Tova-xander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Today fucking sucked.
I mean, really fucking sucked.
I've had worse things happen to me. But really awful things are usually the only bad thing that happens in that day. The thing about a bad day is that it's comprised of a shitload of small, otherwise manageable trials. It's just that when a few of them happen, you can't manage any more. They string together like notches on a bedpost. Or a belt. Or some shit like that. Tiny things become insurmountable. An untied shoelace is akin to skinning your knee. Getting caught in the rain is akin to a car breaking down. And a car breaking down? Well, I might as well be kidnapped.
The day really started out just fine. The majority of it I was in a car, insulated from the evils of the world. I sang along to Blues Traveler and godawful a-cappella. Well, it may have been raining, but nothing could ruin my mood. Little Squirt slept in my lap and tried to eat my yummy bowtie pasta and chicken. I got soaked at a rest stop when I tried to pee. Not soaked by pee. Ew. It was raining really hard and the closest parking was like a half-mile across the lot. I swear, if the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the second busiest. I waited 20 minutes in a fucking filthy bathroom with screaming children being dragged to have their diapers changed. I skipped the winding lines for Famiglia Pizza and Chili's Too. Not worth the wait. What was also not worth the wait was the line to get back on the fucking highway. It was backed up from an accident and took another 20 minutes to get on. From then on it was predicted stop-and-go traffic from an accident at mile 152. At mile 160, however, I saw a Geo Metro, intact only moments before, with its entire front end smashed in. Clearly the driver had made some mistake the traffic while approaching the original accident. How ironic.
Anyway, I make it to Pittsburgh after only six hours. Not too shabby, considering the rain which turned to snow which turned back to rain and the backed up traffic. I was still ready to get home and conquer a group project for which I'd been rushing to get home.
So my neighbors have parked close in on either side of the driveway so I can't pull in. It's a narrow street and I can't get in at a wide enough angle the clear the cars. It ends of taking like 12 passes while the cars that are trying to get by honk at me.
I finally make it down the driveway, unfettered. I step into the house and my nipples fucking freeze off. It's a sultry 40 degrees inside. We had set the thermostat low while we all left for Thanksgiving. I just hadn't realized how low. So I turned it up and padded upstairs to freeze my ass off in the shower. I rushed around to gather all my materials for my group and run out the door in a sweatshirt. I get to my car and hear a strange hissing sound. Then I notice I have a fucking flat tire. Then I notice a fucking nail in the fucking tire. Fuck it.
So I run to the bus stop close to my house, realize I'll be waiting forever on a Sunday, and walk to the farther, more frequented stop. I still end up waiting for a half hour. In the rain. I'm late, but I'm not the last one to arrive, so still I have to wait.
I end up doing nearly the entire project by myself. I write the whole powerpoint and then have to teach how to search journals, have to teach what a journal is, and have to teach how to write an annotated bibliography. No one is cooperative. No one offers to do some of the project. Everyone forgot to bring articles and sources and to do the preparation for the meeting. So I have to compensate for it. I spend five hours in the library, doing that and other things. I wait a half hour for a print-out that never comes.
After dinner at McDonald's, the entire 20 minutes of which a creepy guy was staring at me and listening in on my phone conversation with my brother, I go to wait for the bus. Any bus. Usually one comes within ten minutes. But I waited for 40. In the rain. Wearing a sweatshirt. To make matters horrible, a drunk and possibly mentally disturbed man harassed me the entire time. He kept asking me where I lived, what I was doing, what were my goals in life. He asked me how old I was, and I said, "Does it really matter?" He asked me what bus I was waiting for and I said, "Whatever fucking one comes." He keeps mumbling about the 61A, and I vow to not take that bus if it's the first one that comes. Then he gets the idea that I want to steal his 6-pack and starts screaming, "It's mine! It's mine!" at me and whoever else walks by. He won't fucking shut up, and he starts talking about "fucking bitches controlling his life" and such. The bus that does come, mercifully, is not the one I really want, but I take it anyway and walk the extra blocks.
That's really the end of Tova-xander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I guess it wasn't so bad. There were a few goods things.
I finished three things on my list of things to do before the end of the semester. Only seven to go.
Squirt napped on my lap and kept me warm the whole drive home.
I made it home safely.
Dena made lodging accommodations for Dublin next month. Something great to look forward to.
I pet Cosmo, the adorable Westie who lives across the street. He has soft fur.
I have new boots and a brand new designer handbag from Abi.
Oh, and I had a fucking great, relaxing, wonderful, cathartic Thanksgiving. The best in recent memory.
Maybe it wasn't so bad after all.
FUCK.

