If he didn’t sell something, anything, (and soon!) the beautiful Kohler Performance Class Six Power Lite toilet in the magnificently sparkling bathroom with the window overlooking the park would become a dream long forgotten, gone in a flash of energy saving fluorescents. He would be kicked out of his apartment. He was already two months overdue on the rent and his landlord was hardly feeling lenient this month—what with her botched plastic surgery incident two weeks ago and all.

And yet still nothing came to him. His fingers refused to tango with his typewriter, his mind refused to spin with clever phrases and witty character sketches. His creativity had flown the coop; his inspiration had fled in a fit of rage; whatever talent he may have once had wished no longer to be connected with his now sullied name. For the 8 days he had sat down at his desk, expecting brilliance to pour forth from his mind as it had in days long past. Still nothing. His fingers lay dormant, pencil tangled between them. The faint blue lines on the blank page danced before him, blurring together and then separating again to become a jail cell ensnaring him.

When an old friend from college called him Tuesday morning and offered to buy him a cup of coffee, he quickly abandoned his pathetic attempts at a story, which had dissolved into a page which read “Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing nothing. Nothing.” The idea was that at some point nothing would turn into something, that the mere movement of his hand would somehow jerk his mind into creation mode and he would be saved. It didn’t. So off he went to the Latte Palace on 23^rd and Brooks to make small talk with Rebecca Saunders, with little remorse.

Over the whirl of blenders Will and Rebecca attempted to exchange pleasantries.

“How’s John?” he asked.

“Alive, I guess. Haven’t heard from him in a few months. He got to keep the apartment uptown. I got the dog,” Rebecca shrugged. “You still living on Top Ramen and Heineken?”

“I mix it up occasionally. You know, a little Campbell’s here and there, sometimes a pizza. But yeah, mostly.”

“How’s the writing?” she finally asked.

“Fine,” he replied automatically. Backtracking, he admitted “Well, okay, it’s actually not so hot. I mean, things haven’t really been flowing the same lately. Actually mostly I’ve just sort of…stopped. Bad case of the block, I guess.”

“No way?”

“Yeah, I don’t really know how to make it happen again. You’d think it would be like riding a bike, you know, you never forget? Not so much, no. It’s like, I can’t even remember a point where I had talent any more. I haven’t sold anything in months. Rent’s due in two weeks. Had anything interesting happen lately? Something I could shamelessly steal out of your life story and market to the New Yorker?”

“The most exciting thing that happened to me all week was my dog taking a piss on my favorite armchair. Sell that.” She replied.

“Can’t. No talent.”

“Shit. I need a drink.” She tossed her bangs out of her face.

“A drink? It’s 11:30.”

“So? I didn’t say it was a good idea. What have you got to do today, anyway, pack up your living room set?”

“Fair enough.” He conceded. “I don’t do this much, you know of any bars open this early?”

“Uh, I don’t actually. Isn’t your place a few blocks from here?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Whatcha got?”

“Not much,” he shrugged. “Well, no. I take that back. My friend George brought me back from absinthe from his trip to Mexico a couple weeks back. Still haven’t cracked it open. How do you feel about absinthe?”

She grinned.

A few hours and several drinks later, the door slammed behind her. He lay back on the couch, a little dizzy. He closed his eyes for a moment. A moment turned into 20 and he woke up to honking down below on the street. He sat up. Something smelled rank, and that something was him. He scratched what would be his pot belly like a seasoned alcoholic. He forgot to shower this morning. Typical. You would think that with all the empty space in his brain right now he could remember simple things like that, but no. He rolled off the couch and padded down the hallway towards his bathroom, still not walking straight. The black and white photographs hanging on the walls looked very nice in sets of two. He turned on the shower, wincing as the scalding water berated his back. He let it wash over him, steam rising to fog his mirror. He would miss this bathroom. The water began to swirl around him, and suddenly he felt rather nauseous. Blinking, he sat down in the middle of the shower, water pouring over his head down his face. The droplets on the wall streamed down one after another after another in rivelets, and he sat there watching them for a full minute. He reached out his finger towards the tile, catching one before it hit the floor, instead forcing it to change its course and run over his hand. He blinked the water out of his already blurry sight. He frowned, made a half assed attempt at focusing his vision.

In the glass he drew circles, spirals, tracing his finger along the cold surface through the moisture, watching pictures appear. He giggled. Suddenly he felt inspiration strike, felt the need to write. Impulsively, his swirls and circles in the glass became letters and words and lines, drawn with his finger skidding along the shower door: lines of a poem he barely knew he was writing. He tried to write in the water, write of the water, but it didn’t work. He was too excited to consider why it wasn’t working. He only that something was getting in his way. The letters got washed away by splashes, slowly eroding from the glass back into clear nothingness.

“Shit.”

