Daily Meanderings

A tropical storm  passed Panama City by. There is a humid feel in the air nonetheless. Last night driving, the sky's lighting was off hue, as if certain frequencies were missing from the spectrum, and the wet roads were empty.  A still oddness was evident—with a sense of instability, as if electrically charged. I assume it was the atmosphere and not a neurological problem on my part.

My pitcher plant, a fly eating monocat, is the home for a juvenile chameleon, or rather, since chameleon is a misnomer--the real chameleon being indigenous to Africa--home for a juvenile Anolis Carolinensis. I think this is the correct species for this lizard, which is about the size of a pinkie joint,.

In high school, I raised Anolis Crassulus, a related species, with varying luck. I had brought them back from Guatemala The eggs hatched but appropriately small food was difficult and meal worms too large, crusty and ulcer forming. Attempts to keep a fruit fly colony in the science classroom drew ire from faculty and students. No one understood how difficult it was to get anoles to lay eggs in captivity. Instead they complained. My interest did get me an invite from a college museum, where I remember, through a fog of time, handling a jar of true chameleons from Africa. I wondered how long that bottle of chameleons had been sitting on that shelf, or what famed donor had provided it to the museum.

Today, the anole enjoys the insects drawn by a plant's aroma. A bottle of fermented grape juice sits nearby.  The plant is thriving and putting out many new pitchers, enticing insects to their final drink.

When I approach, the anole darts into the middle of the pitcher plant. It freezes, head slanted to the side. Evolution has not given you movable eyes. Some rhythmic heavings on the chest suggest a dewlap may soon arise.

The anole hasn't been named yet. Not sure of its gender, I assume a gender neutral name will be best. Its eye continues to fix me, its long beak forward like a baseball cap.

Speaking of baseball,  it seems sad to have fallen in popularity to rougher, more aggressive sports. Baseball has a genteel quality, and additionally the likelihood of concussion is small. The skull has a nice way of neutralizing frontal  blows, like a horsehide between the eyes. It is the skewing's to the side, more common in other sports, that create the major brain injuries.

Summer Daze

Nearly perfect periods of my life were summers off as a kid. There was a notable absence of obligations or things needed to be done.  Summers were a long expanse of  nothing but lazy relaxation.

Mornings would begin with a startle, as I realized, head against a warm pillow since our house did not have air conditioning, that there was no school. Then downstairs two steps at a time for a desultory breakfast with Carnation Instant Breakfast, the envelope torn open and emitting an acrid chocolaty dust floating up and stinging the nostril, and a peach or two. Our house was profligate with fruit. And yogurt—my mother was ahead of the times with yogurt, which then was just becoming popular, with Dannon cups having the removable cardboard lid that could be pried off and scaled. Coffee flavor, Blueberry, or Boysenberry, which I called Poisonberry. Finally, taking a shower in the upright stall with all the nozzles—six of them, the top of them aimed just about my forehead, and dressing in clothes already laid out. Bermuda shorts were worn daily, along with white elastic socks and either Keds or  Converse sneakers or, for one unpleasant summer, off brand hand- me-down black sneakers. But the best shoes were cordovan penny loafers, with which I used a shoe horn, and had a real penny in the fold. A shirt with stripes or some type of anchor or giraffe design on the pocket was also de-rigeur.

Next phase of the day was walking to the pool at a local club we belonged to. There was the trek down the block over the manhole stamped 1964 on it, and which sometimes prompted fearful fantasies of sewar dwellers, a hand reaching up......  Then walking further along the prickly hedge with millions of ladybugs, if only you turned over the leaves and scraped them into your hand—to toss them off into the air for good luck. And finally past the Yokels who always had cats aplenty in their driveway, boxes of kittens, the cats having a proprietary air over this musky smelling place.  And--lest I repress the memory, a big dark English Tudor with a metal witch on broom weathervane on top which I hurried past.

Next, crossing Demott avenue, named for the Demott family, whose scion, a professor at Amherst and writer for New Yorker, interviewed me years later for my college application.  It was a busy tree shaded street aside the golf course. Then along a dirt path with roots--and dog droppings, for it was one of the few places where real dirt and wild grass grew. The path was along the sixth hole of the club, and men walked amongst the green hills in groups. I eyed them warily—someone they did not seem the type of men in my family, but big, muscular, boasting and loud businessmen who seemed very at ease in the world, wearing pants so loud they could probably be seen on Jupiter, and women with big wide shorts and wide legs that were very white and veiny.  Occassionally a ball would lie on the dirt path, a white sphere nestled among the roots, having somehow penetrated the metal mesh fence dividing the path from the course, and once in a while a ball actually whizzed past, hitting a tree with a loud whack and caroming into traffic or a lawn.