ode to Olivia... memories of a mouse

An era has ended. It was not socialist era or a fascist era but an era of mice. Olivia has died. I found her last night, feet up, half-buried in her bedding. We had a good run, Olivia and I. She was a good mouse, good as a mouse could be. I'll now recount the saga of the mouse era in all its glory.

In the early Spring of freshman year, Maggie and I were feeling restless, lonely, and in need of something to cuddle. This is pretty much how we always felt at Goucher. Maybe it was these normal feelings in addition to the Spring thaw. Perhaps it was the resurgence of the Goucher Plague, and we thought we could test some vaccines against it. It could have been our impending choral trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Anyway, after what felt like a carefully and painstakingly discussed, years-long debate (which in actuality was conceived the same night it was carried out), we hopped in my Honda Del Sol and took a trip to the PetsMart (Pets Mart? Pet Smart?) down Goucher Boulevard.

Our original plan was to buy a single mouse. We would mete out this mouse between the two of us. It was to be a shared custody situation. Of course, we realized in our heart of hearts that the sharing would never work out as we were planning. One of us would take all the responsibility and would be lucky to receive monthly mouse support checks from the other. So we decided, on the way to the store, that we would each get a mouse and have play dates when we cleaned out their cages.

Upon arrival, the snarky "small animal specialist" informs us that mice are social creatures. They thrive when they live with other mice. They play, the run, they are very happy. So we would each have to get two mice. The problem was, there were five mice in the holding cage. Buying four would mean leaving the last, undesirable one alone, solitary. Basically, in entropy until the next shipment of mice brothers and sisters arrived. I just couldn't have that. After much argument as to who would get three mice and who two, most directly related to one particular, scruffy, gram-sized mouse, it was decided I would care for the three small mice and Maggie would mother the two larger.

I thought the baby mouse was cute. Her scruffiness endeared me. Her runt status made me gaga. Unfortunately, she was very sick. She died that night, unnamed and unbaptized, a pagan baby. I buried her in the mulch outside of Pearlstone. I was devastated and vowed to care for my two remaining mice, whom I promptly named. Olivia and Princess Buttercup. Maggie had Fudge and Arthur.

Our mice, by the way, were contraband in the dorms. There was a several hundred dollar fine for each, so that, between the four, we had a few thousand dollars of illegal goods. In one situation, we were warned last minute by a friend coming through to do inspections. He shouted dramatically into the room before entering with an all-too-serious puss of an RA. I had just enough time to stash the girls in the closet and swipe the bureau of any telltale mouse droppings or bedding. (They did make quite a mess).

I would put them in a giant ball to do cleanings and laugh at them when they bumped into chairs or got stuck in corners. I would take them out on the quad and stick them on peoples' heads. I would become extremely impressed when they could go an entire half hour without pooping. It happened, I swear.

Then things began to go downhill. Arthur died. Concerned about Fudge's well-being, we rushed to the store and brought home Nicodemus, a darling black-and-white with a fierce personality. Fudge immediately tried to eat him and we soon found Nicodemus was missing large amounts of fur.

Then, in a horrendous turn, Princess Buttercup died. I found her, still warm, on the lower floor of the mouse house. I immediately extricated her, so as not to traumatize Olivia. I buried her in the woods. Attached as I'd become, a brief eulogy was said, with a delineation of her better qualities. I cried.

