Sunday Morning

 My father was not a man of faith

That is something I stole from him, that phrase

I use to politely defuse the handsome couple at my door on a Saturday morning

That is nice. you and you wife walking on this sunny day. But, I'm fine.

Thank you. My father said that as he kissed stale bread before tossing it

Garbage to others but to my father the body of Christ

We went to church because his parents went but I was allowed to play on the basketball court

Outside, talking to myself about pretend wars between my friends and enemies

In elementary school, I would list their names as we hit them with our weapons

Vidal R. Gone! Jan S. Defeated! Jorel P. Goodbye! Each defeat rung by a crack

The aluminum sign for Medalla beer ringing against the chain link fence

It's me kicking the sign to add effect but it brings my father our. Furious he says to be silent

What am I doing? I don't know. Do you? We drive back albeit we live a block from the church

We don't bring it up until next week. Not a man of faith. 

Idle talk

 Instead of therapy, share your feelings in the open chat

The streamer girl, with blue hair and glowing monitors around will prompt

Like, share, and subscribe. Shout out in the Twitch chat!

And there you can melt your trauma behind a user name

A series of in jokes and flashing moving signs and then a call

Grief isn't just for death. Its a loss of community as well. End of tradition

I'm hollow. I masturbate only because its something to do. 

Feigning confidence at work and home drains me of any desire to sincerely improve

My fears are existential. Infinite and ramparts immune to mindfulness

Say these things over the mic, queuing for a match. The silent Halo lobbies between monks

WTF? Spam crossed out eyes emojis. Sir, this is  Wendy's. Unalive yourself, then. lol, JK

Arclight 1.7

Outside the world had the slate grey blue hue of an impending snow. Inside the school it was a week to winter break. There were multiple reminders to affirm this all around the building. Bulletin boards with tear away pages that counted down and whiteboards with hazy smudges of dates erased each day. May announced it every morning over the PA and it would bring students chiming back with the number. 

"We have five school days until winter break."

And the hallways would chime with people yelling back "Five days!"

Everywhere there were lights and Isabela stretched the limit of her abilities by bending and shaping the flickers of the Christmas lights strung over boards. Ever since the chat with May she had relegated this back to being a novelty. Just like in her dorm in Athens sitting on a fleece sheet and gritting through the icy bite of it through her hands. She would make the digital display of a clock wobble. It no longer hurt, albeit it could be tiring when she made a huge or new thing. Drew had convinced her to try to run "active camouflage" and bend the light around her to reflect back and make her invisible. She had tried, standing in her apartment and focusing on the shapes around her. It left her exhausted, like having run up four flights of stairs after two hours of sleep.   

This last week was a gimme. There were gentle reminders from the management company and Rose to keep engaged. 

• Try to limit watching movies until Friday. 
• Coloring sheets are not lesson plans. 
• Class parties on Friday, if you are having one
• Caroling class to class is not curriculum unless you are music and its pre-approved
• 6th, 7th, 8th grade team-Sending students to help in the office or help the custodian is not curriculum

But, they were all ignored. Sometimes politely and sometimes aggressively with secret text chains or someone bold enough to speak too candidly in a meeting. 

***

Real talk author's note: I began writing this and visibly cringed. If you have read this blog (even the banner mentions it) then this super heroine (teacher by day and nascent hero by night!) is a running motif. There are posts going back to 2018 that note it nut there are more recent ones  It was trying to put together these varying scenes onto the page. Everything I write; I never feel it is as good as I imagine. Every post, every poem, every essay, even every work memo, is something that felt and looked much stronger in my mind. Then out comes the, to quote Mean Girls, "word vomit." These scenes are always set to music. I have a penchant for drum and bass and orchestral scores with side dishes of emo and bubblegum pop. How do I put into words the scene set to the last minute of Across the Spiderverse (Start a Band) where Arclight crashes through a ceiling and saves the class field trip form the people trying to rob the Cleveland Museum of Art? I don't feel confident enough that I can. Or, that I should. 

These repeating daydreams come from childhood where I eagerly ate up any anime and action carton that the folks at Toonami threw at us. I blame the hype videos they played before each show which distilled the heart and saga of random Japanese imports and American re-treads (I think Reboot was a Toonami show also?) into synthesized sizzle. It then was a late adolescence and early adult hood where comic book movies were at their zenith. This blog began after being inspired by the defunct Dave's Long Box blog and Sean Baby articles. Reading them I laughed and comics and superheroes felt accessible yet expansive. Finally, it comes from an adult hood where I do want to be the hero, but also help the amazing people I put on pedestals. The Arclight character is based on a few amazing teachers I got to work with and the idea that one could do caping in their spare time was not much of a stretch. This is America, where we drill schools on what to do in case of violence and ask teachers and staff to do more and more with the same year to year. I want to help! But, I am too fat, or old, or comfortable. I also think this is a characteristic of men who grew up with out fathers. Some guy's daddy issues make them into self pitying angry incels where their hero tells others how to act. And, others, realize the silent labor of their peers and hope to help.

Just like we will keep listening to the same music we did as adolescents, I will never give up on these daydreams. I'll still think how the crew at the Arclight school would handle this or what Isabela or Drew would say (Note: These are placeholder names as the legacy names either are repeated in other stories or would be pretty easy tells for anyone who 1) Reads this blog and 2) Has met me in real life). It will be fun things to imagine when I'm on my walks or trying to wrestle through a few spreadsheets.

That all said, I will still scribble on the blog. Any long form narrative, I hope to polish and try to actually publish. I know, that is a big word. In light of the 2024 US election, I reached out to many old friends and colleagues to check in on them. Are you ok? Are you scared or worried? And, one mentioned who they remembered I wrote and how it was always so lovely. That made my day and inspired me to write but what was in my head was the swashbuckling, curriculum juggling, making hard light blades world of my superheroine. There is a reason you see this in comics or movies. A much better medium for this. 

I just hope, if you read this blog, you enjoy the bad poetry. 

Moving Day

I consider myself rather easy going when it comes to space. I've lived in great placed but also some dumps. When I first met my wife, I slept on a loaner mattress with a tapestry on it. I had a rabbit for many years  and let him hop around and, when younger, he would sometimes hop in bed with me. As he got older, his litter training got worse. I relegated him to a single room in the house but for a time did live with that. I sleep on a couch and shared offices with a copier and groundhogs. Not at the same job. 

At my corporate job they recently made me and some others move cubicles. This was part of a plan that would surely solve problems and foster collaboration. To get through each day I rely on a combination of weaponized anxiety and professional positive detection. The anxiety is self explanatory. I do not trust anyone without it. All the wrong people have imposter syndrome. 

Professional positive dejection is the sanitized version of the "Right on top of that, Rose" from Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter is Dead. It is a bit safer than "Bless your heart" because it is supplication. I find myself saying "it is what it is" more often and it's the slick way to say that. I packed my things and moved beacuse it'd what the company told me to do. I work in an office with spreadsheets and emails. This is not me agreeing to flip the order the bomb drop or rat out the migrants. The stated benefits of the move are equal to how dull it is.

When I worked at the school, space was a weapon. Custodians with union contracts and admins set on their own tiny space conflicted with teachers needing to do a bit of everything. I never decided who had to move rooms but was the guy who had to make it so. I'm lost in a teacher's doe jade eyes as she pleads how unfair this is. I'm just here to move boxes. This was a job where I was way too emotionally attached to things. In the aforementioned moment I'm "You know you are right. I'll hold your earring while you fight the actual person who decided this." Or, I feel it's justified. Get over it. I share an office with the copier and a radiator that spits steam both up and down. Each room is the same in size with only difference being the number of steps.

One thing I am particular on space is clutter. It hurts my soul and I will fret moving idle dishes and things around. There can be stuff but it's there either because that is it homes or I'm to busy shuffling other things out of site. Older everyday, I find this bouncing around rewarding and harrowing. "You are become your mother," my wife says with an eye roll and a glance to more Instagram reels. She is right.

Early Release

 There is a plume of smoke. Wispy and nascent and twirling

Sign of an amateur fire; made of orange pipe and cloudy water

We are closing! Now and early!

The wood in room 106, Sam's office, has warped

It has quickly sloughed off years of laminate and grim and oils

It tells boring stories of meetings and confidential conversations you know nothing about

This used to be a shoe factory. The heat then soaked leather and twine

Now, it ruins meetings and appreciate it. 

Snow Day #9

 The whole situation reminded Zoey of that sinking dread unique to PTO days. You would take a day off to get some shit done and then you realize everything will take that much longer. This storm was equivalent to walking into the BMV, grabbing that number and seeing it is 20 digits above yours. She was number 100 and  the day was still idling at 3. She should have stayed home. She found herself saying that more often. Outside it was now the same ashen grey of the moon, the only light the mushroomed blooms of the struggling street lamps. She had more texts from her mother. First one imploring she should stay and then a chorus of smiling emojis when she affirmed she had stayed put. "Try to enjoy the night! This will pass soon!"

In the open space of the tower, they all sat in a circle and fumbled in the hushed interlude. "Sounds like you grew up in a real one horse town, Sandy," said John Johnson. No one had heard that phrase but they all picked up the context. 

"Something like that," Sandy clapped her hands and then looked around the room. "Ok, who wants to go next? Do not leave me hanging."

