the mouse

late in the evenings, i have a ritual.
this ritual usually involves food. i'm a foodie. i love really, truly getting to spend time with my food. enjoying it one-on-one, with the dim light of the kitchen bulb that hovers over the sink, the toasty remnants of heat escaping the oven and warming the little room, and the smell of something delicious in front of me. usually i accompany dinner with a good book and a cup of licorice root tea. aaahhhh, heaven.
until i hear the squeaks.
they started a while ago, faint and barely noticeable. and there wouldn't be a noise to accompany it, just a slight squeak, as if someone's old gate hinges were swaying stiffly in the evening breeze, as if the pegs in the wooden chair i'm sitting on rub against their drilled wooden sockets as i shift my weight left, right, forward, between bites of crusty toasted bread and bubbling melted cheese.
but they're just a bit too persistent. a bit too frequent.
it must be a mouse.
not being a mouse-killer, i decide that it's time to bust out the humane traps and see just what kind of little critter we can catch with them.

nothing. weeks and weeks of nothing. the squeaks in the kitchen continue, but the food in the traps is left untouched. and we're left to ponder this, wonder if we're wrong, wonder if some malfunctioning mechanical device has taken up a mind of it's own to start periodically squeaking in our kitchen in the late evenings.
months prior, i had discovered that something had been scuttling about in my room, ripping out chunks of stuffing from my favorite old floppy plush dog to make a nest with his innards. furious, i ripped my room apart, cleaned every cranny, but could never find the damned rodent responsible. the traps had been laid out then, and still did nothing. every night i listened for the fuzzy roommate to appear, and every night he evaded me. yet something was chewing into my stuffed animals. i was not pleased.
after the clean-up, however, they found nothing interesting in my room. i guess they took up new quarters in their toastier, more stomach-pleasing abode. and then the kitchen walls start to squeak.

the squeak begins to become bolder. night after night, a small scuffling, sniffling percussion starts to accompany the high-pitched melody, and the symphony of mouse noises starts to gain persistence.
one night, my father pulls me towards the back of the house as i arrive home from work.
"look, look what fell into our bathtub! i've been trying to figure out what the noise that wake me up last night was. chek it out!" he exclaims, pointing to the large hot-tub-style bath in the master bathroom.
in the tub, shivering, frantic and terrified, is the hugest goddamn mouse i have ever seen. it's a hair short of being a rat, with too pointy of a noise and too stumpy of a body to be mistaken for it's oversized and mostly hated cousin. it's a mouse, alright. but it's friggin' gigantic. this thing wouldn't be able to stuff itself into our mousetraps if it went on the atkins diet. it's beastly large.
now here is the moment i discover that mice can talk. well, not so much talk. they can't articulate words, and they can't really do much more that squeak at you in the most voluminous manner, but boy, can they get their point across. this mouse sees me hovering over the edge or our deep-sunk tub and becomes frantic, leaping two feet up the sides, scrabbling against the smooth plastic trying to claw its way out. and when it can't, it turns to face us directly, looks into our eyes and shrieks.
this shriek carries a specific message. never have i heard "stay the fuck away from me!" conveyed so clearly and with such clear purpose. animals growl, howl, yell, bark, hiss, and many other things that give an indicator of their feelings towards us. but nothing quite like this little mouse. it's as if this thing's had the words in its head but not on its tongue, and somehow gets it across anyway. there's a clear terror and yet, a defiant refusal to curl up into a ball and close its eyes regardless of this terror. it will fight. it will claw its way up any surface just to get away from us because it hates us, oh so much. its hatred is blaring and fierce and bundled up in a three inch ball of fuzz with teeth and claws.
my father throws a towel at it, scoops it up in his hand and quickly disperses it in the backyard before i can shout "wait!"
"what the hell did you do that for, dad? now it's just going to go right back into the house!"
"nah, no it won't - it's just gonna run away. it's scared."
i shake my head vehemently.
"mmmmnope. look where it bolted for. straight under the house. you should've taken it to the field down the street." i sigh as the little tail whips underneath the backyard deck. the squeaking will continue in the kitchen.
my father shrugs, kicks the dirt off his shoes and heads back into the house. "as long as it's not thumping around in my bathtub."