He threw a towel around himself hastily threw open the bathroom door, steam fleeing upward into the cold apartment air. “Oh, right,” he muttered as he marched back and turned the shower off. With no time for nonsense, he strode still dripping into his living room. He sat down at his typewriter, the word suddenly cascading out of him once more. It was 11:30 am on a Tuesday when they met for a drink.

I bit my lip, hoping my talents of telepathy had substantially increased in the last 20 seconds, hoping that by some chance she would get the hint.

“So this class I’m taking—” she hurried on, excited. I tuned out her words, focused solely on the perfectly even pearly white squares of tooth which filled her mouth like so many pieces of trident mint gum. Nestled in the top right of her mouth, wedged between two teeth, a lone scrap of lettuce rested nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t an unwelcome parasite in her otherwise socially acceptable mouth. My vision narrowed as if I was blacking out—I could only focus on that one—tiny—detail.

The flurry of words tumbling out of her mouth at high velocity left no room for interruption. “You ha—” I began, lifting my hand from where it lay against my cheek , as if hand gestures could keep the awkward feeling the conversation had taken at bay. She verbally trampled me. I couldn’t help but lick my own teeth. I wasn’t sure if it was a subconscious and inescapable clue that she should do the same, or merely a desire to make sure I wasn’t in the same boat she was. Either way, she took no notice. My foot began to tap against the table, a seemingly separate entity from myself as well as the situation.

I scratched my ear, trying to look her in the eyes. She continued to describe in detail the sweater she wore yesterday. I nodded along. When I blinked I couldn’t help but keep my eyes shut just a millisecond longer than usual. I breathed in deeply. “You know, you…” My hands came together in a pleading gesture that she ignored.

“Ought to have worn that cute red dress instead? I know, a sweater is a little stuffy for a date, but I dunno—”

“It’s just,”

“I know, right? But—” But she rushed on, and I concentrated not on her words but on her pauses—when could I jump in? When would this end?

Suddenly she slowed her gushing waterfall of words to a slower trickle, flashing a smile at the polo shirted 20something walking through the door.

“You have something!” I blurted, far louder than intended. My words hurled across the table, smacking the smile off her face. She arched her eyebrows.

“I mean,” I explained, “you have some spinach. In your,” I gestured towards my own mouth. She mirrored me. “In your teeth.”

She gasped, squealing, “Really! Oh my god!”

I nodded sympathetically.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Might I ask, WHO THOUGHT NATURAL LOGS WERE A GOOD IDEA?!?!?!? Mother effer. Otherwise Calculus went alright.

History was an epic moment of “really, you want me to talk at length about the war we finished covering yesterday? well if you insist…” I even got in a Walter Cronkite quote. Yes, that’s epic to the third power. Unfortunately I had very little to say about the other two essays which left me with 20 free minutes to write haikus about Teddy Roosevelt, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Taft in my essay prompt packet.

Ah, sweet freedom.

Fuck. My. Life. Words can barely begin to even describe the experience of the (please, try to muster a snooty voice as you read.) Annual National Charity League Senior Presentation Luncheon in which the graduating seniors of the ever pleasant NCL “honor” their mothers. Christina, please realize that my presence at such an event sooooooo makes up for ANYTHING I have ever done to you.

Let me begin by saying that a “luncheon” is in itself a painful experience. It’s amazing what three extra letters can do to a meal. My mother and I questioned our own philanthropy in attending all the way up to the Ojai Valley Inn. Now, (perhaps as a deterrent to runaways) parking is down below, and you have to take a shuttle up to the inn. Naturally, once we arrived the golf cart was full, and we took the back seats that hang off the end. This guy in the front tried to offer us his seat, saying “oh, would you like a man to sit back there?” Clearly, not a good omen for the event to come. This was the type of event attended by well quaffed old ladies who play golf and laugh in high pitched controlled chuckles while sipping martinis and wave around their hands when they talk so they can watch their diamonds glitter. So, we went and found Christina, who had to stand next to her board full of pictures of herself. All of the girls were dressed in identical black and white dresses. (Though some were shorter than others…..) My mother and I, if you can imagine, aren’t normal attendants of said functions, so it took a few minutes before we realized we had to go get little pink nametags with our seat assignments on them.

Best part of the day: As we’re walking over, I see Corinne working the table. She spots me and comes running out from around the table, tripping on some cord on her way to hug me—exactly like she did in 8^th grade. We talked for a while, but I wasn’t allowed to switch tables to sit with her, because apparently that was strictly verboten. And so I was stuck sitting with some administrator from Christina’s school, and of course my mother, who I couldn’t look for most of the event because it was too entirely ridonkulous.