"I don't have any scary stories. Just generational trauma," quipped Alexis. She opened a backpack she had brought up and pulled out a bottle of brown liquid. Its skinny next and black label made it clear what it was "I do have some rum if anyone wants some. I know its just straight but if someone wants to walk down they can get a Diet Coke from my mine fridge."

This raised everyone's eyebrows. "Why do you have rum?" Carlos asked with sincere surprise. 

Alexis poured it into a coffee cup and threw her voice up an octave. "For emergencies." She motioned outside for further justification. "Only with no students in the building of course. You should see my boyfriend's office. Everyone these has scotch in the drawers and a cooler of Bud Lights. Its like a tech Mad Men there."

John coughed to interrupt. "Oh yes. I have seen that at some other schools I've worked at. Years ago and they were high schools."

Alexis passed a cup to Zoey and Sandy while Carlos and John passed. "Well, if you are not drinking then you are talking so Carlos lets go. What's your scary story?"

"Or just an interesting story," Sandy then pivoted into more enthusiasm "Or, something you can talk about on the fly with no prep for like ten minutes. Your off the cuff TED talk"

Carlos was embarrassed at what he could lecture on with no prep. A detailed walkthrough of the first few hours of Pokemon Gold/Silver. Why it did not make sense to rake your leaves. Best practices to keep your car clean. How Y-Wing fighters were under appreciated in Star Wars. Instead he went for the scary story

***

My story also involves a pool. Before I was born, my mother my aunt decided to buy houses on the same street in the same planned community. I was still in her womb when they laid the foundations and spent first year in a month to month apartment while they waited for the developers. My aunt and uncle, they had more money. That never seemed obvious growing up but I always noticed they had name brand cereals and my cousins had every video game console. We were not poor. My parents were paying for a house in a development, but our money seemed more invested. In the house and day to day and less in the nice to have things. This meant their house had a pool. 

I spent a lot of time in the pool with my sister and cousins. We could just walk down the street and there was a pool. It was shaped like a thick letter C and sloped down quickly into a deep nine feet. My uncle thought about installing a diving board so he made it deep. However, he must have been prescient to realize the combination of his children and nieces and nephews plus year round warm weather meant it would get beat. 

Instead, we dove by climbing up to the roof of the house, maybe a full story up and then jumping from it into the water. Their place had a flat roof so you could get a bounding run going and, if careful to jump high enough to avoid the raised edge of the roof, just nuclear bomb blast into the water. We only did this when there were no adults and we loved doing it in the rain.

***

Zoey took a deep drink of her rum and curled her whole body onto itself. She had a feeling where the story would go and she hated her weakness for squeamishness. She couldn't even handle when a kid came to her with a cut. Right to the nurse!

***

We were not total idiots. We didn't swim when it was thundering. We felt that was a safe compromise for running at full tilt off a roof in bare feet into a pool. In the rain, we could see what we called the Ghost. It was a shape that would form within the rain as if the water bounced off an invisible body. The rain would even bounce off the surface and then roll down in rivulets so it looked like a trace drawing of someone. It moved with us and looked like a quiet static. It would jump into the water with you and melt into the hundreds of pin pricks above you on the surface. 

My cousins swore it was because someone had died where they built the house. Maybe it was a worker or a homeless person. When I mentioned that the Ghost seemed about our size, a child's size, we furiously debated that maybe it was a kid or maybe it could make itself any size it wanted. We argued this drinking Capri Suns and eating pizza rolls after the sun came out. It never seemed dangerous and only on the roof. My sister said that it guided us as we jumped off the roof. "It holds our hand and makes sure we don't hit our heads on the concrete." And, when I said, "It only comes out in the rain." she argued it was because it was slippery and most needed.

We saw this all through our youth and even into high school albeit pool parties with your siblings and cousins lost their appeal. My aunt and uncle still have that house and the pool is unchanged. Kept up but very dated with its mermaid clamshell accent tiles and scalloped steps. My cousins have their own children and last time I was there, I asked them if their kids also jump off the roof. If they see the ghost. Remember that. They look at me like I'm crazy and I am not sure if its because of the danger or the situation. . 

Arclight 1.6

 The Monday after the whole debacle with Tony Georgia, Drew called off. He had given the school enough notice text May and Rose on Saturday that he had fallen down his apartment stairs and wouldn't be in any shape to come in Monday. 

Isabela only learned this at the same time as everyone else at the school. Even with advanced warning, it was a nightmare to find coverage. Subs did not exists post COVID. I just gave time to split his class into small pairs of students who were told to help in other classes when they would have Drew for ELA. She had a pair of girls assigned to her class. Isabela had not taught them when they were younger but they listened and read Hatchet with her students. Their schedule threw Isabela out of sorts and she forgot to release them to go math until she got the message from Megan Hera, the 8th grade math teacher. "Where are Michaela and Ashanti!?!" she typed furiously. 

Drew did not respond to Isabela's texts. People at school asked her if she knew anything and when she expressed a confused frustration ("Why would I know?") most people either shrugged but Rose, the Assistant Principal, threw a barb.

"Oh, I thought you were dating. You seem to spend a lot of time together. Sorry, so sorry"

Isabela felt herself turn red just thinking about that as she drove to his apartment. She got the address from the school emergency contact sheet but he had yet to respond. Her cringe embarrassment did begin to fold into dread. It was bold of her to just show up. It defied everything about her elder Millennial mind to just drop in unannounced but she also made choices to jump over traffic bollards and chase down guys with overpowered glow sticks. Her modesty folded to the situation. 

But, she worried, he was dead having bleed out internally Saturday into Sunday morning. She snuck in following something into the building. Drew lived on West 85th at the edge of a gentrifying area called Gordon Square. She knew he had lived here a while, likely when the rent was cheaper. No elevator so she shuffled up the heavily worn stairs balancing her backpack and a bag of Chinese take out. 

Isabela knocked on the door, first lightly but then with more a rhythmic emphasis. "Drew. Its me, Isa. Look, I know its out of nowhere but you weren't answering and I, we, like whole school was worried."

She heard a hurt groan from inside. At least he was alive. Then an raspy shuffle to the door. He cracked it open and then said to come in. "Sorry, it hurts to stand up for too long so im going to head back to couch. But, come in." She gave him a minute and then walked in. His apartment was  spartan but had furniture. She expected an air mattresses staged next to crates of books and a TV. Multiple gaming consoles as well.  He lay on his side on the couch under a blanket with his head draped onto the arm rest. He clutched a pillow between his arms. 

Closing the door with her hip Isa set everything on the coffee table "I was terrified when you didn't text me back. I know you called off which was  a good sign but still."

"It hurts to move. My whole right side feels like it is on fire. Like getting the door was peak effort of the day." He did not look up from the couch. 

Isabela pouted and took of her coat throwing it over a chair when she couldn't find a hook. "I brought food. Szechuan Chicken from Top Imperial Village. The twins still work there after school and remembered you when I said it what it was for." She moved to the kitchen assuming it was ok "Are you hungry? Must be if have not moved. Ill get some plates"

Drew was and moved to slowly pull himself up. He swore he heard other things crack. The blanket slipped of his frame and Isabela, returning with plates caught site of the single massive blistering purple bruise running from his armpit to his hip. "Oh my God," she gasped and instinctively looked away He reached back for the blanket and shook his head "Sorry. It hurts to lift my arms up so putting on a shirt takes forever. I got something here. Give me a minute."

"Oh, I'm good. I get it. More I can't believe that bruise." She felt guilt flare up from soles of her feet to crack the top of her heart. 

He slowly fumbled into a t-shirt he had stuffed under his head. It was a slow process where he slung it over his head and got one arm in but other was a methodical build. Already exposed , he asked for help, letting any hesitation melt away. They ate, Isabela sharing well wishes from work and the students. They had a better plan for tomorrow so he should call off which he already planned to. He asked her what happened to the money. She nodded "I spent all day Sunday moving it around. I gave Jessica the most. She still lives with her parents, did you know that? Anyway, I found the place and just dropped it in the mailbox. Simple note saying she should quit and courtesy of Tony." Isabela reached into the front pack of her backpack. "She seemed a lot happier today at work, even with having to follow Calvin around all day. I asked her and said she got a blessing and Tony had shut down the restaurant for a few days for unannounced reasons"

She handed him a coiled roll of crumpled twenties. "Here you go."

"What is this?" He had just gotten a rhythm of moving his left arm to eat and this did surprise him. She motioned with her eyes the sign and roll of her shoulders. "Just take it. He was an asshole and this whole thing doesn't pay. I did same thing."

Drew palmed the roll. 'Its $500," she said. "Just don't put in your bank account, I guess."

His condition only intensified her guilt. After eating she fretted around cleaning up the plates and stowing leftovers. She came back from the kitchen and he was still on the couch breathing shallow and looking up to the ceiling. "Did you see a doctor? I could have taken you"

"I went to an urgent care Saturday. They said I had a broken rib and guy said to go see a specialist eventually to check my hip but beyond that nothing permanent."

"Broken rib? How do those heal?" Isabela genuinely did not know. Her sister was an ER doctor at Metro, which made for a good joke whenever a kid came to her with a random ailment- "Don't worry, I know someone who is a doctor, so I know what I'm doing" She imagined an internal cast before realizing how crazy that sounded

"Time. I have to keep it wrapped with this ace bandage and ice. They gave me Oxy, which is nice. Ill have to show May and Rose the script when I come back in." He excused himself and said he was going to lay back down.

