Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Quiz.

**Breakfast**
Eggs; Sunny side up, Scrambled or Hard boiled?Scrambled.
Sausage or Bacon?Bacon, I guess.
Pancakes, Crêpes or Waffles?Depends on my mood; I love breakfast food.
Croissant, Danish or Pain au Chocolat?Croissant.
Coffee, Juice, or Hot Chocolate?Tea, thank you very much.
**Lunch**
Pasta; Spaghetti, Tortellini, Lasagna, Ravioli, or Gnocchi?Hmm, I guess gnocchi of the above.
Pasta Sauce; Cheese, Tomato, or Meat?Depends on what pasta I am eating; probably the one of the first two.
Soup; Mushroom, Tomato, Broccoli, Carrot, Vegetable, Chowder, or Other?Chicken Noodle.
With Soup; Crackers, Toast, Croutons, Bacon Bits or Baguette?Crackers!
Pizza; Cheese, Hawaiian, Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Veggie, or Other?Eggplant and spinach.
Pizza; Square Slice, Pointy Slice or Deep Dish?Pointy Slice with a lot of crust.
Sandwich; or white bread or brown?White.
Toppings; Lettuce, Tomato, Onion, Peppers, Mushrooms,Mayo,Salt, or Other?Depends, but I don't really like toppings.
Chinese; Springrolls or Eggrolls?Eggrolls.
Chinese; Sweet & Sour Pork, Crispy Sesame Beef, or General Tao Chicken?General Tao's Chicken.
East Indian; Veggie Korma (curry) or Tandoori Chicken?Nan.
**Dinner**
Meat; Well done, Medium, or Rare?Medium.
Mashed Potatoes or Baked?Mashed.
Salad Dressing; Vinaigrette, 1000 Island, Ranch, or Other?Ew!
Cheese; Cheddar, Mozzarella, Havarti, Ricotta, Feta, Cottage, Brie, Soy, or Other?Mozzarella mostly but sometimes cheddar.
Milk; Regular Soy, Chocolate Soy, 1%, 2%, Skim, or Chocolate?1%.
Sushi; California Rolls, Spicy Salmon, Crab, Eel, Egg, Octopus, or Other?California Rolls until I got sick...
Sushi; Wasabi, Soysauce, Neither, or Both?Soysauce.
**Fastfood**
KFC; 2 piece combo, 3 piece combo, Family-Sized combo, or Chicken Club?Enough to share with my boyfriend.
KFC; Coleslaw, Potato Salad, or Macaroni Salad?Just mashed potatoes.
Pop; Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Rootbeer, 7-Up, Orange Crush, Cherry Coke, or Other?If I have it...birch beer or cream soda.
Burger King, In & Out, McDonald's, Harvey's, Hardee's, White Castle, A&W, or Other?Wendy's, I guess.
Burger Toppings; Lettuce, Tomato, Ketchup, Mayo, Mustard, Mushrooms, Or All Dressed?Ketchup.
Fries; Tater Tots, Poutine (if you're Canadian), Cheese Fries, Wedge, or Regular?Curly fries.
Pie; Apple, Cherry, Lemon, Lime, Blueberry, Sugar, or Other?I don't really like pie but pumpkin is the best.
Pie; With or Without Ice Cream?No ice cream; it could touch.
Dessert; Ice Cream, Frozen Yoghurt, Gelato, or Jello?Pudding.
Dessert; Cake, Pie, Brownies, Cookies, or Fresh Fruit w. Whipping Cream?Brownies.
Popcorn; Buttery, Caramel, Strawberry, Or Plain Old Salted?Buttery.
**Your home***
House, Condo, Apartment, Trailer, or Other?Apartment.
Live alone, with Roomies, with Parents, or Other?Roomies.
Rent or Own? (if you Rent, how much do you pay?)Rent.
Neighbourhood you live in; Poor, Middle Class, Wealthy, Artsy, Conservative?Artsy.
City Centre, Burbs, or Country?Suburbs.
Do your area safe?Yes.
At what age did you move out? If you haven't yet, at what age do you plan to?When I went to college, but I visit a lot.
What was the hardest part about leaving home?Not having homecooked food.
Do you and your family still live in the same city or town?Yes.
Your room; Messy, a bit Messy, Cleanish, or Meticulously Clean?Meticulously clean.
**Getting Around**
Walking, Bicycle, Rollerblades, Bus, Subway, Car, or Commuter Train?The Volkie!
If you take public transit, how much is the fare?N/A
Tokens, Pass, or Tickets?N/A
Commuter Ritual (Coffee? Newspaper? Book?)Driving and listening to tunes.
Which Bus, Subway, or Train stop is nearest to you?The one infront of our apartment complex.
Doughnut run; Glazed, Chocolate, Bavarian Cream, Crueller, or Jam Filled?Chocolate.
Drivers License; Learners, Drivers or None?Drivers license.
Do you own your own car? (what kind of car?)Yes, my VW Beetle.
**School**
Home schooled, Private, or Public?Public.
Your School; Uniform or No Uniform?No uniform.
Your School; Catholic, Jewish, or Secular?Secular.
You; Preppy, Jock, Goth, Punk, Cheerleader, Loner, Nerd, Class Clown, or Other?Nerd.
What year did you Graduate? if you haven't yet, what year will you graduate?High school: 2003.
Discipline; Excellent Student, Good Student, Okay Student, or Abysmal Student?Excellent student.