Then Fudge died, possibly for his sins of cannibalism. Possibly from old age or improper care or disease. Not wanting to give into the vicious cycle of companion-providing, Maggie set Nicodemus free in her backyard in Downingtown over Spring Break. She was so scared to tell me for fear that I would be displeased. But, in truth, I began to wonder if such a life of freedom, where she could find other mice and possibly be eaten by a hawk, was preferable for Olivia, over a life absent of a companion.

But I could not let her go. Several times I thought she was dying and nursed her back to health. Her ears would get red and bleed, she would lose fur, and then, miraculously, she would get better. Nevertheless, she was no longer a young mouse. Olivia and I still had our good times. She made the move with me out to Pittsburgh and sufficiently stank up my room. Squirt continued to try to eat her and her bedding and poop. And we still had playtime. But no more. Those days are over. She has gone onto a better place, and I don't mean the trashcan for the the garbageman to pick up on Monday. She had a good life. She was a good mouse. Here's to the end of an era.

Uncle Leo

I wrote this last spring. Abi suggested it fit in with my "dark" humor I've displayed thus far in my blog. So I conceded. Without further ado, Uncle Leo:

When people ask me what makes my Uncle Leo so singularly strange, I realize the only way to describe him fully is to take it in little steps. Truly, baby steps.

The first thing I must explain is that he talks in a baby voice. This must be first because it immediately discounts him from being normal, and he sure as hell can’t hide it for very long. It is the first thing you notice, other than the erect Hershey Kiss tuft of hair sticking out of his head, easily winning the fight for height dominance over the bald, shiny scalp. But everything about Uncle Leo follows sequentially from the baby talk, rather than the Hershey Kiss.

To be fair, I should amend the earlier statement. He does not always speak in a baby voice. He is a lawyer after all, and he must have a way of presenting some semblance of normalcy in his professional life. His normal voice is simply very nasally, and only somewhat childish. The baby voice enters the picture only when he is infantilizing an object, animal, or human, or making a godawful joke. In other words, he pretty much uses this voice all the time.

Leo also punctuates otherwise comfortable silences with gusty, sighing, “Oh well”s and “Uh-Oh”s. These proclamations aren’t in reference to any particular to defeat, just to a general defeatist attitude for life. He is a true dog lover, and since his Ziggy died, is all the more enamored with our Holly, a manic and myopic border collie whose most recent obsession is a Kong rubber toy. Leo has no issue plopping himself on our dander-infested kitchen floor for hours on end, throwing the Kong, as he becomes covered in her fur and slobber. In fact, I think this may be his favorite hobby at our house, even more so than surfing the net or giving unwanted help on crossword puzzles. He uses every opportunity to talk about Holly’s “binky.” If it isn’t upon seeing her first thing in the morning-“Oh does Holly have her widdle binky to pway wif?”-it’s in some reference to me, in the third person, as always: “Soooo (he manages to give the word “so” about three syllables and an octave’s worth of pitches)…soooooo what does Ms. Tova want for her birthday? Could it be…a binky like Ms. Holly has? Ohhhh well. Uh oh.”

Another thing about Uncle Leo that he shares with many odd relatives is that he lacks certain social etiquettes. Maybe etiquette isn’t the right word, but I’m not sure what is. Inappropriate topics and poor timing are his specialties, but he has a real knack for rejoining a conversation where it has ended in his head, inserting a comment that would have made some sense three topics ago. He is still on Miley Cyrus while we are on New England architecture. In other words, the normal ebb and flow of society seem to have little bearing on his personal tide.

The most recent time I saw Uncle Leo was when I was home on Spring Break from college my sophomore year. Half of the week was spent with the man, because my mom begged and pleaded with him to come out from Denver until he conceded, a real feat on my mom’s part, considering that Uncle Leo is, in my mom’s words, “a perpetual Eeyore.” Read: depressed.

