Sneak Preview: My Untitled Work-In-Progress

I’m currently writing a novel for which I can’t think of a name that doesn’t sound dumb. Here’s the first chunk of it:

Jack eyed the needle, his stomach fluttering at the glint of the tip under the kitchen light. Bubbles disturbed the liquid’s surface tension as his friend expertly flicked the glass syringe. Shit, he thought. In order to administer a single shot his pediatrician had needed three nurses to pin his limbs to the table.

“Stephanie would kill me if she knew about this,” he said.

“Yeah, she’d flip her shit,” Alex replied. “Are you sure there’s no way she’s going to find out about it? No hidden cameras or anything?”

“My girlfriend is protective, not psychotic.”

“Just saying, man.” Alex looked up at Jack. “Come on, you have to make it tighter than that. I want to see those veins pop!” He chuckled to himself as he studied the opaque liquid through the glass of the syringe.

Jack gripped the belt around his arm and pulled until his hand felt like a down pillow. “When my hand falls off you are going to be the one to disinfect it and sew it back on.”

“Hey, this stuff is worth a little discomfort. The last time I tripped on Time I…” Alex faltered and shot his friend a side-long glance. “Hey, are you all right? You should sit down. You look all pasty and slimy.”

Jack cracked a grin with too many teeth. “I’m preparing my bloodstream to become one with a pasty and slimy liquid; I’m bound to look strange. Listen,” he said when Alex’s brow remained furrowed, “don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Trust me, I could use a little excitement in my life.”

His roommate favored him with a half smile. He’s not buying it, Jack though. Hell, I’m not buying it.

Alex shook his head, visibly pushing aside his misgivings. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ve done it dozens of times, and it is great. It’s like you have your own little world at your disposal and you can influence everyone around you.”

“Sounds like playing dolls to me,” Jack said. Alex opened his mouth in protest. “All right, all right, action figures.”

“Yeah!”

“But can we get on with it? My fingers are warm and tingly.” Jack proffered his arm, his swollen veins casting shadows on his skin.

“All right, my friend.” Alex grinned, holding the needle to his friend’s skin. “Get ready for the best trip of your life.” Jack clenched his fist and Alex pushed the tip into the crook of his roommate’s elbow, watching as the swirling, opalescent drug drained into Jack’s vein.

The effects were startlingly immediate. Black splotches swam in front of Jack’s eyes, worsening his sudden dizziness. He had fainted two years ago on a public bus; the embarrassing scene forced itself to the forefront of his mind. He tried to focus his waning vision on the centimeters of Time that remained in the syringe.

Jack’s thoughts were behaving like an irascible toddler; no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t control them. This stuff looks like shampoo, he thought. I’m cleaning out my veins: too much blood, not enough sud.

“Whoa there,” Alex steadied him, gripping him by the shoulders. “Time to lie down. It takes effect pretty quickly and I don’t want to clean your brains off the floor.” Alex steered him towards the living room couch.

“Thanks, Alex,” Jack managed, sounding drunk, before he felt the connection between his brain and his mouth fizzle out. He was grateful to be reclining someplace soft; he felt his motor skills go next, neural synapses halting mid-fire.

Is this what it feels like to die? Jack felt a hit of panic, like a glowing ember lodged in his throat. He struggled to contain himself; it was too late to do anything now. As more and more connections snapped the feeling was replaced with a wash of contentment. The edges of his vision softened, lending everything a soft glow. This isn’t so bad. I wonder if I’ll experience the “white light” phenomenon.

Jack didn’t bother straining to retain the last of his fading vision. He closed his eyes and watched the atomic star bursts, colored like oil slicks. Eventually those faded and were replaced by roiling clouds of magenta and purple. He felt himself spiraling down, filtering out of consciousness.

I’ve written 26 single-spaced pages so far. Let me know what you think!

The Suicide Note

“Why is it,” she said, “that whenever I ask you a perfectly legitimate question you give me a stupid answer?” She stirred her iced tea with a straw, the ice cubes clinking violently.

“I’m not trying to,” he said. “It’s just… it’s unpleasant.”

“Pah! I know it’s unpleasant! That’s why I’m trying to get it over with!”

He passed a hand over his eyes. “Fine, fine, let’s just start over.”

