Chalkballerina: Weddings and Writings; Whimsy and Whining.

Jackets (Part 2)

Quick recap from Part 1: There once was a girl who was cold... she wanted a tasseled jacket but never bought it... she ended up buying a flashy jacket that didn’t fit her and eventually broke... the girl didn’t fix it leaving her cold but more agile...but still cold... so then she finds this amazing, beautiful jacket….

And the strangest part of all, the jacket's tag said "free."

"Oh HELL no!” said the girl’s friend when she heard about the free jacket.  “Girl, that's a bunch of horseshit" said another friend.  "What the fuck kind of brand name jacket is free?" the friends continued.  But the girl was smitten.  

Time went on and her love for the free jacket grew.  “It’s GORGEOUS!” the girl moaned to all who would listen, her love for the jacket oozing over everything she touched.  The girl’s friends had to admit that the jacket was indeed beautiful.  And yes, the jacket did seem to be perfectly tailored to the girl’s now claustrophobic torso.  But why was such a beautiful jacket, a jacket obviously made from the finest imported material from the Middle East, a jacket carefully tailored in the most flattering and fashionable style – why was this jacket free?  

One night as the girl thought about the gorgeous free jacket, trying in vain to figure out how it could be free, she stopped moaning and oozing and decided that she must have misread the tag.  “I’m crazy,” concluded the girl with a sigh.  “Gorgeous, exotic jackets are not ever, ever free.” 
She decided to forget the mesmerizing tapestries and beckoning folds of the rabbit soft material, but try as she might she could not quiet her belief in the possibility of a damn good bargain – a “humdinger” as her father would say.  Her logic had spoken, but her many 5am childhood garage sale excursions would not allow her to fully dismiss the vacantly priced jacket.  So, unable to quiet this natured and nurtured garage sale based twinge of hope (plus her inner Aslan had been "DAUGHTER OF EVE"ing her a lot, which always inspired her to risk, just to get him to shut up), the girl went to the mall to again investigate the mystery of the gorgeous, free jacket. 

 

When the girl got to the store she took the jacket’s tag in her determined hand: “Free,” said the tag. 

Now the girl had many deficiencies in her life but reading had not yet made the cut.  Her ability to read, especially words with only four letters, was absolutely impeccable.  The privilege of reading had been given to the girl as a reward for doing her chores when she was a wee little dumpling, she had received every library reading coupon (A FREE BOOK or ice cream, she chose free book every time) for 8 consecutive years and she was often called “Ready McReaderton” by the cruel bullies in her family school, but even with these many reading achievements and reading based persecutions, at this moment of holding the tag and seeing “Free” the girl was filled with doubt… 

…for a moment.  

The longer the girl read the tag the more excited she became.  It really did say “Free.”  The jacket really was free!  

A sense of delight and good fortune and hungry possessiveness flooded the girl.  She felt intensely relieved to have been the first to read the tag, or perhaps just the first to believe what it said.   

Over her shoulder she shot a quick ninja glance – no one lurking or waiting to pounce on her prize.  Relieved, she gently pulled the jacket from the expensive wooden hanger and oh so carefully placed it across her arm as if it were made of cotton candy.   “HELLO little pookie” she said quietly, already reviewing potential names for the jacket in her mind.  She stood up straight and slid one arm in and then the other.  

The jacket hugged her body perfectly, not restricting but warming her instantly.  She was stylish and comfortable and smitten inside the exotic imported folds.  She spun around in front of the mirror, making strange faces to see what they looked like with the jacket.  There was no doubt: the jacket looked even better on her body than it had on the hanger.  It was dressy enough for the theater, casual enough for around the house.  It was perfect.  

“WOOOPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” the girl shouted on the top of her lungs.   “And I thought malls were for whores and fools!” she marveled.  She couldn’t believe her old cynicism.  “Was that really ME?” she wondered dramatically, thinking of who she had been a few minutes earlier.  She choreographed a quick dance about emerging from a cocoon and life being perfect and delicious.  She was a new woman, a happy woman, a woman never again to doubt or to whine or to want to trip people who wore beautiful jackets.  The jacket was free and inside it she too was free.  She could run and jump and do chin ups and ridiculous looking dances for baristas.  She could probably even fly.  Never again would she be cold or restricted.