It was my responsibility to preside over Leo while my mom was working. One day she dropped us off at noon at a restaurant downtown and told us she would be back in Providence at four. I said my final prayers and set the alarm on my cell phone. We refrained from speaking for the first ten minutes. Then we talked about Providence’s flailing economy (well, you lost all the industry jobs and now it’s a white collar town), the lack of things to do in D.C. (once you’ve seen the mall, and exhausted the museums, there’s not much else. Oh well), and how awful Baltimore was (beyond the Inner Harbor, there aren’t too many neighborhoods you want to go in that town). I refrained from argument.

After lunch I was ready to walk home, but we went downtown, into a bookstore my mom had recommended. Inside, he hounded me mercilessly around the store, breathing down my neck. I can’t tell if Leo really has an issue with personal space, or if I just feel his proximity more acutely because it irritates me so much. Every time I picked up a book, he would ask me what it was about or if it was any good. I didn’t know. That’s why I was picking it up. After dodging him for a good half an hour (which was difficult in the closet-sized independent bookstore) we left. I told him I was ready to go home. As we passed through the bus travel plaza, I asked if he wanted to take the bus. He asked how far it was and I told him it was pretty far, a little over a mile and a half, hoping he’d take the hint that it was beginning to rain and the wind was gusting and I didn’t want to be walking with him up the hills of Providence for the next hour. Impervious, as always, he said, “If you can hoof it, I can. I’ve got to get back on the walking thing. I haven’t been able to since I hurt my knee. Oh well” I shot death rays at the back of his bald head.

After this, I made the mistake of taking the route that passed by the RISD museum, another place my mom had suggested we go. I told Uncle Leo I had already been, and he said, ”Welll, it’s a museum, right? Don’t they, uh, change their exhibits from time to time? If you haven’t been there in a few years, I’m sure you missed something.” Damn. He knew the secrets of museums. He dragged me through the classics pieces where he read over my shoulder as I stared the plaques, unblinking. I was careful not to look at the penises on the male figures because Leo was scanning my face as I took in each piece. In the old New England farmhouse attached to the museum, he made some comment about how the dining room table sure had warped a lot. Finally, in the textiles exhibit featuring dresses made by edgy stitching fiends, he pointed out a few of the skimpier dresses with a “Soooo, would Ms. Tova like that one there to take to Brazil? It might have a little too much fabric. Uh oh. Oh well.”

Though Leo has many topics of interest, I began to notice just two that continually sprang up on his side of the conversation. The first was Brazilian bikinis and the second was Miley Cyrus. Sometimes the second was Hannah Montana. Apparently they’re the same person. Throughout the five days, he inserted these two bits into at least a dozen conversations, mostly in the form of jokes, and sometimes in the form of what I needed to take to Brazil with me. One night I had my Christian friend Mike over, and I was telling him the story of Purim. I could only get about two sentences in each time, however, before my Father made some correction or remembered another one of the reasons that this new book he had informed him that Elvis A. Presley was, in fact, Jesus. When, on every other sentence that my dad did not comment, Leo would comment. When Mike, the ever inquisitive mind, asked what it was the Jews were doing in Persia in the first place, Leo said, “Because they couldn’t get tickets to the Miley Cyrus concert.” Of course, the Israelites must also have been pretty hot in the desert. A little bird told me they were wearing Brazilian bikinis at the time.

The worst, is of course, when he references these topics to me. He must have said about three times that what Ms. Tova really wanted for her birthday was a Brazilian bikini. My gag reflex didn’t really kick in, however, until he made some mention that my mom could save money by buying two bandaids and a piece of duct tape.
About ready to burst, I mentioned this pattern to Abi and Gabe when arrived, stating that I’d be quite intoxicated if I’d bothered to take a shot at every mention of the ubiquitous skimpy swimsuit or the teen sensation. However, although there was much subtle and no-so-subltle goading, he seemed to have forgotten about these topics for much of the day. It was at dinner that he finally popped. I can’t remember that topic of table conversation, but rest assured, it wasn’t about the names of the different Disney stars.

