'Rita sees me and nods'

Rita sees me and nods. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. She doesn’t know how I’ve tried to help her so many times but to no avail. I feel torn about what’s going to happen next. Rita doesn’t feel torn. She only feels happy to see me. If only she knew.

When they brought her in the first time I thought she was sweet. Someone had found her on a street corner by the Idanha, pacing back and forth and whimpering. She was a medium-sized dog, a German shepherd mixed with…something. I had always liked that breed because they seem so comforting and protective at the same time. Rita had much more of the comforting gene in her.

I had been working at the Idaho Humane Society for about 5 years when they found Rita. She came in looking scraggly and hungry. I knew she would probably be adopted out soon, but there was a problem. Rita only had 3 legs. I don’t think she knew it, though. Her phantom fourth leg seemed to work in conjunction with the other 3, and you wouldn’t know anything was wrong with her unless you looked closely. I wondered how she’d lost that leg. Who did she belong to?

Rita’s owners never appeared, and after a few days I started fostering her. She was shy at first and wasn’t sure what to make of the two other dogs and a cat in her new home. Turtle, the cat, nuzzled up to her and she froze, staring at me. I told Rita to relax. After a few weeks she did, and she was one of us.

Several years later was when I first felt the tumor. Then another. Then another. Thousands spent on radiation. Nights spent listening to her cry and whine. Medications that didn’t seem to help. That day Rita saw me and nodded and I nodded back. And then she was gone.

I wasn’t really expecting to write such a maudlin story. Such a plain and simple story. As I was writing I was thinking, “Make it interesting, do something unexpected. Everyone knows the story of a beloved dog being put to sleep.” Yet my brain feels hijacked by adrenaline. Got here, forgot the key on my first official day. Isn’t that how it goes? Thank goodness writers are good conversationalists and can entertain themselves. It’s so hard to have everything in order first thing in the morning. I did have my outfit hanging on my bathroom door, ready to greet me this morning. Thank you for planning ahead, past self.

I have a band-aid on my ring finger instead of my rings. That’s so symbolic, I could have written about that. Writing prompt, maybe?

'I didn’t want to take the elevator'

She stood there in the rain. Thinking about things and nothing. Letting the water drip down her nose. Why don’t people in San Diego run in the rain. Are they afraid of ending up like that poor girl on the news who slipped and fell in front of the TV camera after saying how easy it is to run in the snow? Maybe. But mostly it’s because it’s different. Perhaps people who live here want things to remain the same because then they’ll know who they are and where they stand. Or at least they won’t have to think about it.

I didn’t want to take the elevator because the sign said I shouldn’t in case there’s a fire. At least that’s what I always thought it meant: “In case of fire, use stairs.” I always wondered why the stairs would be better to be burned up in than an elevator. It occurs to me now that maybe the lines that hold the elevator up could get burned and destroyed? Or something? I also realize one could be trapped in the elevator. Cooked alive in that metal cage.

The specter of vegetarianism hovers over me like something I forgot in the back of my mind. Like forgetting to turn off the stove. Last night I had a recurring dream (it followed the dream about Rise & Shine Writers where everything went awry, no one was listening to me, and there were TVs blaring in the background that I kept trying to turn off to no avail). It’s the dream about me killing someone and burying them. It’s always a man that I kill and I can see his gray cheek. I know what it feels like, like when my cousins and I touched my grandfather’s cheek to see what the embalmers had done. I rarely see myself killing him, but I know I’ve done it and now I have to hide the body. Where do I hide it? I know eventually someone is going to find it. Every time I have this dream, unlike other dreams, it seems real after I wake up. I have done it and I’m only now just remembering. Again.

Maybe it’s all those animals telling me to stop killing and eating them.

When I was growing up we had a pair of baby ducks we got for Easter. My little brother would drag them around the yard in his red plastic wagon. The ducks grew up and started pooping on the pavement, like all over the pavement. My parents decided it was time for the ducks to go. They didn’t send them to a farm, though. They took them to the local butcher. My mom, stepdad, brother, and sister went to a neighbor’s house to eat Donald and Daisy for dinner. I stayed home alone, disgusted. I don’t know what I had for dinner that night. Probably Hamburger Helper.

There’s a concept in Buddhism that we should treat every child as if he or she were our own. I like that idea. It takes a village, blah blah blah. And yet we don’t. I don’t. I don’t have kids, so how would I know how to treat them? I feel like I raised my siblings, though, and I think that’s why I never had a strong desire to have children of my own. I know what it’s like. There’s no mystique to changing diapers, to discovering my little sister has eaten the mint floss again. A lot of it. I think a person only needs to go through that once in a lifetime. My projects are my children now. I thought I might have become pregnant when I was in graduate school and it scared me because I would have to choose between my babies. Now I babysit my friend’s kid sometimes. I play with my nephew in Idaho. When I talk to him over FaceTime he says my name. It sounds like a sneeze, similar to how my brother used to say it: “Acho.” And also the sneeze of “I love you.” And it feels like enough.

