Playing House

In my denim skirt, floral blouse and old olive-green flats, I sit beside Scott in a small glass bank office. We are applying for our first mortgage pre-approval. While I whisper my secret salary to the stranger across the desk, soccer moms kick carts of Diet Coke and Cool Ranch Doritos by, peering in on me as if my mortgage application were somehow a reminder of their fat lazy husbands at home who refuse to mow the lawn or take that shit in the basement to the dump like they promised last July. Our bank is inside a grocery store, a florescent, bleach-scented, super-sized grocery store.

"We're going to do what his brother did a few years ago when he bought his first house, which is, we are not going to pay a down payment. There's some special deal for Massachusetts public school teachers with good credit." I explain.

"Oh. I haven't heard of that. But I wouldn't be surprised if it existed." The teller typing our application says. The edges of his lips pointing down, his shoulders jolting upwards.

One week later, we receive the official call from the loan officer. We have been pre-approved for $175,000. A respectable amount of money for someone looking to buy a rare, refurbished 1937 Cadillac; a lot of cocaine; or a healthy Caucasian purebred baby boy. It is not, however, very much for a house.

Soon realtors are involved.

At one homestead, I sing these words to the tune of London Bridge.

This house is falling down, falling down, falling down, this house is falling down, we should leave.

The teacher plan does not exist, we come to find out, and the lowest possible downpayment percentage we could maybe muster would be for 3.5%, which sounds small and innocent, but actually amounts to thousands and thousands of dollars. We do not have thousands and thousands of dollars.

Pretty soon, parents are involved, generously offering to loan us the money for a down payment. We thank them, quietly punching the nerves that jump and flip on our digesting frozen pizza dinners like homeless kids on a floor model trampoline at Sears. And we continue searching and scrolling the internet for sweet little houses and funky downtown condos.

Buy before April 30th to get the first time home owners $8000 tax credit! (Rush, hurry and scurry so that you accidentally buy this dump yard house in this dangerous un-sellable neighborhood of foreclosed houses, which are currently sheltering scary squatting drug dealers and child molesting jailbreaks.) Selling as is. Needs TLC. (Needs Trampy Lady Cocottes to fully transform this pimp's dream into an illegal reality.)

On Saturday, I take $20 out of the ATM, but I nearly shove the bill back into the machine when I look at the receipt. It reads,

Balance: $YOU ARE BROKE.00.

The next day, we see three condos. Afterwards, I carry a bag of collected coins, equalling $6.76, into the grocery store.

"Is milk a necessity?" Scott asks, carrying a small red, plastic basket. 

"Many people would say it is. I want it for coffee."

"But coffee isn't a necessity."

"It is to me."

We buy a loaf of pumpernickel bread from the day old bakery shelf for $1.47, along with a mixed bag of bagels for $2.14. Luckily, we still have some butter and jelly at home from before I spontaneously quit my job, which I will explain... I spontaneously quit my job because I could no longer tolerate the squealing noise of my new manager. I was going to become a part time employee. She had said it would be fine, but a week later, after I accepted my new part time job, she changed her mind. I had to quit or stay a full time employee.

"Looks like you have a decision to make." She said in a pitch of pink and yellow polka dots.

"Ok...then I give my two weeks." I said in red, to clash.

Scott wasn't proud of me. I thought he might be. I hoped he would be, but he wasn't. He is far more a realist than an individual rights rallyer. "How are we going to live?" He asked me, flatly frowning.

"I don't know! But I can't work for her anymore!" I yelled to him across the backyard.

My resume and I often say that I cannot stay at one place of employment for very long. I get itchy and aggravated. I don't understand how people can stay at the same job doing the same thing for so many years.

"Ever been homeless?" A young man in the break room asked me after I explained to him my need for frequent flight.

"No." I told him.

"It keeps you from quitting your job."

After shopping, we crunch and crunch the numbers, but eventually we realize that even the smallest six-digit dollar sum is still too stubbornly stiff for us to swallow. What are we thinking? We can't buy a house right now. We can barely afford to buy day-old bread from the Big Ugly Grocery Store's sticky, dusty discounted shelves.

Boys Beer Club

I sit at the hearty bar; tapping my toes ticklishly into its sides and swinging on my barstool whenever anyone steps onto the spilled sunlight from the parking lot. Like a promiscuous widow, I compare all other bars to this one, my first true taproom. It is not yet four thirty on this Thursday afternoon and already the bar of red wine walls, handwritten chalkboard menus and hip music is additionally adorned with half-empty glasses; bodies bending over books and beer; discussions with resting elbows and moving hands; and the mumblings of the daily drinkers who wake up every morning, thirsty for dark lagers and pale ales.

I glance at my friend, Claire, the bartender, as she quietly and easily commands the counter. Pretty and slender, she carries the caliber of even the college professor beer connoisseur customers who enjoy slyly testing the sweet young barkeep with casual conversations about their present pints. She places a round cork coaster under my nose and stands my hard apple cider atop it. As I sip my cold cider; crack peanut shells and lick my salty fingertips, I listen, admiring Claire's honorary membership -hell, her presidential status- to this boys' beer club.

a haiku for you

Playfully I point

Sniff. Sniff. She paws the puddle.

My dog eats the frog.

Blushing Cheeks That Ache

Light brown skin glows from beneath her sparkling white dress, diamond necklace, delicate veil and small pearl earrings. Her hair is professionally tied and curled. Her nails, painted. Make-up perfect. This is the day she's been waiting for. The favors are made. The flowers delivered. The invitations returned. Today the hall prepares their pre-ordered hors d'oeuvres; sets her handwritten place cards and waxes the dance floor.