I can’t imagine what relevance either of these topics must have in Leo’s life. He is single, never married, no kids, not even a single real girlfriend to his name. Ever. He lived with his mother his entire life until she died last year, excluding the six months he tried to take a job in Michigan. But that is all just folklore, urban legend of a time long gone in his life. He just couldn’t muster it. He moved back home and has been there ever since.

We are not supposed to make fun of his eccentricities nor to dread our time with him, just as we are supposed to love and respect our other crazy relatives without ridicule or comment. It just hurts my mom too much. In all honesty I feel very sorry for Leo, and that’s really not the best. I’m sure it’s not what he wants and I doubt it’s what my mom would want me to feel. But I do.

I pity the life that he has and his unwillingness to change it. Most of all, I fear that little bit of myself that I see in him. Sometimes I too don’t want to change things. I get stuck in the status quo. I only see the bad neighborhoods in the beautiful cities, the knee that has kept me from walking. Yet I also see in Leo all the things I will never be. Living at home into my fifties, still expecting my mom to make my sandwich for lunch every day. A lack of personal relationships, which must be replaced by inane commentary, the minutiae of trivia, and baby talk. Baby talk most of all is where I cannot see myself. Just as his baby talk is a defense mechanism and substitution for real interactions, my making fun of him is a mechanism to be sure I will never be him. God help me if I can’t talk about more than Miley Cyrus and a damned Brazilian bikini. Oh well.

nostalgic for Providence

Some thoughts about the East Side..

Changing of the Guards

It happens the same way every morning around 9 AM. The Lexuses and Infinitis pull away from their curbs, brokers and lawyers turning to NPR and blasting the air, and the trucks plastered with Italian names and their brothers or sons pull up in their place. In the front of the truck: sweating Guatemalans and Dominicans, windows rolled down, fast food wrappers in the dashboard. In the back: multitudes of leaf-blowers and rakes and mulch, perhaps even an entire extra trailer if they are contractors and not just gardeners. The tools, a classroom of eager pupils, stand up straight against the side of the flatbed. The neighborhood no longer belongs to Susan Leech or Mike Goldman. Now, save for the odd anorexic jogger mom, the neighborhood is theirs until 5. For these guys spend more time at the house than their owners.



Dust flies in the air from the corner of every property as leaves are blown away, blasted for their unsightliness. The noise is unbearable, but no one who would mind is there to hear it, and the man wears a facemask and goggles anyway, as if he is working with something toxic. He stops to wipe his face for a minute, and glances at the 90 degree sun, with the backpack device hanging there. The men grab their lunches and squat by the edge of the truck, careful not to get their McDonald’s waste near the lawn. They delegate these personal activities to the flatbed, take 20 minutes as they stare at the house, chatting idly, then return to their work.



Day after day, once the final frost has cleared for the year, there is always something to be done, some improvement to be made. The competition ensues for the most pristine pruning, the tidiest topiary. But how can this truly be a competition of the homeowners when it is the workers who have created the landscape, lovingly crafting a layout for days at a time? The owners do not know the yard, the property. They do not spend any time on it, just a few hours a night before sleep at 10 PM. They don’t spend any time really in any room but the lovingly labeled “family room,” where he reads his paper, glancing over the top for the five o’clock news’s latest break in the political scandal. She hovers between the bread maker in the kitchen and her online shopping addiction, bidding on the Seven Jeans on eBay.



To be fair, this is not your typical suburban neighborhood. The bread she is baking is challah, and they are not even in a suburb, but the wealthy East Side of Providence, where affluence is not always so overstated. Among the Land Rovers and Mercedes parked in the driveways of the million dollar homes, there is a smattering of Hondas and Toyotas, even the occasional Kia or ten year old Geo. Many parents, though by no means not all, feel comfortable sending their children to the magnet system of the public schools. And the homes are not identical mini-mansions but protected historic landmarks ranging from two centuries ago to about the fifties. Plaques adorn these houses, stating the original builder or architect and the year it was built, superimposed on the seal of the Providence Historical Society. For all the time the owners spend looking at these plaques, maybe we should write them in Spanish. But there is more work to be done. I think I saw a weed on my neighbor’s lawn.

