a change in wardrobe

everyone's begun to panic that i'm not dating anyone.

(any by everyone i mean my mother. though maria said i have only two years before i reach spinsterhood--two years being her mark because she was twenty-seven when she tied the knot).

on my first day home i sat at the counter watching the television as i chomped down on my omega bread and peanut butter. my  mother slid a j. crew catalog in front of me. flipped to a page with an abundance of strapless dresses. see these? i think, you should think, about wearing one of these to the wedding this summer. 

i have a wedding to go to this summer.
my mother thinks i should wear a strapless dress.
point of fact: my mother thinks a strapless dress will snag me a man.

oh, that's all it takes? okay then. 


it became the joke of the week. strapless dresses: the panacea for my life.


i don't know why i haven't dated anyone seriously. maybe i'm picky. too picky? sure. maybe i've chosen poorly in the past. maybe the timing's been off. maybe, as it turns out, i'm quite shy. maybe i want the guy to make the first move. maybe i fear a broken heart.

honestly, maybe i just don't know.

but i'm willing to give the strapless dress thing a go.

paper-airplane love note.

she wanted to shout out across the room to him.

i know, she wanted to say. i know i'm not good at this.

she needed to be heard above the people and commotion and muddled hysteria.

needed to cast her voice out. a fishing-line of wanting.

i'm not good at this. and i know i'm making it hard.
i know that we meet each time anew. each day, as strangers. 
but it's because i'm terrified. and enthralled. 
exhilarated, even. 
and i don't know... what...you are.
and yes--yes, of course!--i want to swim in your unknown. but i need you to invite me. to reach for my hand, grasp for my hand--feelingly--and pull me in. 


that's what she would say. if ever she found her voice.

photo.

the girl with the patchwork heart: a story (a hope)

sometimes she could feel it coming towards here before she ever saw it.
she would feel the rattle in her bones, look up and watch it approach.
a swift sweep across the horizon. a runaway train.
coming for her.
and she was helpless.
simply had to stand there and await its impact.
such was attraction.
most of the time she could ferret it out before it overwhelmed her.
she learned to read the signs.
dark curls of the hair. mischievous sidelong-glances. brooding dispositions. a kindred sadness. long eyelashes and deep-set eyes. strong hands and broad shoulders.

but this. this was altogether something new. different.
this had caught her totally by surprise.
she turned around one day and there it was.

he was good.
it was his goodness.
palpable. quietly radiating.
simple and pure.
and she wanted to touch it.
she wanted to reach out.
place palm against chest and feel it.
to know it with her fingertips.

but she knew.
wherever--however the attraction began.
despite pure intentions and good beginnings it carried in it the seeds of great heartbreak.
and she had loved so often. outwardly. in so many directions at once.
been forced to patch her heart together with nothing but scraps of twine and discarded threads.
and so she couldn't imagine.
couldn't imagine how heartbreak was not the inevitable end.

so she closed her mouth. stopped talking. bent her head as he approached.
tried desperately to preserve what little she had.

and yet.
she wondered.
if he might show her.
an alternate ending.

photo.

the two-days-after-Christmas-gift

you spend months, years, (a year?), weeks, fortnights, minutes, innumerable seconds pining after someone. wanting them, missing them, needing them. feeling unworthy of them-because that's the story that was told. by him? by you? somewhere in all that passing of time you've forgotten. where to lay the blame? doesn't really matter, you suppose. not anymore, anyway. or did it ever?

and then one day you wake and the light has shifted. and the lens comes into focus. and you realize that all along--actually--it was he who was unworthy of you.

and god does that realization feel good.

just thought i'd share.

yesterday morning i woke, found myself in the kitchen, and thought, oh husband that i'll one day have, promise me you'll load and unload the dishwasher. 

and then as fate would have it i was watching the single's dodgeball episode of 30 Rock and lo and behold: 

I want someone who will be monogamous and nice to his mother. And I want someone who likes musicals, but knows to just shut his mouth when I’m watching Lost. And I want someone who thinks being really into cars is lame, and strip clubs are gross. I want someone who will actually empty the dishwasher instead of just taking out forks as needed - like I do. I want someone with clean hands and feet and beefy forearms, like a damn Disney prince. And I want him to genuinely like me. Even when I’m old. And that’s what I want.

you gotta love that liz lemon.

(ps: i hate the new blogger format. it doesn't do what i want. like, why is everything in caps?!!! except of course this. blerg.)