She offered to help further. Anything around the apartment? Pets to feed? Errands to run? Sub plans to run over. She emphasized the latter. Drew said he was all set with no pet to care and the thought of her going through his place embarrassed him. He heard his mother in his hear lecturing how he had to keep his place tidy and stocked because "What if a woman comes over!?" and her it happened except he had his ass kicked and temporarily exiled to the couch. 

"No, Im good. Thank you."

She nodded and waved goodbye insisting he needed to answer his texts. They never talked about their work over text. It always happened in person or over the phone but she thought about some sort of code they could use. On her drive back, everything started to feel much more real. A tangible sensation that this wasn't over. Would Tony Georgia also say he fell down some stairs? She took a winding path back to her place. She thought of why she did this and why Drew would want to help. In his apartment she saw the comic and superhero collectibles and the vintage pro wrestling posters. Rose's earlier comment popped back into her head and Isabela debated how much of Drew's motivation was about his sense of fantasy. And how much it could be about her. 

Arclight 1.5

 Drew expected a lot of things when he began teaching. 

Angry parents? Yes

Lack of attention span with students? Yes.

Body odor? Yes

But, he was surprised by the sheer amount of cartoon porn 

"You know I can see your screen, Dayvon," he looked up from his desk and across the top of his monitor. "Cut it out, please."

Dayvon sheepishly nodded but then smirked and shook his head. Drew did close the screen from his control panel and made a mental note of the web address to ask if it could be blocked. 

It was Friday and he couldn't blame the students for wanting to ease into the weekend. He didn't have a movie on but told his students they could free choice but had to be reading, writing, or screen time. But, while he watched on his screens. Most chose screens and idly passed time down Wikipedia wormholes or news sites.

He heard the ding of his phone. It wasn't a Slack message but an actual text. He no longer furtively hide it from his students albeit they better not pull out their phones. It was thirty minutes until end of the day on a Friday, anyway. 

"Another favor? Sorry, please." Then two praying hand emojis. He responded to Isabela with a quick "Sure"

"Can you put up the chairs in my room. Again. I know, sorry!"

The custodians had recently begun to chirp about rooms being too messy after school. Like any work place, this didn't happen directly, but instead in passive aggressive statements at staff meetings and all school emails It was the same energy as the curled and faded "Your mother doesn't work here. Clean up after yourself" print out on the fridge in the lounge. Drew sometimes struggled with this with hid middle schoolers, who made a point to throw trash into the wastepaper basket. Sometimes, if there was practice for drama class, the cafeteria would be booked and students would eat in their rooms. That left streaks of food, jam and sauce, against the walls that custodians argued wasn't their job. The debate raged on. Drew usually made his students do it but he had older ones and sometimes, ones planning to go to private schools for high school, were hungry to spin it as volunteer hours on applications. 

"Sure, no problem. You ok, right"

Five minutes went before she responded, the trailing ellipses on the message bouncing.

"Yeah. Just want to get home and sleep. Thank you! I owe you."

Drew responded with a thumbs up. This was the second time this week, a second day in a row. He wondered whether he should press. He thought about the potential (always hypothetical) scenarios if he said no or pushed: "Maybe try to get your students to help out?" But, he left those in his head. He had met her three years ago, his first year teaching, and he craved any second of her attention, even if just a passing wave in the hallway or heart reaction on Slack. His daydreams often centered on saving the day, something he found a lot of other men his aged shared, and these favors felt close enough

***

Drew dropped into Isabela's room around 3:30pm. He liked the relative quiet of Fridays with no clubs or after school activities to get some emails answered and grades in. Then he felt his weekends could really be his albeit he usually didn't plan anything exciting.  Maybe a new game or a longer walk in the Metroparks. 

She had 5th graders but chairs were same size as his 8th graders. But her tables and desks were lower so it did feel like tearing down someone's jumbled together apartment. Still, I didn't take long and he grabbed some scraps of paper and cheese stick wrapper thrown by her desk. He saw the push sweeper hooked onto the wall and took a few minutes to run it over her map of the world carpet. He liked the satisfying sound it made as its rollers ran over the threads. He doubted it did much but he had nowhere to be. Maybe would put her and him, by extensions, on the placid side of the fight with the custodians. 

Over the rollers he heard the familiar click of his principal's heels. May always wore dresses and always wore heels, albeit she had sneakers in her office in case things "got real." Something she shared during the new teacher orientation each year. His students could hear it coming down the hall and it straightened them to attention. He also found himself doing that. 

 May had to be leaving for the day and she turned to peek in the room when she saw Drew and waved and paused. She opened the door and smiled scanning the room for anyone else "Hey, are you lost?"

Drew hooked the sweeper back onto the wall and chuckled "No, just helping out. She had to leave early." He realized he didn't know the full story and erratically recanted "I mean like right after dismissal. I said I would help wrap up. I have nothing but time."

May slowly nodded and came further into the room "You and Isa seem like you are pretty friendly, right?"

Drew didn't know if he could really answer that. The word had always been loaded to him but he acquiesced "Yeah, I guess so."

"Ok. This question may sound weird." She threw up her hand and briefly waved it as it blocking an attack "And its totally ok to not answer but...is everything ok with her?"

Drew felt isolated. He was also curious but had no answer. Caught between both of them he felt meek. "Oh, I don't know. We are not that close. I think she may have a second job or something"

May pursed her lips and pulled an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "Ok. Well, was just curious since Ive noticed you in her helping a ton and just want to make sure its all fair and everyone ok." She looked at him and it cut through him. "Everyone is Ok, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but I will let you know if anything."

May said her goodbyes "Ok, appreciate it. Just looking out for our girl, right? Have a good weekend."

Drew an embarrassed warmth in his chest and then waved goodbye back. He waited for the clack of her heels to die off in the hallways before he grabbed his bag and left. 

Typical Post

The problem is that I want to write fiction.

Like my lungs give out after a few flights of steps so do my thoughts. Never made it pass the adolescent fan fiction stage a f I'm racing to the big moment where they kiss. I'm forever haunted by the Maguire-Dunst upside in the rain Spiderman kiss. This whole thing is a wrestling match with me running to hit the big spots.

I want to write poetry and, problem is, it won't rhyme or scaffold into anything seeming elegance.

 

The problem is my mid life crisis. The painful realization that I peaked and, look at our world. My children are still young and my best days are behind me.  It makes me navel gaze and seek solace in trinkets I didn't make but provide the smallest dip of dopamine.

I'm lonely and surrounded by a family. The problem is my job and how it shouldn't be a problem but the lack of fulfillment feeds the search for it in things and likes. Upvotes on reddit or likes on Teams fill my soul and I put myself out there  over sharing and leaving a digital trail of a spinning statistic.

 

The problem is letting myself be gutted and heart broken by things that shouldn't. They don't have the right or it's not that a big a deal, right? But, it happens. I did run into a former co worker and said "I miss you. So much" and I broke filled with regret and rage that our hug had no mirth just bristling detection. I do too. I'm sorry. It'll be ok. You are much stronger than me. That wasn't the problem

These posts get two views and I dream it's a lonely single loyal fan. Then, the problem is, I imagine it's my enemies, snickering in the back or my boss with HR. 

My children will be ok. My wife is a treasure. They share all.her strengths and learn her nuances and hobbies. Mine all are being good enough to know why you lost at the game or why the bread didn't rise or this story sucks. 

The problem is there isn't one but I still fell beset on all sides. 

Arclight 1.4

 Growing up, Isabela had a friend who was home schooled, Erin, who, along with her three brothers lived two houses down. At the time, this was enchantingly novel and Isabela would quiz her on things she was learning and how it compared to what was happening in normal school. Place value, state capitols, and spelling tests. It all seemed the same. They even ran into each other once on a fiddle trip to the Great Lake Science Center. Isabela with her entire class and Erin there with her family. They waved and caught each others eye and Isabela's classmates wondered "Where do those kids go to school?"

Sometimes she and Erin would role play teacher with Isabela talking about things not discussed in her cross examination. "We read this book The Giver in class. Did your mom make you read that? Or The Pearl," asked Isabela. When Erin would shake her head, Isabela would pantomime her own teacher and try to sound erudite (a word she had just learned in class) and informed. 

Locked in to be a teacher from an early age, Isabela thought that was all that she needed. Be really smart and read a ton of books. She had no clue about curriculum and coaches and state minimum standards. Even when it dawned on her, as an undergrad and then apprenticing, that this was not as romantic as it seemed she swore she would set the world on fire.

Instead, she ran fire drills. Stuck in the awkward in between of idealistic neophyte and grizzled veteran she tried to sail a post pandemic teaching world. "The kids are different" was the common refrain and while she could feel it she hesitated to blame any one thing. When she got her abilities (She hated calling them powers but Drew had begin calling them that and it was easier. "Just call them powers. Its like calling your boyfriend/girlfriend your partner. It seems off," he had chided) she thought it just a novelty. A year into it and she found herself reading less and putting less emphasis on anchor charts and planning. Her sub plans (already strained this year) were spread out across varying cloud drives and a haggard binder fraying at the corners. Her time pivoted to working out and running through stance drills from fencing and diving into busy body apps like Nextdoor and police scanners for info. And, sleep. Which seemed always so furtive.

"Rose and I discussed it," said her principal, May Holden, "And we are going to add an extra observation or two to your class this year."

This brought Isabela into sharp focus with a bruised ego. She played the professional and pliable part while inside she started to bristle "Oh. Wow, I'm sorry. I hate making more work for you. Is something wrong? Did someone complain? Am I ok?"

