Just Like Me

"It Will Rain" by Kelly Price

...somethin' in my soul ain't right / I can't sleep at night / wonderin' when the change gon' come / feelin' that I'm not the only one...

Nicole and Simone are just as bizarre as I thought. Simone called to see if I wanted to spend the weekend with she and Nicole. I excitedly accepted and planned the fun moments in my head before I hung up.

She picked me up from my apartment right after I got back from the airport. Anderson dropped me off with the condition that he was to have me the next weekend. I slammed in the passenger seat and threw my things over my head just as she asked me why I had two red scarves.

She joined the highway a few seconds later, honking at the "assholes" in front of her, answering, unprovoked, "Because I'm Simone and someone shoulda told y'all I was drivin' today."

I barely heard her because I wanted to go back to him. Before I could bring him up we pulled up in the driveway of Simone and Nikky's house; Nikky waiting at the front door with a glass of wine maybe and on the phone. I ran to her and ate her smile before I got to the door.

"We're going to Nancy's house. Pre-gaming at her place, going to some club and that's as far as the planned plans go." She looked at me. "Don't bother getting your bags. Have a drink."

After I blinked and used the bathroom, we were back on the highway, Nikky telling another stupid story from the backseat.

Nancy's house looked just like Nikky and Sims' house. It felt like we didn't leave but they got bigger windows. And why do they know a girl named Nancy?

Three girls answered the door: April, Andrea, and Stormy. Nancy was making drinks in the kitchen and greeted us in a shrill voice. We drank, we dressed, and tried to cooperate on deciding who would drive. Stormy and April drove.

I can't remember the club at all. I remember literally a few minutes of the club, losing my black clutch, spilling an orange drink, and pulling into the driveway, the sunshine pumping like water from a hose.

Stormy and I ran to the kitchen for water. Although she drove, throughout the night and pseudo-morning, she managed to get as lifted as we were. We all collapsed on floor of the living with the exception of Nancy, who ran to vomit in the bathroom. I stretched my legs out and let my arms hold me up and listened to April, Andrea, and Stormy whine about how much they hated Nancy.

Nikky and Simone were fancifully missing, but I thought nothing of it. Suddenly I heard a merciless scream and jumped. No one else did. Nikky and Simone emerged from the same bathroom I had seen Nancy run into. Nikky's vertically zebra striped shirt was newly decorated with raspberry juice?...no...blood. She was sporting cuts on her hands and Simone was holding her shoes. Simone had a big, dark, heavy red spot in the middle of her yellow dress, but the two walked as though they had just finished dressing.

We packed our things and said goodbye. I didn't talk or ask anything and I don't know why. The questions were abundant in my head and the concern loud in my soul. But I couldn't talk. The three of us jumped in the car as we waved to the other three already pulling off. Nikky ran through the lawn and closed the door someone had left open and ran back to the car.

"You killed her? You killed her for what?" I asked wonderfully calm about it.

"Because Nancy is annoying and I wanted her things. We do this every weekend," Simone answered.

"You kill people every weekend?"

"Yea. But we don't talk about it. And you have secrets too. You're just like me."

I do have secrets too. That was a good enough answer. Is this a dream?

Appear

This is an interesting question. A question I have never considered,

but an amazing question.

Apparently, I believe in Him.

Not because I am stupid or exhorbitantly superstitious

or idle or afraid or irrational or without logic.

I just believe because this all is so intricate

and so complex and so functional and so mysterious

That it had to be created by some force other than

science itself. Science is too interesting

and too absolute to have created itself.

For that reason, I accept the existence of God.

But the other day, in some strange consciousness,

I dreamt that God died.

I dreamt that God was a huge, gray man

that sat in some room that housed nothing but the chair He sat in

and the universe.

The room was bigger than the universe, clearly,

and made space for it to float in the middle of the room

right in front of God.

And when God died, God shrunk to this remarkable

size and fell right on Earth.

Despite him being bigger than the whole universe,

He shrunk enough to fall directly onto earth.

And we picked Him up and brought Him to everyone.

He shrunk to about the size of 1/4 of the earth's size.

He was a solid mass, a statue of some ethereal cement mixture.

We toted him around and discussed

Him in the news, magazines,

songs, blogs, newspapers, books,

essays, CNN, in the coffee shops.

We wondered what the world was going to be like

now that God had died.