And then they herd us into the overly pink ballroom. All of the women involved were wearing this insane matching pink color. The woman doing most of the announcing had one of those “I’m always crying” voices, and I thought she was going to break down over just how beautiful it all was—luckily there were strategically placed tissue packets at every place setting. Then the girls came out and thanked all of their mothers and advisors for helping them become “confidant, well spoken, good mannered, lovely ladies” now that they were going out into the world. Is knowing which fork to use really going to help you out in the world? (the world being Cal State Chico or CSUCI or wherever?) Oh, they also thanked them for being “so, like, positive all the time.” Oh, just shoot me. Ohho, and they made us do the flag salute. Because apparently they love America as much as they love volunteering at old people’s homes. We had to watch this overly nostalgic video of their wonderful NCL experiences, the kind of video to sappy music where they scan over unattractive photos. I kept thinking it was going to end as each song ended, but sure enough they would just begin a new song. Nothing cements a truly painful life experience like 4 minutes of Celine Dion, though.

But no, that wasn’t the end. Instead, they wowed us with a fashion show, dance routines and all! It was actually rather amusing, between the girls who were practically throwing their hips out with their catwalking and the girls who very clearly where uncomfortable and the ones who just sort of got lost and confused trying to stand exactly where they had told them to at the exact right time. In the middle they had this hilarious ballet part where this one girl took off her high heels and whipped her leg into the air, still wearing a tiny dress. My mother gasped and whispered something about her flashing her beaver. She did her little ballet thing and then some other girl came on, walking like Daffy Duck in an attempt I guess to look graceful. And then, finally LUNCH.

Except lunch involved a mayonnaisey chicken salad and some other sort of salad that was so not good enough to be worthy of my pain and random cheese stacked up with tomatoes. The kind of lunch that strives to be fancy but in fact is just hard to eat and not worth the effort of trying to eat it gracefully. I was the only one under 45 at the table, other than Christina’s older sister. At some point there was cake, which was appreciated. Precious quote: “Well, Christina just mentioned an NCL event and I just KNEW I had to be there.”

And then the lights dimmed and the real fun began. The tribute/biography/sappy song, in which a creepy announcer told us how they just lovvveed school and cheerleading and being the class secretary and bonding with their mother and blah blah blah. And then came the minute and a half of “my mother is the best person in the whole entire world” cry fest set to a song they picked out themselves to dedicate to their dear old moms. Things I wish to never say in my life: “And I just really hope to one day be a wife and mom” “and my mom is more than just a mom, she’s my best friend” “I love you more than words can even begin to describe and we’re just so close and you’re my teacher and my cook and my counselor and my friend and my etc etc” Because the powerpoint of baby pictures set to Carrie Underwood didn’t give me that impression already. And then they cried. Each mother and daughter stood on opposite ends of the stage with this creepy spotlight on them, the mothers wearing bad suits and the daughters wearing their prom dresses, and they cried over just how much they loved each other and promised that they would call each other every day in college. Thank you, I don’t want to cry over how my mother has just given me soooo much and is such a strong woman and such a role model and given me my faith and my confidence and if I’m just half the woman she is…and I’m going to Cal State Chico because that’s where she went and OH DEAR LORD WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!!? And then they tottered off stage together, the girls barely able to walk in their hoe heels. And the mothers and daughters had matching hair. Matching 45 year old woman puffed up dyed blonde bob hair. It was terrifying.

Speaking of hoes, there was one lady wandering around in lace up heels and this tiny tiny skirt—definitely one of the better moments.

Unable to take the pain, my mother and I escaped after like 5 of the presentations. Then, of course, the shuttle wasn’t there to take us back to the car, so we had to hoof it down the hill in our high heels (I would have walked home in stilettos if I had to to get out of there)

Nothing that happened in those 3 hours was anything less than stereotypically terrifying. I practically cried to keep from laughing. I feel like I need to go wash the experience off myself by like, dousing myself in whiskey or something. I went into it thinking at least I could get a story, but frankly I can’t fictionalize that shit. I’m not even sure your imagination will do it justice. And just think, I could have been at a speech tournament.

It was, in fact, not at a carnival, as her senile Aunt Marge would recount at her funeral reception, but in a rundown shop in a side alley of downtown that Diana’s death was foretold. That day began as any second Sunday which happened to be the 10th of April might have, with the grumble of lawnmowers and screeching sound effects of morning cartoons blaring their way through her bedroom walls as audibly as if they were made of rice paper. She lay for many moments, eyes closed, working up the energy to unkink her neck from its twisted position. Wiping her eyes, she rolled from her fetal hibernation position onto her back, staring up at the shadows that the midmorning sunlight cast across her ceiling through her blinds.