May leaned back in the student chair by Isabela's desk. Fifteen years in this and still it was a whole new world when trying to sit in a kid chair. "Well, can we real talk?"

Real talk was a custom secret school term for "lets cut to the chase" or "just be honest." At an elevated form it was "Candid is clear and clear is kind" which was the take away from a surpassingly engaging in service training a year ago. 

Isabela nodded and didn't realize it but also inhaled sharply like belaying a sniffle. She was happy this was happening in her classroom and afterschool. She prepared herself to be gutted and could not have carried that into class if this happened during a planning period. 

"You are almost out of PTO and its only mid October. You show up with just minutes to spare most days if not right as kids are walking in. I have parents, and not just the crazy ones, saying you don't respond to emails. I see how good you are with the kids but I also know you are watching a lot more movies in class or handing out work sheets." May put her hands on the table and reached forward as if she wanted Isabela to take them. When she did not and Isabela kept her arms folded across her stomach, May grimaced and pulled them back "Like, is everything ok? At home? You don't need to tell me but maybe Rose can help or I can get HR from the model involved. We just want to get ahead of anything."

"Ahead of what?" Isabela felt herself get very small inside.

May took a deep breath. "Before this becomes a thing, Isa. Before I have to write you up for being late or showing up everyday in yoga pants and a sweatshirt. Before I need you to write down in a little spreadsheet what you did every minute of the day. I feel like I'm losing one of my best teachers and I don't know why."

The sincerity defused the building ire in Isabela. She could take it from students whose cruelty was candid (Remember, candid is clear and clear is kind) but she realize she was quick to be defensive with everyone else. Not yet beyond it but recognized it. May's empathy did melt all that and she felt her eyes billow with tears. She wiped them away before anything major but felt the heat in her face and how it must look. "I appreciate that. I really do. Home is fine. I've just been distracted." Isabela offered no excuse why "I have just taken this all for granted I guess, but, go it. Its fine. You, assistant principal, HR, anyone is welcome to observe. I appreciate it. Life long learning, right" The weight of every choice in last two years centered itself on Isabela's stomach. When school and "work" had intertwined before it had been on her terms with Carlos on the roof. Now, it felt naked and sudden and pointless. What was she doing anyway?

May sensed the conversation had run its course. "Ok, we will book it. And you will know ahead of time for sure." It was another bit of kindness Isabela now felt unworthy of getting. "And I was honest when I think you are one of the best. Real talk."

Arclight 1.3

 Drew hit the pavement on the full length of his shoulders. He felt the grooves of the asphalt and the myriad street grit brand his skin through the thin cotton of his t shirt. In trying to get away he had let them grab his jacket and shuck it off his arm, something that gave him a few seconds to put space in between them, but left him shivering, hurt, and covered in dirt. He then felt a foot slam into his side and send all the air out of his chest. His side went concave and he rolled away clutching his side. Rolling onto his back he saw the shimmer of lights against the river on one side and the sleepy lots of abandoned junk shops in the Flats. He didn't know the name of the guy trying to kill him. Form the bulge at his hip, Drew knew he was armed and wondered why he hadn't just finished it. 

"The fuck were you thinking, huh? You should have just kept walking." The guy wore a bright red sweater with the OSU logo on it and bright blue jeans that looked painted on. He had the look of a campus bully in in a 50's teen beach movie and the physique to match. He ran up to Drew and kicked him again sending him rolling into the embankment of withering plants and still biting thistle. He hurt all over and felt the boots of his assailant nudge under arm. "Stealing from me! Do you know where you are? Who I am?"

A car drove by and the guy crouched down trying to hide Drew's frame with his own. The attacked pressed his hand against Drew's chest and pushed down slowly, pushing him into the thicket until the boughs had no more give. When the headlights faded, the guy sucker punched him the side of the head and it made Drew's head pop into angry sounds and black circle. 'Isabela," he gurgled, "can you...do...this, please."

His attacker cupped his hands around his ear. "What did you say?" Then the air crackled as a shard of light shot past his eyes and the arched back to stab him in between the shoulder blades. "Oh, FUCK. What was that?" He reached for the shard and it burned his hand when he touched it. Isabela came out of a half crouch from under a streetlight. She was exhausted having held there for three minutes refracting the world around her so she was invisible. Drew called it "active camo" and he had showed her clips form all sorts of movies and shows where it was a thing. She thought is  neat trick and appreciated she could pull it off with her clothes on. But, it left her an achy hurt like a bad cold. She just wanted to end this and save Drew.

Isabela had been practicing her voice, something of a modified teacher voice that could paralyze 5th graders in the next room over, and maybe could work on the non elementary age. It sounded OK, at least in her head 

"Tony Georgia! Get the fuck away from him!" She said and then flung another shard at him the nicked his thigh. Isabela was horrible at throwing things, something apparent the one time she had to cover for gym class and whipped a ball somehow perpendicular to her entire body. 

He ran at her and she also bolted back into the radius of the streetlight where she flared the half circle of lumens behind her and made him trip onto the pavement. His nose cracked under the weight and he dove into a prone fetal position. "My fucking face! What the fuck!?"

Isabela dug into every resolve she had to pull up from achy legs and make a short sword she pressed to Tony's neck "You are going to pick yourself up and walk back to the restaurant. The money my friend over there has is ours and we are going to give it away."

"You are thieves. Fucking thieves," he said in a wet guttural snarl

"I know people who work at your place. Who have other jobs and thanks to people like you cannot make ends meet. And you shaft them on tips and fire them when they call off sick and stare at their asses and you can just take the fucking L for this one time, ok" Isabela felt venom rise in her voice and any twinge of self doubt evaporated. She pricked him with the tip of the sword in the side of the stomach. "Do you understand?"

He bellowed and shook his head. "Ill call the cops. I saw his face!" She once again poked him with the sword and reached it up so a pinprick of blood arched up in the streetlight. 

Isabela had not put much thought into this and felt her chest tighten. Drew had liberated the cash from the safe. Just where Jessica said Tony skimmed all the cash tips into. Must have been a year's worth. And then he just ran. 

Ok, Drew had robbed them, but it was for a good cause. And then Tony chased Drew into the Flats far from  the array of restaurants by the river and into the sleepy store fronts that sold safety equipment and marine supplies. 

"If you talk, I swear we will come back and kill you."

Tony had one hand to his side and the other to his face. Both were slick with sweat and blood in an oily red. "Fuck, ok. Just leave me alone. I'll kill you that is what I will do." He then began to mutter. 'You are that vigilante bitch. I can't believe you are real, what the fuck. You know this is Cleveland. Not fucking Gotham"

Drew hobbled over to her side. Her voice did soften "Oh, you are ok?" She saw Drew did not have his jacket or hood on him but did still have the gaiter around his mouth. That should do, she thought

He wheezed. "Mostly." he said motioning to Tony "Lets take his phone and wallet. Take the SIM card out and then toss the rest"

"Fucking thieves!" Tony turned up into a sitting position and tried to get up. Drew kicked him down with a single hit to the chest. "Shut up! Can't you see we won!?"

Isabela made the whole world around Tonys head a bright white where he couldn't see. He screamed from his single helmet prison while they grabbed the money and wallet and phone and ran. 

Arclight 1.2

Drew liked to think of himself as somewhat elevated, a bit more mature than other guys in their early thirties. His apartment had furniture, which was assembled from varying thrift stores and cast offs, but it was there. His plates and bowls, a neat half dozen of each, matched in the same emerald green hue.  He even had a bed frame and sheets. He had plants. A large philodendron that lived off cold coffee poured into it every night and then a Christmas cactus that he always hoped would bloom. His bathroom had extra towels and extra shampoo and conditioner. These sat idle but compared to his single friends he lived like the world's most interesting man. The only items that would have seemed typical were the varying collectibles used as decorations. Funko Pops still in box and premium hard cover editions of graphic novels and a pair of Pokemon plushies (Espeon and Umbreon) bookending them on a built in shelf. 

There was another teacher who made a point of sharing every book she read in the year (Going for 100!) she did in her Instagram stories and he made a point to note them and read more women authors. He did this because it felt fair and expanded his horizons over his usual fare of spy thrillers but also a lingering reflection of being raised by a single mother with two older sisters. He had come to peace with his middling success with women and instead wanted to be a model for his middle school boys a few Joe Rogan podcasts away from becoming jabronis. 

But, all that sensibility went dark in this moment when looking at Isabela. As she stood on the roof of the school and crackled with power he was transported to a base adolescent mode of infatuation. As a teen he loved wrestling and still sometimes used the terms in everyday speech. He was a total "mark" for her (this was her, right) and believed in everything and anything she had to offer. It had to be a dream. This checked a lot of boxes. Isabela had palmed her hand over her feet and brought pulled it up in front of her. It trailed spiraling flickers of light that changed what she wore into a a legitimate super hero outfit. Black tights coming up from matching boots with her knees, ankles, and thighs set with glowing armor pieces plated against her body securely in a hover. Then a black top like a surfer's rash guard set under a glowing white and blue cuirass over her chest. Then a hood which she had over her hair that she was quickly and messily braiding into a pony.

Fuck, its...you're. It's really you?" he mumbled. 

She tucked the braid behind her neck "Sorry, I have not figure out how it can do hair." She then gave an awkward smile having now just realized the gravity of the decision. Would he freak out? He has to be freaking out, right? Would he tell anyone. This was looking more and more like a horrible idea. Isabela hadn't told anyone and she choose to tell a co worker. Not a family member or someone in power but someone she knew only during business hours. "And, yeah, its me."