“Okay.” She took a sip and breathed deeply. “The last time you talked to her, did Mom say anything out of the ordinary?”

He groaned and placed his head in his hands. “God, I don’t know.”

“Damn it, Peter, you were the one living with her. You were the one who spoke to her last, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then tell me what she said to you.”

“I don’t remember!”

“Oh come on, yes you do. You just don’t want to talk about it. Stop being such a wimp and help me figure this out.” She crossed her arms and glared at him across the restaurant table.

He drew a shaky breath and met her gaze. “You’re cold, Katherine, you know that?”

“I am not. You were just closer to her. Now will you please tell me what she said?”

“Yeah. Sure.” He leaned back in his chair and seemed to deflate. “She told me that the fridge was broken and that she’d put all the food into coolers until the repair man came.”

Katherine stared. “That’s it? That’s all she said?”

“That’s all.”

“That doesn’t sound much like a suicide note to me.”

“It makes sense. Mom was always practical.”

“Yeah, but don’t people who commit suicide leave long letters explaining why they did it? All she did was tell you that the fridge was broken.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. The police said it was a suicide.”

“But what if the police are wrong? What if she was killed?”

“Don’t be stupid. Mom was a sweet, old lady. Who would want her dead?”

“I don’t know, a thief or something.”

“Nothing was stolen.”

“Well, maybe an old enemy? Maybe it was the woman she stole Dad from.”

“Who, Diane? I thought she forgave Mom. They used to joke around about how Mom saved her from a terrible fate.”

“Yeah, but listen.” Katherine leaned in. “I overheard a phone conversation between the two of them that ended in a pretty vicious cat fight. I’d never heard Mom swear before but damn, she used every word in the book.”

“What was it about?”

“I only heard one side of the conversation so I can’t be sure, but I think it was over Dad’s watch.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah. Diane said that, since she gave it to him back when they were married, she should have it, and Mom basically told her to screw herself. Dad wore that thing every day; it was like a part of him.”

“I remember.”

“And this was recently after Dad had died, so things were still pretty raw. I mean, you saw how Mom hoarded all his stuff for half a year. We didn’t get so much as a necktie until we had that little family meeting.”

“So she and Diane fought before that? I can see how Diane would be pissed. Mom was pretty nuts back then.”

“Yeah, do you remember when she told you that you couldn’t use the toaster oven because Dad used it every morning and he was the last one to touch it?”

“She told me I would have to make toast over a burner.”

“That’s the sort of crazy that went into this argument.”

“Jesus. But do you really think Diane would want Mom dead over that?”

“Well, they never spoke again. It’s not like they ever apologized to each other.”

“Still, that sound a little far-fetched to me.”

“Did I also mention,” Katherine said with a triumphant smile, “that Diane was recently placed in a psych ward for violent behavior?”

“Are you serious? How did you hear about that?”

“I ran into one of Mom’s old friends at the supermarket. I guess she went after the neighbor’s dog with a steak knife.”

“Jesus. But how would she have gotten out? I thought psych wards had tight security.”

“Her family visits her and takes her on little outings, with supervision of course. She could have slipped away.”

Peter laughed. “A decrepit old lady giving a psych ward attendant the slip? Come on.”

“Then what do you think of this: I read in the newspaper that an attendant was recently fired because he was negligent in his watch of a patient. It said that they found her wandering by herself. It must have been Diane. They didn’t use her name, but it has to be.”

“Oh my god. Diane killed Mom.”

“We need to go back to the house and see if Dad’s watch is still there. If it’s gone, we might have enough evidence to prosecute.”

He shook his head. “We’ll need more than–” His cell phone cut him off. “Hold on, it’s David.” He flipped open his phone. “Hey brother, what’s up?… I’m at a restaurant with Katherine, why?… oh my god… Jesus… yeah, we’ll be right over.”

“What? What’s going on?”

“They found Mom’s suicide note. It was in the fridge.”

Penny Pincher

I’m a coin collector. Not in the sense that I have all of the state quarters neatly placed and cataloged in a protective case, but in the sense that a penny found on the sidewalk will put a smile on my face and a quarter will send me into paroxysms of glee.

I periodically fill up a Soy Vay jar and cash in its contents when I can’t cram in another dime, even with vigorous shaking to make the coins settle. The first time I took my jar to a coin counter I had raided most of the quarters for the soda machine but it still came out to $40 that I had previously considered gone but not forgotten.