a week passes, and the ritual continues - i heat up a pot of soup, make myself a mean hot toddy and settle down to finish off boneshaker by cherie priest. the kitchen light is dim, and i'm completely immersed in my book.
and then i hear the strangest noise.
this is not a squeak. it could be closely related to a squeak, but it sounds like wet rubber on rubber, a sound that air sounds like when escaping from puffed up cheeks between the teeth. it and the scuttling, pitter-patter of little feet are dashing about the kitchen. and it's loud.
really loud.
i can't take it anymore.
the sound is so obvious that there's no way i can't trace it, from behind the oven to the little drawer where we keep the rice, to behind the fridge and then back again. i pull the drawer out from its resting place between the oven and fridge, and peek behind both. i see nothing.
but the sound is there. loud and insistent and right. freaking. next to me. and it has to stop. i must make it stop.
with both hands i crimp my finger down on the edge of the front two burners and pull. the oven scoots back a solid two feet. i see a brief flash of something dashing for the space behind the fridge, so i attempt to do the same with it.
the fridge doesn't budge. i unplug it, brace one foot again the wall, grab the inside corner and heave. the fridge begins to wiggle free at an angle, and finally i'm presented with the entire wall behind our kitchen appliances.
it. is. disgusting.
clumps and clusters of stuffing from god knows what, asbestos fluff and fiberglass insulation plus some downy cottony whatever from wherever, are piled in a corner, yellowed from mouse piss and old age. the entire back wall is littered with mouse poop, thick with the stuff and almost black. the area between the counter and fridge is nearly as bad, with years of little crumbs of food that have been dropped during cooking caked to the sides, and eventually falling to the floor to mingle with the rodent shit and old gummy god-only-knows-what. i nearly gag and retch. instead, i holler for my dad to wake up from his afternoon nap and get the hand broom.
with a kerchief tied around my nose and mouth, i'm busy sweeping up any trace of shit and fluff and food that's been left behind our oven and fridge, even getting out a chisel at one point to scrape the gunk away from the floor and walls. a small hole in the corner behind the fridge tells me our mouse has been able to run from our kitchen to the water heater closet to the living room heating grate. a fine mouse super-highway. i try to get everything, tossing each stinking dustpan-full into a large paper bag that i try to keep as far away from me as possible.
and then the noise starts again. the not-squeak. the wet-rubber chuff-chuff-chuff of a rodent's oversized cheek pouches. right next to me.
the mouse is sitting on gas pipe to the oven, watching me, staring at my back. probably eyeing my frizzy hair and pondering the nesting capabilities it contains. it is cheeky and curious, but with a glint of the same hesitant fear it shrieked at me from the bathtub. and it's just as fat and impossibly huge for a mouse as before, and the gas pipe shudders under its weight.
i immediately go for it with my hand broom, swatting at the gas line - which probably isn't a good idea - and missing, as the mouse darts away through the door and our of the house.
that's that, i think, and continue cleaning up the mess.