"Wow. This explains a lot." Drew didn't hear anything. The roof could explode or collapse under him and he would still be just enthralled. "You like glow and hum with potential. I mean...you're a fucking superhero!" He finally took steps to her and she did instinctively take some steps back and make a small shield of light against her left wrist.

They both saw that and grimaced. "Sorry," she said. "I look better at the part then playing it."

He shook his head and waved his hands "No worries, no worries." In the moment she could have slahed the tires on his car and he would not care. "I shouldn't have just run. You look...amazing." Drew realized he dolloped extra emphasis on the last part and quickly pivoted to anything else 'What, what can you do. Like manipulate light, right? Make flares? Blind people?" 

Isabela had never been in this position. Needing to explain her abilities. Made her realize she didn't even know what she could do. How long it would last and any lasting harm. Or, the important why it happened. She felt a sinking twinge of fear that she buried and then sheepishly answered "I can make it into shapes and change the colors of things I'm wearing or touch. Yeah, I can move it, for lack of a better word. Turn on the light on your phone. Let me show you."

Drew fumbled for it and then got it on after three tries with the school's required passcode. He should have never said he was fine checking work emails on his phone. He shone it at the gravel top of the school roof and caught the base of duct. Isabela flicked her wrist and then he saw the beam curve up and over the duct and back onto his chest. He gasped and she smirked while then making the light change from white to whole spectrum of the rainbow. He beamed "Its like hardlight in Halo. You can make bridges and shield and swords. Please tell me you can make a sword. Didn't you fence in college!?"

Isabela did feel herself turning a confused red in the face. She felt she was learning more about Drew in this moment then in their three years of working together. She had fenced, just as part of a club team in college, and he would only know that if he dug through her old Facebook pictures. She closed her eyes and centered herself and then let pinprick of light come from her wrist. She let the top of the beam extend about two feet and then widen into a simple machete shape. Making the hilt take shape in her arm she turned it around and offered it to him "What's your favorite color?"

"Purple," he said.

Then she turned it an electric violet and offered him to take it.

Arclight 1.1

 It is 7:45AM and Isabela wants the day to end. She runs through the options that would cancel school

1) A freak snow storm in September. Tricky, but possible. Climate change is real!

2) The water main would blow. She had seen it once when the custodian showed them the basement. It was a faded green gear in the corner behind an idle work bench and abandoned carpets. 

3) Violence. Letting the intrusive thoughts win for a brief second she knew it would do it but was also a looming potential since the 90s. 

She crossed this off her mental list

4) Plague. Massive absences. The rumor was that if less than 50% of the students showed up then they could cancel the day. 

She leaned her head against the cold cinder block of her door way and realized that none of these would happen. Good for number three. Both the burden of her position (Teacher but also lunch counter but also ersatz therapist and proxy parent and recess monitor and test proctor and Chromebook helpdesk, etc. etc.) and her extracurricular would mean she would need to intervene. And, not sure how successfully considering she was already "teacher tired" with 10 minutes before opening bell. Her right hip and thigh hurt from where a galaxy purple bruise was developing. She was thrilled that she convinced Drew to make her copies for her and he came in early to put down her chairs and write the welcome message. Not in her voice or hand writing but still got the job done.

"Hey everyone! It is Friday (Yay!) September 17th, 2021. So happy you (and everyone) is back here at school. Does the sign look different? Ms. Orel asked me, Mr. Drew, to write it and always happy to help. Specials today are Art and Music!"

She cracked a brief smile which then withered when she thought about when he would sober up and stop all these favors. He had his own class and life and likely questions as to why she bolted right after school and ghosted on messages in the evening.

The sound of chatter and cloying "HEY!" messages down the hall told her the day and had begun. Showtime. She popped the hood of her sweater out so it nested against her shoulders and tucked her lanyard against the top of her stomach. Pen behind her ear and ok lets go. The disaster needs to wait. 

***

Isabela had been up since 3am, save for a tiny nap on her couch between 5:30am and quarter to seven. When she awoke she realized she had fallen asleep in all her gear. Her inner child lashed out feeling embarrassed. "If Sailor Moon feel asleep in her outfit wouldn't it just go back to normal overnight? Do the Power Rangers need to change?" She had gotten good enough with the hard light to make solid shapes and crystallize it into an outfit but it was patches over workout gear from the thrift store. And a black hoodie, which she shook out and thought of wearing to work but smelled the cigarettes and sweat from it and changed her mind. 

She had spent the time between 10pm and 1am primed along East 22nd and the Tubbs Jones transit center. There was a wrestling show that night and letting out she was able to spook someone trying to force themselves into someone's parked car "Give me a ride, baby! Why the fuck not" he yelled while he pounded at the glass. She made the light flickering off it coalesce around his fist and cut into him as if he was punching through it. "FUCK!" he screamed while they car sped off. The only physical thing she did was drop onto a cop car as it primed itself to approach a group of three women walking past the Salvation Army. Isabela assumed the cop was up to nothing good and they had done nothing. She did not land on her feet but instead her hip on the back where the trunk meets the glass. She heard the officer scream "What the fuck!?" even through all of the vehicle and he scrambled out of the front letting the women walk off laughing at him. She rolled into the landscape around the Wolstein center and popped the disco lights on the squad car to further cover her limp away. The last hour was spent slinking back to her car, a black Nissan Rogue she had illegally parked in a closed surface lot. Cleveland surface parking was big business and she wasn't sure if anyone checked the old cash drop boxes, but she did shove a ten dollar bill into it from the emergency kit in the glove box

***

Drew was trembling and nervous, sweating this question in his head, but, after much internal debate thought to ask it. It would test all limits of their friendship. 

"I am sorry. I don't want it to come off anything weird but you look tired. You ok?" he asked as he caught Isabela in the mailroom. He instantly froze hoping his voice carried the sincerity.

Instead of daggers she looked past him and emptied her teacher mailbox of all the fliers and announcements shoved into it. There was a post it note reminding her to hand these out next week, which did not really feel helpful and instead petty. "I'm fucking exhausted. I can't wait to go home." She then turned to him and did put her hand against his shoulder "And, no, I get it. Thanks for asking. And thanks for helping." The shoulder touch defused his tension, which Isabela did not realize, but she hoped it would cut any antipathy he had. "Please don't be mad at me!" was not a great motto for someone called a vigilante on r/Cleveland reddit. A term Isabela hated but yeah did not project confidence. 

"Ok, do you want me to pull the fire alarm?" Drew pointed over to the lever and then threw up his hand in a shrug.

She shook her head appreciating the joke "No, its just one more hour. The kids are going to watch Netflix. Fuck it"

Early Q2

 In six month's time, you'll be allowed

The opportunity, not promised, please mind that

To shuffle a different spreadsheet and vent

A new face may hear your ups and downs

In six month's time, the opportunity

Should be here, but it may not, so

Do not suggest waiting or changing or anything too

Crazy. Congratulations, by the way for what will happen

in six month's time. Maybe. For now, feel silly that

a promise, an opportunity, made you feel so within yourself

Attention

If you read the notes,

Yes, sorry, please

At the bottom below your signature

There it is. I don't know why it was

Missed. A huge clusterfuck

Fly me down to Florida. Or up to Vermont

Pick the problem. I'll sort it out. 

Note it and present

No, I don't think they saw the notes

As well, it will work out. Somehow

As It Was

I've finished mourning

In my memories you will always

Catch the sword as the music crests

And, gather the cars and warm the room

With long long looping wires that tether

Me, to a moment of lost papers returned 

You'll always be on the roof

Me, nervous you'll fall, albeit you are

Invincible and Dynamic. Eternal

We built a chair with no instructions 

And told the bourgeoisie to go home

I said the thing and blazed red waiting your response

I'll still hear your hundreds of stories.

Doctor, sailor, lawyer, secretary, and spy

I'll hear your rumors, the incriminating 

Screen snips of the gossip, the tea spilled

Like the water from broken pipes on 3rd

You'll be traveling. The south of Mexico

And tour of all the ballpark

They'll be quirky earrings with black cats

Enamel pins and memes, shared like jail house smokes. There will be a crack of lacrosse sticks, a sound I've never heard but remember through you.

I've finished mourning

The space around gets bigger, the loss

Stays the same; gnawing, dull, toxic

When Isolated, it loses its bite and

Toothless, you revert to better memories

And, the sobering dawn that we are

Each other's history

Long Night of Solace

I think I'm going to put the blog formally on hiatus. I've reached a comfortable nadir in my life, edging between depression and spurts of creativity. These things always sound better in my head and I often write in secret. Very early before everyone wakes up, usually, albeit now I just want to sleep.

I'll read poetry and no longer feel I want to write something so cutting. Instead I feel tiny and envious and angry. Over something that someone, on a good day, maybe got paid 200 dollars for and sits published in a dusty book in the back o beyond of your local library. 

I won't delete it. And, I think I'll pop back when I feel I have something to say to put to digital paper. 

Don't worry about me. I know I live a life of extraordinary privilege. Even when I'm bluesy and do not look forward to going to the office (which is every day, am I right), I am fortunate to have what I have. It's late stage capitalism. I think we all have the right to be bluesy, just different degrees of it.

If you read this and enjoyed it, then thank you! 

If you read this and didn't, then thank you for reading. Maybe you stumbled on it and felt what is this boring little spiraling thing.