**Travel**
Where have you travelled? (be specific; name specific cities)Yes.
Have you flown before? if so, what's your favourite airline?Yes, and Virgin Atlantic was amazing.
Flying Rituals? (book, ipod, sleeping, etc..)Magazines.
In flight meal; Chicken, Beef, Pasta, Vegetarian/Vegan, Oriental, or Kid's?Yeah, like they give you anything but peanuts.
Which class do you usually take; First, Business, or Economy?Economy.
Have you ever flown First Class? or been Upgraded?Nope.
Have you been on a train before? If so, which? (subways don't count)Yes.
Have you been on a ferry before? If so, which?Yes.
Have you been on a cruise before? If so, which?No.
Do you get motion sick?Yes.
Hotel; which sort of room do you usually stay in; Suite, Premium, Regular?Regular.
Have you travelled on your own before? (alone; that means no friends, no parents)Yes.
**At what age did you...**
Learn to tie your shoes?Who remembers that?
Learn to walk? (if you're unsure, ask your parents)Probably a little after one.
Learn about sex?When I was little probably.
Have your first real kiss?17.
If you're not a virgin; have sex for the first time?What!?
If you're married; when?N/A
If you had kids; when?N/A
**Mental and Physical Wellbeing**
Are you seeing a shrink?No.
Are you on any medications?No.
Birth Control; Condoms, Depo-Provera, the Pill, Vesectomy, or Hysterectomy?Do people really give information like that out on the internet?
Smoke, Drink, Do Illegal Drugs? (if so, which?)No.
If you smoke; have you any intention of quitting?N/A
Is your diet Low-fat, Reasonably Low-fat, or High-fat? (be honest)Reasonably low-fat.
Which body type are you; Anorexic, Skinny, Regular, Athletic, Pudgy, or Obese?Regular.
Do you follow trend diets such as Low-Carb or Atkins?No.
**Relationships**
Casual, Short-Term, or Long-Term?Long-term.
Are you an open & honest individual or do you stew in your feelings?The former.
Is your relationship such, that if you wanted to candidly discuss sex , you could?Of course.
How do you cope with breakups? (Häagen-Dazs? A Box of Tissues? Revenge?)Badly.
Straight, Bi-Curious, Straight-Curious, Lesbian, or Gay?Straight.
What kind of guy/girl do you look for; Rebel, Puritan, Brainiac, Athlete, or Other?Smart guys with glasses - basically my boyfriend.
**Holidays and Religion**
Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzah, or Neither?Chanukah.
Christian, Catholic, Shinto, Buddhist, Wiccan, Qwaker, Agnostic, or Atheist?Jewish.
When you buy presents, are they extravagant, reasonable, or cheapskate?Depends how I am doing financially and who they are for.
What was the BEST present you've ever received?That's hard; I have gotten so many good gifts.
Easter; Cadbury Eggs, Kinder Surprise, Jellybeans, or Peeps?Cadbury.
Do you take Valentines day seriously? If so, how do you celebrate?Yes.
Halloween; what is the worst thing you've gotten trick-or-treating?That was ages ago too.
**Hot topics**
Pro-choice or Pro-life?Choice.
Pro-gay marriage or against?Pro.
If your daughter or son were gay, how would you respond?With anything they needed / support.
If your daughter decided to have an abortion, how would you respond?I am 22, I can't imagine that much, but then again, if it's her body, it is her decision. I would probably be upset about the situation though.
Are you generally intolerant of those different from yourself?Everyone likes to think they are tolerant, and I try to be.
**Blogging**
Do you blog? if so, when did you start?This winter.
What kind of blog; picture blog, personal blog, culinary blog, political blog?Personal.
How many people on your friend's list?N/A.
**MySpace**
What's your MySpace address?I don't recall.
**Chatting**
Which do you use; MSN, Yahoo, AIM Messenger, and/or Other?AIM hardly ever.
What is your username?N/A
Does webspeak annoy you? (ie. ROFL, LOL, "Peepz", "H8TRZ")Not really.
Do you spend more time chatting than hanging out in real life?No.
Do you frequent specific chatrooms?Never.
**Death**
Burial or Cremation?Burial.
Funeral; Lavish or Simple? Cremation; Urn or Ashes thrown someplace you loved?Simple.
What do you believe happens after death?I am not sure.
Have you seen a dead body before (human)?Yes.
How would you ideally like to die?In old age in my sleep.
**YouTube**
Who are your favourite YouTubers? (ie. The WineKone, Renetto, WilliamSledd?)I don't visit YouTude often.
Do you yourself YouTube? If so, what's your YouTube addy?No.
Take this survey or other MySpace Surveys at PimpSurveys.com