a re-ordered and neat kitchen plus a shower later, i'm back with my book and me re-heated meal. and i'll be plucked as a pheasant if the noise doesn't start again. right back there behind the oven.
for the love of god. i just want to eat in peace.
this time, i'm thinking to myself, this time there's no quarter. this time there will be no holds barred. this time it's war between me and the little fuzzy sack of hantavirus scootching its oversized tail around behind my fridge. back to the oven i go, pulling it from the wall. back to the drawer and the fridge. the noise increases its pace and volume and i move about all the kitchen appliances, but the mouse is not behind them.
no, but the noise has shifted. now it's coming from the left of the oven. from the kitchen counter.
ooooh, i gotcha now, you little bastard.
"what's all the commotion?" my dad calls from the computer room, although i'm pretty sure he has guessed by now.
"i'm gonna get this fucker! i'm gonna get him for good!" i holler back, answering but not really answering him.
with a towel in hand, i'm standing on the kitchen counter, trying to trap this little thing. from behind the spice rack, to the knife block, then cowering behind the toaster, it dashes back and forth as i swipe at it with a towel. i'm strategically placing mason jars and bottle of oil and spices in its way to try to keep it from escaping the maze of kitchen utensils and flavoring options we've built on the countertop. and finally, i put down an empty jar. sideways.
the funny little noise continues, and has now gained a hollow, reverberating quality to it. i tip the jar upright and look inside. and there, cowering in the corner, is a fat and frightened mouse.
my heart sinks as i realize the noise is increasing in pace. the mouse isn't just chuff-chuff-chuffing. this mouse, i realize, is whimpering. it very nearly sounds like it is crying. shivering and pressed again the wall of the jar, i have never seen a creature more pathetic. and it's crying because of me.
well shit.
i cover the top of the jar with a towel and take the mouse back to the same tub it had fallen in, releasing it inside. by now, this mouse must hate bathtubs. it must loathe them with every fiber of its being because as soon as i let it inside, i flies our of the jar and shrieks with the same heaven-shaking fury it had shrieked with before. back arched, facing me squarely and ears pressed against its head, it yells as only an angry mouse can yell, the defiant "fuck you! don't you freaking get close to me!" that it had yelled the other night, in the very same corner of the tub.
i stare at this mouse hard for a second. it's not fucking around. this mouse means serious business. and it makes me wonder why, with how much it runs from us, it keeps returning to our particular house.
i head to the kitchen, slice off a piece of nectarine and fill an old hummus container with water. when i head back to the tub, i huck a towel over the pissed off rodent as i put the food and container down. lord knows it'd probably leap at my face as i bend over to give it food and water.
back in the kitchen, i nibble the rest of the nectarine and ponder what to do.
this must be a mama mouse. the constant returning, the frequent panicking noises that we hear regardless of whether or not it's near us. this is one saddened, terrified mouse. and it keeps coming back. maybe there are little mouselets in the wall. and i can't have them die in there. our kitchen would reek of dead and rotting rodents. besides, this sad and smelly (did i mention how badly this thing stunk?) rodent would have its little heart broken if we took it away from its babies.
but the babies would make babies. which would make more babies. which would shit more behind our fridge. and they'll live and die in our walls anyway, and our house would stink regardless. no. babies or not, this goddamn mouse has got to go.
"daaaaad," i pad my way from the kitchen to the computer room, rubbing my toes, sticky from the countertop, on the carpet. i don't really realize i'm doing this until i reach his computer room, then absently do it again. i should really wash the counter after me and the mouse rubbing our feet all over it. "daaaaaad, i caught the mouse. i put it back in the tub."
my dad looks at me, exasperated.
"take it to lighthouse field then," he says, and turns back to the computer. i open my mouth to tell him i'd rather chew glass than to watch the furious fuzzball yell at me again, but then the front door opens.
nikita, my rather cynical and deep-voiced russian man-thing, walks into the room and i'm immediately relieved. nikita is a problem-solver. a go-getter. besides being incredibly handsome, he also doesn't let his good looks get in the way of his productivity. nikita gets shit done.
and right now, a lot of things need doing.
"what happened to your kitchen?" he raises an eyebrow and stares at me, sweaty and in my pajamas and a sports bra, standing between my dad's computer room and a wrecked kitchen.
"mouse happened. help me move things back." and he does, pushing everything into its proper place as i huff and puff alongside him, until the kitchen is back in order.
after we do this, the three of us crowd into the back bathroom to watch our charge as he alternates between shrieking and nibbling the slice of nectarine.
"here, i'll get him," my father finally decides. "you'll just get bit."
i'm about to tell him that a fat load of good he'll do when he's more liable to get bitten than i am, when he heaves himself onto the edge of the tub, towel in hands, reaching and chasing the desperately frenzied mouse around the bottom of the tub with him outstretched hand. nikita and i hover nervously, watching his toes come off of the ground as he does this, when finally he catches the squirming little bundle and holds the towel closed with both hands.
"take him to lighthouse field," nikita suggests. "you can get him a good distance form the house, and it's not like mice don't live there already."
"yeah, yeah, somebody open the door." my dad's already darting for the front door, holding the towel far away from him as if the actual cloth itself will come alive and bite him. nikita rushes forward to open it, and the front gate, and we both watch as my dad hobbles like a zombie with his arms outstretched in front of him for the field down the block from our house.
"you hungry? let's go out for dinner," nikita says, and i realize that my ritual meal has long since been put behind me, and i'm famished. i head upstairs to change, grateful to get out of my pajamas, and even more grateful to hear my dad come back from his jaunt down the street to the field. i brush my hair, slap on some extra deodorant, and am just putting my socks on as i hear someone curse downstairs.
"what?" i call down the stairs, and follow my words down them quickly with a sock in my hand.
nikita is in the corner with a flashlight, poking his head into the shoe rack. my father is heartily chuckling in the other corner of the living room. "what's so funny?"
"you won't believe who just came back," my dad replies, trying to stifle his laughter and failing.
nikita points at the shoe rack he just had his head in, and starts to laugh as well.
i'm in disbelief. there is no way. my dad just came home, i've been upstairs for all of half an hour. and that little fuzzy whiff of reeking odor has already scurried its way into our living room?!
"dinner. let's go," nikita is waiting with the front door open. i cast one last look at the shoe rack, and i feel overcome with a sense of annoyance and exasperation.
but at least, i think to myself as we walk out the door to nikita's car, i can have this one dinner in peace.