Those who didn't believe in God suddenly scrambled

to explain Him and those who did believe...

...

...

...

wanted to die too.

Living our lives according to God's word,

leaving our stresses up to God,

praying to God for answers,

we had made ourselves completely inept

at living and burdened

God so much that He died!

But we didn't bury Him.

We just had Him sit on each continent for a certain

amount of time and then He had to move on

to the next continent.

People cried.

People laughed. People drank

and became intoxicated. People smoked

and got high. People did all the normal things

they needed to do to feel normal.

But none of it mattered because God was dead.

I did not finish the dream.

I started to cry in my dream and woke up

so I do not know how the world changed

in the long run.

Coming Through the Speakers

"Chasing Pavement" by Adele

...should I give up? / or should I just keep chasing pavement? / Even if it leads no where...

I just want to tell you that I am doing what I know how to do. I am doing what comes easiest to us all, but especially to me. I am not giving up. I'm still chasing pavement but the difference is that I know the place.

I don't know where it is, but I do know how to get there. I am taking this shortcut not because I am indolent but because I am now insolent. Fighting hard for your life may give you fatigue, but it gives me a reason to live where I did not have one before.

So while I spare you the details, pay attention to all my particulars.

Read Slow

Things like the extraordinary

Are the things that make this world so scary

As if life didn't make sense enough

We smile at ghosts trying to be that tough

Even though I cry enough for the both of us

The moments of solace that come and go

Are too short lived

Why is the youth so cold?

This song is not for the ones who sing

But a requiem for the depressing things

Aint No Line Too Damn Long!

So to be honest, I have been disgusted with the level of pompous extravagance that Diddy has been spewing in the last few years...but this sh*t here, this sh*t here...is the truth. And like the truth likes to do, it remains true.

We ignore, overlook, forget, and are downright ignorant to the luxury of having the right to vote. We call it a right, in this beautiful nation but in reality, it a dream far away in MANY other places in the world.

And Black people!! People died for us to vote! Marched! Sprayed with hoses! Attacked by dogs! You cannot be indecisive. You cannot be dismissive. You cannot be cynical even (And Lord knows I love me some cynicism!). This is not a game. Sh*t is about to get real.

Vote.

ReLive

"Flashback" by Kelly Rowland

...unexpected messages just to say 'hey beautiful'...

I wish that I was okay

Although I realized I made this mistake

I also know no efforts to repair it

Actually matter

And while I was wishing the flashback

Could not end

The moment suddenly became unreal

I did not want to wish anymore.

I live each moment in anticipation of the next

Such that no moment is observed

And I live in regret of missing the moment

The moment I realized I was in a moment,

It was not real anymore but I should have

Relived it anyway.

The mistakes I made weren't that bad.

Boom Boom

When she's feeling deep, she uses the Japanese
blossom
Because everyone understands that the depth
of your person is found in the scent of your body wash.

And the things that will introduce you to yourself
usually taste funny
But the satiation of knowing everything
is a great chaser.

Douchebag Syndrome

There are two things that I must be. I must be relatively happy and I must be a mother. Everything else falls under the category of "really want" or "would be nice to have/be".

I understand happiness now as a big picture scenario. There will always be things, people, places, etc. that I do not like but have to engage, but in the "big picture" or the "grand scheme", I should be happy. It is the details that make happiness elusive because I am stuck reading the fine print, missing that the rest of the contract is a great deal.

I must be a mother, preferably the conventional way. I do want to adopt, but I want to carry a child to term, get drugs, and give birth. There will be no birth without drugs. But there will be children, no matter what.

On a related note, I also decided that I will marry. I hate men. They are disgusting and manipulative and self-centered, especially the ones in my life (except for my Dad). They benefit from a culture of patriachy and take further advantage of it by denying such a culture exists. But I will marry and I will try not to hate him, we will raise our children, and make it work.

Wavi

Oh little girl, I love you.
Little girl I do.
If no else does, I will.
Damage doesn't mean broken
I'm in repair.
I'm not together but I'm getting there.

Where You Are

If it weren't for the music
Nothing would exist.
The barely audible syllable
that grows like a malignant cyst
Takes over the presentation
And leaves audiences lonely
But even in the most complex of chords
There is something so homely
So familiar and convivial about the sound
That has now taken over...