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Job Hunt

11 ROLLING GREEN DRIVE • AMHERST, MA 01002
PHONE (203) 214-2677 • E-MAIL NGIANNIN@STUDENT.UMASS.EDU
NICOLE GIANNINI

EDUCATION
2003 – 2007 University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA
BA/English, Minor/Astronomy
Dean’s List
3.796
1999 – 2003 Amity Regional High School Woodbridge, CT
Honor Roll
Section leader in honors band
Music scholarship

AWARDS RECEIVED
Publication in The College Essay Bible
Golden Key International Honor Society
Phi Beta Kappa

WORK EXPERIENCE
June 2006 – August 2006 University of Massachusetts Astronomy Dept.
Astronomy Writing Internship
Create a department newsletter for distribution to alumni of the astronomy
department
Interview and work with faculty
Write articles of interest for the newsletter
Consulted on design and copy-edit the newsletter
Organize both national and international newsletter distribution
September 2005 – present University of Massachusetts Annual Fund
Supervisor
Direct Management of Annual Fund Telephone Program in cooperation with
Assistant Directors
Assist over 100 student callers with scheduling, computer work, alumni
relations, motivation, and relations with administrators
Hiring and training on a group and individual basis, including evaluation of
skills and progress and presentations regarding essential materials
Creation and implementation of new policies
Clerical assistance including creation and editing of training materials,
organization of filling systems, and scheduling
January 2004 – September 2005 University of Massachusetts Annual Fund
Telefund Caller
Calling alumni of the university in order to acquaint them with current
projects and events at the university and solicit non-profit contributions
Assist in new caller training
June 2005 – January 2006 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute
Interviewer
Conduct national and state political public service research polls

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
University of Massachusetts Amherst Senior Campaign
Publication editor
Solicited donations and instructed calls in the manner of raising funds
Plan and organize Campaign events
Connecticut Valley Psychiatric Hospital
Library assistant
Teach clients computer skills
Clark Memorial Library
Library assistant
Independently created an organization system for the library’s periodicals
collection

The Most Fun Thing Ever!