'We were ready for the in-flight service: peanuts and a movie'

We were ready for the in-flight service: peanuts and a movie. It seemed odd that they would only serve peanuts on a flight that also included a movie, but that’s what I had learned to expect from this particular airline. It also seemed odd that the movie they were showing was “Flight,” as in “flight go down.” Wait, am I dreaming?…

I watched a fascinating documentary once on a guy whose name I always forget. I always forget the details of the flight he was on, too. I don’t know the airline, the date, the location of the crash. I do remember, though, that Errol Morris got him to tell an amazing tale about what happened that day. The guy was on a DC-10, I think. Maybe he was a trainer of pilots for DC-10s? Something like that. Anyway, this guy sprung into action when one of the plane’s engines went out (I think. Just think of this as a tall tale and then go look up the details later.).

The flight attendant asks if there are any pilots on board. This guy volunteers. He goes into the cockpit. He tries to figure out what to do. At one point the plane, this huge plane, starts making parabolas in the sky, up and down and up and down… Not crashing yet also not really flying either. The guy got the plane to be somewhat stable as it came in for a landing. I love the idea that all landings are crash landings, some are just more controlled than others.

The guy lived. Several people did not. The guy was sad those people died. He felt guilty. He hadn’t done enough. Yet without him they all would have died. Even the pilot whose cockpit went tumbling away after it sheared off the metal wreckage. The pilot survived. This guy survived. He is a hero and no one knows his name.

When I saw the previews for “Flight” I wondered if they had taken some of the story from that guy’s story. I didn’t see the movie, though, because I was turned off by the reports of misogyny and general depressiveness. .

When that guy was trying to save the plane, he wasn’t scared. He just did what needed to be done, what he was trained to do. No one told him what to do. He could have said he wasn’t qualified. Hearing him talk about it he may have thought he wasn’t qualified. To save everyone. 

A friend of mine just flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Everyone on her Facebook page told her to be careful. My thought was that route is probably the safest in the world right now, kind of like after Jack in the Box was selling death burgers. No one wanted to go there, yet I knew they’d be cooking those things past the point of any life form survival. 

My cousin was in the hospital for E. Coli poisoning. Almost died, apparently. I don’t know him very well. That side of the family is distant. Like from each other. Even though most of us lived in the same town. No one wanted to be close. Too scary.

I read an article recently about Romanian orphans who were traumatized because of lack of physical contact. Workers at the orphanages would pick up a child who would be begging to be held. Then the child would start hitting at the volunteer and want to be put down. Then it would beg to be picked up again. Lack of appropriate attachment skills. How many adults, including myself, do I know with this lack of attachment? Get close but go away. At the same time. Get close enough to comfort me but not close enough to hurt me. You’ve served your purpose, yet somehow I don’t feel satisfied.

So there I am, eating my peanuts (thankful they’re not the honey roasted variety because, you know, the gluten) and watching the plane crash with it’s debonair pilot at the helm. I guess he was drunk? Or something? I saw a story recently about how people don’t trust female pilots. I suppose they’d rather have a tipsy captain than one wearing a skirt because, you know, we can’t do things. In a way I almost wish to keep that secret that I am the most competent person I know. I like not having to take the responsibility that comes with that. Yep, I’m a girl. Now leave me alone and let me go get this stuff done. Oops, I forgot that feminism is out. I guess I’ll just be patient...

Someone told me once that most women wouldn’t say “Seven Samurai” was their favorite film. I suppose most men wouldn’t either.

'Shut up and let me finish!'

“Shut up and let me finish!”

“Ok, fine.”

“Thank you. As you know, I’ve been trying for a long time to get this group together. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be in a band. The glory of being on stage, the hours of practicing to make just the right sound, the…”

“We know, we know…”

“I said let me finish!”

“Fine.”

“As I was saying, I always wanted to be in a band. But here’s the thing: the drummer doesn’t keep the beat. How can we be a band if our drummer doesn’t keep the beat?”

Everyone looked around sheepishly at one another. No one looked at the drummer.

“The Petty Tyrants will never stay together unless someone in this band learns how to play.”

Silence. The band members wondered if their lead singer and manager was done speaking. 

“I’m finished,” he said. The room exhaled. “Does anyone else have anything to say?” 

More silence. Then a hand rose in the air. It was the drummer.

“Yes, what is it?”

“I quit.”

“No, you can’t quit.”

“I quit. Why would you want me to stay?”

“Because…” the manager trailed off.

The drummer stood up, grabbed her drumsticks and walked out the door. The rest of the band followed.