Shallow Bath

If you pretend to laugh
The laughter fails harder
If you pretend to cry
The tears will burn
If you pretend to care
The karma is merciless

If you pretend to pretend
Etherea is left confused and unsure
of what to return to you.
Usually you're suffering and
Life needs you to do what is most painful for you to do
So others may prosper too.

Raindrops are Falling on My Bed

It stays unmade
And it stays the same despite her suspicions
What she notices as a change is really
an overlooked feature.

It is a safe place
Possibly the only one
But it is decorated in gaudy anxiety
and panic, heavy brows of worry
and poisoned sclera, now black.

She has light with no caps in the corner
No delays and far reaching
It seems to be on when it is not
but that is never a bother
The shine is obsequious in nature
and will dim when she does not
Want illumination for her thunderstorm.

and it tilts.

When she touches it, it is unstable
and an average would mistake that for brokenness
Or weakness
but scars do not make a body weak
Scars mean it works despite attack.

Because democracy despite despondency
is the best kind of revenge.

Figments of Imagination

It's tragic

To wonder what he sees when he is laughing

What he hears

How it makes him feel.

To wonder what he dreams

To wonder if he dreams in color

To be unsure of what he can do

To be scared for him

When no one is around

To be nervous when he is not around

To wonder if he has friends

To wonders what his friends mean to him

To wonder if he knows what I mean when I say

"I love you"

To wonder if he knows what he means when he says

"I love you"

To wonder what he sees when he is laughing

To wonder if he will ever be able to tell me.

Sometimes I feel just as trapped

As I think he is

Because I cannot free him from the world he lives in alone

And sometimes I feel guilty for assuming he feels less than.

Chords

They told me that it is only paranoia if no one is after me, so I cannot be callous about it. I believe someone is after me. I know her, this girl that is after me.





Everything is fine until it isn't. Blue skies, beautiful clouds, rainbows, sparkles, cupcakes, and the whole shabang. And storms. No light showers or simple cloudiness. Motha fuckin hurricanes are what I get. No incident comes unaccompanied. Good things come in threes? The bad too? The bad too.

Not So Plain and Tall

We say not enough of what we think
We scurry about as if everything is unimportant
Telling one another how important everything is
Our favorites, our likes, our dislikes, our obsessions, our preoccupations
They are only important for the moment they are talked about

So they never know what you really think
And truth is ethereal
Unattainable
And when the truth is natural
The truth becomes inconvenient
It becomes an obstacle and a source of stress

We hold the truth in high esteem as long as she does not talk to us directly.

Dual Enrollment

4:08 pm
Monday, 03.24.08

I am simply not glamorous enough to be a monogamist. I am barely glamorous enough to wake up in the morning.

So, I am fine with the current arrangement because we do not know each other and I am currently building the wall to maintain our individual secrecy and discourage any future inquiries. I should not even spend the night but I do, really as an insurance policy. In the event that he manages not to be a total waste of time (because in essence, he cannot help but be), I would have invested the appropriate amount of cuddle time to provide foundation for our 'whatever' relationship.

Simultaneously, I am dually enrolled in the University of Lesbian Studies. I am looking for her and the ones I have encountered thus far, I have been unimpressed, such that I had to violently type the word 'unimpressed'.

So Mr. Big, I am not your woman. I do not need to be your woman. But please, do pretend that I am when I am turning Japanese.

in Nine stanzas

I say a lot
mostly out loud tenderly

I fear animals
and admire that they are truly organic from afar

I am singularly pierced
but rather communal and connected

I come home after a long night and alcohol
just in time to take my drowsy admonishment

I let my legs be themselves
and they simply will not grow hair

I have DD breasts
on a 34, arguably 36 chest

I am single
but a complete novice to my own sexuality

I am:
open to interpretation

In Treatment

4:33pm
Sunday, 02.10.08

I am beginning to think I could need treatment
By need I mean want with an incomparable lecherousness.
It is sexy. Sexual.
The need is lecherous.
But the therapist would say no.
The therapist would say that boundaries are set in unmitigated territory
There is no rationality around it, no changing it.
No podemos completar nuestra trabajo emocional y tener relaciones sexuales en solamente una hora.
Even an hour in the hole would not allow it.