Jello... for the shower!

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Haylee

I am trying not to think all the wrong things. I am trying not to imagine all of the moments and all of those times of coffee and car rides and things that I should be sharing with Sheldon not with Charles. I should not even be thinking his name. I should not even. At least I am trying. I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I have visions of the kisses that we must never have juxtaposed against the singular instant, back pressed against the door, and all this movement. I have been waiting all my life for a moment like this a moment of ending and beginning. I think that I should think why did I ever do this, but I am not compelled. I want to live out these images that float in my mind because of all these life is too short clichés. I have been stilted, moments waiting for Sheldon, keeping the potatoes warm on the stove - he is late again! And I can't be mad for he is the provider, and I am here cloistered off, not knowing how I got here because this nothing of a life moved really fast at one point and then I ended up here in this impossible slowness.

The things that I think about when I think about Charles are mostly comfort things. They are moments spent at coffee shops in the dim lights cozy and the cool London rain outside, cars racing by displacing water onto unsuspecting passer-by-ers who shout and hunker down into rain slickers and ponchos in yellow, brown, and black. Cozy in the dim light that lets us not really see each other but see into each other. God, he has the bluest bluest eyes that I have ever seen, the deepest blue that it's almost a teal, almost a cobalt, not the light blue of the clear May sky that most people have. I could fancy him for his eyes alone. He buys me tea, and I protest that I can pay for myself - he doesn't have the money, can't on a teacher's salary. But he is a gentleman. We are here to talk and be comforted. We are here to bounce our uncertainties off of each other in order to not feel alone in the vast expanse. This is not something I can express at home where I am supposed to have it all with the contended Sheldon. Charles wants and I want. We want deeply to make something of our lives, to live with abandon, with reason.

Charles gives measure and certainty to my fear of the future. He does not give me sympathy, knowing that is not what I want. It would not be a help. Help is telling me with a bit of force that I can do it - make my life what I want it to be. He sees my potential in the deep azure and reflects it back at me, creating in me a potential.

He looks at me over our tea, waiting again for another moment we can call ours. It infuriates me. In this situation - the supposed opposite I need - I have almost created a duplicate. I am momentarily frazzled and depart my internal fantasy. (Here, in reality, Sheldon is rolling over in his sleep.) In the dry warmth of the coffee shop where we are drinking tea, I am taking actions I never would. I am saying that the semester is almost over, that soon we will never see each other again, and that I can't bear the thought of it. I imagine slowly gracing my hand against his, covering it over with mine, looking up to the surprise that is his gaze. I wonder if we kiss will his glasses bump my nose. I wonder if it will feel.

I wonder why I need this, not even completely understanding this impulse in myself. When did my need for comfort transform? Why am I attracted to this older man? Clearly I understand the want for recognition, for validation, for attention even. (He flatters me really.) I understand the want for someone other than Sheldon, who I know loves me unconditionally, to say that I am worthy. Yet how did that need erupt into this unkempt sexuality, desiring kisses. No more than that, just kisses.

If, in the coffee shop, I were to lean in would he lean towards me? Would he recognize what I have recognized? And does it matter because how could I have the courage, the fallacious courage, to do it at all?

Friday, March 9, 2007

Aquasaurs

I have a new pet. A new prehistoric 350 million year old pet. Aquasaurs. Actually, they are Triops Sauncauditus. They look like baby trilobites. My brother, Greg, got they for me for my birthday. They are, as of yet, too small to photograph. They look like orangie-white strings with many, many tiny legs all moving very quickly. However, I am quite excited, as they may grow to be two inches. Wow! Relevant updates to follow.