See everyone later!

Snow Day # 8

Sandy went first, everyone begrudgingly saying they would give this a try. She knew the opening verses of The Illiad and The Odyssey by heart, something she said made her a natural to go first.

She sat cross legged on a pile of yoga mats she had unrolled onto the open floor of the tower office. "Please don't tell Meg I moved her mats without asking. I'll wipe them down and everything once we are done." Everyone knew what this meant. The gym teacher had an uncanny ability to know the inventory of every ball and roller scooter and jump rope in the school. Growing up she had worked at her parents video store in a small VT town and knew everyone's phone numbers by heart.

Sandy got some polite smiles and acknowledgements. John Johnson, on a brief break from keeping the boiler running, feigned zipping his lips and tossing the key.

Sandy looked at the group and the Yellow lights of the ceiling flickered against her glasses. "OK, so here is what I got...

I grew up in a town called Nelsonville, OH which was in between Logan and Athens, where Ohio University is. It's the part of the state where you are far away from any of the major cities and it's not defined by any river or lake or farm field but by hills. There is not much to do in Nelsonville from October to May. During the summer, it's great. Hocking Hills and hiking and outdoorsy stuff. There are rental cabins everywhere and even my parents dabbled in it until my younger brother was born and it was a lot to keep two households and two kids and full time jobs. My dad worked grounds at Hocking College and my mom worked at Peoples Community Credit union. Nothing high powered but it was a lot especially in high season.

These cabins are very popular on AirBNB and VRBO. All those vacation apps. So, it's easy to find them but you also can spot them since the cars change every couple of days. Some different car in the driveway every weekend. Things like that.

So, when we were bored in high school, which was often, we cruised the cabins and tried to see if we could sneak back to use their hot tubs. Not all of them had them but most did. They were usually well hidden from the road but you got the lay of the land pretty quick.


We would idle on the road and have someone sneak back. We would call sometimes and ask "Oh are you booked?" Or message on the apps using phony accounts. We did our due diligence to see if we were ok beacuse we did not want someone shooting us or anything like that.

Just the aching Nissan Sentra of my neighbor, Christy, and four of us jammed into it. We were all in swim suits and one guy, Jason, insisted on always being shirtless. We are driving down Sr691 to take a turn onto Blue Ash road or Opossum Hollow looking like it's Santa Monica. And it's March because it's spring break. My senior year.”


“When did you graduate high school again?” Alexis asked.

“2015. I did take a year between it and college to work for and save money to pay for tuition. Anyway, we find a place. The Arrowhead. It's this log cabin in all blonde wood and big floor to ceiling glass windows. It faces an actual triangle shaped and inside it has at least three mounted deer heads”

Sandy leaned forward clutching a bunched up hoodie in her hands and then sliding it through her fingers.

“The Arrowhead was the place to hot tub jump. It was off the main road down a dipping driveway that cuts through a mess of tangled trees. It's like driving into a mess of wires. We didn't even drive. We parked on the road and then ran down the driveway. If not we would be trapped.”

Zoey crossed her arms. The tower windows let all the cold in. They were single pane and striping long dry rotted away. She imagined Sandy freezing running down this driveway in beach get ups. whether it was the actual temp or something psychosomatic, she felt it at the center of her chest and creeping across her skin.

“This day, it's perfect. It's cold but not like today. No snow and plenty of sun. Arrowhead a dead give away. If it was Tuesday and there were no garbage cans on the main road then it was a good chance it was empty. Jason goes and check and he does this in just board shorts and sneakers. We wait in the car blasting heat and smoking cigarettes out the wide open windows. It feels like hours but we see his long arms wave us from bottom of the dip. The coast is clear." Sandy stops and flits her eyes almost as if she were digging for the memory.

Zoey still kept her arms against herself. Why was she so cold? "Wait, wouldn't the hot tub be freezing? Do people leave them running? My aunt had one growing up and it took forever to warm up." 

"Oh, they were often. Some folks left the idling and that was nice. It was more about saying you did it. Again, we were very bored and cell service, still today, is awful in that part of Athens County. We just wanted to say we did it and maybe snap some pics to share. Like, we got into the Arrowhead!"

Zoey nodded and also brought her legs against herself.

"Ok, so to the good part! Jason did jack the hot tub up. This one was in economy mode." She looked at Zoey and smiled "Lucky us." She then threw her eyes to the whole group. "So we jumped in. I dropped my head under the water, on a dare since it was still lukewarm, and when I came up, I could see someone in the cabin."

Alexis interrupted "Oh please don't tell me they shot at you."

"Yeah, serpentine bob and weave, Sandy" Carlos said trying to get a laugh

"No. My entire body froze. Imagine dropping a log into a pond and how it bobs up and down until it just floats? That was me. Except this person was more a figure. All black except for this tan and brown floral dress. It, she, did not seem to have hair or eyes. It just stood there."

No one said anything, the silence suggesting to keep going

"I grab Christy and say 'Someone is in the house!' Everyone loses their mind panicking until there is no one in the plate glass window on the upper deck. Instead, the figure, the woman, is now maybe 10 feet away from us, behind the sliding glass doors to the deck. She bangs on the glass and everyone is locked onto her. At this distance we can see her face. Its ancient and injured and her lips curled back to reveal a mouth full of nothing but canine teeth. She rocks back and forth, palming the glass with increasing aggression. When she hits the glass, scabs of skin fall off her arms. She starts to gnash her teeth and her mouth is black framed by the gleaming teeth. That all seems unhurt and powerful on her, against the broken burnt skin of her body.

Sandy pauses again and drinks from a tumbler holding a mango hard seltzer. Before all this Carlos had come back from the bodega in a walk that took an hour to go a few blocks. 

"We all pour over each other trying to get out of the tub. There is no decorum and consideration. We don't care about the cover. Don't care that we left towels there. It is just grab your phone and scream down the driveway. Like, I'm in a two piece and have one flip flop on. When we dive into Christy's car, I have mud all over my legs and gravel that flew up from the driveway and into my hair.

"Did she chase you?" John had been silent through all of this.

"No. Or, I didn't notice. Christy blasted down the road with the side doors still open and we never went back to the Arrowhead."

***Writer's Note: It likely does not seem like it, but, for this bit of  fiction, I did sketch out a rough set of ideas. This last bit is where it ends. The combination of being forty, everyday responsibilities (the adulting as the kids say), and easy distractions of short form content and video games also work against me in trying to do anymore. In addition these are the "shitty first draft" versions of everything and ones written in isolation. Don't count it out, but likely will be much more infrequent and likely less serialized. ***

Grief

Asked to describe grief, Ill use an analogy
A tennis ball in a Mason jar
Don't ask me how it got there.

Its tight against the sides and a statement yellow

The ball does not get smaller,  but, over time

The space around the jar gets bigger.

There is more time and air and distance between the now

And the past, the tennis ball. The grief

If given more time and attention

Ill still use an analogy. 

Palimpsests on the page that once were in high relief

And slowly sink back to the college ruled loose leaf

Its also the creases of the folds that are sharper and bite

This makes everything salient and spiraling

Tactile and physical, my grief is a note written years ago

In neat block letters with crystal bank ledger pens

It doesn't matter what it says. Instead, how it feels

Types on the phone and in one's feelings. a dangerous combination

While I often send someone an errant text or meme saying "This made me think of you!" it's something I've rarely experienced. 

When I'm deep in self pity it must be because why would anyone care to send something. Right? 

When I'm a bit grounded it's beacuse they are busy or, let's be sincerely practical and honest, have actual engaged conversations with others. We just went to high school together or worked together five years ago. Didn't go to war together or something like that.

It could also just be life and people ilare too paralyzed by being there for everyone but themselves. Why bother engaging? Sometimes at work I'll responded with a quip or meme in Teams chat and get no responses. No heart of LOL emojis. Why bother engaging? They know I saw it and likewise they also took a glance.

Writing fiction is exhausting. Even crummy ones like what has been on the blog. I can't help but feel like a memory thief putting situations on the page that I want to make my own but are just clippings of lived experiences. Other people's experiences. My greatest fear is not that someone will read it and say this sucks. Instead that they will read it and say "Oh this is like when we went on thay trip to Alaska" or "Is this character supposed to be so and so?"

In college I would do short story readings in public. Horrible open mic nights on random Wednesdays or sad brown Friday nights. I could read to groups of strangers but never a friend, significant other or family.  They would know and surgically extract. "You are less like an onion and more of an orange," said a coworker to me once as we discussed annual reviews. "It's a hard exterior but just being real sweet and honest inside. It's a good thing, really. I think you care more than what you want people to think." 

I'm writing this as an excuse to not finish my story. I want to sound wise but feels like there is not much more to say. I've peaked. I want to say it was 2009 and 2013 and 2018 that were the highlights. A roller coaster now building energy to help someone else go.

Snow Day #7

 Zoey saw the chat come to life on her phone. "World's Worst Sleepover". Her stomach sank to a the same weird spot reserved for expected bad news. Not a spot of pessimism but the same feeling she had her junior year of undergrad when she spent a summer taking her aging childhood dog, Brownie, to the vet. It was a series of dwindling returns that just announced his eventual passing, which happened after she had returned to school. That semester she took a Latin American Literature class and they read Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a story she can't remember but whose title stuck with her. Chronicle of a day wasted evening made furiously awkward. 