Through the piles of clothing and papers littering her floor she could see the glow of her alarm clock dimly, sitting just beyond her bed. Without getting up, she reached her arm out, leaning off the bed in order to uncover it. Her half awake swipes left her only with handfuls dirty socks, but she refused to move any more than necessary. She reached farther, half her body hanging off the tiny twin bed. She managed to uncover the clock, but she had hardly seen the green numbers shining 11:00 before she lost her balance, tumbling out of bed with a dull thunk.

She groaned through her laughter, attempting to untangle her legs from the twisted sheets.

Her roommate Todd pushed open the cracked door as far as it could go before getting stuck on one of the piles of laundry. He popped his head in, trying to repress a chuckle as he took in the sight of Diana lying on the messy floor.

“Aren’t you—” he started.

“Don’t even.” She glared at him, reaching her arm out for him to help her up. “Forgot to set the…ugh…alarm. I’m supposed to meet Alison and Greg in like 20 minutes downtown.”

Todd grimaced. “So not going to happen,” he warned her.

She massaged the back of her neck with her hand, beginning to sift through her closet. “Yeah, I know.” She grabbed the first shirt that her hands ran across, an oversized black Led Zeppelin tee, and wondered for a minute if she even had any clean pants before resigning herself to pulling on yesterday’s jeans. Grabbing her cell phone from where it had fallen under the bed and her red plastic sunglasses from the dresser top, she shoved past Todd and grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter.

“Gross, at least brush your teeth!” he called after her. She rolled her eyes, and he pulled out a slightly squished package of Wintergreen Orbit from his back pocket and tossed it her way. It fell near her ankles, and she hastily scooped it up, tossing a “Thanks!” over her shoulder as she stumbled out the door into the concrete stairwell.

She yanked her dilapidated bike up from where it lay sprawled on the grass outside her apartment building. She didn’t bother to avoid letting her oiled chain brush against her jeans. She ran a few steps down the sidewalk before swinging her leg over the bike with a little hop. Wobbling slightly, she sped downtown. She sighed in relief as she hit every green light between Pike and Main Street.

Her friends were already standing outside the café when she sailed her bike into the bike rack, bracing herself for the collision. She half fell, half stepped off the bike.

“Aren’t you gonna lock that up?” Alison asked as Diana walked up, still catching her breath.

“You kidding me?” she exhaled. “Who’d take the time to steal that thing?”

Greg interjected. “Whatever, I’m starving. Let’s get this show moving.”

Aside from Diana’s inner conflict over sending a mayonnaise drenched sandwich back to the kitchen, lunch was uneventful. But going home for Diana meant sitting around the house with Todd watching Oprah, so she suggested that they wander around downtown for a while.

They were window shopping along Main street when Greg noticed his latest breakup strolling down the street with her new boyfriend—the bassist in a pseudo popular local band. They both wore the same disdainful expression and the same clothing that was clearly not made for a warm spring day—studded jean jackets and skintight dark pants sagging low on their hips. It seemed difficult for them to walk with their hands shoved in each other’s ripped back pockets, but they managed it in a listing, rocking sort of way.

“Gotta quarter?” An ambiguously gendered hobo resting up under the windowsill of the used bookstore asked, reaching a dirty fingernailed hand up towards Alison.

Greg groaned. “I can’t do this right now.” Looking furtively around, he grabbed the girls’ arms. “Oh hey look, um, a fortune teller! You know I always wanted to get my fortune told,” he said hurriedly, pulling them into the alley under the sign for Madame Zorario’s Shoppe of Psychic Readings, which boasted the reading of palms and tea leaves, as well as crystal ball gazing and tarot readings.

“Greg! You’ll have to see her sometime,” Alison warned.

“Are you kidding me? This soon after omelets?” he fired back.

The store was small and cramped, but empty of any other customers. In typical “mystic” fashion, the smell of incense was overbearing on the stuffy summer day. It was exactly what Diana expected it to be: dimly lit, dusty, disorganized. The chimes hanging in the windows jingled as the door shut behind them. The windows hardly lived up to their name, barely letting light in through the layer of dust and what seemed to be decades of grime. The gray dust of the sill was a graveyard of flies.

“Mm, tasty,” Diana said, wrinkling her nose.

They had to squeeze between the display racks of tarot cards and Ouija boards and long sticks of incense in order to reach the back of the store. “10 bucks and she’ll tell your fortune. Where else are you gonna get a deal like that? Want to?” Greg gestured toward the back room, separated from the store by a beaded doorway.

“Yeah, totally!” Alison laughed.

Diana rang the call bell near the cash register. They stood peering through the beaded curtain, trying to catch a glimpse of someone who might work there. It was a few moments before it parted, clanking—pulled aside by a long hand brandishing purple hooks for fingernails.

“Welcome, welcome,” Madame Zorario called in her best “mysterious and all knowing” voice—a breathy drawl with a Caribbean lilt. “You want your fortune told…yes?”

Diana shrugged.