NG diet

So a a few years ago, while at The Mountain School, I came up with this brilliant diet. It was called "The Wilderness Diet" and it basically consisted of things you would take camping. Most of it was edible as-is, and the rest could be cooked on a tiny Swedish pot that folded into itself. It included such delectables as Ramen, Hershey bars, trail mix, bagels, and fruit.  This diet, though it may never have caught on in the general media, and did not join the ranks of South Beach and Atkins, was genius for many reasons. Firstly, with no preparation time, you don't snack while waiting for you food to cook. Second, you don't have to share with anyone because you are by yourself. Third, you have to ration because, well, you have to. Or you run out and starve. So there's no binge eating! Talk about portion control. Fourth, you aren't tempted to snack between meals because you have to hang your food in a bag on a tree to keep it away from bears. I mean, really, is it worth the hassle of pulling down the rope for a measly bagel half? It's also delicious and nutritious. For the most part.

Anyway, I came up with a new diet. It's worked for me, and I believe it's probably the only way to lose 15 pounds in 3 weeks. Rather than losing water weight, like in all those fad diets, you lose all your muscle mass and everything atrophies. You become extremely weak and frail. Best of all, you can lose this weight with no exercise whatsoever. You must be thinking, "what diet can do all this for me?" It's called the NG diet. 

First, you must get into a hospital for some sort of internal abdominal injury. It doesn't really matter what it is, so long as it fucks up your stomach in some way. Use your imagination! Then, get connected to an NG tube that sucks bile right out of your stomach. That's got to be a few pounds right there. Then get saline pumped into your IV. Get a catheter shoved up your crotch, because you're going to be peeing frequently, and really, who needs the hassle? The next step may be the hard one: Eat and drink absolutely nothing. The only thing going in your mouth is ice chips. Everything else is intravenous. The key to this diet is duration. The longer you stay connected, the more weight you lose. When you must leave the hospital, and if, for some reason, the hospital staff will not allow you to take you diet supplies with you, do not fear. There is plenty of weight loss ahead. 

Read very closely, for phase two of the diet is harder than phase one, where you had people watching over you all the time to make sure you didn't slip up. When you arrive home, do the following: Do not exercise.  Do not drive. Do not lift anything at all, in fact. Be as inactive as possible. Roll over on the couch if you must. Drink inordinate amounts of diet coke. This part of the diet requires no self-control, actually, because you won't have any desire to eat. Everything that goes into your mouth will be felt 20 times in the next 3 hours. This is your stomach telling you what a good job you are doing. Don't be fooled into thinking you are now able to eat full-portioned meals. The growling in your stomach is a warning against what you are about to do to it, not an invitation to fill it, no matter what you might think. 

Simply follow these steps and watch the pounds melt away. Within weeks, all of your clothes will fall off, causing you to moon the entire city. Your face will cave in, and your collarbone will stick out. Your titties and ass will shrink. Your stomach will look exactly the same. A flight of stairs will fatigue you, and you won't be able to pick up much more than a juggling ball, which you'll no longer be able to use, because juggling is an aerobic activity. Remember: No Exercise. Also, becoming anemic is a necessary part of this diet. As is developing an ulcer. If you haven't hit these steps yet, you aren't trying hard enough, and you haven't been at it long enough. Your efforts will pay off.

Just think, with the new NG diet, you'll be bikini-ready in no time! Just make sure you don't go swimming: it's exercise, and at this point you'll probably also get carried away by the waves in the baby pool and be completely unable to save yourself.  And don't trip on the sand; it'll bruise you, you silly anemic! Oh, and did I say bikini? I meant full-coverage one-piece. You don't want anyone seeing the scar from the surgery, now do you?