“Shut up and let me finish!” the manager shouted. A cockroach skittered in the corner of the warehouse where they’d practiced. It skittered over to the drums. It hopped up on the snare. It beat out a perfect 120 bpm tempo. It leapt onto the tom-tom and crashed into the cymbal. It stopped. It sighed. It hopped down and skittered away.

The manager cried.

* * *

I think I’m finally ready to write about my friend Stephen Dodge who took his life 14 years ago. He was a sports reporter at the first newspaper I worked at. He was adorable, a man-child really. He was married and would always say children shouldn’t have children when people asked if they were going to have kids. He never had any kids. He died at 29. I was 25. I thought I’d never be as old as 29. He must have seen something about life I hadn’t understood yet. 

Stephen’s funeral was packed with athletes because he was a sports reporter. He was the best writer on staff. This is what he told me once when I complimented his writing:

“I’m not a good writer.”

“What do you mean you’re not a good writer? You’re the best writer here. You’re smart. You would have gone to Stanford if your mom hadn’t gotten sick.”

“I’m not a good writer because I don’t write as well as Toni Morrison.”

I teach creativity classes now, which some people may say is frivolous and a waste of time for people who could otherwise be making good money at something else. One of the things we talk about is comparing ourselves to others and how harmful it can be. How destructive it can be to our writing, to ourselves. I think that’s what took Stephen’s life. It’s such a cliche, but he never felt good enough, and that feeling can extend to the depth of our being. That feeling can end our being. 

He was beautiful, he was loved, and he always wore boat shoes without socks. He drove the same red Mustang his whole life. Toni Morrison could never say that.

'This moment is so rare'

This moment is so rare, though that’s true for all moments, really, if you think about it. This morning as I started writing I had technology issues and was instead greeted by the spinning pinwheel of death. That’s what we used to call the Apple symbol when our new computer system malfunctioned at the Torrance paper. One of my co-workers would slam his hands on the shared desk whenever it came up when he was trying to save a story. I would say, “Relax, bring up the Internet, surf around.” You know, multitask. Why was it so hard for some people.

I learned a couple of years ago that that particular co-worker had passed away. He was only in his 50s. I don’t know if he was drinking at the time of his death but he had had a problem. That’s why he rode his bike to work and rode back home when our shifts ended at midnight. I thought maybe he just liked riding his bike. No one questioned it except another colleague’s teenager. “Dad, don’t people with DUIs have to ride bikes?” “No, son. That’s just John. He’s different.” He also hated onions. Hated them.

Last night I presented an Evening of Editorial Enlightenment to a group of self-published (and hoping to be self-published) writers. I teamed up with my friend Beth for the Meetup event. Beth and I are also opera singers. We performed a couple of excerpts after our talk. I didn’t know Beth was a soprano, but she belted out “Mio Babbino Caro.” I felt a little jealous, as I do of all sopranos. I stood up and sang part of Samson & Delilah. The mezzos always get the “bitches, witches, and britches” parts. At least Delilah was female.

This moment is so rare that I wish I could extend it. But then it wouldn’t be rare. What if we all wore diamonds in our eyes instead of our teeth. Gold on our fingernails, ruby-encrusted aprons while cooking, Wiping my hands on the precious, smooth gems. Covering them in flour and dough. Tossing the apron in the platinum washing machine.

When Platinum bought the U-T we all laughed because that was the name of a strip club. Although maybe we were just paragraph prostitutes. Will edit for tips. When my sister stopped being a copy editor and started working in the real world she wrote to me about how she was presented a bouquet of flowers for her good work. The only time I ever got flowers at the  newspaper was for my birthday, and that was a remnant of days past when the leering editor would be sure to bring in the female employees on the birthdays so he could personally hand them their bouquet of flowers (the men got chocolate; I’m not sure who delivered that). Eventually the practice was dropped and we got nothing. Eventually  most of us were dropped too.

Someone asked me last night whether I thought being a therapist helped me when editing stories about families, “You know, so you can say whether families really act like that or not.” Yes, I am an expert on all families. That’s kind of awesome. “Hey, you, family member! Knock that off; that is not what families do. Don’t you know that I am an MFT? I am an expert on families and marriages. Please, do comply.”

I decided to add the Pulitzer thing to my bio for the writers last night, though it wasn’t in the official intro the presenter read at the beginning. I was OK with that. Yesterday I was in the parking lot of a Starbucks near my house and a woman pulled up and said she liked my laptop bag and where did I get it. We got to chatting. She told me she was a literary agent (she had asked what I do and I said I was a therapist; it seemed like the best option to say because it carries the most caché, right?). Somehow I told her I was also a creativity coach. She got excited. You need to write a book! Yeah, I hear that a lot. Here’s my card, we’ll get your book written in 6 weeks, we’ll call you America’s No. 1 creativity coach (that title’s already taken, I tell her). Well, we’ll call you something else then. It doesn’t matter what you think about yourself, it matters what they think. It only matters what the other people think.