“Okay, okay. But one at a time. And first…” Madame Zorario pointed to the chalkboard of prices pinned to the wall above the register, tapping the green chalk letters spelling “Fortunes $10” with one long nail.

“Who wants to go first?” Alison asked.

The fortune teller cut in. “You child. I can sense your aura.” She beckoned Diana, raising her tattooed eyebrows. Diana didn’t know quite what to respond to that statement, so she merely fished a folded bill out of the back pocket of her jeans, which Madame Zorario promptly plucked from her fingertips.

“Follow Madame Zorario,” she continued, relishing in the opportunity to speak of herself in the third person as she swept through the curtain into her domain—a glorified storage closet hung with dark purple drapes containing a small round table scattered with tarot cards.

“Come, come, sit down and look into my crystal ball,” she beckoned, waving her hands toward the chair across the table from her own throne. As Diana sat down the fortune teller grabbed her hands across the table, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. (She had been a drama major in college—her grandmother still insisted that her role in Bye Bye Birdie was Broadway worthy. )

“Let us look into your future.”

Diana rolled her eyes. Rubbing a smudge of dirt off the crystal ball, she stared deeply in it. Diana stared too, waiting for a fog machine to start filling the room with smoke or something equally dramatic.

“Hmm…let’s see. I am seeing a butterfly…a golden spoon…”

“Is that a KFC drumstick?!” Diana joked.

“It is possible,” Madame Zorario sighed, closing her eyes. “The spirits will make all clear in a moment.” She paused. “Aha, the orange hedgehog,” she whispered.

“Wow.” The fortune teller accidentally dropped her vocal facade to reveal a pronounced New Jersey accent. She ceased to wave her hands around the crystal ball madly. “I don’t see this too often.” She paused for a moment. Diana expected her to say something like “You’re going to lose your job” or maybe “You won’t be lucky in love.” She was not prepared for what came next.

Madame Zorario began again, in her most fortune-teller-tastic voice. “You will die tomorrow.”

Diana snorted. “Are you kidding me? Ten bucks and that’s all I get?”

“My condolences,” she went on. “But no, my child, it’s all here. I’m sorry, but you cannot escape your destiny. Tomorrow at 6 pm, your time will come.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know! Who do you think I am, the author of your life story? I just read what’s in the ball, okay?”

Diana arched one eyebrow. “Is that it?”

“Unless you wish to spend your last day in a converted janitor’s closet, that is all I can tell you.”

Diana frowned. “Thanks loads.” As she got up from the table, she knocked her chair back accidentally, and it leaned against the wall. She tripped over the legs upended in the air, stumbling out the door and nearly jerking the velvety tablecloth off the table. Madame Zorario lunged across the table to grab the fragile crystal ball before it rolled to the floor.

Madame Zorario had to catch herself from calling out her normal customer send off of “Have a nice day, come again!” She felt it might not be all that well received.

Diana blinked in the brighter light of the shop. Greg and Alison were sifting through the box of various good luck charms and talismans on the front counter. The cardboard box loudly proclaimed “Last Chance $5.” At the sound of Diana crashing through the curtain, they looked up, awaiting their own turns at the crystal ball.

“So, I’m…” she began, still finding her balance. “I think I’m going to, you know, just…get out of here.”

“No way, we waited for you!” Greg whined.

“Yeah, sorry, but…” she stopped. “I’ll talk to you guys later.” She made her way out of the shop, this time avoiding any potential roadblocks. She didn’t really feel like talking at the moment, nor did she feel like waiting around for them to get their own mystical death warrant.

Please. I don’t believe that half cracked mumbo jumbo anyway. I’m not some blithering superstitious idiot. I’m young, I’m healthy, I’m smart—what’s going to happen to me between now and tomorrow to force me to kick the bucket, she wondered. Nothing—that’s what.

Her mind whirled with logical dismissals of the premonition, but none could adequately banish the clenching feeling in her chest, the feeling of rapidly approaching doom. But…what if she’s right? She thought. What if, by some miracle, tomorrow is it? I mean, am I just going to show up to work and spend all of my last day scooping Chocolate Chunky Chip Crunch ice cream for screaming toddlers? Eminent death does make a great sick excuse, right? It’s just a day of cliché life fulfillment; it’s not like I believe in it or anything.

Outside, she plopped down upon the nearest bench, sighing. There wasn’t time to see the world or plan a bank heist, so really she was limited in her epic last day activity choices. She could go visit her parents. Big whoop there. She could hang around her friends all day, but they were pretty boring anyway. Maybe she should hold up a liquor store—just for the adrenaline rush. No, no, she’d have to get creative with that one. And what would she do with the money, buy a sweet coffin? She needed to tie up loose ends; she needed to do what she’d never have the courage to do otherwise; she needed to dig deep into her soul and do something daring.

