: yes.

2. Is there any way you can look up a book for me?

No. That’s why the computers are gone. Our items are not outfitted with GPS (and while that is a novel idea, it would be a hey-day for theft). This means all the computer will tell you is where the book “should” be if we had it. What about the inventory system? Same deal: it would say how many copies there “should” be since it was last updated (which wouldn’t be recently) and where the item “should” be. Unfortunately, many things are not where they “should” be. With the fluctuating stock, items shuffled by customers who rightly can’t remember where things came from (or wrongly just doesn’t want to bother putting them back), new deliveries, and never-ever-ending re-shelves, we no longer have enough payroll hours to alphabetize sections. I rejoice when I can get something both in the right section and where I remember that last name’s letter used to go. Our books are like the grains of sand on a beach: ever-shifting as waves of people wash over them.

Question to ask instead: Have you seen Such-And-Such-A-Book recently?

I love this question. It makes me feel valuable. It makes me feel like you understand the savage environment I’m struggling to tame–and it’s going to get you an answer a lot quicker. It makes me feel like you understand that I am not counting the ways in which I can keep you from finding that which you are seeking.

Inspired by Robert Cormier’s Novel, “After the First Death”

That Little Notebook — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:34:16 +0000

I dance a precarious dance
On a bridge on a bus
Filled with kids
Dulled with drugs
And then we die.
Not 1 by 1
Poetically
All at once
In a cloud, but
We don’t feel a thing.

(Written January 22, 2011)

A Boy Named Jared.

That Little Notebook — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:48:24 +0000

Jared was not a typical boy. He knew this, felt it solemnly. For this reason, we can conclude that he was very normal indeed. From his blonde–or is it brown?–hair, to his 96th percentile height, he was in every perceivable way average. You could argue his “B”s were exceptional, but if you asked the teachers they would admit to grade-boosting because, you know, he is a troubled kid. “But, goodness no! He isn’t a disturbance! It’s just that he’s such an unpredictable boy.” Last year his English teacher remarked to her colleague, half in jest, that perhaps the syllabus was the problem. Was it that the “participation” puzzled him? One day he would exude energy, cause the usual middle-school disturbance and then some. Then next day he would be a glazed and vapid figure, occupying a silent space.

Jared’s dog was his best friend. He decorated his walls with slightly-ripped pictures pulled from last year’s calendars (which he received in abundance). Their mournful or playful eyes would stare at him from every corner. Their muzzles had grooves and ridges from where the backside of the calendars overflowed with markings of events both important and mundane. Jared did not keep a journal, though he tried at one time. He gave it up in the fifth grade, three weeks after starting when the school bully got a hold of it in the cafeteria. He loved his calendars and his dog and the dogs on his calendars. He loved how all the his memories were pressed, hidden, against his wall in perfect square boxes. He loved how he could run his hand across the face of a sturdy Bullmastiff and feel the tickle of all his calendar memories reaching, ridging, towards him. He kept the older sheets under his mattress in thin plastic boxes that came from his Grandpa’s attic. From time to time he would take them out, smell them, feel the memories. But he had to limit these reminiscences, track them and gauge how long he should wait. A few of the pieces had lost their sheen, the words were hardly tangible. And one was only half a sheet, jagged where Lorna had got a hold of it in her puppy vigor.

Today was the middle of June in the middle of the Midwest and Jared stood in the middle of the street. It was midday. He was waiting for something to feel different with the end of seventh grade. But all he could feel was the duct tape that held his backpack strap together digging into his shoulder blades. He didn’t mind the tape. It added a sort of “grunge” that won him a fair amount of respect–he wasn’t one of those kids who kept everything in mint condition and freaked out if you wrote them a note in their history book. Not them he minded them all so much, but it is better to be unknown than known in such a way.

He would stand in the street at long as he could, either until a car came or his empty stomach finally realized its predicament. He checked his watch twice, the first time being out of habit and the second for comprehension’s sake. One minute away. He could feel the minute approaching, slowly like a hearse. He could feel the seconds holding their breaths, the hands ticking with tension. And for the briefest of moments the world was aware of what it had done. It had kept existing–a year by the measurement of machines we use to define the sun we cannot control. It had kept existing when Anabelle Rose had not. June 15, 12:00pm 2010. Jared imagined the weight on his chest was Time, that it was trading each small milestone etched into his calendars for one large stone. He would carry this stone.

Where Have My Words Gone?

That Little Notebook — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:22:08 +0000

The grass is greener there… in the good old days.

Words are an art, are they not? And art, like any discipline, requires just that: discipline. Sometimes I’m visited by that beautiful muse who grants me ordered words with painless precision. Most times I find myself floundering. I cannot begin, and so I don’t. I find myself missing words. I miss how they move(d) me. I look at my notebooks, empty of new entries, and wonder what happened to me. Admittedly, I’ve read articles that confirm my suspicions regarding depression–it can be one hell of a muse. With that Enemy more-or-less defeated, I still long for the way it urged me to write, filled me with words and forced me to arrange them.

I want to write. I fear that I have nothing to say.
(And never will. And that should I, I could never write it well.)

It is my intent to begin writing again, though I know not what. Fiction? Reflections on Bible readings? Poetry? The promise that all of this holds thrills me. I cannot wait to begin, and yet I am afraid. (But that is nothing new; I am not in the best of moods.)

Experimenting?

That Little Notebook — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:48:05 +0000

Perhaps these poems make a little too much sense. They aren’t meant to, really. I had an idea: What if each line begins a new thought–which is finished by the following line–and also ends the thought begun by the line before it? In a way, each line is “read” twice, but only written once. The two poems that follow are nothing grand, merely me trying to make this idea work. I can’t wait to try again.

Each and every moment
Is a photograph
Worth more than a memory?
Is the present
Without its weight?
On the past
I do often reflect
Behind me.

—–

Without you
There is a void
I was once unaware of
What?
Is nothingness made of?
Something gone away?
Is what we feel
Dependent on what is felt?
Before, the fallout begins
There is a void
even with you.