Senior Campaign

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Annual Fund Senior Campaign is a tradition in which graduating seniors of the University give money to a class gift. Their involvement with philanthropy early on helps to create a tradition of giving to UMass. As a Senior Campaign committee member, I want to tell all of you about this exciting opportunity to give back to the University that had helped you so well these past four years. The Class of 2007 will be helping to renovate the Isle of View for their class gift. The Isle of View is located on the North side of the Fine Arts Center. It consists of a small island and a set of bridges which cross the pond. Original artist George Trakas will be returning to UMass to help with the renovation of the Isle. Donations to the Senior Campaign will be benefit this project, as well as serve to create an endowment for the preservation of the Isle of View. Seniors can look forward to a phone call from the Annual Fund as we begin our Spring Campaign.

To kick off the Senior Campaign, there will be a Trivia Night at the Graduate Lounge in the Campus Center on Friday, March 28 at 8.00. Teams may consists of 3 - 5 people. Admission is free. There will be food and complimentary gifts.

Please attend Trivia Night and make a donation to the Senior Campaign when a student caller contacts you this Spring. Gifts can be made by credit card or check in any amount. Also, the payment date of your gift may be pushed back for convenience, and any donation you make can be broken up into installments as small as $5. Consider what a great time you had at UMass, get involved, and give a gift.

Monday, March 5, 2007

Über-Short Star Trek: Voyager Summaries - Season Two (Part Three)

Alliances: Views see once again that everyone in the Delta Quadrant is bad! And, no surprise, the Kazon alliance doesn't work.

Threshold: Paris goes warp 10 then turns into a lizard and kidnaps Janeway. Their jungle fever results in illegitimate alien babies.

Meld: Tuvok feels murderous after a mind-meld with the homicidal Suder.

Dreadnought: B'Elanna must play war games with an old missile she programed during her stay with the Marquis.

Death Wish: Q wants to die. (No not that Q, another Q.) Janeway deliberates.

Lifesigns: The Doctor has a Vidiian girlfriend. All and all pretty cute.

Investigations: That traitor, Jonas is discovered by, of all people, Neelix. Tom goes undercover.

Deadlock: Two parallel universe Voyagers. Tragedy. Kim dies again. Samantha Wildman's baby is from a different universe now. The Vidiian are bad, bad. Janeway and Janeway save the day.

Innocence: Tuvok plays dad to some alien children who are really old people getting ready to die.

The Thaw: Proof that clowns really are scary and not funny. At least Harry doesn't die again.

Tuvix: Tuvok and Neelix become an unlikely duo turned uno in a transporter accident.

Resolutions: J/Cer's rejoice! Janeway and Chakotay set up house and even have a pet money, sort of. Flirting abounds - kind of trashy...

Basics, Part I: Seska / "Chakotay's" (not really) son is born, the Kazon use the baby to bring Voyager into their terratory and then take the ship, leaving our beloved crew stranded on a pseudo-primordial Earth,

Sunday, March 4, 2007

My boyfriend

My boyfriend.

Also, of interest. Wasabi.

The Strand Pre-Story

I am working The Strand backward. I have writing a section that is intended to precede the earlier section I published on my blog. This is all still a work in progress. Here is the rough draft of the new pre-story. It is based off of the point of view exercise I did with the story in mind. (N.B. Here, I use the third person omniscient.) There maybe errors in spelling, grammar, et cetera. After all, that is all part of what W.I.P. means.

The Strand

They were on the brink. She could feel it, as she walked down Strand under the dower English sky, Charles purposely closer than necessary at her side. They were talking, of all things, about Tomas More’s Utopia.

“A walk doesn’t equal love,” Haylee reminded herself. “I fall in love a dozen time a day but always with this man. This not-my-husband man.”