Craig contributes to my Soy Vay jar under the condition that he and I share whatever we buy with our free money. A night of sushi and wine, a cool gadget, a paperback series… whatever strikes our fancy because this is play money! Once in a while I’ll donate the jar to Craig if he’s buying something big but necessary, like a new computer after I bounced his old one off the bed. We help each other out.

When I was little I would sneak around the house, scavenging all the loose change. A nickel here, a few pennies there… just enough that my parents wouldn’t notice. Every once in a while, when I was feeling bold, I would skim a few quarters off the top of a 5 gallon jug of change my dad kept in the corner of his office. I had to work up my courage between raids because I was sure that he counted it, sifting the coins through his fingers like a dragon gloating over his hoard. I was a very sporadic thief.

Kayla, on the other hand, was a kleptomaniac. I condemned her for it, especially when I was with her at the time. I didn’t want to be labeled as her accomplice but time and again she conned me into standing in front of a camera while she unwrapped her prize and I scolded her in a whisper.

When we were sixteen I drove us to the nearby (which, since we lived in the boonies, was actually 20 minutes away) pharmacy for a cosmetics run. Neither of us had a job but I was good at saving and could afford to pamper my insecurities. Kayla spent all of her extra cash on pot and Adderall. She didn’t care much about her looks anyway, but eyeliner was a special vice.

“Stand in front of me while I open this,” she said in a low voice. “Act like we’re talking about something.”

“About what, the merits of one type of eyeliner over another? Jesus, Kayla, why do you have to steal everything?” I crossed my arms over my chest and tried not to fidget.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Because I’m poor, that’s why.”

“You wouldn’t be if you didn’t smoke pot all the –”

“I’m done.” She cut me off as she stowed the denuded eyeliner pencil in her purse.

I shook my head. She had been so clumsy, so obvious, I couldn’t believe she was getting away with it. The jerky hand movements, the shifty eyes, the sudden pause on one, seemingly innocuous spot… I expected a cashier to run after us or an alarm to sound as we moved toward the door, too quickly to be casual.

Once we were safely on the road, Kayla laughed at my nervousness. “See?” she said. “Totally easy. Nobody pays attention to anything.”

I pursed my lips, eyes fixed ahead. “I still wish you wouldn’t steal while I’m stuck as your getaway driver.”

She made a noise of disgust. “It was overpriced anyway.”

Later that year I was on a shopping trip with my mother looking for school clothes. She had wandered off, trusting that I could navigate the junior’s section without getting lost. After meandering aimlessly for a few minutes I spotted a fake pearl and silvery alloy necklace that looked pretty but was worth about twenty cents. I glanced at the price tag and my eyes widened like a cartoon character’s.

Twelve dollars. I was shocked by capitalism’s lack of class. I toyed with it for a few minutes knowing I couldn’t possibly justify paying twelves dollars for a string of plastic and tin.

The idea of stealing it whispered like an echo in the back of my head. I was appalled at myself at first, but the longer I looked at that price tag the more viable of an option it became. An owner-less quote flitted through my stream of consciousness: “Everything tastes sweeter when it’s free.”

I plucked the necklace from its stand, gathered a handful of jeans, and headed to the fitting room. Once I was safely behind a door I fidgeted with the tag, rustling to hide the tell-tale snap of plastic. Once I slipped the tag into an abandoned pair of pants, I silently lowered the necklace to the bottom of my purse.

None of the jeans fit, of course, but I was forced to wait in line while my mom bought me a couple shirts. The cashier smiled at me and my heart beat wildly. She knows!

She checked us out without interfering but I figured she had pressed the button under the counter that would call a burly security guard who would tackle me as soon as look at me. Or she knew that the alarm would catch me, bringing the same guard. As my mom and I reached the doors my anxiety climbed until we stepped over the threshold and absolutely nothing happened.

I was amazed. Stealing was easy! I regarded my necklace as a prize I had won rather than a piece of merchandise mass produced by Chinese babies. But then my mind ran away on one of its tangents and I started thinking about what my mom would think of me had I been caught. By the time we pulled into the driveway the euphoria had dissipated and I was left feeling ashamed and guilty. I wore the necklace twice before it earned a permanent spot in the back of a drawer.