The girl’s cheeks were rosy when she turned to walk out of the store.  She marveled at how cute she looked with warm, rosy cheeks.  Smiling coyly at herself she made her way out, delighted with her risk (and her ability to read), walking with her head high, an aura of warmth radiating around her skin.  

“BWEEEEP.  BWEEEEP.  BWEEEEP.  BWEEEEP.  BWEEEEP.”  

The alarm of the store wailed and echoed through the store in a slightly special sounding tattle-tale-esque tone.   The girl made a face and covered her ears, continuing to walk from the store. 

“EX-KAH-UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME?” a salesman asked in a super bitchy voice.  “Yes? Can I help you?” the girl replied with a rosy glow and gentile, expectant smile.  (She would have responded “You are excused” a few minutes earlier, but was now warmed and happy, a new woman, if you remember, determined to share her fortune of joy with all around her.)  “UMMM, where the HELL do you think you’re going?”  The girl felt a tickle of an ancient feeling she used to call annoyance.  She threw some water on it.  

“I’m going home, but I’m guessing that’s not really what you want to know?”  Again, the girl strained her body to be sweet and patient. 
The salesman continued, “YOU need to get your ASS over here, take off that DAMN coat, and get the FUCK out of my store.” 

Finally the girl understood: there had been a misunderstanding.  “OOH,” the girl laughed, delighted to explain.  “This jacket is actually FREE!  Have you ever looked at the tag? It sounds like horseshit I know, but it’s true! Haha!”  She had a tough audience.  The man stood with his hands on his hips, eyebrow raised and foot tapping – the universal signs for “yeah… right.”  She persevered, “I couldn’t believe it myself at first either, but, well, here… I’ll just show you.”  With that the girl reached down to show the salesbitch the tag.  She searched the sleeves, and then the bottom of the jacket, but found nothing.  “Hmm, I could have sworn it was on the outside of the jacket…”  The girl removed the jacket, now with a curious crowd gathering, and searched the inside lining for the tag… and then the pockets… and then her own pockets… and then the ground… and then her ears… and then her vagina… but the tag was gone.  

The salesbitch’s eyes gleamed with the creepy delight of righteousness.   “OOH, did the magical “free” tag disappear? That’s just so CRAZY!”  He then took the jacket from the girl and said with a sarcasm dipped cone of bitch, “It just LOOKED like you were stealing it… my bad.  Things happen.  The “Free” tag thing is common – it could happen to anyone.”  He then turned around and began to walk back to the store, his glorious prize in hand.  “WAIT!” the girl cried, pushing through the crowd, which had turned from curious to disapproving.  (They whispered things like, “That’s what happened to ‘ol Kirby’s kid… shoplifted and ruined his life… I think he died of AIDS.” And “Winona Ryder shoplifted – such a pity – such a pretty girl - what was that one she did with Johnny Depp?”) 

“I really, really wasn’t stealing – and I know that’s what it looks like – but if this jacket isn't free then I would very much like to buy it!" the girl pleaded, " It really was an accident!” 

The salesbitch took one step inside the boundary of the store before turning around to answer her.  His nose high, his face triumphant and as fierce and set as a man declaring war, he spoke with a clear, cold voice, “You, girl, are never to step one foot in this store again.  You are a shoplifter.  You can never buy this jacket, because you are a trashy… fucking… shoplifter.  I never want to see you here again.”  With a slight smile that was confusing based on the context, and a nod of the head, he walked back inside the store, leaving the girl standing in the mall.

The crowd began to disappear, still casting her disapproving looks if they happened back upon her during their mall power walk routes, glances to help their egos and relationships with Jesus get stronger and to somehow show that they loved their country. 

The girl stood just outside the store after the salesbitch walked away, not really any physically different than she had been when she arrived a few minutes before, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember how to use her legs when they were cold.  Standing in the mall, still as a statue, she tried to warm herself with anger, an age old remedy taught to her by her grandparents.  “It’s just a fucking jacket” she told herself, but her words were only whispers.  She tried to say them louder but all that came out were more whispers.    