Mark Patinkin Style

A la Mark Patinkin, I decided to post some obnoxious and glaringly obvious inane commentaries about life in general. Thoughts-at-large:

1) I have yet to come home to my apartment having left my dog there, and not be greeted by a puddle of pee. It's as if he's punishing me for leaving him alone. Or he still hasn't learned the difference between inside and outside in his new place.

2) On the bus today there were two people rocking out to cd players. One guy took his Temptations cd out of the player and replace it with...God knows what? Probably The Four Seasons. The other cd-listener was a woman of indiscriminate age with Downs' Syndrome. I have no idea what she was listening to, but she sure was getting her fucking groove on to it. She had all these booty moves, all the more hilarious because she was sitting down and therfore unable to shake her overweight, white booty. So most of the moves were really just wave movements with her arms, dripping with attitude. When I glanced at her to give her a smile (you know, like a conspiratorial sort of 'you go girl' smile) she grimaced at me, as if i was interrupting her jam sesh. Well, it's good to know that some people don't care about what others think, and also that these same people aren't willing to give up their discmen for ipods.

3) Speaking of the bus, it was so overly refrigerated that I got off four blocks before my stop because my entire body, the clothed parts included, was laden with goosebumps.

4) Maggie sent me a "Baby on Board" suction cup sign for my car. She told me no one will fuck with me if I put it up, 18-wheelers included. My fear is that someone will hit me because of the sign, because they're just that angry at my entitlement to drive 15 mph without fear of repercussion. People are like that. "Oh you've got a baby on board? Why does that give you the right to cut me off, super-psycho bitch mommy? I'll teach your baby a gesture or two!"

5) Pitt has this fabulous printing system. You wait, vulture-like for a computer to open up in the main computer lab of the main library. When you're at the head of the line, eyes darting in every direction, you spring upon the first open computer, dry-heaving. You look back at the line waiting for a computer. "Suckers," you think, before turning to your PC. The next part is where the survivalist instinct cuts out. When you print whatever it was you had to print, you need not sprint to the nearest printer to hover along with 20 other students eager to get to the class they're 15 minutes late for. No, the lovely minimum-waged student workers collect all the print-outs from a private back room where lay students are not allowed. They place your bundle, along with a lovely school bus yellow cover sheet with your student print ID (mine's tat42, in case you wondered), number of pages in the printout, and number of pages you have left for printing, on a table outside the congestion of the lab. This table is laid out with all the printouts, in alphabetical piles. No grabbing so-and-so's poli sci paper! No missing the last page of your article because some bozo grabbed their shit before yours was done! Just a lot of wasted paper from the cover sheets. But hey, there's a recycle bin for them at the stapler station.

6) Who needs TV when your computer has all the shows online? I'm just trying to make myself feel better about my cable cutting out from the last tenant's last month, and I'm too cheap to pay. But oh, the taste was so sweet. Bravo reruns are the best while slurping down a bowl of Thai soup.

7)How is it possible that from every side of the house, at all times of day, from every angle, there is never any sunlight streaming in? This must be the world's darkest apartment. 

8) I found a house identical to my own. It's directly behind me.

9) I finally see the reason why people have been wearing high-waisted jeans for decades. They aren't just for moms anymore. Basically, you can wear whatever shirt you want with them because they entirely eradicate the muffin top. Oh, and no crack sticking out when you bend over. And if you don't care to have people knowing, just wear a shirt that covers everything above the hips. I bought a pair yesterday. And they make my ass look amazing.

10) My dog is really cute. Not only that, he's a good companion and keeps me from getting too lonely. I'm sure he'll stop peeing on my bookcase soon. 