sink or swim

"you should really hold my hand first."
this is what i hear while i'm staring at the sucking whirlpool that is the ice run-off swirling in the punchbowl before me. i'm in my underwear, shivering in the hot summer sun, watching the water whorl about and hurtle from the little pool five feet below towards the forty foot drop into the rocks and tree branches at the other end of it. the boy who is holding out this hand, blond and grinning charmingly, seems to want to chuck me into the water as badly as i want to run away. he looks as if he'd have a good laugh as he watches me slowly sink into the icy run-off. i stare at his outstretched hand.
i know that hand. know it well enough to know that, in any other situation, i should be thrilled that he asked me to hold it. that the palms are calloused yet smooth, that they are warm and dry and absolutely medium-sized, with thick knuckles and wide fingertips, and more than all those details combined, that they are freakishly strong. those are the hands that wrestle their way up impossible granite boulders and haul landscaping equipment all day. they could grip next to nothing and still hang on, not as their owner's life depended on it, but casually. he does this for fun. in fact, we both do. but my hands are rough and tiny and clammy and not nearly as certain when i grab at granite chips.
i dream about those hands. on my face, on my hips, wrapped around me in a hug. but at this moment, they absolutely repulse me. they want to throw me in. and i swallow hard. this five foot jump seems impossible to me. impossible and deadly.

when i was just two years old, i realized i hated water. hated the feeling of being immersed in it, of the realization that it could steal my breath and suck my soul out from my lungs. i was wearing a little white dress and was cradled against my mother's chest. we were at the old mission, the day was one of those picturesque movie scenario types of sunny and the sky was as blue as a macintosh skype icon. that's mostly what i remember. the spotty walls of the mission and the blue, blue sky. they say that our brain associates memories with smells the best, and i say bullshit. the air that day could have smelled of zucchini bread, or eucalyptus, or skunk. i would have no idea. i just remember the blue. but as vivid as it was, it smelled of nothing.
the moment my mother handed me to a stranger, i was furious. taken away from her heartbeat, from the familiar satin smoothness of her dress and the muscles in her arms, i quailed. i cried and cried, and no amount of his smiles or reassurance could make me feel any better. all the adults were smiling, and i felt left out of some horribly cruel joke. how could they smile at a time like this? didn't they understand that i just wanted to be with my mother, and gone from this strange place? but no, the man tipped me back even further, and the blue fractals danced around the tears stuck to my lashes. and then my head was cold. cold, and wet, and miserable. and i hated him, hated them all, for letting it happen. for making it happen.

at five, i had had my first near-death experience by water. inching my way around the edge of the swimming pool, watching my sister and a friend of hers - nate? ben? one of those characters - receive swimming lessons, determined to keep my face and hair above the water. as all little kids believe, traversing the pool's edge was our way of feeling comfort in the deep zone, of knowing the water had no hold on us here. we could be where all the adults were, the ones with their powerfully kicking legs and bobbing heads, and still be safe. my tiny little fingers gripped the polished stone edge like a lifeline. and it was, albeit a slippery one.
a particularly shiny wet spot of cement greased my fingers off of the edge before i could even think to move over it. in immediate panic, i did the one thing that couldn't have helped me - i thrashed and kicked and had immediately pushed myself away from the edge of the pool, my one safety zone, the only way back to dry land. even at five, i could think of nothing except the poetic way in which the water made my body feel heavy and slow. i quit my thrashing and sucked water through clenched teeth, hoping that by some miracle, air was only inches away. like i could drink my way to the top. i choked, coughed, choked again, and watched everything slowly fade about the edges already made fuzzy by the water. i could barely make out the kicking feet that were above me when i closed my eyes.
how serendipitous that two teenagers were practicing their lifeguarding skills nearby. nate, or was it ben, had gripped me by my wrist and pulled me up and over the edge of the pool, where i sat and vomited for a stout amount of time before being able to breathe. i remember my parents' faces, sadness edged with guilt edged with relief, and a cookie being pressed into my hands. a chocolate chip cookie, in a little pre-packaged plastic wrapper with a green and blue sticker label on the front, from the hotel cafe.
it was the best cookie of my life.

