Doused with this morningedicts, the paper is torn into little pieces and thrown in the trash.

It continues speaking from the trashcan. Someone happens by, hears the commotion inside the trashcan, the burble-speak, the claymont-clamorings for attention.  That someone (not me) picks up the pieces from the trash bin, then painstakingly, the pieces back together, stringing along the message, discovering the message:

The message is now loud and clear: You love someone.

You can’t tear up the pieces again; it only works once. From then on you love them and nothing can tear that apart.

Pull it around the perimeter of your shack and watch your dreams come true. Accolades. Riches. Cherry Lips.  A litter of puppies. Popsicles.

Your life is wonderful because you have the boyfriend and you get to order an eye shadow palette from Sephora and you talk about your woeful time at Fairway, when you couldn’t find your favorite tuna for your cat and your cat is pissed off at you for no reason you can think of and come to think of it, so is your boyfriend who is only now making a big deal about the red wagon that you brought into the bedroom.

Leave the damn toy outside, he says.

No, you intone. I will not.

Impasse. For about twenty minutes.

You pull. So does he.

But you will be graded for it. There’s no way around it. So be graded. Make an F.

You know what F stands for, don’t you? Yes you do.It stand for hahahahahahah.

Oh, alright. If you don’t believe in dawn, then you won’t be graded for it.

But I will give you an A. Awesome.

You saw your parents kissing just outside a broom closet. You found the Bourne Identity Series novels underneath your nephew’s bed.

What were you doing there, looking under his mattress? You were looking for something else.

During a particularly compelling kitchen moment you are told that in order to find the paprika you have to clean the entire spice rack. You don’t know how to do this since it was never explained, along with a lot of other things in this world.

Cleaning a spice rack just means you rub a damp cloth over the top lids of the spices. And that’s all. No need to unclog, or determine if any new spices need to be added. No  no alphabetizing, contrary to popular belief.

But you haven’t yet found the paprika.

I don’t know. I’ve never asked that question when a hot towel has been presented to me. I just accept it. I do question some things, but usually alone, in private, when I have time to formulate the question.

A question, in real life, is usually in my expression. A sort of “Oh, okay.” look about me.

There’s that time in the morning when you are being told you slept enough. The same song  starts playing in your head, over and over. You hearing Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz describing to the Munchkins, how she got to Munchkin land. You know the story. You start dreaming that you’re in a soap opera (Or worse, you’re just watching them from the sidelines.)

This all means: GET UP.

You’ve slept enough,whether you think you have or not. I once had Dean Karnazes give a lecture on effective nuclear charge, with the periodic table sprawled behind him. Have you heard him speak? He’s so quiet and unassuming.

This means:GET UP.

I can’t skate. But I can skirt. Hide. Wear hats.

Bandanas work too. I bought a bright yellow bandana with cherry patterned from Uniqlo. Am I Unique? No–and that’s perfectly fine. I have to give up trying to be special. Special is out in the cold, knocking on doors–with my hands out, when they’d rather be stuffed in fleece-lined pockets.

I did knock on your door once, remember? On Halloween. You gave the bad candies.

You also gave me V.D. Which isn’t called V.D. anymore. Anyway, it was the good V.D., the kind that penicillin could and did knock out. And I never got AIDs and that’s good.

Some people did. All I got was this lousy haircut. Well. And other things too.

And in a way, that’s a relief. Because that means people don’t ask you to do anything, because you are always doing wrong. Which means, instead, you can go out and do what you want to do.
“Oh no,” One of them says. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to stay until you get this right.”
“But I’m always doing it wrong,” you argue.
They argue back. You never end up doing that thing that they wanted you to do, because arguing is just another thing you do wrong. You don’t know how to argue like other people. Your so ineffective at it, that you always win the argument but saying you Can’t.

Can’t trumps everything.

So many people doing so many things–it’s exhausting.

Yet I find myself peering over there shoulder saying things like “Whatch doin’?” or “Can I see?”

And they are more than willing to show you. And that’s even more exhausting.