The guests arrive, dressed in colorful dresses, shiny shoes and paisley neck ties. Two groomsmen carefully unravel the long white runner. Her father bends his left elbow and she grabs hold of his forearm. By the alter, her groom stands in his black tuxedo, watching as she walks toward him. Everyone stands. She is a fairy tale image, one only little girls could have imagined.

Loud Desperation

I walk into the crowded club of explicitly genital-focused dance moves and exposed sweaty skin, clutching my winter coat and gloves. Dressed like a secretary on Casual Friday, I am indisputably an infrequent visitor to this place: this destination for those desperate to be desired and, apparently, the obvious choice location for my little sister, Samantha's, bachelorette party.

My older sister, Jess, buys me a beer and I dance beside the bar, poking my fingers to the beat and bobbing my head like a buoy in a stormy bay. I stand out like a tomato in a bowl of flour, but I don't mind. I'm glad I don't belong in this zoo of wild animals caged by society's sexual norms and allowances. Intoxicated wild animals, really, ready to mate and procreate. Except, instead of drunken poop throwing monkeys; girls, covered in vodka tonic vomit, run to the bathroom, accidentally wiping partially digested dinner chunks onto Jessica's silk top while she waits in line for an available stall. Instead of pill popping peacocks flipping open their fans of feathers; young men adjust the top buttons of their dress shirts, exposing their curly chest hair and shiny religious necklaces. Instead of stoned bats hanging from dark man made caves; twenty-something girls swing from precociously placed stripper poles, holding cameras above their heads and flashing photos frequently in hopes they'll take at least one flattering picture to post onto the internet later that night.

The music is so loud it vibrates my green flat shoes as I dance through puddles of spilled splashed beer to reach the pillowed ring. Inside the ring, an electronic bull spins, shakes and flips a girl, forcing her skirt to slowly rise and show everyone watching her entirely wide nyloned butt. My friend leans over the padded railing, yelling

Get off, y'whore!

and I laugh at this girl's persistence to stay on rather than keep her skirt and dignity on. That is what this place is. A place where everyone is holding on so tightly, terrified that if their dance moves are not pornographically flirtatious enough and if their aging glistening faces are not in constant climactic excitement, they might miss their opportunity to find love with some dirty dancing queen or greased guido.

It is a club of strangers, performing a show of loud desperation and I have a front row seat.

The Shopper

I take in my last breath of fresh, free air and pull the glass door open. Inside, a young sales-girl/woman stands behind a barricade of brasiers, belts and dapperly dressed dummies, folding scrambled piles of preshrunk colored cotton tee-shirts. She is decorated with dangling delicate necklaces; multiple layers of mismatching cardigans and camisoles; perfectly frazzled auburn hair and one leather green grenade, which drapes across her slender boobless structure (over the necklaces and cardigans), by a beautiful black satin purse strap. My knees lock when I see the potential explosion strapped to this stranger, but before I can run to the messy disappointing side of a sales rack, she is tilting her small head up and engaging her sparkly shadowed eyes with my bare baby blues. Then, without the hint of a blink, she places the grenade cap between her lip-glossed lips and throws me a high-pitched..


"Hi!"


"hi."


"Welcome to The Clothing Store You Can't Afford. Nice dirty sneakers and stretched out tee-shirt. My name is Nag. Let me know if I can help you find your size because we both know you'll feel obligated to buy anything once I've scavenged through a daunting, leaning pile of Smalls and Extra-Smalls to find you that Medium you're sort of considering trying on. And just so you know, today, when you spend the money you should be saving for that heating bill you just wrote a check for, you also receive a receipt with a printed list of all your financial guilt. Do you have the Can't Afford Credit Card?..I didn't think so. If you open one today, you will also receive a paper white bag, which will sit in your bedroom closet beside your ugly shoes, silently begging you to fill it with a new pair of trousers, flashy argyle socks, another black sweater and an orange purse -of all things- which you'll later realizes matches nothing. Holler if you need me. Remember me, Nag, at the register."

Inside the warm white lights of the dressing room, I can hide everything but my ankles. No one can touch me here.

knock. knock. knock!


"Hey, it's Nag, how's it going in there? Any luck?"

Surrounded by flung and hung garments, in my underwear, I stare blankly at my reflection, numb with disgust.


"Fine thanks."

I say, waving a white scarf and positioning my middle finger to aim precisely where her stupid, flawless face probably is.

Pack My Suitcase

I want to walk down narrow London lanes. Drink Heineken in Holland. Train to Edinburgh. Get drunk in Dublin. Order mozzarella pizza in Sicily. Photograph children dangling from German jungle-gyms. Photograph fiddling buskers playing the desolate streets of Denmark. Photograph groups of giggling girlfriends holding hands in Japan. I want to drink red wine and chew on cheese and bread, while a Venetian native steers me down a slender, green canal in a long, black gondola. I want to write about miscommunications; missed flights; lost baggage and the fast-talking French waiters I fear. I want to dance to Polish music after a plate of sausage and sauerkraut. I want to picnic in New Zealand; order a cappuccino in Milan; gape at beautiful Bulgarian ballerinas; roam Rome's Colosseum, wander to Norway, prance through Prague...

This is what I have for daydreams on my rainy day off: a life of fearless travel where I have money like a candy store has colorful corn syrup.