After a few hours of standing frozen in the mall the girl decided to make a call. 

 

“RRRIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG! RRRRRRRRRIIIINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!” (said the phone.)

 

To be continued….  

Jackets (Part 1)

There was a once a young girl who was cold.  When she woke up in the morning her feet were cold; when she walked around in the sunshine her arms were cold, and she went to bed in the evening her head was cold.  Once, in the middle of the night, she awoke to find that even her vagina was cold.  "Goddamn it, I'm cold" said the girl, cold teeth chattering as she swore.  "Maybe when I grow up, I will stop being cold."  It seemed to the girl like good reasoning.  But the older the girl grew, the colder she felt.  

The girl began to notice that the people around her who were not cold had one thing in common: they all wore jackets.  "Cool" thought the girl.  "I'll get myself a sweet, sweet jacket, and then I won't be cold." "Word" said the girl's inner Aslan.  The girl gave her inner Aslan a condescending look for being so slang and ordinary, and then she went to the mall to find a jacket.  

Now, the girl had been eying a certain jacket for many years.  She loved this jacket, every piece of thread and shred of material and even the way the shoulders had more cowboy tassels than she normally preferred.  Everyone knew she loved it.  "Just get the jacket already!" her impatient friends would exclaim.  "I can't!" the girl would respond, nervously doing a jig to the rhythm of her chattering teeth.  And so the girl continued to eye the jacket, nervously jigging all the while.  

Sometimes she dreamed she was wearing the jacket and imagined the way the tassels would move when she jumped around.  These were always good dreams and imaginings for the girl.  

Once on a day when she thought the cold would kill her, she walked into the store and in a moment of weakness let the back of her hand slide across the material.  "You be's wantin' ta try dat der jacket on lil' lady?" a salesman yelled.  The girl turned bright red and burped.  She sometimes burped when she was nervous. "Oh, no, it's not my size" the girl lied, and then she ran from the mall.  

"Verily, verily someone else will buy it soon!!!" the girl wailed when she was safely home, pretending her words were from the Bible.  But no one did; the jacket did not sell. 

Styles changed and fashions shifted, and still the girl nervously jigged and admired the tasseled jacket from afar.  

But then one day the jacket was gone.  "Whe, whe, where is my tasseled jacket?!" the girl stuttered and burped.  "That thar jacket was discontinued."  the saleswoman droned, obviously on drugs.  "Discontinued to where?"  the girl asked, her eyes filling with tears.  "It's gone honey." said the drone, "Gone like the wind.  Pity, 'ol tassel was just yer size."  

"Actually it was the wrong size.  It never would have fit." the girl lied, again running out of the mall, this time vowing never to return. "Window shopping is for fools and WHORES!" the girl later sobbed in her chilly room.  And so the girl kicked herself and set her jaw, and when her friends asked her why she hadn't bought the jacket during all the years it was on display, she flipped her hair and said with what she hoped was impressive apathy,"What jacket?"  

"Good grief, is fashion all girls ever TALK about?" the girl wondered with grief masked in annoyance.  Her inner Aslan tried to answer her, but the girl slapped him as hard as she could.  She later apologized.  

Soon the girl went to college.  "Maybe now I will be warm." the girl thought.  But college was ten times colder than high school, and her friends who arrived without a jacket soon went to the mall and found one.  "I guess every town has a mall." the girl sighed, feigning annoyance while feeling immensely relieved.  On her first trip to the mall ten jackets caught her eye.  "OH my, we're not in Kansas anymore!" the girl exclaimed to no one.  At this new mall the girl could walk into stores and try on different jackets - no longer did she nervously jig and admire them from afar.  "Window shopping is for fools" she reminded herself.  She was sick of being cold, and, legs bruised from kicking herself, she still regretted the loss of the tasseled jacket.  So she decided to buy one.  Her friends giggled as she tried it on, "It's PERFECT!"  they cooed, "OOHHH, it's so HIP and so NEW"  The girl smiled as she tried on the new jacket - it was indeed flashy and new.  But when the girl slipped it over her shoulders she noticed that it was a bit tight under the arms.  "Oh well" thought the girl, dismissing the pain as a small price to pay. "It will probably stretch."  So despite the awkward fit she bought it.  