Two words sprang to mind. Spencer Kloepe. The love of her 14 year old life. Being 14 at the time, he had absolutely no inkling that the weird girl who lived down the street and once threw a baseball at his head had also deemed him her crush to end all crushes, the love of her tiny and insignificant life. He didn’t realize that when their history teacher turned on the powerpoint and started pontificating about the rise of Russian Tsars her wandering mind was fixated almost exclusively on his stuttering and freckled self. She pined after him as only a teenage girl can; she had not been gripped by that kind of obsession anytime before or since. Not only would she drive 3 times around the block on her way home in the hopes of seeing him for a fleeting moment, but she still could remember the exact details of his schedule, from his 3rd period teacher to the water fountain he stopped by between his last two classes to the bathroom he usually used to the fact that on Mondays and Thursdays he would not sit in his normal 3rd table from the southwest corner of the cafeteria lunch location since he would be at a chess club meeting in room B114.

That would be what she would do on her last day: she would proclaim her one time undying love for Spencer Kloepe, Marimonte High school soprano saxophone soloist extraordinaire. She knew he was going to school at the state college a few hours down the road. Not that she was keeping tabs on him or anything—these things were common knowledge!

That night she spent the night watching Saturday Night Live reruns with Todd, who agreed that dying made an excellent reason to call in sick. The next morning she awoke, resolved to make that day an epic, boombox under the window sort of day. Granted, that kind of thing is easier said than done. It’s one thing to talk about living life to the fullest; it’s another thing entirely to try to make eating a bowl of Lucky Charms grandiose.

But by 11 am she was clunking down the road in Todd’s dull brown Honda Accord. It smelled like feet and Mexican food, but she wanted to get there before she keeled over, so she couldn’t very well ride her bike. The air conditioning was broken, so she rolled down all the windows and tried to enjoy the hot wind blowing her hair in front of her face. She was 30 miles down the highway when traffic clogged up the road like oil in a 13 year old’s pore. The stench from the nearby cattle farms was powerful enough to eradicate any of Diana’s thoughts about the car’s smell. She sat in the still July heat, sun baking her left arm as it hung out the window. The radio drifted in and out from what was sometimes an indie rock station and occasionally a Catholic prayer broadcast. Impatient, Diana bumped along the road, alternately flooring it and slamming on the breaks in an unsuccessful attempt to actually get to her destination. As the car behind her honked, she gestured rudely out the window.

“Screw you, I’m dying here!”

“Aren’t we all?” the driver yelled through the prominent gap in his teeth.

She still was only going 3 miles an hour when suddenly the ever reliable Accord gave a half hearted sputter in the left lane and rattled to a silent stop, nearly stopping Diana’s heart with it.

“No! Not now, not this, no!” she smacked her hand against the dash. “Gah!” Letting her head fall against the steering wheel, she accidentally set off the horn. “Now what?” she moaned. As traffic piled up behind her, she threw the car in neutral and leaped out.

“Frick, frick, frick,” she muttered as she strained to push the hunk of metal forward, over to the shoulder. The cars swerved around her, honking as if it were her fault that her car had decided life wasn’t worth living anymore. Eventually, she and the useless hunk of metal formerly known as Todd’s car ended up on the shoulder. Diana bit her lip, frowning at the car. Obviously it wasn’t going anywhere soon. She debated calling a tow truck for a few moments, but the search through each of her jean pockets for her cell phone was a fruitless one. It was lying on her bathroom counter, where she had set it down in her quest for the lip gloss that was now seeming much less important. With a mental shoulder shrug, she consigned herself to abandoning the faithless Accord to the open road. After all, she’d be dead before she had to break the news to Todd.

She trudged down the highway. The shoulder was sloped and dusty, yellow weeds cracking under each heavy step. Her mother’s mantra on the dangers of hitchhiking looped through her thoughts, mocking her with each woosh of a passing air conditioned car. Tiny tendrils of hair blew in the hot breeze, tickling her forehead annoyingly. Sweat trickled down her back as she carefully navigated the uneven ground.

Under the confused glances of passing motorists she walked down the first off-ramp she came to, miles earlier than the one she had intended to zoom down effortlessly in the car, but miles beyond the length of a comfortable afternoon stroll. Her shoulders slumped; so much for an amazing day. There was a bus stop nearby, though it was sketchy even in the light of day. It took 35 minutes of waiting on a pee stained bench before the bus arrived, ready to bear her off towards sanity, though as usual she seemed to be the only normal, non homeless person with full use of all limbs and reasoning capacity on said bus. She stood against the railing on near the backdoor, unwilling to take the last free seat beside the doo-ragged kid glaring up at her with a twisted facial expression.

