This Is Absolutely Not The Time For Heroes.

Have you ever noticed how each new day requires some more figuring out on how to live? Tears meet cheeks meet kick meet scream. But silent-like, like the song or like films but most like the painting with the hypnotic orange horizon. Big, gaping and speechless, just like I did when I witnessed that accident earlier, and then wondered all day, "Was anyone hurt?" Add that to the kajillion other motherfucking questions I feel compelled to ask but don't really want to know the answers to, like: how much traffic is there going to be after the school finally goes in? and who is the person behind the AOL address with whom you correspond? and why can't I be enough? and what, did she paint you some gushing sunset or you to her and now you're left wondering about all of the homes you could've had? and what is in protein water, really? and what does Tracy have planned for me tomorrow? and, can I survive it? can you truly buy love or are you just renting affection?

I shudder to think, really, about those truths and about what I might have in common with them. But let's play coy now, and again, for the camera, for the lens. Did I marry the one I can live with or the one I can't live with out?? Come now, and don't be ridiculous. I lived for twenty-five years without you and don't you think that saying otherwise would be awfully specious? And being able to live with someone is no small thing; just ask my laundry pile(s). But if you're asking, did I settle? did I settle for you? did I settle for the life that we share? No. I chose it and feel so lucky that, to you, I was the most beautiful girl in the whole, wide room. And if you were to meet me on the street (depending on the street) you might even think I was in the top five. But, I understand where you are coming from because I do sometimes wonder why you agreed to marry me. Because when I look in the mirror, all I see is someone who is sober and irrelevant and very nearly completely barred out. Can you get behind weeping over that? What about if that Izzy were to say it to Denny on his deathbed, with her sweet doe eyes and crooked teeth? I mean, she gave up a baby for adoption when she was just a young girl for chrissakes! Do you know how hard that must have been for her fictional character (a fictional character who is, to wit, fairly smart, maybe gets a little too emotionally involved sometimes, and is a compulsive baker)? Don't answer that.

My darling Criminal, the love I feel for you is the strongest adhesive, the stickiest sticky tape of love, and believe me, I have searched on the roll with my fingernail over and over but I just can't find the end. So let's throw our troubles to the dying embers because I'm just glad to be here.

The Smell of Many Hungry People Breathing

You know that old "when you're nervous, just imagine 'em naked" thing? I don't do that. When I get nervous, I talk really fast and my palms sweat. But, I do this other thing that is kind of in the same vein but weirder, I guess. I try to imagine what people's guts look like. Does he have a cancer eating his pancreas? Are her fallopian tubes all mangled and twisted up? Is she lactating? Got an IUD in? Is he on any interesting medications? Are his arteries clogged and, if so, to what degree? But my morbid curiosity about people's guts was never strong enough to compel me to become a physician. Hate throw up, yo. Would be an occupational hazard.

I wish I could take away all your guilt and all her worry. But its like punching air. I just try not to add to it. I really do try. But I think I end up sounding like a singing gulagmeister. So, for that, I am sorry.

And I cannot fucking write in two minute increments.