She hoped the snow would miraculously stop. Or, at least, relent. Enough for her to creep home after hanging in her room. She had changed, which maybe was her way of silently acknowledging the reality, but, in the moment, it felt natural. Like taking off your coat when sitting down at a desk. 

Outside it was the Arctic. Her classroom could see the tops of two red maple trees planted her first year on even dreary Cleveland days. Today, it was just blanks. Not sterile or calm. It was the snow that felt menacing. The snow that absorbs all the light around it until its more a slate gray. Snow that pours when you are already boarded for your flight. Snow that falls like powder but acts like concrete.

"You should stay. This storm will kill you!" Her mother texted her that when Zoey first mentioned "Waiting it out for a bit" at the school. Her mother then followed with snowflake, snowman and stop sign emoji. 

If she had to stay then Zoey wanted to hunker in her room. Treat it like the active shooter situations that the guys in black polos, tucked into their jeans, trained her every return to school year. She would lock the door and then pile chairs and furniture by the door. She would drag the vintage two drawer file cabinet to the door ("Sorry, not sorry about the marks on the floor, John Johnson!) and let its steel core heart keep everyone out. She would be ready to fight except without the ersatz weaponry the trainers asked her to master ("Hit them with a Chromebook. The old ones are heavier!" was a dark joke at March Meadow. A sort of cultural meme that no one could remember the origins of) but excuses.

Sandy would come knocking at her door asking to gather in the Tower and tell stories and Zoey would be ready with excuses. 

She had decided against being tired or not feeling well. If that were true then why would she want to be in her room. There were actual cots and couches in the building. if you turned a school upside down and shook it, you would get a lot from the miniature world within it but one thing for sure would be a pharmacies worth of varying medications. Beyond anything that needs to be injected, you could find it in a school. Plus, saying not feeling well reminder her of putting off advances of a horny boyfriend. It felt too much like "I'm not in the mood"

She could pretend to be busy. Zoey was a Pinterest teacher in her first years at March Meadow, when she had homerooms. Every year had a different theme. Under the sea. The universe. Local history. That was the biggest lift but luckily Lebron James was part of local history so that was a layup. However, in latter years, and when she moved to reading intervention, she became a "piles" teacher. Not messy but a "working" space with miscellaneous mugs filled with mismatched markers, pens, and pencils. She had hundreds of books spread across varying shelves, most inherited, but some newer, (Ikea pieces bought with her own money), holding them in a controlled chaos. She knew where everything was but maybe she could say she was organizing. Never waste a crisis. She would be too busy if deciding to organize alphabetically by author or title. Maybe by series. Whichever would take the longest.

What she couldn't do is ghost them. Just pretend like she is not home the same you do when a Jehovah's Witness knocks on the door. People would think she is dead on the floor of her room or dead within a half mile of the school, having tried to get home. Or, people would think she is mad at them, which would then make them mad at her and spiral the collective anxiety into its own superstorm. She imagined if it was Carlos at the door. He had a doomed crush on her that made her feel guilty she didn't reciprocate but then made her angry that she thought that way. He would be (he is actually) OK, but would not want to just ignore him. She would be more comfortable if it was Sandy herself. Or John. Alexis could get her to do it pulling the "rank" card even in this liminal time and space. 

The chat buzzed. She ignored it but saw another text from her mom "Please stay at the school! They told me not to come to the clinic for my shift. That has never happened in 15 years. Stay!"

Snow Day #6

 Carlos wished he had his own room. He never said this out loud because it sounded painfully adolescent. His official title was simply Teacher (Assistant) with the parentheses affirming his nomadic lifestyle. If there wasn't a class to cover he bumped around trying to keep busy offering to make copies or watch classes while people ran to the bathroom. It felt like a counselor at a Boys and Girls Club save he had to remember and pivot between varying topics. Pre-algebra and then pivoting to remembering when he read Island of Blue Dolphins in sixth grade. Something he could not believe until asked to explain what an abalone was. 

He had covered a class that day but it felt weird to linger in other's space. He grabbed his stuff and then went nomadic. Doing so had the same awkwardness of being the first to wake up during a sleepover. 

He had run into Sandy who pitched the ghost story idea seemingly joking but then outside it looked ominous with snow coming over the yew hedges and creeping on the bottom window sills. He saw this from every angle as he finally settled on a space to check on the status of the roads. March Meadow did not have a traditional teacher's lounge but instead a large empty classroom on the top floor. It was the only thing on the fourth floor save a dilapidated roof access. Everyone called it "The Tower" and it felt tacked on. It certainly felt cloistered but also the energy of a sad rental's attic storage. There was the large laminator, Ellison set, paper cutters, coffee machines and water coolers but also defunct window box ACs and boxes of donated books no one wanted. 

Carlos opened his laptop and cruised through the news and social media. Snowpocalypse was trending in addition to "itssnowing" and "snowday" and "whydoIlivehere" It seemed to envelope all of the Great Lakes and shocking not just for size but also it speed and suddenness. Regular apocalypse was also trending.

Carlos heard the Slack knock and opened a message from Zoey "Are we really stuck here. Its me, you, Alexis, Sandy, and Johnson? I think it would be better to walk home except I would die. lol"

"Are we even allowed to stay?" The school had an odd lease from the West Side Neighborhood Community Development Corporation, the entity that bought the building in a brief period of the 90s when the city district closed it. They then leased it to the charter network bringing in a technical March Meadow 2.0. The deal had it so the building had to empty by 7pm save for a limit of 3 cleaners who could be there anytime. Evening events like a board meeting where their own logistical animals

"Alexis told me the CDC said its ok for now. For safety. We may freeze. Don't know if Johnson will stay to keep the boiler going."

"Free overtime. He can stream Road House and Point Break. haha"

Carlos heard steps from the stairwell to the Tower. It was Alexis who waved and then took a few seconds to catch her breath. "I absolutely hate those stairs. This is why I have all the staff meetings in Molly's room on first floor." She collected herself. "Ok, so JJ is going to stay overnight and keep boiler running. If people want to stay overnight they can. I know that is about as exciting and getting kicked in the balls but want people to be safe."

"It is really that bad?"

Alexis shrugged. "It looks like the North Pole out there. I know they shut down a part of 71 so I am going to get home three days from now I leave now. My mom is with the kids at home. Avon Lake didn't go in today" She rolled her eyes "We are a crack team over here at reading the weather."

The Tower had a large arched window that looked out north. On a clear day you could see the Cleveland city skyline. Now it was all cloudy gray like TV static made physical. Alexis started typing on her phone. "I am going to make a chat just for us poor souls stuck here. Rose told me the bodega is still open so maybe we can make something of it. Should still be good to walk. I think"

Carlos closed his laptop and immediately thought of logistics. Would it even make sense to sleep. And where? Did he have anything in his car he could change into? He felt very exposed in khakis and the scuffed brown shoes he called his "dress pair."

"You should name the chat World's Worst Sleepover."

Alexis laughed and nodded her head. "Oh you got it. I know Sandy is going to propose this whole ghost story thing. God bless her"

A Long Yet Not Fully Comprehensive List of Places I've Slept

The universe left me free of the burdens any fine motor skills or any applicable skill to leave me with the gift, actually the superpower, of being able to sleep anywhere. Maybe not comfortable sleep but let me lay down and I got it from there. I can even sleep sitting up in cars and buses and planes.*

I could prove it to you if not for the separation of the screens and time. If you are reading this and I am not dead** then I could do it. Concrete floors? The after party of your friend's 30th birthday? In the bathroom of a Long John Slivers? No problem! SLEEP!

That all said, I do try to sleep on things meant for it. Not looking to challenge myself. Just content in my ability. 

Most notable was my childhood water bed. I had it from say the 5th grade all through senior year of high school. It was a hand me down*** from our next door neighbors. It came in pieces slipped over the concrete fence that separate our homes and then through the metal bars over my windows. Imagine smuggling furniture through the DMZ piece by piece. The mattress (I think the appropriate term is bladder) came empty and then took hours to fill from the garden hose slung around the hose from the outside slop sink. I don't recall ever filling it back up from the initial go but we had to at some point. I do recall every few months draining a bottle of neon green water conditioner that we got from the slim "water bed section" (Really a shelf) of the local Kmart. From there we got a bed sheet and duvet cover spread that had neon tropical fish in a water color motif. I kept that for years until my mother deemed it good enough for the dog and changed it to a simpler red sheet set to contrast with the aquamarine accent wall she painted. 

I loved that bed. It surprised people like some untamed stallion. My room was relatively small and had no place to sit save for the bed and people who didn't know would tumble into the center. My dogs growing up adapted but always looked like moon landers settling in. My mother made sure to keep their nails filed for fear they would pop the bladder albeit the bed was rarely ever naked. Even when stripped it had a pill covered white girdle looking thing that snapped into each corner.

Even through sheets it cooled in heat and warmed at night even when I ran my window AC. As I got older I found it rebellious to not sleep with the AC at night, even in the tropical heat, and I would stare at the ceiling fan and blinking idle settings of my CD-Stereo**** and drift on the water bed and imagine I am in some noir scenario. 

In college I brought home a girlfriend to show her around the island and meet the family. I was thrilled to be able to sleep with her on the water bed. 

"We are going to fuck on the water bed like something out of 70s crime thriller. My neo noir moment!"

