Varieties of Disturbance*

Places I have come to fear the most

Tuesday night, Steven and I went bowling. We are so good at this. So good, that the owner, Mr. Zuck himself, remembered us and asked why we hadn't been in for awhile. (The last time we bowled I wore a long sleeve shirt and jeans. I'm thinking it was in March). We explained to him about the allure of Stimulus Tuesday, and then he gave me velcro shoes and Steven signed the credit slip. We played two games, and then took a snack break, which required me to venture into the Women's restroom. This restroom does double duty as a locker room for the league bowlers, and as I walked in, I was transported back 15 years to the YMCA locker room. I haven't thought about this locker room in an entire lifetime, but seeing the gray lockers and the little round bench brought back the chlorine smell, the cold carpet, the full-length mirror and the green swim bag filled with cracker bits, swim caps, goggle cases and earplugs. As the moment hit me, I was instantly exhausted, reliving the 6:30 practices, sunburned weekends and laps upon laps upon laps. The rest of the evening I bowled faster and faster, hearing whistles in my ears and constantly afraid that I would get kicked in the head by a girl doing a flip-turn. It worked. I scored a personal best of 143 and we got invited to join a bowling league. Thank you, Seahawks.

I'd rather be British

I live in an apartment complex attached to a car dealership. You can hear people being paged all day long. In our parking lot, old cars get their tires slashed, while 10 feet away, never-driven vehicles get waxed and buffed and loved. Now, a fireworks stand has joined the mix. It came in small doses. First with a small sign. Then a banner. Finally a table, then a tent over the table and a trailer. Yesterday there were two trailers and finally there were people. People and banners and tents and fireworks and pages. I do not like this, Sam-I-Am. My first memory of the fourth of july involved hiding in the back of the red car, seats prickly, air hot, my ears assaulted by the terrific noise of packs of black cats ignited at once. My second memory contains the image of Mom's burnt sock. Every other year melds together into a whirl of bug bites, fear, and exhaustion. I would like to reclaim my independence from this day.

Reactionary tale

These days, I have forgotten how to react. Someone starts telling a joke and I tense up - knowing that at the end, I will have to laugh. I know the right answer, but my brain will not respond. Instead I choke, or sneeze, or sit down and type an email. When someone is telling a sad story, I nod and ask what they would like for dinner. When a co-worker recently filled us in on her weekend adventures, I merely frowned, stared at her knee, and then started humming that new Lady Gaga song in my head. I think it's a result of watching too much TV. In the later seasons of ER, the acting is very similar to my behavior. People yell and cry and laugh and love, but never at the right time, or in a sensical way. They just... act. They are clinging desperately to a way of life that no longer exists. A hit TV show. A critically acclaimed drama. A part of Must See TV Thursday. We both exist in a world that has moved on, and so our reactions will never match up. We are marching to a different drummer. We are seeing a different reality. We are apart, and you do not understand.


*Title inspired by and stolen from Lydia Davis. Read the work. Let your mind bend around it. Then drink a milkshake.