Charles was holding forth on the Utopian alphabet of the 1515 first edition, thinking, “I must impress her,” over and over again in his mind. Wishing to talk of nothing but a trip back up The Strand to his office at the College. In Charles’ mind, he was laying Haylee down in his mind, unbuttoning her beige cardigan, reciting John Donne. He had always wanted to make love reciting John Donne’s Unholy Sonnets, had waited his whole life for a woman with whom he felt he could do that. And into that fantasy Haylee stepped, mind ablaze with Mallory and Tennyson, more specifically to him, mind ablaze with romance.

Parallel, Haylee walked filled with thought. She felt a sudden urge to shake Charles, so seemingly involved with More, to say, “This is our moment. Don’t you see?” so as to confirm the pivotal nature of the current instant. Instead, Charles stopped, Haylee looked distracted and disinterested. He felt his middle go hollow in realization; she, a married woman, would never care for him.

“Haylee, are you all right? You seem to have gone a bit pale,” Charles said, attempting to gain equanimity.

“Quite. It’s just the chill of fall, I guess.”

They were lying to each other, living the romances of which they were so fond.

“I have to run,” Charles said seemingly suddenly, turning toward the curb, the recent realization of Haylee’s unavailability leading him to crave solitude.

The moment fractured, as Haylee followed, making herself act out of the feeling of necessity that this time with Charles had created in her. She took his hand lightly.

“Please,” she said, suddenly breathless, “I don’t want you to go.”

They did not go back to Charles’ office. Instead, he suggested, they ought to take in the Royal Gardens. He moved her words over and over again in his mind, “I don’t want you to go.” Her soft words, quiet, a breathing out of sound, not a promise, not anything he must remind himself. After all, he was not a young man, and she was a young woman barely into her mid-twenties, twenty-three at the most, married young. And he, he was a thirty year old associate professor, a bit of a belly starting to show through, he noted, running his hand down his beige trench which faded into the surrounding landscape. Around him Price Albert’s statue stood firm and life perished. The flowers hunkering down for the winter. It was not a season of renewal, not a season of beginning, certainly not with Haylee in the summer of her life. He saw her, her head lightly bent, mahogany strands stirring in the breeze, trying to escape the binds she had placed them in. She was always instilling order. It was her order that he remembered most keenly from their class.

Haylee had walked into their Early Victorian British Literature class as Marie Antoinette must have walked the halls of Versailles – as one afraid of being an imposter but with a quiet grace and naiveté, an innocence that was intoxicating, demanded of attention. She was a reader, Charles then thought, looking at her in her charming button-up sweater vest and button-down shirt. My God, she’s a reader.

Haylee wrapped her coated arms around her, taking in the Royal Gardens, looking everywhere but at Charles. They had spoken little since her breathless statement on the curb. She felt his eyes on her; he was regarding her, she realized, not knowing what to think. She burned. Here she was walking side by side with Charles, living this fantasy that had been percolating in her.

It was his kindness that had first made her care for him, although if asked Haylee would say she had come to fancy him for his intelligence, for his ability to talk for hours on end about the Brontë sisters, about the effects of the Anglo-Norman Conquest on British literature, about the public relations of Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare.

But it was more than that. She loved Charles, if love was the correct word she did not yet know, for his knowledge of life, for his ability to say to her, “You will be something. You will be fine.” She loved him because he had lived the life that stretched before her, so massive, causing her such anxiety, as she whittled away days, a housewife. All of that, her education, so labored over by her parents, who had taken her out the state school midway through first year in order to place her in an independent school. She had always been given the best education. All that to run off and become the wife of an accountant, the wife to the poor Sheldon Fields, who she loved for his devotion and willingness to love her back. Sheldon she loved, yes, here love was certainly the right word, for his ability to say, “I am here.”

Charles was another matter all together. Charles was not a certainty, although he was a comfort with his assurances of her success and reinforcement of the fact that she was a smart person, a gifted person. Day in and out, keeping the house for Sheldon, her only comfort her books, which she read and read and read – Haylee feared she’d go stale, have her brain atrophy as she carefully selected produce that was just the correct combination of ripeness and freshness at the market, as she swept a rag across the kitchen counter, always cleaning. One mustn’t be idle. Charles helped her see beyond herself when she could not.

