The search for a genuine lifestyle begins -- or, rather, continues with a new fervor and determination. A 27 year old identity crisis that is simply more refined and less dramatic than those peppering my twenties.

This one is, as expected, more adept in its ability to alter my focus and slower to fruition. The pace in which it crept up on me allowed me time to consider how I would handle the challenging ideas and frantic scattered thoughts. I was maturing and my identity confusion along with it.

How charming.

She chuckled

"She was without grace and compensated for it with a great deal of sarcasm. Quick witted, yes, but it was not always a pleasant combination nor an appealing one.

She was also without a boyfriend. "




Ann grabbed the open notebook and marched into the kitchen. She tossed it onto the table and began pulling open cupboard doors in search of breakfast.

"Top left" Sarah muffled through the toast in her mouth. She sat at the far side of the table and had to stretch her neck to look at the open notebook page. Ann paused with her hand on a cupboard she had already checked and nodded toward the handwriting.

"Is that about me?" She continued through more cupboard doors.

"Top left" Sarah repeated. Ann blinked at her, slowly, and opened the top left cupboard to reveal the cereal.

"Thank you" She pulled down one box, found it empty, and threw it on the floor near the garbage can. She pulled a second down, shook it briefly, set it on the counter and turned back to Sarah. "Is that about me?" She said it as if it is the first time.

"Yes." Sarah took another bite of her toast and held Ann's eyes with her own. Challenging. Pacifying. It was silent while Ann found a bowl, and then a spoon, and finally the milk. She set each item down on the table next to the notebook before sitting herself.

"Ok." Ann's eyes remained on her cereal, concentrating on scooping the small figures onto the utensil.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sarah had both hands wrapped around a brilliant blue coffee mug. It was one Ann had given her as a gift one year earlier to distract from the pain of a freshly mortifying haircut. She had claimed the blue complimented the strawberry streaks in her blonde hair and it was the one Sarah used every morning. She shifted and waited, watching Ann's methodical spoon to mouth play.

"I suppose not," Ann considered, her spoon halted on its descent into the bowl, "No." She stood then, surprising Sarah, and began pouring coffee into the thermos atop the counter. She fastened on the top and leaned over it, picking at the edge of a worn sticker along the side of the plastic. She gave up, sighed, and looked back at Sarah and the blue mug. "I need a new one."

Sarah nodded absently, "We really aren't going to talk about it?"

"Don't test me." Ann said shortly and busied herself with her jacket. " I'm not good with this, so don't test me"

"Good at --"

"Not talking. I'm not good at not talking." Ann pulled her jacket shut, buttoning up the front quickly before pulling her bag over her shoulder and fluffing her hair out from beneath the collar. Her words spilled out into the entryway, "Some things do not need to be talked about and I always think I need to talk about them and you do not and so -- " She opened the front door, "we are not talking about it." The door shut behind her.

Sarah chuckled.

I wish I wrote this

"Even after they arrested him and burned all of his manuscripts, which were all blank pages, he refused to speak. Not even to groan when they gave him a blow to the head, a boot tip in the groin. Only, at the last possible moment, as he faced the firing squad, did the writer suddenly sense the possibility of his error. As the rifles were pointed at his chest he wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard. He had thought the possibilities of human silence were endless. But as the bullets tore from the rifle, his body was riddled with the truth. And a small part of him laughed bitterly, because, anyway, how could he have forgotten what he had always known. There's no match for the silence of God."

from THE HISTORY OF LOVE
By Nicole Krauss

I survey my surroundings with satisfaction—soaking up the all too familiar smell of coffee and bacon, the pleasant hum of conversation, and the feel of the vinyl booth beneath me. The table in front of me holds all of the materials I brought with me in hopes of inspiring a new project of words from within my stagnant brain.


and nothing.

Boots and nothing at all

The boots stood there, leaning haphazardly against the garbage can; their beauty long faded, the leather cracked, the material worn thin near the toes and the heels. The dim light produced from the nearby lamp made the boots look forlorn in the almost empty apartment. She stared at them, her head cocked a bit to the side.

She had been ready for bed: her make-up washed off, her teeth brushed, her dress and heels replaced with a worn tank top and underwear. The linoleum she was standing on desperately needed a scrubbing and her bare feet stuck to the floor in this heat. She thought about this—about scrubbing the floor—and she thought about the boots in front of her. Her hands were now on her hips and she shifted her weight slightly.

She shook her head as if in defiance to some inner question and grabbed the boots from beside the garbage to shove them onto her feet. She walked the short distance across the apartment to where her grandma’s ornate full length mirror stood on its frame and stared into it. She turned this way and that way, staring intently at her reflection. Finally, she rifled through the mess of clothes on the couch and produced a gray knee length skirt. She slipped this on and fastened it high around her waist. Tucking the tank top in and grabbing her keys from the kitchen counter, she quietly slipped out the front door and into the night air. The heels of her boots sounded pleasantly against the sidewalk.

Rough and tumble

I wish I wrote this one

Put me in your suitcase, let me help you pack
Cuz you're never coming back, no you're never coming back

Cook me in your breakfast and put me on your plate
Cuz you know I taste great, yeah you know I taste great

At the hop it's greaseball heaven
With candypants and archie too

Put me in your dry dream or put me in your wet
If you haven't yet, no if you haven't yet
Light me with your candle and watch the flames grow high
No it doesn't hurt to try, it doesn't hurt to try

Well I won't stop all of my pretending that you'll come home
You'll be coming home, someday soon

Put me in your blue skies or put me in your gray
There's gotta be someway, there's gotta be someway
Put me in your tongue tie, make it hard to say
That you ain't gonna stay, that you ain't gonna stay

Wrap me in your marrow, stuff me in your bones
sing a mending moan, a song to bring you home