Across the street from the past were rows of large pillored houses, big brick behemoths that seemed must have been built for royalty, yet nonetheless seemed to house regular folk, and kids I knew from school who were just regular guys, not particularly unusual distinguished or even well dressed. It was a paradox I didn't understand.  The men inside, the fathers, also seemed a prosaic breed.  One would see them occasionally watering the lawn or mowing--thin and ordinary looking, and probably having to ride that train to New York ever day to whatever dry soulless task awaited them.

Finally, I would get to the gate of the pool, the metal mesh curtains drawn apart.  I would walk past sting ray bicycles scattered on the entrance way to the wooden swing gate. The wooden bicycle stands, rows of slats angling up at 45 degree, were painted scoreboard green. Later they became metal. No locks were needed, though eventually I had a bike stolen there. You walked past, or sometimes through, since some would be on the walk, to a wooden gate about head height, on a sideways hinge. Beside the gate, from a window  a man, the same man for years, Ray, I think gate, would flip hinged panels of keys to find mine and hand me a key. He also operated the lost and found, a pile of pink and blue towels, goggles, and bikini parts. When he left and a series of  teenage girls and boys replaced him, it was not the same.. Number 42 was the locker, and I would proceed to the locker room, getting a hit of chlorine as I entered. 

The men's locker room had some kind of Spanish man doll dancing on the outer entrance—the woman's locker room, where I dressed with my mom until I was about five had a Spanish woman dancer with castanets. Into the locker room, one would turn through various angled doors, concrete floor until h itting the wet, blue floor that often was mopped by a white panted man with a slippery Clorox solution. I remember he was  not particularly friendly, and wearing white deck shoes and a whistle hanging out his pocket. He also made hamburgers at the grill--or that may have been a similar man of shorter stature.

There were several ways to the locker. One involved walking past the toiletries—a shelf with a big glass jar with blue water full of black combs, plastic Johnson and Johnson talcum powder and other stuff. The other route  involved a more prosaic labyrinth of locker aisles, involving more stepping on the slippery unidentifiable wetness on the floor.

 Finally, arriving at locker 42, bottom row, way in the back, the key would fit in, the lock turn, and various pieces of clothes would be placed strategically inside. Sneakers on the bottom, shorts on top of that, other sartorial accouterments on the hook either side of the locker. The bench was brown, smooth, lacquered wood, with little drops of water on it, and would have to be toweled off. Hopefully some full grown man was not dressing nearby. Occasionally, an undisciplined glance in that direction would fill me with a sort of horrid disgust of what adulthood meant. 

Then to the pool. It was long and L shaped. Around the pool was a concrete shelf upon which higher waves splashed. Benches around the pool were brown panels on stone supports and on each end of the bench was a big urn, full of sand, for cigarette butts, Lifeguards, strong and mostly male, would sit high on their perches, hairy legs curled colorfully beneath them, with whistles to signal bad behavior, and white oily stuff on their noses--greasy stuff that I imagined came off in the water when they swam.

One had to stake out a place for a blanket, or a chaiselongue. The problem with a blanket was ants and uncomfortably thick grass beneath. The problem with a chaise longue was the sort of uncomfortable angle it put one at, and, occasionally, an errant plastic fiber that would stick into the skin. When younger, I would hang around my mother and her friends near the baby pool. But as I got older, I ventured to the farther area, other side of the pool, which seemed, at that age, a land as distant and strange as Africa. The teenage, or probably tween girls, hung out there, with bikinis, and one dark haired sprite seemed always to catch my attention, though never acknowledging me.  In retrospect, remembering their anime like bodies, they were probably only 12 or 13 rather than real tweens but at that time they held all the dark secrets of junior high school. They mostly ignored me.

Swimming in the pool involved lots of diving, splashing, inept flips of the low board and jack knifes and cannonballs in the water. Occasionally we would rock the pool, zipping up the diving board ladder and jumping off, one after another so as to make the pool as wavy as possible.  Contests to hold breath were also common, and my brother Joe was so good at it that after a couple of minutes a concerned life guard came over to look, then called the pool manager who also stood by worriedly. With a shake of his head to disperse the water Joe arose, and seeing the crowd, said, in a stage whisper, "that's the way you hold your breath it,." by way of explantion. By the end of the day our eyes were pure red and the more fried our skin, the better.