Here, Where the Children are Not the Future

5:01pm
Wednesday, 01.30.08

I have come to believe that our children are not our future. Our children have futures in graveyards, prisons, section 8, invisibility, welfare, and destitution. Our children are trapped in a place that they were born into but help to improve. They did not earn it, cause it, find it, or make it. The trap was not an accident. The trap was not and is not deliberately fought against. But the trap is very real, tangible even. I can show you the trap and describe to you the intangible strings that allow it to hover over our culture and our minds and be everywhere at the same time.

I am not just talking about White people or “The Man”.

I am not just talking about the triflin’ ass Black man.

I am not just talking about the super-bitch Black woman.

I am not just talking about the idle handed Black boys.

I am not just talking about the fast, wanna-be-golddigging Black girls.

I am not just talking to any of you stereotypes.

I am talking to all of us. You who are degree seekers, progressive, motivated, academic achievers, intellectuals, smokers, nonsmokers, Muslims, Christians, fools, responsible, working, and doing all you can to avoid stereotypes…you are not the future either.

Our children graduate and cannot read. Our children die violent deaths, sometimes before they can even vote, at the hands of other children, at the hands of police and no one can ever explain. Our children are intellectually malnourished. Our children are capable and misinformed. Our children make children at a rabbit’s pace. Our children do not notice they are not the future anymore. Our children might not care.

I, (you know I can’t say my name because there are negroes in this Negrodom that are after me), Mrs. Don’t-talk-bad-about-Black-people, Mrs. I-love-Black-people-no-matter-what, Tsaritsa of Negrodom Defense, the Empress of All Things Black, Queen I-like-it-Black...I have lost my foundation. I call myself those things for you know to know that I champion all things Black around the world. Issues of people in Africa, issues of Blacks in America, and other countries that house us who have been "diaspora-ed" are so important to me. I could (and maybe I should) be worried about “my own” and keep it moving. I can’t. I am strangely invested in what happens to Black people on this planet. I care and I wish, pray, work, hope for good things.

But sometimes I see us doing things that are destructive, backward, dangerous, deadly, stupid, sad, mean, counterproductive. I see us do these things, I remember what it is that happened to us and continues to happen to us (so as to understand the behavior as function of historical circumstances) but of late, I am at a loss. I used to know how to defend us all the time. I used to know exactly what to say or have some stinging rhetorical question on which to rest my victorious discourse. I still have that. I can still participate in the defense of the Negrodom and I always will. But now, Negros, I am frustrated.

Tell me, what am I to say to them?

Parameter

7:50pm
Thursday, 01.24.08

It happened. The green of the grass was not at all sincere. She was told so, but what does it mean to tell anyone anything? The warning is rarely ever enough. Even the warnings one provides oneself with are rarely heeded. Somehow, the warnings against things are rationalized such that whatever is being warned against becomes far less threatening.

Cinderella knew there was no way it would work out. Cinderella usually always knows that it will not work out but can never convince herself to walk out, leave it alone, give up, or quit while she is ahead. She walks right into the fire, slowly, and is always shocked at the degree of her burns. Stupid ass girl.

Cinderella realized on Wednesday that she had reassumed her usual post of casualness. She does not mean anything, dispensable, replaceable, unimportant, a receptacle for his stress. Stupid ass nigga.

And Cinderella cried while she wondered. She cried and her face became so hot and the tears felt so cold and her wondering made no more sense. She cried until her pumpkin carriage arrived in the driveway. She had been sent home by the Prince, stilettos and heart in hand.

Stars on Fire

9:00 am
Sunday, 01.20.08
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/19/bhutto.arrest.ap/index.html?iref=topnews

A 15 year old Pakistani boy has admitted to being a part of the group that assassinated Benazir Bhutto in December of 2007. His arrest is apart of the first batch of arrests made in the investigation of Bhutto's murder. With the arrests and investigation, police are saying that they have also "foiled new suicide attacks against the country's Shiite minority".

Musharraff is not Pakistan's only problem. Musharraff is not the world's only problem in Pakistan. In all of the Middle East, the people should not be the focus and we all shouldn't be so eager to fight.

When a political assassin is 15, the problem is bigger than people. There is an ideology at work, infecting the people. This viral ideology quickly infects each cell and convinces the cell to use its own mechanisms to replicate it and make all their ideologies and beliefs about life align with it. And then a fully infected and transformed cell touches the hand, speaks to the mind, and lights ablaze another spirit of another cell, infecting him or her, and begins the same internal process.

War is not a cure. You may kill some infected cells but there will be survivors, resistant to war.