years of being tumbled by waves and towed out by riptides only solidified my distaste, and by fourteen i had finally decided to stay out of the ocean. the decision was made at the beach, feeling the grit of the sand in my sneakers, i was standing at a small impromptu gathering of the family and friends of a drowned boy, watching the spot on the surf where he had last been seen before he was pulled under. his parents, tall and stately in their grief, wore a similar expression on their freckled faces as my parents had by the pool. only there was no relief, only this endless sadness. it was immense, the amount of emotion that can be contained in someone's irises and pupils, and it threatened to challenge the ocean with its depth. i was terrified of that sadness, almost as much as i was terrified of the ocean. is that what my parents would've looked like if, like countless times before, i hadn't escaped the waves and the currents pulling me out and away? if so, i couldn't chance it again. i couldn't see them standing tall on the beach, since neither of them are very tall to begin with. and my father has no stately grace, he wouldn't be able to hide his brokenness behind silent crying and grateful thank-yous to the people who came to mourn with them. my mind made up, i hugged the boy's parents and started walking away.

there will always be the same reaction when i tell somebody i can't swim. first, there's astonished disbelief, surprise, and then a little suspicion that i might be exaggerating or lying. when i insist, no, really, i sink like a hammer when i'm thrown in the water, the person gets a smug or resolute look on their face. don't worry, they all say. i can teach you how to swim.
i'd love to see them try. moreso, i'd love to see them try as much as i have. having quit the bad and deadly habit of ocean swimming, i'll occasionally consent to a dip in a lake or pool, under the strict notion that there is a proficient swimmer nearby to rescue me in case i need it. and by half an hour in, i usually do. my chest puffs up and i convince myself, THIS time! this time i can do it! and i start trekking out into deeper water until, sooner or later, i'm gasping and thrashing and begging for Proficient Swimmer to come out and tow me back to shallow water. which they do, but not without laughing at the absurdity of my flailing limbs first. it helps if Proficient Swimmer is tall. then i don't even have to be towed - i simply latch onto their neck like a sodden koala, and have them carry me back.
treading water has never worked for me. bicycle, eggbeaters, the up-down motions that everybody swears by simply wears out my limbs. soon, the water is being swirled about with my stumpy lead limbs, and i can feel my nose slowly sinking below the surface. i'm winded, tired, and frustrated. and more than anything, disillusioned.
swimming just isn't my thing.

so how can i honestly take this boy's hand?
not several hours earlier, i watched him leap from a large granite slab into the slot canyon pool of rushing water fifty feet below him. the rock pool was littered with large boulders. if he had missed his jumping point...i hated to think of him dropping sixty feet onto a barely submerged rock, the churning water shifting colors from bluish black to a bright and grisly red, while nearby children screamed.
but he hit the water like a jackknife, surfaced in seconds. i watched his long limbs stretch out across the pool in solid, sure strokes. in that moment, michael phelps couldn't have held a candle to this boy. reaching the end of the pool, he used those hands, those freaking strong hands, gripped at nothing and pulled himself up and onto the granite. that huge grin was back. i had just let go of the breath i had been holding up until then, when he turned and smiled. and it caught again. i must've looked purple.
and now, the five foot jump in front of me looks more impossible than the fifty foot leap he had so gracefully executed earlier.
"seriously, i think you should take my hand." he's shy. he doesn't tell people to hold his hand. what's he getting at? "really. c'mere. take my hand, we'll jump in together."
"can't you just go in first?" i know i sound shrill, maybe a bit panicked. i want him to be standing on the bottom, head poking out the top, to be the Proficient Swimmer that my little koala paws can grab for in the inevitable event of my flailing.
"naw, trust me, it's better this way."
my little clammy fingers slip into his warm dry ones, and slowly my grip tightens until i feel like his knuckles should be crushed to dust. if he's making me hold his hand, so help me god, i'm not allowing him to let go. my feet are shifting on the smooth granite slabs, trying to find something to feel solid on. all the immovable rock in the world below my feet is not dispelling the dizziness i feel right now.
"on three."
"on three?"
"on three. you ready?"
i do a silly in-through-the-nose, out-through-the-mouth gasp that i hope will steady my nerves. instead, it just punctuates the situation. my resolve deflates like a popped balloon. but it's too late, he's already counting.
"one...two-"
on two, i feel the tug of that hand, too strong for me to let go, too encouraging for me to dissuade, and i'm flying into a shock of cold water. my underwear practically slips down to my knees, my bra tries to escape up to my chin. my chest feels like a cold compress that's been squeezed, it's bursting from the cold. with one hand desperately pulling my clothes back on, the other shoves his hand away and i kick for dear life.
when my head pops up above the water, i hear him laughing. at then it hits me. i'm doggy-paddling like a madwoman for the shallow bank across the way. and i'm moving. against the current, i'm swimming. away from him, away from the rush of the moving ice and the gurgle of angry water. i sit shivering in the shallows, my lower lip set to pout.
"that wasn't three!" i cry, but he's laughing again. and watching the water, clinging to my underwear, i realize i'm laughing with him.