After the pool it was back home. More fruit, and time to sit in front of the TV and take in a Mets game. One anticipated 9 whole innings of lazy tevision watching as if that completeness was a virtue. Maybe Tom Seaver would be pitching or Don Cardwell, who never in my watching days ever seemed to win a game. But it did not matter. With a Mountain Dew and a Wingding, one sat and watched the Mets, often losing in those days,  go through nine  innings, the familiar names like Swaboda and Kranepool and Grote supplying even, pleasant entertainement, and then watching Kiner's Corner, where old timer Ralph Kiner, apparently a great player and still a great kidder, would interview the prominent players from the game, who probably did not know who he was, either. The players always seemed so horribly inarticulate--even by second grade they seemed to be inept interviewees.

Dinner might be a barbecue. My father used sticks and newspaper, sometimes without lighter fluid and results varied from smoky but quick to what seemed like geologic time spans gathering sticks and even newspapers to light the fire. Occassionally he would shoot a stream of lighter fluid onto the fire, telling us before hand to stand back.  Corn on the cob, fresh farm string beans which my mother would drive afar to get but whose importance escaped me, and hamburgers or steak or meatloaf—and margarine, much admired in those days as a better substitute for butter.

And then an evening of TV—maybe Ed Sullivan, maybe Get Smart, and then bedtime, playing Light My Fire on a portable record player in my brothers room, whose bed I liked better than my own, until ejected when he came back from  his nocturnal prowlings and I had to return to my own warm pillow.

Times New Roman

 by Damon LaBarbera

My name is Melissa. I have a blog. Its my therapy. But I can't think of anything to write today.

I type while Derrick stomps heavily around the house. Heavy steps are his form of communication. He comes over here to confront me. Better keep typing away.  Eyes down, hands on keyboard. “Great timing. Just when you think I am acting jealous and possessive you decide to have wine with Lamar."   Derrik's lips are drawn in a fine line.

"We just had a glass of wine. Nothing more happened. All we did was talk a few minutes." I say,  typing in Courier font then changing to Times New Roman, which looks a little classier.  I don't want to look up.   "All we did was talk."

  “Lamar is a pothead and a methhead and who knows what else. Why would you talk with him”. I type it all out.  I think: "Lamar may be a meth-head, but you are a meathead, Derrick." But instead I  say, "We had a glass of wine. Maybe forty-five minutes. It was nothing." Actually Lamar has a hard time keeping his hands to himself.

“Why can't you see that you set me up. If you didn't want to make me jealous, why didn't you tell me about your tete-a- tete with Lamar. Why did I have to discover it?” I type his words as he speaks. He found a receipt for the wine in my purse.

“I didn't tell you, Derrick, because of the way you treat me, I say. You do not encourage honesty. Your miserable jealousy makes me have to lie. Truthfulness is punished because you will read too much into things. You twist everything.” How can I convince him. Maybe show anger. But you are too dense to see that.”   I am mean. But the blog is writing itself.  “In any case, Derrick, nothing of a romantic nature occurred, I assure you. I need to get out once in a while.  I am not going to sit in this house watching you play world of witchcraft.” 

“Warcraft”, he says. “I suppose Lamar is what passes for a sophisticated guy around here..”

The sans serif letters have  a nice look. You are nice friend, netbook. I am glad I bought you.

"Listen to me, Melissa! Derrick continues to eye me, his face sullen and angry, and—and are his eyes swollen?   It pains him. He keeps his arms folded protectively in front of him. I can see his sweat. "What did you talk about!" I hate hurting you Derrick. I hate it, but Derrick, you just ask for it. I feel like the scorpion in the Aesop's fable, carried across the river by the frog. Yes, I bit you, says the scorpion to the frog. Its is my nature

Answer me, he says (and I type). “What did you talk about with Lamar?”

I type as I talk. I am a very fast typer. “Derrick, I mostly  evaded his personal questions about me. He is nosey. . I would much rather talk to you. He is a nuisance but a clever nuisance and I don't wish to be rude.  I can't limit my social life to men who do n't make you jealous. I will go crazy sitting in this dark house. You don't have a single friend."

“Don't you care if you hurt me,” he asks.

“Well, frankly Derrick, I don't give a damn. I rally don't. Rally, rally, rally.” In actuality I say nothing, just keep typing.

"Is that your diary. I want to see. Your undefended thoughts...'.

“Undefended thoughts”. Once when he had looked at my Facebook  messages, I complained it was unfair of him to view my undefended thoughts. Even politicians, I had said, can say things off the record. Now I say nothing. My eyes are fixed on the screen. I can see Derrick's face dimly in the screen behind my own.

"No, just my blog....'