Haylee had lingered after class this Thursday. She was always waiting. Waiting for Thursday, waiting for Sheldon to come home, waiting for market day, waiting for her life to begin. It was quite a surprise to come to find that marriage, keeping a house, all of it added up to nothing even approaching what she had always considered life – the one thing that she had been waiting for, preparing for, since childhood. Always the diligent student because she must be prepared, ready for a world that would demand of her more than Sheldon did. In all his kindness he never asked her for anything. He never demanded more of her than her presence and a cup of warm coffee to start a cold London day. There were not talks of Milton, would never be discussions of American minimalism, of the influence of Wordsworth. Sheldon would come home and ask only for her to be ready to love him. His simplicity, which she loved for its consistency and reliability, she also rebelled against. If Sheldon lacked the imagination to have an affair, he certainly lacked the imagination to presume that she was having one. But this, this walk in the park, thing nothing with Charles…Sheldon was right there was not a thing to be imagined anyway.

But Haylee had lingered after class this Thursday. This time knowing that it was Charles and uncertainty that she was waiting for. And, because she was shy, she had only asked Charles to walk with her and let him talk on and on about Utopia when really she wanted to take his face between her two hands.

The moment of urgency that they had both felt on the curb of Strand had fading somewhat now that they were in motion. Walks always calmed Charles, who deeply breathed in the changing air and tried to think of what to say next to the enigma beside him. Haylee looked small and cold as she tried to wrap her slightly oversized coat tighter around her. He must protect her, he saw; she was in need. He was the knight, she the damsel, their lives a version of Chrétien de Troyes’ The Knight in the Cart. He was duty bound by courtly love and knightly codes.

“You’re cold. Let me take you back to my office. I have tea.”

She consented for lack of a better thing to do, for fear of the mundane, for the hope that here, with Charles life, complicated, dirty life, could begin. Charles would know how to handle it.

He kissed her, back against the grainy wood of his office door. They both breathed heavily, tried to gain equanimity, spoke simultaneously, laughed nervously, and wished they had not done so. Both wished to kiss again, so Charles opened his office door with an unfortunate bang, taking Haylee’s hand and pulling her inside with the delicacy that kissing another man’s wife warranted. He thought of her in those terms – another man’s wife. Again they kissed. “Two,” Haylee counted inside herself, feeling the hair on his chin rub against her and remind her that this was not the careful Sheldon who would never, never be anything but cleanly shaven. She inhaled his smell strongly, musk and a nervous sweat that was not unappealing, everything new. She felt from the bottom of her to the very top alive. Yes, so alive! This intersection of her being and life intoxicated her, made her dizzy, still, complacent to Charles’ carefully sitting her down into the extra chair in his office.

The student chair, Charles thought. The act of sitting her down as such had separated her from him, made her the other. Or perhaps, he more carefully ruminated, made himself the other in her eyes. In the accompanying silence he tried not to fidget as he felt more and more bodily uncomfortable, the act of trying to be silent awakening in him the need for extensive movement and noise: scratching, coughing. It shook him when Haylee got up with a start, with a squeak of the old metal chair, wheels long since rusted out of use, and stated, “I don’t want to be late.” Her coat still on, her hand already on the door, a visitor never planning on more than a hurried visit. She departed leaving him breathless and shuttering, not sure what had happened, a tempest uncontrolled inside of his mid-regions.

As Charles collected himself with lukewarm water from the drinking fountain, Haylee walked at a base designed to be brisk enough to occupy all conscious thought and to return her home before Sheldon’s impending arrival.

She prepared herself to feel immense guilt but instead felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Friday, March 2, 2007

i don't know who heather armstrong is but i agree with the sentiment

People often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called Suffering From a Mental Illness.
- Heather Armstrong