Show the people you understand. Show the people what they fight for matters such that they need not fight anymore. Show the people there are alternatives in life. Show the people you see how they suffer. Engage the people.

People around the world are not fundamentally different. They want someone or Something to see their struggle, help them struggle to improve so as not to struggle anymore. Poverty, incessant war, desperation, ignorance, disease.... Struggle no more.

Mark of the Bigger Beast

A number of people have complained that the media is brainwashing us, the government is distracting us, and that we ourselves are eager participants in the death of our self-awareness. Actually, all of these things are happening right now, simultaneously.

No. It is not left-wing panic/conspiracy news that has surfaced only because Bush is now president. Every president, vice president, secretary or state, secretary of defense and the ilk for the past 50+ years has been in cooperation with a bigger, more corrupt institution to build this.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Video Courtesy of A ReaL NeW YoRK Giant (MySpace) via YouTube

Music Knows News, News Knows No Music

9:09 pm
Friday, 01.18.08

When he says something wrong,
Something politically incorrect,
You blast him for a while
And then become purely upset,

With the music and the videos,
The rappers and their lyrics,
And when we try to defend them,
Clearly, no one wants to hear it.

As if he’s is a mind that
Cannot think for itself,
For every nefarious comment
Is blamed on something else.

Our music may play loud and
Say things they don’t like
But it is wrong to turn the music off
Or make them drop their mics.

And our music is questionable,
Up for discussion, a little controversial,
But it’s not any sicker than
That which we see on commercials.

Our culture is collectively sinking into distaste
And no one is to blame
The art we could be making is going to waste
And we overlook it just the same.

Imus did not recently become a racist,
So he has always been,
Cancel the show to punish racist ideology,
Not reward ignorance and his kin.

The music may have provided
Access to the combination of words
But those are things he himself thinks
And was eager to use the phrase he heard…

Maybe in some rap song,
That may just be true,
But spread the criticism fairly,
In all the places it is due.

A White man reveals his colors
And the media blares and you all lose it
Then here come the pious ones
Trying to clean up the music.

They do not show up to help
In times of crisis and governmental slack
But they call us vulgar, refugees, and looters
Just because we’re Black.

Black people could do more
And you damn right,
And if you quit talking and get to working,
We just might.

Tell us please, American, when you’re ready
To deal with Black life and what’s in it
Because the things you are bringing up for discussion
Are simply wasting our anytime minutes.

Not Enough Letters

5:33pm
Monday, January 14, 2008

I used to want my name to be Cassandra. Then Beatrice (do not know why). For the longest time, I wanted to be named Khadijah. I love that name. I love it so that my first daughter will have that name.

My real name, I cannot disclose. I got negros I do not like listening and watching…

But just know that I have come to love my name. I have come to love the questions about my name. What is the correct way to pronounce it? What does it mean?

I love the compliments too. I do not like the honest surprise at my name. Those who say, “How interesting”, or “Never heard that one before”, said in that “what-is-wrong-with-people-these-days-naming-their-children-such-mess?” kind of tone.

I have grown into liking my name and appreciating it. As a child, my name always wrecked the first hours of the first day of school.

Waking up in the morning, I would think of my teacher’s name. Then I would wonder if she might have taken the time to rehearse the names on her roster.

I would do that. If I am ever in the position to have to call out people’s names and I have the list available to me beforehand, I will practice. I can always look up pronunciations. I also have a group of ethnic friends whom I could consult.

No one is my kind of weird though, so clearly, no teacher ever rehearsed. Or at least their pronunciations did not serve as evidence if they did rehearse.

Substitute teachers were also impending anxiety attacks, especially the substitute teachers I was expecting. You know, when the teacher would announce she would not be coming tomorrow and then name the substitute that would be with us. Hated those.

I wonder if they are given a roster beforehand. They should. The self esteem of many a child depends on it.

With age, it is not so bad. Although I find myself feeling a tinge of anxiety at the DMV while I wait for the woman who took my picture to call my name and hand me my license.

I even feel a little hot in class at college in small lecture classes where we must go around and share our names.

I also still hate and will always hate, “Share a little something about yourself…”

Why? Who are these people to share anything with? Get outta here.

Return to What Truman Said

12:46am
Sunday, 01.13.08

The have arrived. They are home. They are here. The parentals, that is.