The scar

When certain big things happen in your life, you're only allowed to have big thoughts on the matter. In a hospital after an accident, for example, you have a lot of time to reflect on the meaning of life, where you stand, and how your current injury or illness will affect your outlook on life in the long run. With the physical capacities impaired and little else to do but watch the Olympics and prepare for hourly shots, hospitals give you a lot of time for thought. Some thoughts are big and deep, I'm talking those expected revelations and epiphanies, life-altering "aha" moments, that kind of thing. Basically the thoughts everyone expects you to have. But when you've exhausted all your mental capacity, your mind turns over to the small thoughts. Those petty insignificant notions that are not meant to be spoken aloud, because, in such a state, you are not allowed to think them.  If you don't have these small thoughts, however, then the weight of all the big thoughts bears down on you. So though it may be superficial, inane, and, in the grand scheme of my life right now, insignificant, I can't stop thinking about the footlong vertical scar I will have on my stomach for the rest of my life that was a result of an emergency intestinal surgery following a car accident.  

My physical impairments, such as my restrictions on driving and lifting over ten pounds, and my limitations, such as reaching, twisting, and bending, may seem permanent to me now, but are temporary and will soon be a distant memory. The scar, however, a behemoth of a messy child's crayon line, may fade, but it will not disappear. The scar's line points into the past, reminding me of the accident, but it will never be just a memory. A scar is forever. Like a diamond, but not so pretty.

Scars. They are supposed to say something about their bearers. They add character, dimensionality. They can be mysterious or they can beg to be talked about, explained. And always, scars have a story. Freak lawn-mower accident. Fell off the trampoline. Big brother and a shard of glass from the '80s coffee table. Scars can even be sexy. A tiny nick beside the eyebrow.  A raised pink line on a well-toned ab. Scars are even epic. I'm thinking Harry Potter.

My scar is none of these things. First and foremost, it is not yet a scar, but a painful jagged slice, suffocated in dermabond, running the entire length of my abdomen, cutting me, frankenstyle in symmetrical halves, save the crooked detour around my already "unique" outti belly button. 

Furthermore, my scar is not an indication of something I have done but rather something done to me, over which i had no control. It doesn't say I'm a daredevil, clumsy with a lawnmower, or a wizard (witch, as the case may be).  The most-maimed passenger in a high-speed collision with a semi-truck may be a title, but it is not a defining characteristic. There was no rhyme or reason behind this scar, or rather behind the accident which caused the damage which necessitated the surgery which caused the scar. Simple negligence and so-called highway hypnosis are not headline news, nor are they noble or proud.

I think about future intimacy, beach days, and short shirts casually rising as I lay down on a couch. It's not the kind of thing people won't notice. I hadn't realized how gruesome it was until I posted a photo of my stomach on facebook and seeing the responses. It is quite hideous. I'd become desensitized to its appearance. You kind of have to become desensitized the appearance of your own body. Imagine your stomach turning each time you looked down at your ingrown toenail. 

Now, I know the scar won't always look this...bad. It will eventually fade, along with the memories and recollections of the accident, the time in the hospital, and the recovery. It won't be quite to graphic, quite so red, and it won't be accompanied by an intersecting seatbelt mark. Intersection. I have that intersection, that 90 degress on my stomach, as a constant reminder. Just below the navel is where the Civic careened into the tractor trailer at the red light, leaving a bloody mess. I can see the accident everyday, played out there, the large white tracks of the truck horizontal, the narrow line of the Honda, vertical. The 5 and 20. Even the swerve at the last minute, an attempt to avoid the inevitable, before colliding in unholy disaster.

A footlong scar doesn't just disappear, no matter how many creams or gels you use. It is a graphic brand upon my body and I want nothing to do with it. What could this thing possibly say about me? How will it mark its unwilling recipient in the years to come? Well.

It may not say I had an affinity for woodshop in high school. And it certainly won't label me The Boy Who Lived. But it may say something else, something that becomes big rather than small, significant rather than petty. When the big thoughts fight for space and win, my scar begins to say something worth hearing. It begins to mean something, to mark something. Unlike another scar that may just speak, this one yells, it screams, it shrieks. I'm just not sure exactly what it's screaming yet.