on the plane

The man in front of me has a head like a potato. It's actually quite impressive. A balding spud, wide and flat-topped with a dark fringe of hair below it. It's speckled with small brown dots and stray hairs that rest in and around the folds above where it meets with his neck. I want to start tapping it with the spine of my copy of 451, but I wouldn't dare. The drink I had before this flight, something between a soda and a sickly sweet syrup of liqour, sent me in a good and funny mood where I could ponder my current sadness from outside myself. It tempts me to do silly things, like tap on complete strangers. It also cost an arm and a leg.
The man to my left started his flight with a phone call, talking of mergers and more business lingo that I don't know, nor would I care to. I have to admit, there was a small pang of superiority upon hearing his conversation. Here I am, I'm living. I'm on a plane to a place I've never been with no plan and no reason other than to experience. I'm scared witless. Hence the drink. I'm not here for business and I never would be. My work meetings usually include beer and pull-up contests. I refuse to pay the five dollars for the in-flight Internet access. My life is purposeful.
But with consideration, this initial thought is easily quashed. I don't know this man. Now do I know the darker, tanned gentleman to my right with the jittery knees. Jitterjitterjitter, they tap out an insistant rhythm. The occasional SNOOORK of him snorting back whatever has lodged itself into the back of his sinus accompanies the rhythm of his knees with acute punctuation. JitterjitterjitterSNOOOORK. Again and again.
I wish i had been sitting next to the bright couple, in their Hawaiian shirts an jewelry and sunsets with their surly pierced teenage son. They wanted to talk, I could tell the moment I saw them at the bar, waving exuberantly to the bartender, whom the seem to know. They had wide smiles and wider wallets, and a general air of approachability. As I walked by their two individual seats, they both reached out to touch my arm. You have excellent taste in books, the woman said. Yeah, that's such a classic, her husband agreed with her. I smiled and thanked them in such a way that I hoped I mirrored their openness. I'm friendly, just like you! I wanted to say, but couldn't. their son said nothing, just stared.
I'm also in the middle seat, if you haven't already deduced by now. The middle seat will always be the worst. You're either hovering awkwardly over the shoulder of your neighbor, trying to peek past your jurisdiction into their personal bubble which happens to include the window, or you're crawling past and over your other neighbor in a frantic effort to get to the bathroom. Neither of these things work for me very well. Given a choice, I always choose the aisle. You're in the immediate attention zone of the air hostesses, which means you're served first and with the friendliest demeanor. And if you're a frequent urinator like me, the other benefits need no explanation.
But my choice was no choice. Knee-jitterer has me seat vibrating and businessman has his laptop open on some worklike page. I guess I'll just continue to stare at the shiny mesa of a potato in front of me, and ponder the width of that man's face from the front.

A First Attempt

There's a little part of me that hates reading books. Good books, particularly, because I can breeze through popcorn chapters like a drag queen through her appletinis, but good books can stop me in their tracks.

Sometimes it's this little niggling "I could write this," idea that's pervasive and aggravating. Go on, it says, put your life down on paper. Augusten Borroughs can do it. David Sedaris can do it. Make your life funny. This little idea, as I've discovered, is much like getting behind the wheel after a drink, only the drink is a long island and a few pages later you're looking at the smashed wreck that is your writing, adjectives smoking and descriptions twisted and warped like tortured metal. It happens every time. "I could write this!" And somebody should have stopped me and taken my keys, or at least my keyboard.

