At the drugstore yesterday I filled one of the most infuriating prescriptions of my life.

Woman on welfare. Been on welfare for years. No intention of getting off it. Makes the real working poor look bad. Two bratty kids with two different last names. No kids with the new husband. Hubby is fully capable of working but just doesn't want to (Hey, neither do I. Suck it up and walk it off, jerk-o).

We get a prescription for her for a drug specifically prescribed to enhance her fertility. It wasn't one of the really expensive ones. This is a $65 per month hormonal item. Nonetheless, I'm thinking No way could Title XIX pay for this.

It went through. That's right. Your tax dollars and mine are helping these deadbeats have welfare kid number three.

Some days I should've just stayed home and drank.


Summer '05 Update: She's knocked up.

It was another lousy day at work, and traffic was pure crap, but when I pulled in to the parking lot of the hotel, these thoughts and anxieties drifted away with the cool breezes peeling away the veils of a harsh day and ushering in the night.

She decided on a hotel close to the airport. Logistically it made sense. Neither of us could afford to take the next day off, and we'd be halfway between our jobs as well as close to home should we need to rush there for any emergency. Not that we figured we'd get any sleep. As I slid out the door for work, a change of clothes in one hand and my shaving kit in the other, my mother-in-law gave me a sly look that said, "The house will be locked down early. You kids have fun."

I got my keycard from the front desk and took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. My heart flipped and butterflies flew as the cab rang and the doors parted. Our first Valentine's night alone in over 10 years. I hadn't felt like this in too damn long.

I slid the key in to the slot. Green light. The satisfying click and thunk of the lock and handle. Shower sounds clattering like rain from a holy chamber.

"Honey, I'm home!"

"Oh, hi!" Like we did this all the time. "What took you?"

"Traffic."

I hung up my clothes and loosened the ones I had on.

"What are you doing out there?"

"Waiting for you," I said.

"Well, I'm waiting for you in here."

Without dislocating my hip, I practically leapt out of my clothes, skipped to the bathroom and slipped behind the curtain. I think I forgot to breathe for a minute or two, or perhaps the light-headedness came just from seeing her naked body in the steam and wetness, black hair streaked with celestial colors, still-frecked nose, piercing jade eyes and a mischievious mouth that can swallow me whole. The love of many lives standing before me. A beam of energy connected our hearts and drew us together. We slipped our arms around each other and hugged deeply, her skin wetting mine. She pulled me under the shower and we kissed, tongues leaping like wild dolphins.

"Someone's knocking at the door," she said.

"What? I don't hear anyone." The shower was kinda loud.

"For Joe English Major, who should know a metaphor when he hears one, you sure can be a blockhead."

She looked down where I now realized I was almost painfully pressing against her mound. "Yep, knocking at my door, alright."

"He'd probably like it if you let him in. He'll promise to be good."

"I'll do it only if he promises to be bad."

"Promise."

She kissed me, and with her lips barely touching mine asked, "But first, may I suck you?"

She did so without comment or discussion, and within warping moments I exploded in to rainbow vapor. Compiled once again, I turned off the water and led her to the bed. "My turn," I said.

My tongue and lips traded kickflips and ollies along her intricate vaginal skatepark. I inhaled her deeply, alternately floating then grinding across her sweet spot. She arched her back and pulled a pillow over her face and bucked as her chakras caught air.

I inched my way up her body. Her breathing relaxed. When I got within knocking space once again, she said, "Wait here," and spun off the bed to the closet. "Don't look."

I heard rummaging.

"OK, you can look now."

She walked slowly toward the bed, adorned in multicolored silk. A scarf hung from each yearning nipple. Three more were tied around her waist in an immodest skirt. I noticed two more around her wrists as she raised her arms.

"Our bondage scarves," I said. "Where did you find them?"

"Pushed in to a wad in the back of my pajama drawer." She came over and stroked me. "As payment for that last trick, you go first."

Like a sailor with a line, like a cowgirl with a lasso, in no time she had me firmly but comfortably spread across the bed. As she wrote her name with her breasts acoss my chest and stomach and face, as she painted flowers with ice on my skin and erased them with her tongue, I wondered if I would even be conscious for my turn with her. Boy, oh boy, was she gonna get it.

She swung her leg around me, straddling. Taking me in her hand, I went through her door at last, both of us smiling and sighing. I felt her muscular warmth swallow me bit by bit.

"Lovejoy?"

"Yes?"

"It's time to get up."

"What are you talking about? I'm as up as I can get!"

"Quit being an idiot. Did you forget to set the alarm?"

The blue crystal wave of the hotel room and Vix's body shimmering above me crashed against the broken pavement of the morning.

"C'mon, hop in the shower. I have your lunch ready. You'll be late for work."

The shower was necessarily cold and short. Breakfast while dressing. The kids were in various stages of schoolday readiness. We had a brief whisper kiss at the door as I left. "Happy Valentine's Day," she said. "I'm working late tonight, you know."

Driving away, I thought that some dreams you've just got to move heaven and hell to make come true. This, I think, is one of them.