After a few years the awkward fit became a painful fit - but still she wore it.  "I did buy it, afterall."  she reasoned, feeling dedicated and strong.  "I'm sure I will get used to painful fit."  And she did: her arms got numb, which made the pain disappear like magic.  

After a few more years the jacket began to rip due to the awkward fit.  The rips let cold air onto the girl's skin.  Pulling out her needle and thread, the girl sewed up the jacket.  "There, there" she said comfortingly to the inanimate object.  "I will mend you each time you rip - I will keep you my jacket forever."  The girl knew that as long as she kept the jacket on she would be warm, so each time the jacket ripped, the girl would mend it.  

But then one day the jacket ripped so far and so wide that it fell into two separate pieces at her feet.  "Well, this is awkward." the girl said, following her statement by a few cricket sound effects.  The cold air rushed onto the girl's skin, but as she looked into her sewing kit she realized that if she mended the jacket this time she would have no more thread for her other mending.  She frowned at the pieces of jacket on the floor, and threw up her arms in annoyance.  "How many times have I mended this damn thing?" she thought.  She sighed and tried valiantly to feel deeply sorry for herself.  Then she realized that it had felt great to be able to raise up her arms, so she feigned annoyance a few more times to experiment with her freedom of arm movement. She decided not to mend the jacket.  She was relieved to be able to move her arms and to stop pretending that the jacket was a great fit.  She decided to endure the cold for a while, though most of her friends wore jackets.  

So the girl did lots of volcano pose and chin ups, all the things she had been unable to do with her awkwardly fitting jacket.  But she could not deny that although her body and workouts were wondrously more agile and lissome than before, she was again cold.  She was also broke, with no money at all to buy a new jacket.  "Damn... how's a girl supposed to get warm in THIS economy?" the girl said rudely to the universe.  

"Cold is just a state of mind" the universe responded.  The girl shifted her scalp in annoyance and pointed to the universe's jacket.  "Well you sure wouldn't know, idiot."  she said as she pointed.  "SENSI mcSENSerton" the universe snapped back.  So the girl did chin ups to distract her from the cold and from the happy, warm universe.  

When the cold nights came she shivered, and when the snow fell she shivered even more (which at this point looked more like Parkinson's disease) and just when the girl thought she would surely die of cold she found the most beautiful, comfortable, expensive, high end, tailor made jacket she had ever seen.  And the strangest part of all, the jacket's tag said "free."

 

... to be continued

A kiss and a baggie of shit, please.

Runners who cross paths with my walking ass have no idea how close to death they have come.  Lately (since my running hiatus) my legs literally shake with the desire to trip them.  Maturity is mine indeed.  I am like Ghandi only I'm mean and small minded.  And alive.  And female.  ("Enough" commands my inner Aslan; even he is weary of me today... but his voice still thrills me.)  

The last time I ran was at Alki beach in West Seattle.  It is my favorite run for many reasons (see how I am speaking of running in present tense? There is no past tense with running.  Nope.  Nope.................... nope).  

There are no major hills along the waterline at Alki which is good for my shins and knees (thanks Dad), and the run is 6 miles which is good for my ego (thanks Dad).  The scenery transforms with every bend - the focal point shifting from the city to the mountains to the beach, each upheld by an expanse of ferry infested water.  I love coastline running because there is no "loop" involved.  Somehow whenever I run a loop I end up playing five times the mental games than when I have a single path on which I know I will backtrack. On a coastline run my whole body concentrates on getting to the "end", and then ramps back up for the run back (which always feels like half the distance).  On loop runs I end up setting up camping spots and stopping in to diners and hitch hiking.  

On this particular day I came to the always consistent halfway mark of my run (the beach! How convenient...) and fell like a asthmatic drunk to a bench where I pretended to stretch while in reality my goals for bench time were: "do not faint" and "do not vomit loudly like a lion" ("loudly like a lion" being the only volume of vomit available to me).  

The previous day had been shockingly warm for Seattle which made this day's cool air feel particularly biting in contrast.  The wind created a hazy fog of sand all along the beach that looked soothing and interesting until you felt it in your eyeballs.  Each time a gust of wind, gusted (awkward), I could feel the prick of a thousand needles stinging and sticking to my sweaty skin.  