Other times, the writer is just too damn good at what they're doing. When I was young, I tried to read The Collector. It's a rather tormented novel by a rather tormented author named John Fowles, giving a firsthand look at the mental gymnastics that justify to a serial killer what he's doing. I was initially intrigued, as all teenagers are, by the morbidity. That this was another piece of my personal intrigue, I would be a young girl who has read this deep and terrifying book. Which teenagers love to do - they love to deepen their character, collecting hobbies and experiences and interests, read books and go places that adorn the walls of their psyche like a trendy accessory collection. I remember how I would gravitate to the other teens who had "been there" and "done that", who had an appreciation for taxidermy and Heidegger and smoked Pall Mall cigarettes, or on the other end of the spectrum, strong views on veganism and being eco-conscious and also happened to be bisexual. These made them deeper, more fascinating, and somehow, more like a real person. I tried to develop my mental display case as well. How would I define myself today? "This is Myjah, she's a martial artist who loves researching serial killers and word puzzles. She had a strong love for dogs, oldies, and soup." I think, in the time I would have been in high school, my brain was wearing black lipstick and pants with too many zippers on them.

This book, however, was written so well that Fowles had me. Had me, and my chest, in a death grip. He squeezed my lungs and my brain until I could feel the suffocation of being trapped, just like the antagonist of the story was, in his basement. I put the book down, conveniently lost it, and never saw it again.

Rather recently I had been lent a David Sedaris book by my friend Kevin. This was during the time an Earthquake had struck in the northwest region of Japan, and he had used it as a selling point for the book. "It's poignant. It ends with him being in Japan during a natural disaster. I mean, isn't that enough?" Kevin and I, both having family in Japan, bought into the meaningfulness of the story and dove into it, perhaps looking for Sedaris to hand us a key phrase or profound message of our situation. We use our lineage as a personal connection, maybe one of those things that deepens our character, especially in times when the two of us feel like we have nothing else to connect on. "Hey, you're half Japanese, and so'm I - remember watching Anpanman as a kid?"

What Kevin had neglected to mention, in his enthusiasm about the connection of the book to our Japanese-ness and the current times, was why Sedaris was in Japan in the first place.

He was quitting smoking.

As silly as this seems, it made me squirm. I quit smoking not more than two years ago, and still borderline wish I hadn't. There was a feeling associated to cigarettes, not of coolness or a nicotine buzz, but another deepening of character. How poetic it felt, to be alone listening to Nina Simone, head hanging over the edge of the bed, watching the smoke rise to the ceiling to mingle with the glow-in-the-dark star stickers there. Or to have a glass of scotch and an American Spirit, sitting on the deck of some friend's rich parents' house that overlooked the ravine, watching a sunset. When smoking, I felt like a girl Tom Waits would kiss, swoop into his arms, and disappear with into the upstairs bedroom, where hours later you would find us artfully disheveled, each of us with a cigarette dangling precariously between two fingers, staring at the ceiling with slightly glassy eyes. Yes, I miss smoking. I don't miss a single side-effect, but I'll be darned if I don't miss it, the actual action of it, and watching the end of the little death stick flare and crackle with each inhale.

And as Sedaris, in his fantastic authoreal way, described each drag on each fag, my lungs started to ache and I started to twitch. I couldn't keep reading the chapter. I put it down. I'm sure Kevin is wondering why I'm such a slow reader, what's taking me so long to finish this short and easily digested book, but after blazing through almost all of it, my stomach hit something that upset it enough that it's still sitting on the bedstand unfinished.

Maybe hating reading was a bad way to describe it. What I truly meant, maybe, is that it's difficult for me to read some books. Difficult, and sometimes dangerous, as I get overinspired. I have the worst tendency to have short, money-shot versions of inspiration. Seeing something, picking it up furiously for about a month or so, and then dropping it for something else, while the carcasses of my prior projects clutter my room in the most unattractive fashion. A Hobby Morgue, maybe.

So, in this small moment of inspiration, I'll have to see. Or else this blog will be another body, only tossed into the internet where I don't have to see it, unfinished and unlamented, cluttering the floor of my room.