By the time I turned eighteen the guilt had worn off, replaced by a deep disdain for capitalism, and I was ready to try my hand at stealing again. My first foray had left me with a valuable lesson: fitting rooms are a thief’s best friend.

Security tags had come out in full force. So when I stumbled across a shirt that should have had one but didn’t, I thanked the Forgetfulness God who had struck the employee in charge of tagging. I picked a few more shirts and retreated to the fitting rooms.

I was surprised by my lack of nerves. It was like I was an old hand at this sort of thing instead of an awkward teen brought up under a strict moral code. I simply shoved the shirt in my bag and continued shopping.

Shoplifting was a once-in-a-blue-moon activity before I got a job. Once I became an jewelry cashier at a retail chain and inherited their dress code, I turned to my old friend Sticky Fingers to furnish me with my work clothes. I bought most of them legitimately but anything without a security code went into the bag. The same pattern emerged when I started working at a jeweler. Gotta look nice? Have we got the low, low price.

I considered people who stole out in the open to be stupid. I took the safe route; no cameras, no salespeople, no suspicious shoppers. But then a thought wormed its way into my head, silly little thing, until I couldn’t get it out. I wanted to try real shoplifting, just once. I’m a writer, I told myself. I need all the experiences I can get.

I pulled up to the pharmacy, my pulse beating in my wrist. I could see the thin blue vein pumping. I told myself that I didn’t have to do it, but I knew that if I chickened out I would never respect myself. Obviously, I have strange standards.

I figured that the beast way to allay suspicion was to attract attention. I knew that if I tried to act invisible, stealth being something that I am inherently bad at, I would get caught. So I dolled myself up, threw on a pretty, innocence-invoking dress, and waltzed in with a smile on my face.

As I compared the price of eyeliner pencils, my intended steal, I thought of how obvious Kayla had been doing exactly this and I vowed to be better. Old me would be disappointed, I thought with a smile.

I meandered over to the razors and fiddled with the mechanics of the plastic case. I use men’s razors since they’re the only ones that don’t leave my legs resembling a butcher’s rejects; apparently, they’re often stolen because this case was ridiculous. The instructions on the side said to push the red button and wait for the merchandise to fall into the slot. When I poked hesitantly at the button, the case made a horrible mechanical grinding noise meant to alert the cashiers that someone was going for a razor, but nothing dropped into the slot. I pushed the button two or three times before an employee, no doubt tired of hearing that awful noise, rescued me and pushed the button in herself. And of course, the razor popped right out.

As I thanked her and turned to walk away, she complimented me on my dress. I thrilled inwardly at the imminent success of my operation; I had made such a fool of myself that the employees would think me incapable of stealing anything and I had spoken directly to a cashier, giving them a bead on my face.

So it didn’t matter, then, when I rounded the corner and clumsily placed the eyeliner in my purse. Just as awkwardly as Kayla had. It seems that it is impossible to steal casually.

I bought my razors and birth control, utilizing the philosophy that buying something averts suspicion. I mean, what thief in his right mind would dally in a store he had just robbed?

Once I was back in my car I congratulated myself on completing my first drug store heist. I was glad that I had gone through with it, considering it a rite of passage of sorts, but Kayla kept nagging in the back of my brain. Banishing her to less accusatory parts of my body, I drew out the eyeliner and glanced at the nine dollar price tag, thinking that I could afford to buy it had I truly needed it. Then I thought of that old opportunist, Capitalism, and I knew that I couldn’t afford the stupidity of paying nine dollars for a chunk of crayon. After all, it was over-priced.

For Your Entertainment: Stupid Poetry

I recently unearthed some poetry I wrote last year. Some of it’s lovely and pretty sounding but most of it is silly and completely un-serious, particularly the pieces that were written under the influence of something-or-other. Here are the silly one; have at it.

Uses for a Dead Leaf

Little leafy, brown and crinkly

Crunching underfoot

When I throw you in my fires

You spew out smoke and soot

Your cousins look and laugh at you

Alive up in their trees

You wallow on the forest floor

Your only visitors the fleas

But when a little animal

Want to make a nice, warm bed

You make a perfect pillow

On which it can rest its head.