My heart was beginning to regain some semblance of a beat when I saw that the usually packed beach was completely empty except for two people, a man and a woman.  The man was laying with his back against the sand, propped up by his elbows behind him.  The woman was positioned over him in a graceful straddle, touching him only with her mouth.  They were very young and very attractive, and their kiss was perhaps the most beautiful thing I have seen in a year.  

I am all about PDA (anyone want to meet me at Kerry Park tonight?), but PDA is not usually art - it's more like two twits trying to suck each other's throats inside out (again, anyone?).  The beach was public, and their display of affection had a sweaty audience of one, but their kiss was so tender and restrained and intimate that I felt I had stumbled upon something sacred and ancient, like the emerging of a phoenix or a leprechaun masturbating.  

I watched them kiss until I had to turn away.  Yup, you guessed it.  My gaze adjustment was not out of respect or disgust or boredom but because I remembered that I also cry loudly like a lion.  And mid run, in front of two lovers, on a beach in the cold sandy wind is just not the time.  But, as in the case of my shins, my body has proven itself very able to say "fuck you."  My heart ached so violently from my accidental voyeurism that I cried all the way back to my car.  The sadness wasn't loud like a lion, though.  It was too deep for that I think - it just looked like I was running in cold, stinging, sand-filled wind.  

   

"COME ON" a piece of me that sounds exactly like Job from Arrested Development screams.  But I won't come on.  And I am coming on.  And every sentence I wanted to follow this with ended in, "that's what she said."  

I am that person who is going to a play by herself tonight.  And I'm going to look great and enjoy myself and have a drink beforehand.  And seeing plays and movies by myself are some of my favorite things. Really.  But tonight I SORTA feel like I'd rather eat a baggie full of golden retriever shit.  Why golden retriever shit?  No idea.   

I can do this by myself and be cuteish and strongish and happyish, right?  Not just the play or the afternoon or the nights or the tomorrows or the month or the year, but this?  

There is the person you wave and say "howdy" to every few weeks.  And there is the person you really thought would be in your life until you died, and when that person leaves, it's hard to breathe.    

I have been thinking about getting a tattoo of a phoenix (or a masturbating leprechaun), but maybe I should get a tattoo of a ventilator.  

I want to be a phoenix.  But I think I'm more like Ariel from the Little Mermaid who keeps bursting her sexy torso out of the water, only with no background music, no long hairs, no big boobs, no water and no Eric to seduce.  So ya know, without those things it just ends up looking like I'm continually having an epileptic fit or pretending to be a gigantic chicken.  

Some guys like gigantic epileptic chickens, yeah?  

Rachel

A few samples from my session with Rachel.  (She is RIDICULOUSLY gorgeous.  Gorgeous, gorgeous. And so much fun.  And she's married... you know you were curious... ) 

Subtlekiah 4:5

I was missing a friend of mine horribly the other day, the kind of miss where being with that person is exactly what you want – like a pregnancy craving for a piece of frozen bacon, only with a person instead of frozen bacon and without a new life or swollen belly involved – so I texted my friend and asked him when I would see him next. He was, at that particular moment, in another state about fifteen hundred miles away. 

“Look to your left” was the text I received back. 

I read these words on my phone in my sushi restaurant (it’s officially “mine” when the staff says, “Hi Charis!” and brings me my regular order, including a beer, and expects that I will read my book and cry profusely the whole time) and immediately got a huge smile on my face and looked to my left, for about five minutes, before I realized that of course my friend was not actually to my left. After looking left a bit too long, I replied, “I am so disappointed!!” His endearing response: “I just disappointed myself!!” 

Since this mutually disappointing moment I have received other texts such as, “Look between your feet” and “I got sunburned today – look to your right to see for yourself.” These little insertions into my life via iPhone always make me smile. But they also always make me look left or right or between my feet. 

The gut reaction that takes over at the possibility that I could see my friend defies logic, previous disappointment, social norms and physics.  Despite the insanish implications, there is a rather distinct piece of me that absolutely believes I could look between my feet and find my friend waiting there.  I can imagine it now, my friend crouched under the table, somehow curled up under my chair texting me until the moment I look, at which point he would give me the thumbs up and smile, “SURPRISE!” Ridiculous.  Impossible. And goddamn it I look every time. 