By the time she arrived at the campus she was no longer focused so much on her declaration of past love as she was on finding somewhere to just sit down for a while. She stepped off the bus, the momentum of coming down the steps carrying her forward. SHe pushed her hair off her forehead with the palm of her hand, looking around her. She’d never been there before. Somehow that hadn’t seemed like an important detail when she was planning her adventure. Her stomach dropped as she realized she had absolutely no clue as to what dorm Spencer lived in, much less how to get there. She wandered aimlessly, trying to look casual, until she found a campus map. She surveyed their 4 dorms: which could he be in? She picked the closest one out of sheer hope. There was no use in giving up now, not after coming the hours she’d invested in getting there.

She slid past the locked doors with a gaggle of girls in paper thin flipflops and tiny shorts. They scanned their ID cards at the security desk, trickling away until Diana was left face to face with a large middle aged man who was clearly on the tail end of his shift.

“Hi.” She started, nervous. “So, I was looking for Spencer Kloepe, and I was wondering, well, I, could you tell me, does he live here?” she spit out, words blurring together.

“Are you a friend of his?” he drawled.

“Uh, yeah.” she answered, unsure whether or not it was a lie.

“Well, you’re just going to have to call him and ask him yerself then, cause I can’t tell ya that.”

“Oh.” she pretended to find something enrapturing about her faded black Converse. “Well then, thanks anyway.” She always felt the need to be polite when she got rejected.

More frustrated than ever, she wandered into the quad, where hundreds of backpack clad students milled about. Perhaps, maybe, if she was lucky, she could see him there. She sat down on one of the benches, scanning the crowds. Unfamiliar faces flowed around her in a blur. The crowd began to thin eventually, and Diana’s head began to pound. She crossed the grassy quad to the coffee cart, briefly perked up by the thought of caffeine. As she collected her change, over the clinking of pennies and nickels she heard a familiar tone from behind her. Her heart skipped a beat. Slowly, nonchalantly, she turned around to come face to face with her former classmate, the one time constant companion of a certain Marimonte High saxophonist.

The blood rushed to her face as she realized the ridiculous nature of her journey, but she forced out her words. “Kyle!”

His eyebrows raised. “Diana? Hey! What are you…”

“So I, well, I was looking for Spencer. It’s sort of a long story, but I need to talk to him. I don’t suppose you know where he lives?” she offered a pleading smile.

Kyle cocked his head to the side. “I do, but, didn’t he tell you? He’s gone home for the week. His grandmother died.”

Diana winced. “Oh.” Unsure of how to continue, she took a hasty sip of her coffee, thoroughly burning her tongue. She scraped her burnt tastebuds against her teeth. “I guess I don’t know what I’m doing here then. Could I borrow your cell phone?”

“Sure.” Kyle passed it over, still puzzled but silent.

Diana called a cab, realizing that her tiny bank account wouldn’t be worth much when she was gone anyway and she might as well use it while she could. They were both relieved when Kyle had to run off to class. No doubt Spencer would be getting an earful about this when he got back. She had never been so happy to see a bright yellow cab pull up to the sidewalk. She climbed in, giving the driver her address before drifting off to sleep twisted up against the armrest. She was dazed when the cab finally dropped her off at her apartment, barely blinking at the price as she handed over her credit card. She stumbled up the stairs. Todd was at work. She scribbled a note of the days events to relieve her of the duty of explaining to him the story of how his car ended up on the highway, leaving it on the counter as a nice little surprise for him when he got home, like the kind of dead rat surprises cats leave for their owners. Diana crawled into bed, jerking the alarm out of the power socket and locking the door.

At 8 am she awoke to the thunking sound of Todd trying to pound a hole through her door. “Where the hell is my car?! You’d better be dead in there!!”

“Well if you hadn’t sent me off with that clunker maybe we wouldn’t have this problem, now would we?” Diana replied from under her blankets. Staring at the ceiling, she realized that she was in fact not dead, despite any predictions of that sort. She felt royally gypped out of her ten dollars, but at least she hadn’t bared her soul or anything dramatic. Except wiping out virtually a good chunk of her starving student’s bank account getting home. She glanced at her watch. She had enough time to make it to her German class if she didn’t shower, and now that she was apparently not going to die perhaps German would one day come in handy. She dressed and made it out the door with toast in hand a few minutes later. As she unchained her bike, she suppressed the guilty feeling in the bottom of her stomach she felt thinking about the Accord. She shoved the remainder of the toast in her mouth and swung her leg over the seat.

Diana rode her bike across town, getting stopped at nearly every stoplight. Her mind was occupied in thoughts of $400 tow truck bills and car repairs and lost opportunities. The minutes raced by, counting down to 9 am. She would be late, yet again—it was just one of those days, she guessed.

