Straight No Chaser

Embryo

ripped from kiko (via tiger*girl):

1. in your dreams, do you ever fly?
never, but i steal things a lot.

2. would you ever ask someone else a question that you personally would feel uncomfortable answering?
actually, i'm pretty economical with my questions. i can't remember the last time i asked a question that i wasn't dying to be asked in return.

3. how old is too old?
one hundred twenty-two (unless you're a sea tortoise). after one twenty-two you'd make the guinness book of world records, and there are few flattering reasons to wind up a part of that freak show.

4. what is your most recurrent dream?
stealing antiques from an underground flea market, smuggling them to the parking lot across the streat, being chased around the blue village by winged samurais.

5. if money were not necessary for survival, would you still care about it?
well it is now, and i kind of already don't, so probably not.

6. do you think the writer of this survey is too depressing?
um, i don't know?

7. did you ever play "house" as a child?
no, i wrote stories.

8. are you waiting for the survey writer to ask you something deep and sad that you wonder if it is designed to make you realize just how much you have?
no, i'm waiting for the survey writer to ask me something that will inspire me to write more than two lines, and frowning at the grammatical structuring of that question.

9. do you like to dance?
yes.

10. are you a solo dancer or would you like to dance with someone?
i'm with whitney houston on this one, but most of my dancing happens in the car, at stoplights.

11. may i have this dance?
for a price...

12. do you believe in true love at first sight that grows deeper over time or love that once you've got it, you continually work on as if it's actually a business contract?
run-on sentence.

13. do you smile and laugh at least three times per day?
five days a week.

14. if you don't have a journal or blog, why don't you? if you do, then pretend this question does not exist or make up something to say.
i looked to the tv for inspiration, and it told me "this litter box may look clean, but because of invisible cat urine it still smells." that's why i don't have a cat. it's also why i don't have a blog; they pee all over everything.

15. does everybody love raymond?
i don't know about everybody, but i'd tap that.

16. have you ever taken a more bubble gum quiz than this one?
yes.

17. has it really all been done?
and done and done again. my grandmother says "there's nothing new under the sun." she tends to be right about things from times that aren't now.

18. nerd?
i'd love one. i like the bright yellow raspberry lemonade ones.

19. sugar free?
this seems like as good a time as any to plug grim's "Invalid Item" . on the off chance that you read my journal but not his, you should read his, too. to fill in the holes. snicker.

20. do you (or someone) clean your walls?
if anyone's famliar with the x-files, remember "squeeze," the first episode featuring the character of eugene victor tooms? wherein we're introduced to tooms and his papier mache nest, where all the walls were strips of newspaper stuck together with the bile from his overactive liver, which made that whole part of the sewer system smell like vomit. i used to watch that and think those were the nastiest walls ever. that's one good thing i will say about the dorm, that the walls here are (thank god!) not that nasty.

21. how many children do you want to raise one day?
six: one premarital accident, three with my husband, two from affairs.

22. do you make your own peace pretty easily?
yes, but like tiger*girl, i also make my own fuckups, so it all cancels out.

23. do you want my body? do you think i'm sexy? come on, sugar, let me know.
that depends on who you are. but the odds are very much stacked against you.

24. when the young man opened the door, what came out: the lady, or the tiger?
clearly the tiger. i know women like that princess.

25. add your own question here for the next person to answer.
what have i taught you that you didn't know before?

i was going to do the fashion survey too, before this one, but then after reading the questions i realized my answers would have been intolerably monotonous. suffice it to say, i wear things that show off my figure, i limit the makup situation to mascara and lip gloss as needed, i only own one pair of heels and i'd rather spend my life savings on books and music than on a louis vuitton bag. sorry.

**********

And now he isn't speaking to her.

*

Well, to be fair, he was. He was quiet for a minute, stiffly holding her hand, and then he asked a question, so softly she could barely hear him over the crckle of the fire. "What were you humming before?"

She sighed. "Mood Indigo."

"That's what I thought,' he said, dropping her hand. Then he offered her another kebab, and then they argued over the spelling of kebab, and then they fell asleep.

*

And now he isn't speaking to her. He is consumed by his newest conquest, the pigs, those goddamn pigs, and he's up early every morning, comical makeshift spear in hand, heading for the woods. She watches him go, fighting nausea and general unrest, and then goes about her business. Every day.

She tells herself she doesn't have the energy to be hurt. This is nearly true; she's bone-tired all the time but can't sleep at night, lies awake for hours listening to the nauseating clamor of the sea. Instead, sleep ambushes her at all inopportune times of day, making it impossible to get things done.

She sleeps when she should be doing laundry.

She sleeps when she should be eating.

She sits staring into space when she should be eating.

She detests the idea of food, sometimes. Her stomach twists when Aaron sits beside her, mutely offering up the catch of the day. She forces herself not to snap at him, tells herself there's no reason he'd know about the mercury in fish, about how it causes miscarriage.

Then, sometimes, she wonders just how many fish kebabs that would take.

*

We're going to have a baby, she thinks one morning, waking up, and her heart lifts.

This is one approach she hasn't tried, the use of the word baby, and she wonders now whether it might change things. She walks the full perimeter of the island, looking for Aaron, ordering the words in her head. When she reaches her starting point for the second time, she stops. Of course he's nowhere to be found. Shocking, that he'd be off playing caveman now, the same as he's been every morning for weeks.

She finds her notebook and sits under a palm tree, scribbling dark thoughts onto page after page of sunbleached paper.

*

She awakens the next day to the familliar roar of the fire; she cranes her neck to see a giant, bulky creature browning on the spit.

Aaron is at her side. His palm is warm on her still-flat stomach, and pride twinkles in his eyes. "I caught one for you," he says, fingertips drawing circles on her skin. "I want you to start eating better. "