I recently read an article in the New York Times about Rafael Nadal.  I know, shocker. Those of you who know me know about my mad soul and body lust for this man.   It is so much more than sex.  And it is also definitely about sex.  But here’s the thing – I do not often have mad crushes.  Sure, I was horny for the guys in Jars of Clay when I was thirteen (BUT WHO WASN’T? …Nope), but my serious “I am utterly useless in the presence of this person” moments are few and far between. I tend to feel protective or motherly or sisterly towards men (yes, yes, I know… my issues are rampant…), so when there is a man who undoes me, who leaves me speechless and brainless and blushing and trying not to shit on myself, I notice. 

Something about Rafa undoes me. 

I have a serious, mad crush on him. Yes he is hot, and yes I would absolutely tap that, but that is not enough in my life to have a real crush on someone. His ridiculously hot body is not why I feel like a silly thirteen year old singing on the top of my lungs: “I want to FALL in love with you” (my tears were not for Jesus… oh no indeed). 

I loved the article in the Times because it articulated a bit of what I find so deeply, magnetically attractive about Rafa. 

Come, gather round. I will tell you of my Rafa lust. 

As with any hero there must be something or someone to defeat – otherwise the huge swollen biceps seems pointless and comedic. Federer is considered by some to be the best tennis player of all time. Of course I call these people fools – but there is no denying that Federer is ONE of the greatest tennis players of all time – so basically I call them fools because I am angry and jealous. 

But it is Federer’s greatness that makes Nadal’s greatness so definitive; because Nadal beats Federer. 

It started with the magnificence of Nadal on clay – and everyone said “Oh yes, he’s a strong young buck with an award winning ass and a killer smile who just made Federer look like a drunk old woman on clay, but Nadal will never touch Federer on grass.” 

Enter last year’s Wimbledon (best tennis match of all time) where Nadal defeated Federer on his precious, precious grass. (SUCK IT, Federer). 

Here is where the article so brilliantly articulates the differing appeals of these men (I seriously get so excited when I read about this). 

Here’s an excerpt: 

He thrills people. Federer thrills people, too, but the Nadal thrill is so different from the Federer thrill that studying the two of them is like a gorgeous immersion course in the varieties of athletic possibility. 

Federer is elegant and fluid and cerebral, so that his best tennis looks effortless even when he is making shots that ought to be physically impossible. 

Nadal is muscled-up and explosive and relentless, so that his best tennis looks not like a gift from heaven but instead like the product of ferocious will. His victories and his taped-up knees and his years as a very good No. 2 in the world all resonate together, as though the rewards and the wages of individual effort had been animated in a single human being: if you hurl yourself at a particular goal furiously enough and long enough you may tear your body up in the process, but maybe you can get there after all. 

People have loved watching Nadal create trouble inside Federer’s head. This is how they characterize it in tennis, that Nadal makes Federer crazy, that Nadal’s refusal over and over to be beaten by Federer in Paris was the one problem that Federer — who usually has uncanny on-court telepathy about what his opponent plans for three shots hence and exactly how to wreck it — was unable to figure out. 

Then Nadal finally beat Federer at Wimbledon too, and then at the Australian, where Federer famously picked up his runner-up trophy and looked at the assembled reporters and burst into tears, causing Nadal to put an arm around him, the young Spaniard at once respectful and consoling, and murmur something private into his ear. That Nadal now has the capacity to outplay Federer on multiple surfaces — that the signature game of the world’s highest-ranked tennis player is not a beautiful ballet unto victory but an imperfect, bruising, savage refusal to yield — this is why Nadal thrills people. This and the biceps. “Every tennis lover would like, someday, to play like Federer,” Philippe Bouin told me. “But every man wants to be Rafael Nadal. Which is different.” 

Good reading. And good GOD I have chills, which says a lot since I’ve read it about 900 times. 

Gorney nailed it: watching Federer play is like watching a dancer who soars through the air, defying petty human things like gravity and weight.  But Nadal.  OH Nadal.  He is not an angel.  He is a man.  You can FEEL gravity and weight and sweat and grit when you watch him play.  