She wasn’t the only one thinking such thoughts. George drove the blue route of the city’s bus system most mornings. It was his first day on his new route, the orange line, and already it was going downhill. Exactly 1 month before that day, his wife decided he was no longer worth her effort and ran off with the tiny man who ran the dry cleaners down the street. To top it off, this morning he had tripped over his cat will trying to see himself better in the bathroom mirror, adding the humiliating pain sitting on a bruised tailbone to his list of complaints. He hadn’t even had time to get his coffee this morning. All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty awful day all ready—so who could blame him for driving a little faster than normal? That gas pedal was his anger outlet, and there was a lot of anger to get out that morning.

In the midst of this, George noticed a scuffle erupting in the back of the bus. He glanced at the rear view mirror, watching two scruffy homeless men argue back and forth. One of them was hanging his hand out the window so that the wind could blow across his oozing sore, but he used his free hand to swat at the other, a toothless man sitting in the seat in front of him. “Hey!” George yelled back at them, to no effect. Annoyed, he ceased for a few moments to pay attention to traffic.

As the white signal turned, Diana walked her bike out into the street, looking down at the garage sale flayers which were blowing across the street. You would think after an entire childhood of being reminded to look both ways she would have worked on that whole peripheral vision thing. Alas, the bus rushed onward without her taking any notice, looking like a monster with its giant headlights, until it was nearly upon her. Finally she turned her head, registering the oncoming bus barreling forward towards her. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes—that would have been a waste of seconds. Now if she had gone to church instead of haring off on an adventure yesterday, she thought, she would be in a better position. Instead, an expletive tumbled out of her mouth, and she thought with slight satisfaction that at least the fortune teller had been wrong too.

HOORAY FOR SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a million exclaimation points cannot express my joy.

Costa Rica in like 14 hours. I wish I didn’t feel like I’ve forgotten the most important things to pack. BUT PSYCHED! and no homework, sweetness. 

My favorite response from a stranger upon hearing I was going to Costa Rica: “But, aren’t there…like…insects there?”

It was calling him—calling him and he had to answer. A simple locket of dull gold with flowery initials swirling across its oval surface. He wasn’t KLM. And that was precisely why he couldn’t resist. It lay, bare and unprotected, on the dresser covered with dust surrounded by countless faded photographs in austere frames. He neither wanted nor needed it, but his outstretched hand twitched, closing over it without his permission. Hearing footsteps in the hall, heart racing in that best of ways, he felt the cool metal under his palm. He placed his hand slowly back into his pocket.

Fuck it’s hot.  Oh fog, I miss you.

So today in class my creative writing teacher had us write stories exactly 101 words long. Now because I have no homework, I got carried away and wrote three more. I like the 3rd one best, 2nd one least.

She arrived in his life at 42^nd street, leaping onto the train, brushing aside already closing doors. She was radiant—an unlikely vision in khaki shorts and a tank top. He sat mesmerized, mind whirling with reasons to ask her name. She balanced 5 feet away, swaying with the motion of the train—one hand on the overhead railing, one hand on the strap of her bag hanging heavy at her side, a textbook peeking out. She noticed him looking, flashed a nervous smile over green plastic glasses. At 51^st the train rumbled to a stop and then she was gone.

Thunk thunk thunk. He could smell its scent wafting down from the high shelf he could not reach. It was tantalizing, tangy, warm and enveloping like a puppy’s breath. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, allowing it to wash over him in a wave of goodness. His heart raced at the very thought. He found himself getting impatient, unable to stand the wait any longer. It was growing darker, the time growing near. He called to his family—tongue growing moist, breath growing shallow. Truly excited, he sat in anticipation of the fast approaching time to eat. He wagged his tail.

He was the type who played games. Not normal people games with sticks and balls, but games of words and ideas, with money on the line. “Bet you can’t use the word vaguely in every sentence you say today,” they challenged. “That shall be vaguely simple” he countered. And so it went.
“How are you?”
“Fine, vaguely.”
“Ready for that presentation?”
“Vaguely.”
“Decaf or regular?”
“I’m feeling vaguely like decaf today.”
His day was going swimmingly and that pool of cash was his by 5 pm…vaguely. Until he heard the conversational landmine he could not sidestep. “I love you,” she said.

I missed you today. I thought I would see you but I guess you didn’t eat lunch. Or was it that you ate earlier than usual? I mean, most days there you are with your tray of soup and your buttered roll, sitting at the same table four down from my own. Alone. A sight for sore eyes, if you will. My day feels incomplete without your “oh, hi,” tossed over your shoulder as you make your way toward the recycling bin. When will I see you again? Tomorrow? Next week? Tuesdays mean minestrone, your favorite. I’ll be waiting for you.

Being referred to as “politely agressive” by debate judges.

Eliminating one of the tougher teams in the league in your first debate tournament with a new partner.

Actually doing well for once.

Yeaaaaaaah.