From the yard comes the sound of the door slamming, and one of the two overrefined male roommates yelling as if burlesque show homosexuals from the thirties. “You are an absolute tyrant with your money. I will spend you to death. That'd teach you. Filthy lucre! .

Derrick turns, walks away. Where has he gone?  I hear no sound. He is probably in the bedroom, sitting on the bed. Hurt. Sobbing. Drowning his pain. Has he no idea why jealousy and control are not attractive traits? Why does he have to be such a good sufferer? And does Courier  look better than sans serif. 

'Melissa!"  He is back again from the bedroom. He can't stand to be ignored. There is alarm in his voice.  He must know about Lamar. Tomorrow it will be somebody else. Maybe I should turn on the cam to record our blissful exchange. The corners of my mouth lift almost in a smile.

He has a strange look. A strange, insulted look. He says You look like you are about to laugh. His voice brightens. Maybe he thinks the fight will be over. All will be resolved. Maybe he thinks we will sometimes get passionate as we sometimes do to end an argument. Well, feller, I have no interest in that at the moment, I continue to type. His face falls. I see it in the netbook. His cheerful attitude was, after all, experimental.

"Melissa! Please! Stop and talk to me! Are you seeing Lamar, or someone else. You seem different." Derrick looks over my shoulder at what I am writing. "You are so obnoxious," he says. when he sees I am typing our conversation.  I keep typing.

I say, you need help. He pushes me roughly on the shoulder. I keep typing. He slapped my fingers on the keyboard and I continued to type. I don't want to deal with him.  Some way I will have to tell him. Some way I will have to sneak away. But for now, I just want to finish my blog


 Several minutes have passed when I couldn't type. Derrick actually grabbed my netbook and it fell onto the floor.  I am feverishly catching up. Now he is on the cell.  My fingers hurt from where he grabbed me.

 "Please let go of my fingers, " I had said.

Derrick let go of them.  Derrick is actually averse to violence of any type.  Months ago I made a motion as if to kick him,  and he ran into the bathroom. I was momentarily afraid that he would, as the saying goes, do something foolish.  Down a bottle of  xanax, or since we don't have xanax, antibiotics.

Now Derrick is on his cell.  Although I can't hear the phone conversation -- or else I would type that too -- I can hear him use the words "hell" and "fuck" as she talks. This is unusual for him. The person at the other probably doesn't know what has come over Derrick. Or maybe the   person on the other end can  tell we are fighting? Anyway, the bad language is directed at me, realistically. As articulate as his heavy stamping round the apartment. Slightly better than semaphore. The call ends. he goes into another room. Now Derrick is back again, arms folded, big from working out.

 "You make me feel jealous. You develop these little talky relationships with people and  then fantasize about them."

 "How would you know except from reading my Facebook messages?"

 "Oh, I don't need Facebook.. You don't hide it. All I've been hearing about the last three weeks is Lamar. Lamar this, Lamar that. Plus you just friended him last week.

 I start to write again.

"Melissa!" The fear returns to Derrick's voice.

The charade goes on and on, two boats, not beating against the tide as in Fitzgerald's novel, but against ourselves, never quite connecting, never quite veering away into freedom. 

Derrick is back.  "You make me feel jealous. You develop these little crushes on people and then fantasize about them."

"How would you know except reading my journal."

Derrick came  into the room and told me it was my father on the line, long diastance from Los Angeles. When I returned to the room he was looking out the window at the six street stories below, feigning absorbtion in a blinking Dewars sign. He is still there.

"Why don't you think I am enough for you. Whey do you need to have all these other flirtations."

"What?" I say in a surprised voice, as if I had been so deeply absorbed in my typing as to be oblivious to his presence.

"I said why don't you treat me like you want to be with me.?"

I say nothing.

"Why don't you answer."

"I don't know what to say."

This is so uncomfortable. I've lived on the ground floor I could pretend I saw a pickpocket, and then give chase down Bleeker Street. "Stop thief!" But this is the sixth floor...

"Well it's a legitimate question."

I say nothing.

"Melissa!"

"What."

"Why don't you answer me?"

"I don't know what to say."

"Well, think about it."

"I have thought about it all I want to think about it. I don't understand why you are getting so upset about my seeing Lamr, whom I see once every couple of months and have no other connection with.

"Did you tell Laamar how your jealous boyfriend is driving you crazy?"

"We talked about... This strikes me as absurd. I'm sorry, but I really can't go on."

 In fact, we had talked about movies--Paranormal Activity, The Ring. But I won't explain. Not under compulsion.

"What did you talk about?"

"Give me five minutes to collect my thoughts. Can't you see I'm trying to write?"

...now she is standing before my desk. His face is torn, wounded.