And my whole heart pulls for him – I feel exhausted after watching him play because of the word Gorney names so perfectly: WILL. His soul is exposed through his body. He hurls himself and pits himself against every obstacle; he plays every point as if it was his last, and my heart identifies with gritty Nadal so much more than with the graceful dancer that is the Swiss god Federer. 

Plus, if you think about what kind of lover you want, a graceful dancer who makes even the most impossible moves look effortless, or a fierce, determined, gritty, sweaty man who growls and yells and strains…. I think my point is obvious. 

Good lord I’m going to have to change the subject. 

Go read the article and then add “in bed.” 

I recently had to stop running because of severe shin splints (I was serious about needing to change the subject…kaboosh alert).  I ran through the pain for a few weeks, but it turns out my body is actually able to say “fuck you.” 

The pain was so bad for a few days that I could not get out of bed without warming them up and taking 1000 milligrams of Advil. So I waited a few days and then went running again, because I’m a bitch like that. And so the cycle has continued. 

The thought of not running is a thought too horrifying to consider. Nope, I’m not considering it. 

Nope………………….................................................................................………….. nope. 

(Still not.) 

I calculated that I ran approximately 1,500 miles during the past 12 months. I ran through my heartbreak and my divorce and my loneliness and my rage and all the clusterfuck repercussions of the aforementioned things.  I have run so far and so often that the state of running feels more “me” than the state of walking. 

And now my shins are on strike. 

AND turns out they’re union. 

Fuck. 

I wake up every morning with the very strong urge to run. And when I swing my legs off my bed and feel the shooting pain, I still want to run. 

Life lately has felt like a gigantic taunting asshole. Not an actual gigantic asshole taunting me (creepy), but an entity full of malice. 

But there really isn’t any entity or malice. I just want there to be so I can have something to curse at instead of just crying because I have hurty shins. Story of my life. 

Nadal holds my heart in his hands because I simply cannot imagine him throwing up his hands on a bad day and saying “Awww hell, fuck this.” I cannot imagine him as a lackadaisical cool guy (I hate cool guys, btw – another time, another time). He defies apathy and boredom not because he hates them but because he’s surging with the antithesis.  

He grits his teeth and runs his gorgeous ass off for every point, even when it doesn’t seem logical or possible.  And that makes me hot. 

I am no proverbial weightless dancer. Life is not flowing with milk and honey and most days I’m grossed out by my own whining. 

I am flopping and falling and flailing around the stage like a motherfucking hippo on some serious Xanax and with some serious shin splints. 

And I really do wish I could turn off all the ways I want for a while; just a little break from the heartbreak that inevitably comes when you let yourself love. 

…because people are sad motherfuckers who use you up and let you down, and not because they want to but because they’re lost, spineless, sad and bruised up fools with tiny ego’s (she sang with a bitter but kinda sexy twang.). 

When running is impossible it is torture to feel the desire to run. Same goes with wanting a man (did you like how I just threw that one in? As if it were an afterthought? Yeah, I’m good like that… they call me Subtle McSubtleton). 

For every attempt to act bored and nonchalant and self-sufficient I only believe more fully that the word to describe me least in the world is, “subtle.” 

I am surging with desire, and bruised the fuck up from disappointment, and usually would very much like to punch someone in the throat and cry before I go to bed (it’s the new version of “a cup of warm milk”).  

And, she admitted, I still look between my feet for my friend, every, single, mother, fucking, time. 

Life is to Charis NOT as Tennis is to Federer.  

I am not graceful, and I can’t even make walking look effortless anymore, but fuck trying to make it look effortless, or wishing I was above it all… because I’m not. 

My shins hurt, I want to fight you and I’m lonely. 

But here’s the good news: the good book says, “she who will maybe someday perhaps find love and peace and beer and money will keep her heart open, despite the disappointment and asshole men and abandonment and shin splints that are inflicted upon her.” 

And, the second part of the verse (that first part is actually just Apocrypha): “her glorious, human life will look not like a gift from heaven but instead like the product of ferocious will.“ Subtlekiah 4:5