Queen Lima

Once in a tiny kingdom green

There lived a jumping Lima bean

And she declared herself the queen

Of that little kingdom by the sea.

She bounced around and gave a shout

When no one there would hear her out

But she knew just what she was about

And asked them if they wanted tea.

The people, kindly citizens all

Found they couldn’t just resist the call

At Lima’s house they had a ball

And she rubbed her hands with glee.

She knew she has them in her palm

She called a meeting, keeping calm

As she dropped her biggest bomb

And announced her sovereignty.

Great Queen Lima reigned for years

And kept her subjects filled with beer

To everyone she’d lend an ear

And she made the state tax free.

Ode to Craig

Shall I compare thee to a friendly bear?

Carnivorous diet is the power

Behind empty growls and thy downy hair;

You make mere humans scurry and cower.

You could rip tall buildings from foundations

Feats of strength could be your one vocation

Though snores ring loud during hibernation

Your chuckles convey your true elation

True reality brings your rosy cheeks

Your cherubic face and your twink’ling eyes

And your charming smile from which pure joy leaks

Draw forth and inspire many girlish sighs

So heed not the growls of this friendly bear

Despite how cluttered and rumpled his lair.

For Eyes

My parents used to think I was a little bit slow, or that there was something off. I just couldn’t find the Easter eggs.

We have a home video of an Easter egg hunt filmed when I was two. I was all smiles and wispy hair, totally oblivious of the sense of propriety that comes with lacy dresses and fancy shoes. I whirled right past those eggs like there was nothing there. No matter how many clues my relatives gave me I just waltzed right by. Inevitably my lanky Uncle Karl would bound into the shaky camera frame and conjure an egg out of a grass patch next to me. I would gasp with astonishment and clap my hands with glee. And the rest of my family would think, “But you were standing right next to it!”

It turns out I just needed glasses. Even at that age my eyes were so bad that people were different shaped blurs and details were a thing unknown to me.

My first pair were round with purple frames. I hated wearing them and would “forget” them all over the house, leaving them on tables and on the kitchen counter. Sometimes I would go back for them but most of the time my mother would hold them out, hand on hip, and watch me put them back on. It was a war, and I was losing.

Eventually I became used to them (I surrendered) and it began to feel strange when they weren’t on my face. I was forever getting new lenses and new frames, mostly because my eyes were rapidly deteriorating but partially because I kept getting hit in the face with basketballs.

In sixth grade I became convinced that I would look much better (and therefore feel much better) if I had contacts instead of glasses. My friend Hillary had them and she seemed happy. My mother, unfortunately, was adamantly opposed to this idea and told me that I was too young. You can imagine my indignation when my little sister was allowed contacts when she was in sixth grade. The unfairness was assuaged just a little bit by the fact that I received my first pair of contacts the next year.

Contacts and I had a blissful relationship until the middle of 11th grade. My eyes felt a bit uncomfortable one day, and I noticed that they looked red. After a few days of this, I went to my mom. She took one look at me and said, “Yup, that’s pink eye all right.”

And so the contacts were banished. I was forced to wear my glasses, which brought a whole host of problems that I never remembered having when I wore them all the time. My glasses prescription wasn’t quite up to par, so the classroom boards were fuzzy. I had to figure out how to apply makeup without looking like I was half raccoon. I ended up hiding behind my hair and hoping that no one noticed my red, watery eyes.

It cleared up, of course, but it created a precedent. Every couple of months I have a pink eye breakout. At least now, after two or three years of practice, I know how to handle it.

Throw out contacts, throw out contact case, get new eye solution, glasses, glasses, glasses, pink eye drops, eye redness drops, saline solution drops, don’t you dare put in new contacts until you’re completely sure it’s gone, you know how expensive they are. If I stick to my regiment and if Lady Luck is feeling generous, the pink eye will be gone in a week.

I had a recent bout that resulted in the loss of a contact case and two pairs of contacts (I didn’t wait long enough). It was as terrible as all the other ones. My eyes felt and looked like someone had rubbed them with a piece of steel wool, and I was forced to wear my glasses. How I hate wearing my glasses. They make my face feel uncomfortable and I develop tunnel vision because all I can see out of the edges of my eyes are blurry colors. My boyfriend (teasingly) calls me Four-Eyes and I dislike the way I look with them despite the compliments I get on the electric blue frames.