"What did you talk about?"

I continue to type. Derrick watches. The police are doing something below down the street. I hear the wail of the siren, a voice arguing. he continues to stare at me. The cell rings. I answer it. . It is Lucy, a shy benevolent woman, Lamar's girlfriend.

I turn on the speakerphone so Derrick can hear.  Lucy asks if Derrick and I wanted to get wine with her and Lamar.  had mentioned to Lamar all of us getting together sometime.

"Do you think that if I were romantically involved with Lamar, his girlfriend would ask to go out with them?"

Derrick looks somewhat contrite.

"I just don't like the idea of your being interested in other men. I may selfish, but you can't blame me for it. I'm not the kind of person who could stand to have you having affairs.

"Even if the affairs are nothing more than having a couple of beers?"

"I thought it was wine?"

Silence. I begin to type.

"Will you stop that?"

"One more sentence."

I continue to type. He is staring at me, suffering. I can't bear it. I ask Derrick: "Can't you live with that?"

"Yes, of course, but why don't you show any interest in me?"

"Let me tell you something. There is something I know that you do not. It's about long relationships. They are hard. They take work. A lot don't last. And jealousy makes it harder.  It takes the dull, ongoing work, the constant compromises even harder. I resent it. I hate being misunderstood, and I hate being made to feel I am doing bad things.  Of course, you have the right to leave me. You are very good to me and probably for me, but you are lonely hermit and I am not and I need to socialize with people. And  I am still young. If my sexual appetite leads me away from our bed, so be it. It hasnt yet, but it might. And now let me say this. Having declared my independence, I have no intention of exercising it. There are no other men I am interested in. Yet, let me remind you once again. Control and dependence are not aphrodisiacs.  They are  turn-offs.

"They don't have to be that way. What can I do to make the relationship less stressful?"

"You are doing fine."

"I am not. You are just saying that so you can get rid of me. So you can get back to your precious work. I think you are really quite cruel."

"I know I am. I will not try to be in the future. I will probably fail."

"Do you want this relationship to go on?"

"Probably." I do not look at Derrick as I am saying this. My netbook keys are flailing. Derrick  ignores the sarcasm.  Tears are on his cheeks. H is face is crushed. I am cruel.  The only image that comes to me is a crushed tomato.

I sigh. "Derrick, what can I do to reassure you?"

But now I feel angry for asking this. I say:  "Tell me what to do, because frankly,  you look like you are about to have a nervous breakdown."

"Well stop typing, pay more attention to me. Take me seriously. Let's do things together.  "

"We cook together all the time."

"That's because you're always hungr," he says.

"We go out to dinners and clubs sometimes."

"Yeah, you work before we leave, talk to everybody but me, and then you retreat into your study to work when we return."

Derrick, you clam up when we are out. You are good listener, but frankly you don't stay on conversation.

"Can't you stop writing on your netbook when we talk?"

"Sorry."

"You don't make any concessions."

"I think I make many concessions."

"Like?"

"Like living with someone who is so possessive.  Like putting up with these inane cross examinations. Or that phone you gave me and constantly called."

"You just can't just talk to people without bonding with them. That's your problem. You have no boundaries."

"What I meant is that it is hard to change from a normal woman to a computer geek girlfriend."

I am trying to sund very logical now. Even if I am not, I want to seem reasonable, logical, and the one that seems to be thinking clearly.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

Derrick is talking about my typing.

"Because I don't see much good coming out of this conversation, only a lot of greif."

He turns around, confused, as if not knowing what to do. he throws his hands up in desperation.

Now Derrick says,"I am going out. I am not leaving you, I am just going out."

Panic hits me. He is going back to his family

"Please don't go out."

He walks away.

"I just need to get out."

"I am asking you not to go out."

I hear  Derrick rustiling in the hallway closet to get his coat. Then there is silence. I do not know if she has left or not. Has she slipped out? I become nervous. Good God, I think, don't leave me.

...I had to leave my netbook for a moment, but now I am back. I went to see if she was in the apartment. he was not in the bedroom. he was not in the bathroom. The kitchen was empty. And then, in the living room, I saw a hunched, pained figure by the dark curtain, his face bowed in sorrow. I stepped across the room and rested my head on his shoulder, rubbing his arms with my hands.

"It would be very difficult for me if you went away."

Derrick did not say anything fr a few momnets. Then she said, "I feel that I have to get away."

"Lets just talk about things. Let's not make decisions while we are both under stress."

He walked into the bedroom. I could hear him sobbing, deep heavy heaves.  I am back at my netbook now. It is difficult to type. God. What a biatch I can be.