I am already exhausted by normalcy. It is not time for things to return to business as usual, but clearly it is and I am simply unprepared. I am burdened by this desire to be totally alone, although I hate loneliness.

They took a trip the Motherland, these African parents of mine. They loved it and relieved so much stress. My mother did not even need her blood pressure medication and her blood pressure came down on its own. Africa is apparently unbelievably poor, but without stress. And here we thought Mom had high blood pressure because of genetics. nO.

I am going to take my African ‘hindparts back Home next year too. I am supposed to be looking for an African husband, but I will not. There is volunteering I would like to do, shopping I would like to do, and eating I would like to do. Authentic African food like that my Mom makes but with fresh ingredients only found at Home.

So, it is back to business as usual for Mother and Father African. Soon will return their abundant and frequent vitriol about American culture that is making them sick, so very sick. Father will contend that Barack is the way and Mother with agree that he is an affable man, but Hillary is the way and one can tell by the aureole that surrounds her when she talks.

And then Mother and Father will dump on me a cavalcade of Cinderella duties to fulfill. No, I do not like normal.

Sleepwalking and Covering No Ground

I still believe in love. I do not know what it looks like or feels like, but I believe in it. She is like God, always there and never seen, until you die. Dead people know all about love. It is not as though they themselves can love, I would not think, as they are dead. To whom does one give love? To other dead people?

That was stupid. Love is ethereal, intangible, trumps reality, violates the boundaries of living and dead, disrupts organization, follows no rules, totally autonomous, kind of selfish, everlasting, immeasurably vital, and inexplicable.

To be frank, I hate the word and love the concept. The true, clean, nonexistent, unattainable concept of love I mean, not love of love songs or romance novels, or chick flicks. And not “need love” either. Like how very young children apparently love their mothers or fathers. They are not functional yet and need their parents more than they love their parents. Although I do believe that love grows.



Let us think of another word to refer to ‘love’ as because I will not be able to write this if I have to type and hear the word ‘love’ in my head over and over again. Let us call her … Derecha. Derecha is Spanish for ‘right’: right as in the direction not right as in true. Love is true, but that is arguable for some.

By true, clean, nonexistent, unattainable concept of love (Derecha) I mean just that. The Derecha we talk about all the time is diluted, no matter how intense it may feel to a body. Real Derecha is ethereal, like I said, too perfect for this world and its hang-ups, its hesitant, abusive, misused, overused, fake, partial, unexpressed, and mustered variants of emotion. Really the problem is emotional dishonesty and lack of communication. People do not tell the truth but play games, dating games, wait-three-days-to-call-him games, forget-to-tell-her-she-is-just-a-jump-off games, you-made-me-mad-so-I-don’t-love-you-right-now games. People play games that real Derecha does not even know the rules to.

True Derecha is like 0 Kelvin. Kelvin is a measurement of temperature or more concretely, a measurement of the speed of the moving atoms in some material thing. At zero Kelvin (-274.15°C or -461.47°F), there is an absolute absence of all atomic movement, hence Absolute Zero.

But the problem with Absolute Zero is that there is no way to truly measure it. The very act of measuring, sticking some apparatus into the matter, disrupts the total stillness and precipitates movement of the atoms, generating heat, however small, and therefore destroying Absolute Zero status. That is true of Derecha too. People, any person who feels her automatically ruins her absoluteness as they inject their apparatuses to measure, prove, show, flaunt, disguise, maintain, or give their Derecha.

I do not think you can ever deny Derecha. Even in the times when I am seemingly irretrievably embittered by Derecha, the songs about her move me, the people on the street I see doing lovey-dovey stuff make me jealous (which is movement in me too). Every time I meet a new guy, I wonder, is this where I fall in love again? But I never say, “Is he the one?” because I believe one can have more than one. I wonder still, is this where I stop singing sad songs? Is this my damn love song incarnate? Come on. And it disappoints me that no one can tell me or answer these questions. Now try to convince me life is not a huge disappointment.

Secondly, or thirdly, or whatever point number this is, what is this business about falling in love? Falling is a horrible, sometimes painful, always embarrassing accident of life. Why would I want to fall in love? Do you see what I am telling you here? Love is doom because I must first fall.

So I met a new guy. Of course I wondered. I am still wondering, but I am already disappointed, as is often the case. I am not disappointed with him so much as I am disappointed with myself and with Derecha. It would be great to hold the right hand of Derecha and actually know it is she.