I was so relieved when I could wear my contacts again. Fed up with looking like a zombie from 28 Days Later every four months, I picked up some hydrogen peroxide contact solution to make absolutely sure that I wouldn’t get pink eye for as long as the bottle didn’t run out.

“Why didn’t you just pick up some regular hydrogen peroxide?” my boyfriend asked. “I’m sure it would be cheaper.”

I pointed to the bottle. “But look, it says ‘For Eyes.’ What if the other hydrogen peroxide is too strong and I burn my eyeballs?”

He shot me a look. “Jackie, it’s just water with one oxygen molecule removed. You’d be fine.”

“Well, this one says ‘For Eyes,’” I insisted. He shrugged his shoulders and let me be.

He’s probably right, of course, but I don’t relish the possibility of burning my retinas out of my head. I’ll stick to my over-priced hydrogen peroxide, thank you, and pray to the gods I don’t have a pink eye relapse. After all, I don’t want to be a Four-Eyes.

The Hills of Los Angeles

My bare feet slapped against the cement patio as I walked the short distance between the screen door and my lawn chair. Craig was already splayed out, face hidden behind a thick book and hand clutching a glass of iced tea. I picked up my own octagonal glass and sipped the unsweetened liquid; the glass straw clinked against the honeycomb-like ice cubes.

The boughs of a loquat tree, the golden, globular fruits hanging heavy on their stems, shaded us from the hot Los Angeles sun. A dove twittered in the branches above, answered by the grating screech of a spotted towhee and the ethereal call of a hummingbird.

I wiped the condensation from my hands and scanned the leaves. A squirrel poked his nose around the tree trunk and chattered at me. I rushed to grab the lipstick red can from the shed, scooping a handful of unshelled peanuts and holding one aloft on the tips of my toes. The squirrel edged down the trunk, his claws skittering on the bark, and stretched out his neck to intercept the nut. I remained as still as I could as the squirrel gently placed his paws on the tips of my fingers.

We locked eyes; his black gaze was calm and trusting. I took in the red softness of his fur, his bristled tail, his boney knuckles. His nose twitched and I relinquished the peanut. He bounded to a higher branch to dissect his treat, turning it over and over in his padded paws.

I fed the squirrel peanut after peanut until he grew full and began burying them in the yard. A blue jay, larger and scrubbier than his Eastern cousins, had learned that the presence of the squirrel meant peanuts; I fed him, too, leaving the nuts in the middle of the dried-up bird bath and in the crevices of the loquat tree. When he thought I wasn’t looking he swooped from his perch and plucked a peanut from its resting place. He winged off, excited by his steal, to protect his treasure from the less bold birds.

I jumped and plucked a loquat from the tree, and peeled its thick, furry skin back to expose the cantaloupe-like flesh. I nibbled around the pit and licked the sticky juice from my fingers. When I had eaten all of the fruit I could reach I returned to my lawn chair. I picked up my book and lost myself in an imaginary world, clinking the ice cubes in my glass with my straw.

I Am Not Leandro Lemos

I used to be petrified of using the phone. I was crippled by the “what ifs.” What if they weren’t there? What if I had to leave a message? Even worse, what if I had to talk to somebody else? I had the social skills of a jittery chihuahua; I would whimper and shiver with nervousness until, when I finally had something to say, I would bark in an embarrassingly shrill voice. Using the phone brought out the awkward in me.

This paranoia runs in the family. My mother had the same phobia when she was younger and my little sister avoids using the phone to the point of ridiculousness. My father doesn’t understand it and shakes his head, but we can’t help it.

Whenever I did work up the courage to use the phone I double- and triple-checked the number. I would sit on the couch with the phone book on my lap and place my finger under the number just to be absolutely, positively correct. I’m still overly scrupulous about the numbers I’m dialing years after I’ve gotten over my fear of talking into a curved piece of plastic but my motives are different. Now it’s because of my hatred of wrong-number phone calls.

A woman with a Texas drawl (I could picture the clown make-up and hair piled on top of her head) once called asking for someone named John. I politely informed her that she had dialed the wrong number and that I knew no such person. She apologized and, like the woman who called to bitch at her friend for ditching her, I thought that it would be the last I heard of her.