However, my mother had gotten rid of it in the brief time between high graduation and this visit and my girlfriend, ever polite, was in no mood for anything in my childhood bedroom.*****

In college, I slept on the school issued extra long dorm mattress. That was fine except I fell for the rumor I heard that it was "impossible" to find sheets that fit it unless you ordered them through the college book store. So, I did, paying probably double what you did at any other store for hunter green sheets the bled color even when dry. They painted the beige painted brick a mossy green glow. 

The first ever mattress I had I did not buy. I stole it. In college, I worked for the Physical Plant and had access to the coveted MR37 key which could open ANY door on campus. ANY DOOR. People were lucky that I had honor and also crippling anxiety because this was any lab, classroom, or dorm room. I used it to break into the storage room basement of Clark Hall, where the college kept all things decrepit. If you ever had the gym teacher ask you to go get something from their supply closet in elementary school, that is what the room looked like. It was a space where moving anything had to come with "Oh fuck! WATCH OUT" as 40 year old campus phone books and stacked chairs tumbled over you. It also had dozens of full size mattresses from before the reign of the extra long dorm room mattresses. I took one with a friend of mine helping loading it into the U-Haul outside and to my first apartment. The thing had to be thirty years old and most of its weight had to be in dead skin cells and sweat. No bed bugs. They would have surely starved in the basement for that long.

I once slept outside. In Dewitt Park, Ithaca, NY. We saw the film Invisible Children which was tearing through well meaning liberal college towns and the film makers encouraged to spread awareness by sleeping outside. About 100 of us did albeit no one in my group actually slept, except for me, tucked next to the granite of the city's WW2 memorial.

The first ever mattress I owned I bought with my wife from the Macy's in University Heights, OH. This was next to a Target spread across two floors and which had a shopping cart trolley. I forced us to go after we paid for the mattress confused why it would take a week for it to ship to our place. They had a bunch right there on the department store floor!

Now, I sleep on a couch isolated by age and snoring. Fox Mulder, from The X-Files, slept on his couch to the point it became a joke on the show that he did not have a bed. I sleep like a goblin. My head is on the armrest and instead I clutch pillows against my chest. I will slip my feet into the well worn spaces between the cushions and try to curl as deep as the cushions will allow. I am often surrounded by cats that will nest between my legs and leave stinging bruises when the bolt from any noise or movement. 

I have a dream where the couch drifts into the maw of space and it is just me and anything still on it. It is like that book Life of Pi except it is a couch and the tiger is an overweight all black void cat. Ill have to live on the petrified snacks found in the cushions and idle away the time  stretching in and out hair bands. There is a highlighter and a click pen buried in the couch and I will work trying to make them dance across my knuckles while I float in the couch bubble. For sure, I could sleep the time away. 

*This was a skill that someone at a bar once told me indicated that I must have been in the service. I can imagine it being quite practical in the military where "hurry up and wait" rules the day. But, no, I developed it in the civilian world. 

**Death being the ultimate sleep I would think

***Used water bed sounds quite "un-right" However, rather have that then a second hand mattress, which, no surprise is something I have slept on. I mention it in the main body of this essay. Do you read these as they come up? Or all at once at the end? Mary Roach does that with her books and I tend to read at the end. It hurts my eyes to bounce around so much. 

****The big silver Aiwa one with the detachable side speakers that I swear was standard issue in the 90s even for families all the way down in Puerto Rico

*****This was also the catalyst of a very quick to start yet slow to end breakup. My girlfriend, earily prescient, told me bawling as we walked over the pedestrian bridge over Rio Piedras to go drink at a bar (Drinking age is 18 in PR) that she could never imagine ever seeing my family again, much less being part of it. I do not blame her. 

Snow Day # 5

 Outside it was the stark white of tables and chairs in a furniture catalog. It was like dipping a vanilla milkshake into a vat of bone white latex paint and then trying to drown lab mice in the mixture. By the time the remaining staff at March Meadow got the final student into the hands of their family (The same parent who wanted Alexis to make all of this into a teachable moment) the county sheriff flexed his muscles and declared a Level 3 Snow Emergency. The department even held a press conference pointing a single camera down a trio of microphones. The staff missed it but it had the sheriff standing at a podium at the Justice Center downtown saying that "no one should be on the roads unless it is an emergency. Exceptions can be made for work but you should call your employer and ask if you need to report in. People driving out there could be subject to arrest. This is very serious."

Alexis saw the news alert come on her phone and quickly cleared it. She felt police were mostly unhelpful, an opinion honed not just by her experience growing up but by years of life lost in tabletop active shooter exercises. "Just another thing about teaching in America. Just a tiny thing!" she said to allay teacher fears going into the mandatory seminar at the beginning of the year. "Don't worry. I worked out this summer so I got you if the shit gets real" She kept deeply buried for worry of antagonizing a specific March Meadow parent. Mr. Raymond, the only parent she called Mr/Ms/Mrs. in front of staff, students, and parents regardless of situation, who claimed to be former military and police but seemed to make his living being a meter reader. At least, he always wore his yellow safety jacket, when he came to get his boys and insist he needed to observer them in class "Oh, that is ok, Mr. Raymond. I think  Mrs. Baltic has a test today," Alexis often used that to defuse the situation. She did not need someone to tell her it was bad out.

Dismissal had been only a minor shit show. Mr. Joshua had bolted and the buses were not coming back. The guys were leaving them parked in their driveways.  Leo messaged her "Don't worry. My cousin owns the Vega Mia store and he said I can leave it there. Ill bring it back on Sunday once this clears. No worries" Eddie just said he was good. "Everyone is home. Took forever. You should stay at the school tbh." There were endless slips and tumbles but the snow caught everyone and saved her from the saber rattling of "I'm calling my lawyer!" from Ms. Schmidt who seemed magnetized towards black ice. 

She did a quick census in her head of who was still here. John Johnson was in the basement supposedly nursing the boiler but she assumed he was streaming movies or reading paperback novels. He would be here all night.  Zoey and Carlos who had helped dig the last idle students through the snow as their rides limped to the door. Jessica Rain, the receptionist, who had stayed there watching the screens on her camera monitors get whiter with each second. She was quick and savvy in spotting cars or parents from the footage. There was Sandy Calvert the 8th grade English teacher who suffered from a chronic case of "new teacher try hard" syndrome and was likely taking the time to arrange the each dystopian YA series in chronologically order. Alexis did not know the status of everyone else out in the wind. Her assistant principal, Rose Martino, had left her car in the lot saying she was just leaving it there. Her boyfriend lived about six blocks away and she said would just risk it

"The bodega is open!" said the last text she got from Rose followed by multiple wine glass emojis and a cheers one "In case you have to stay the night"

***

The car line made Zoey realize trying to drive out of March Meadow would end up with her on the side of the road. She would maybe pass the same cars she just shuffled out of her lot only to end up sidewindered into a dirty snowbank. The situation also made her anxiety reach weaponized so it felt like it was standing there in the room telling her how to survive when stuck in the snow in a car

1) Stay calm

2) Stay in the car

3) Keep engine running and blast the heat at full blast for ten minutes

4) Keep the tail pipe clear during all of this

5) Wait for help

Would she recall all the steps? Did the cars stuck on the side of the road know this? Should she check each window? Those cars likely had her students in them!

So, she stayed in her classroom, but not until after deciding to limp towards her car and search for a change of clothes. She saw the Level 3 Snow emergency alert and felt she would be here for a while. For sure until 7pm, when the lease said the building had to close, and then the legal force would meet the climatic immovable object and they would see what would happen. Opening her car door took everything she had to peel off the snow and the vacuum seal of ice and wind. She dug through the back for a gym bag through the powder snow the flew in and then slammed the door shut. That knocked more snow off the passenger side window and when she looked through, it was just a wall of white past the heather grey interior. The walk back to the door followed the same path of the car line dismissal but in the half hour everything had been reset to a neat plateau of unbroken snow. To get into the vestibule she kicked away more snow blocking the door just enough to squeeze in and feel the warped wood frame cut into her back. In the vestibule she felt the tropical levels of steam heat hit her face and make them water. This is why she wanted to change from her cable knit oversized sweater into something more practical

"I really don't have much control over the heat," is what John Johnson told her when she began working there and complained about her room being too cold and then other areas, like the vestibule and the second floor staff bathroom being too hot. He often said it during the one staff meeting he came to in October just as heating season began

"You literally do! You literally turn the heat on and off!" screamed Rose during the last meeting. It was with the cadence where, if written out, would be in all caps and separated by a period between each word. This made John shuffle his eyes down and shrug. 

"Oh, I mean the thermostats and calibration. Its all way too old. Just dress in layers."

So, the longer you worked at March Meadow, the more random clothes you had stashed in car trunks or closets. And you were pros at quick changes that rivaled a magic show or super hero comic. 

Zoey walked into the main hall and felt a brief dip in the heat. The stairs were at the end of the hall and she saw Sandy come out of the office with a stack of copies. Sandy saw the gym bag and contrast between snow on Zoey's boots and sweat on her face. "Oh, are you like changing? Are you staying here?"

"Its pretty bad outside. I am just going to chill in my room and hope it clears up."

"If we end up staying the night we can all tell each other ghost stories to pass the time." Sandy then threw a quick wink which seemed the less zany thing coming together during this storm. 

From the office, Zoey heard Carlos chime in "Ooo...like the Decameron. Or how they wrote Frankenstein!"

Sandy spun on her heels and just beamed. "Yes! Just like that. Were you and English major, Carlos!?" Sandy shuffled back into the office and Zoey let the conversation trail while the snow outside looped back onto itself.