No one who knows me believes me when I tell them I’m training for a marathon. I’m one of the least physically active people around, or at least I was. Last November a friend of mine lost her father, a wonderful man, to Leukemia. She has since talked myself and 2 other friends into joining her in this marathon training in which we each need to raise $2,200 or more for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in order to participate. Part of the fundraising is a letter writing campaign. I’ve been working hard on that part. We’re also selling purple bracelets that say Train Endure Achieve Matter on them. Other fundraisers such as selling See’s candy are also coming up. We’ve been walking 5-6 days a week. On Saturday’s we go to the Pasadena Rose Bowl for training which is costing me $100 I don’t really have to spend. I’ve also had to spend money to buy work-out clothes, a back brace, etc.

Each day my friends and I go to a local track. We’ve been doing this since January 30, 2005. The following is our training schedule so far:

  • January 30: Went to a street mall and walked it for 2 hours.
  • January 31: Serious training began with a 25minute/1 mile walk on the track
  • February 1: 2 miles around the track
  • February 2: 25 minute walk around the track. The wind slowed us down so we only walked ¾ of a mile
  • February 3: 2 miles
  • February 4: 25 minutes/1 mile
  • February 5: 4 miles with trainer
  • February 6: Myself, 2 of my siblings, and my best friend went to Disney’s California Adventure
  • February 7: I rested
  • February 8: 2 miles. Began going to the gym
  • February 9: 25 minutes/1 mile. Went to gym
  • February 10: 2 miles and gym
  • February 11: 25 minutes
  • February 12: 5 miles with trainer
  • February 13: 2 miles
  • February 14: 30 minutes and gym
  • February 15: 2 miles and gym

As well as doing all this I’m also going to school. I dropped my developmental psychology class but am still taking Abnormal Psychology and Health Science.

And now back to studying and fundraising…

I usually don’t like things that either start with or end with a bang. There’s something too final about the whole thing. It’s like when it’s over, it’s over and I’m left feeling a little bit empty. Maybe I’m selfish because when things end that way, I’m always left with a feeling that I want a little more.

I like the fading sound of a saxophone as it cries into the night and the music that is carried away on the breeze takes a part of me with it.

I like the distant wail of a harmonica as it drifts off into nothingness. The sound it makes reminds of the way somebody usually stops crying. Great heaves of either sorrow or joy are slowly replaced by gentle sobs and then all is quiet and all you have left are your thoughts and maybe a comforting arm .

I like the soft tinkle of the keys on a piano because it makes tiny little dances go off in my head.

I like the way the sun sinks over the horizon and everything seems to be orange for awhile but then it slowly, slowly turns to dark and the evening just kind of swallows you.

I like the way that the snow melts during warm spells during the day in winter and then turns to ice again when it gets cold at night.

I like the way a good meal can linger on your taste buds and the smell of it in your house seems to get stuck in the very walls and stays around for days.

I like the way that a child usually learns things slowly over time and each day brings to them a new realization that there is so much more to learn. If I’m smart, I’d realize the same thing about me too.

I guess I like most things that just take time and don’t end with the crashing of cymbals or the boom of a cannon.

Somehow, inside me, it gives me a sense of hope.

You’re lying in bed, trying to get to sleep so that you don’t get depressed because that’s what happens. It’s been a long day; sub-consciously you hope tomorrow will be a better day, but consciously you doubt it. And you’re just thinking...

...You’re thinking about this country and the sad state it’s in....

...You’re thinking about that dream you’ve had about three or four times since you were a kid; the one where you and two unidentified people are running from some horrendous noise, and you’re all halfway across the lake when you can’t move, frozen in time, but the noise is coming closer. What could it mean?...

...You’re thinking about how your life has just been a series of disappointments...

...And how after just about fifteen minutes of talking to him earlier that day, you had come to the conclusion that a friend of yours is fucking the girl that you like (who actually called you three years ago to ask you out and you said yes, but you two never went out on a date but never broke up either; does that mean that you and her are still together?, where you in the first place?)...

...You’re getting real angry, angry like you’ve never felt before, and you don’t know who you want to hit, him or her, or yourself...

...You begin to feel your heartbeat in your fists and you just don’t know what to do...

...Finally you decide on yourself because you’re the only one there. You figure that the only way to end the pain is to make it worse; the only way to end the pain is to stop it now. So you’re thinking suicide.

You try to add up how many times you’ve felt this way, but you keep losing count. You’re thinking suffocation. You can’t put a pillow case over your head because you don’t use one, so you try to hold your breath...

...It’s been about thirteen seconds and you have to breathe, and when you finally do inhale you receive enough air to make almost make you puke. You try again, the same thing happens. Your body just won’t let you die. You place yourself face down on your pillow. The same thing, after a few seconds your body can’t take it and involuntarily turns itself over. You know a suicide failure isn’t a failure at all, but you try one last time because if this time it‘s successful, it’ll be enough attempts for a lifetime...

...Again, nothing. But you’ve lost enough oxygen to give you a headache, and you see stars, or are they flowers? And you realize that they can be anything, it just depends on how you look at them...

...And just as your eyes begin to shut, you ask yourself; “why didn’t I simply get a plastic bag?”.

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