A couple of weeks later I received a voice mail from the same Texan woman. She sounded like a mother whose son has been trying her patience for the past three hours: “Hello, John, this is Cindy from So-And-So Car Company. Your payment is past due, as I’m sure you are aware. Why don’t we make this nice and easy and you send in your car payments, all right?”

I didn’t call her back, partly because John’s car payments were no concern of mine, and partly because I thought it was funny. Consequently I received three more voice mails, all of them escalating in tone.

I decided it was time to put an end to it when I received this one: “All right, John, we’ve all had enough. I’ve tried to be nice to you, but you’re causing a lot of problems for a lot of people, and if you don’t start making your car payments I may be forced to take legal action. So, either return my calls or the police will be showing up on your doorstep.”

After I’d had a good giggle I showed the voice mail to my boyfriend, Craig, and he took it upon himself to call the woman back. He calmly informed her that he had received a very threatening voice mail about car payments, and then told her to knock it off. Apparently she denied the whole thing, saying it must have been someone else (“Well, I recognize your voice, so it couldn’t have been.”) and that she would never threaten anyone (“You just did, ma’am.”). Eventually Craig ended the passive-aggressive battle by saying that he would appreciate it if she didn’t call again and hanging up.

It might have been masked by false courtesy, but score one for rudeness.

My cell phone number is, apparently, very similar to an Indian number. At least once a month I receive a wrong-number phone call, and most of the time it’s from somebody with an accent. For the most part it’s not a problem and they apologize profusely when they realize their mistake, but for a few months I was plagued by an Indian company looking for one Leandro Lemos.

At first I was nice and patient. “Oh, no, I’m afraid you have the wrong number… No, there is no one here by that name… Look, I promise you I am not Leandro Lemos.” It took me a few minutes to convince them of their mistake, but eventually they would get the point or my boyfriend would grab the phone and hang it up for me.

After a few months of this, my patience was wearing thin. My replies became more clipped and audibly agitated. Eventually I’d had enough, and the next time they called I ground me teeth into the phone, “You have the wrong number. This is not Leandro Lemos. Never call this number again,” and angrily snapped my phone shut.

And that was that. The rudeness was worth the relief.

I recently received a wrong-number call that made up for both of the previous frustrations. I picked up the phone on Thanksgiving morning and was greeted by the sound of a happy father and kids laughing in the background.

Caller: Happy Thanksgiving!

Me: (Thinking it’s one of my relatives, who never say who they are and leave me in a perpetual game of Guess Who?) Hi! Happy Thanksgiving!

Caller: Is this Jenna or her mother?

Me: Who?

Caller: Jenna! (Pause) Who am I speaking to?

Me: (Laughs) I think you have the wrong number, sir.

Caller: Oh! Well, Happy Thanksgiving anyways!

Me: You too, sir!

I hung up the phone and chuckled to myself, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I love making connections with happy strangers and the rest of my morning was permeated with a contented glow.

It’s a crap shoot. Sometimes wrong-number phone callers dash my faith in humanity and sometimes they restore it. Either way, they better not hit the “redial” button.

Junk Food for Brains

My body has a high tolerance for addicting substances. Going without coffee for a day is worthy more of a shrug than a panic attack. It’s my mind that’s the crack addict.

Most of my mental infatuations involve the internet. For a while it was the internet as a whole that I couldn’t tear myself away from; it was a dark period in my brain’s history, riddled with denial and crying relatives. My addiction was fueled by a heinous algorithm called StumbleUpon. You plug in your interests and the program conjures up pages that coincide. This is great when your interests include “Sociology” and “Astronomy” but as soon as you add “Humor” you’re doomed.

The number of “Humor” pages is impossible for the human mind to comprehend. It’s like trying to picture the Universe. But where’s the end? you ask yourself. There is no end. If you, like me, tell yourself that you’ll go to bed when you reach a convenient stopping point, the online equivalent of the end of a chapter, you are going to wake up not to the sun but to the bluish-white glow of your computer screen broadcasting a stoner joke that you had time to “Like” before you passed out.

Once I shook myself out of the Denial Stage, I deleted my StumbleUpon toolbar. I am incredibly lazy and if it wasn’t right at my fingertips I wouldn’t bother. I was reluctant to let go of my old friend who had provided me with so much entertainment but once I acclimated to his absence I rejoiced and occupied my time with more constructive things, like the BBC science news.

Of course, I relapsed. Don’t all addicts, at one time or another? “I’m stronger now,” I told myself. “It won’t be like the last time.” And I launched myself into a month-long “Humor” binge that resulted in the severe atrophy of both my frontal lobes.

When I realized that I could no longer form a complete sentence without giggling to myself I deleted the toolbar. “Never, ever again,” I told myself and started my mental rehabilitation with a book full of Sudoku puzzles.

Were I truly serious about quitting I would have deleted the whole account. While I was in my first year of college I added the toolbar again but I gave myself some rules. The toolbar would remain hidden until I wanted to use it. I would not spend more than an hour at a time on StumbleUpon. And, most of all, no “Humor” pages.

Surprisingly, it worked. I resorted to surfing the “Feminism” pages with much the same fervor but I was left with a feeling of empowerment instead of embarrassment. The “Psychology” pages gave me insight into myself and the minds of others, and the “Writing” pages provided me with encouragement and motivation. And if I ever really needed a good laugh, there were always the “Tattoo and Piercing” pages.

With that addiction conquered, my brain cast around for a new one. My good friend, Chris, introduced me to the wonders of Boggle; at first I simply lurked over his shoulder and annoyed him by shouting “bug!” and “tool!” but eventually I found my own Boggle den and pulled deeply on the word puzzle pipe. When I started thinking about Boggle during my everyday activities I realized I had a problem.

But this vice, like coffee, was so delightful I didn’t even entertain the idea of quitting. Landing a place on the high score board gave me the same feeling of accomplishment an athlete might feel when he’s playing well, and I boasted loudly to Chris whenever I made it into the top three. It would have been a harmless, if irksome, addiction had I not used it as such a tool of procrastination.

It took care of itself, in the end. I made it through finals and came home for the summer, and just plain forgot about it. Without the college atmosphere, it seems, Boggle has no point. Now I only play when I’m sipping wine and waiting for George Carlin videos to load, a once-a-week pastime that had become my form of atheistic church. (You know how black women nod and say “Mmm-hm” when listening to a preacher? That’s what I do when I drink and watch George.)

My latest addiction has been with Sudoku number puzzles. I didn’t even realize I had it until I began to lose interest in them. When I moved home for the summer I completed two puzzles in the morning while I was drinking my coffee, more if I was feeling frisky. Before I landed a job, my days would go like this: Sudoku and coffee, read, eat, Sudoku, exercise, shower, Sudoku, practice calligraphy, Sudoku,check email and Facebook, Sudoku, write, read, Sudoku, eat, talk on the phone, look for employment, Sudoku… Repeat various combinations of the above endlessly. Thank George that I got a job.

Now I’m trying to import an addiction. Maybe, I think to myself, if I sow little writing seeds here and there they’ll find that they like the soil and choke out all the pre-existing vegetation. Since my brain has grown weary of all my previous addictions and is grasping for a new one, I think it just might work.

Fickle as a Cat

My enthusiasm curve graphs as a parabola. For three weeks I’ll be giddy at the prospect of blogging. I’ll post the backlog of writing material that’s accumulated and thrill at the idea of having an audience.

Then the honeymoon feelings will wear off and an air of content familiarity will set in. Either I’ll remain faithful and keep writing or I’ll get bored and let my eyes wander towards more enticing projects. I’m notoriously adulterous when it comes to writing; I’ve started so many books that I’ve forgotten about most of them but I haven’t finished a single one.

The problem is that I want to keep this going. I need something to imbue me with a sense of purpose. I was stripped of my social identity when I came home for the summer and found that there’s no one here I want to talk to, I’m having a hard time getting back into writing my book, and I’ve inherited my mother’s unfortunate tendency to feel unproductive unless I’m working or doing chores. It’s going to be a rough couple of months.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be transferring to Juneau, Alaska in the fall and I’ll be able to escape from my increasingly tyrannical parents. I’m thrilled to have the chance to experience something so wild and so drastically different from this stagnant, predictable life I’ve been sleepwalking through.

This is what you’ll be reading: excerpts from my Alaskan adventures, short stories, memoir-esque pieces, and perhaps (if I’m feeling brave) previews of the book I’m writing. Hopefully you’re enticed as opposed to repulsed.