Posted in the women's bathroom

Almost all the writing spoke to life transitions, from marriage to death to retirement. I was amazed at the sheer number of women who made the choice to write; writing that was very simple, but honest and emotive at the same time.

I was also amazed that they had a pen so handy. I added my own note of course; but …you won’t see that here.

A few weeks earlier we had bought some kiwis during our weekly shopping trip. After we had settled our food into the fridge and the pantry, I grabbed a kiwi from where I left it on the kitchen counter. I proceeded to take a knife, cut the kiwi in half, and then plucked a spoon from the drawer. I heard a “Whaaa…?” and saw him staring at me intently from the dining room.

“What are you doing with the kiwi?”
“I had planned to eat it…”
“But why cut it in half?”

I tilted my head quizzically. Saying nothing, I carved out a piece of kiwi with the spoon and popped it in my mouth. His eyes widened. I suggested he take the other half. I told him this somewhat explained his fancy kiwi peeling process I had seen at breakfast a while earlier. I thought it was quite fancy.

I watched, similarly awed, as he slurped at his orange, cut in half with the rind still attached. He pulled the meat of the orange out with a bite and replied in mid-chew, “I’m eating an orange?”

These are the small things that I enjoy when I notice our differences and how we learn from each other. And while I have not tried this methodology yet, I aim to with some flair that I was told about later.

“We actually put chili powder on top.”
“Of COURSE you do.”

“Are you following it?” GS asks and his brother throws me a half smile. I hadn’t. A lot of introspection happens in the silences created when I weary of straining to pull a conversation apart. I had been enjoying the silence which has been rapidly filling with another language. And I’ll start missing the days I could opt out and sit happily listening to the meanings I hear inside myself.

“You too?” I asked with a laugh.
“Oh my, I was about to burst,” she said leaning against the bathroom door. “I was about to stand up and walk out because I couldn’t hold it anymore.”
I laughed and we walked in separate stalls.

Suddenly, I heard retching in the stall next to me and small, painful gasps. I see a black skater shoe with purples laces brace against the tile adjoining our two stalls. The first thought was simple – freshman, day two of first-time-alone campus life… Those Jäger bombs can really be a killer going back the other direction.

I finished and was washing my hands as the girl trudged out of the bathroom. She had short-blonde disheveled hair, dyed green a few spots, an oversize black sweater, black glasses, and a lip-piercing. She bent over to wash out her mouth and stood back up with a bit of a sway. She reminded me of me when I was 19 and I somehow felt a nostalgia.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She blinked in surprise. “I had a kidney stone that passed last week and it’s really painful right now still.”

I did a bit of a motherly breath inhale, “Oh man, maybe you should go to the Health Center.”

She grimaced, “I’m on a whole bunch of medicines right now but it’s not helping.”

We move to the door and she says, “I’m even on an anti-nausea medicine, but I don’t think it’s helping.” She rubs her stomach slowly.

“Damn, irony is not fun,” I murmur.

I go left and she goes right. “Take care,” I added.

She calls out and I turn, “Hey…thanks for the concern.” Taken aback, I say, “…Of course.”

I briefly wonder then why this just isn’t common place and why you have to be thanked for it… but I still know exactly that it isn’t.

Being an adult is fun when you’re allowed to make the decisions that let you eat your dessert first. Unfortunately in the same vein, you have to make those decisions that balance out the fun, such as, if I do not do laundry tonight, I will have no pants. I had to make the unfun choice and shall be enjoying fresh pants. This left to focus for writing.

I resolve to have pizza for breakfast tomorrow in order to restore the balance.

Strangely, I have also made the connection today that I gain likability points by wearing a Grandma sweater at work. All the secretaries dig it.

I had gotten this gig, as three-week reporter at my home town paper, after my first semester as journalism major in my second year of college. [The first year I fancied myself a lot more of tech sort until I realized, oh snap, I am decidedly liberal arts.] The home town, a term used loosely as it was only home during my high school years and where my parents stayed after my Dad retired, had a population of about 30,000.

The stint was achieved with networking. One of the advisers for the program was a man who fed to every incoming journalism student that they needed, no NEEDED, an internship in order to earmark future success. He lobbied all across our fine state to make the university’s journalism program something of a mill for producing newbie reporters, photographers, and people who would fetch coffee for these reporters and journalists – because there were people who ultimately ended up in journalism because they didn’t feel that they were artsy enough for a proper English degree.

[Oh no silly, that wasn’t me!]

This adviser had boundless optimism and enthusiasm to go with his strange combination of a deep orange tan, silver hair, and white-hooded eyes. An internship in my small town? “Pashaw,” he guffawed, “Hand me the phone, girl!” Lo and behold, he then immediately spoke to the editor of the paper and got me an spot for the winter break. And since the first semester’s courses in journalism at my university had all the fine traits of academic excellence, (no matter how much of a novice I still was) I was led into this excursion with grace and confidence.

Totally kidding.

Actually, aside from all the general education classes I took in the first semester, I had only taken one solitary journalism class. Journalism 101 had a strung-out Mama Cass look-alike who cried when she talked about what The Man did to society and who told us to make a mix tape of songs as class assignment.

She had done too many drugs at Woodstock. This was not speculation, but a topic for class. Her tests were not to be studied for, but to be waded through while pondering such things as, ‘My God, what was the number one hit from Elvis in 1957 because that’s the answer to 32… Oh, damn, the lyrics are answer 33…’

She was also my class adviser, the person who would craft the scheduling of your courses for a balanced and – oh you know where I’m going with this? Yes, you probably do.

I walked into her office as she was springing around like a tie-dye whirlwind. She snatched my course listings out of my hands.

“You…you’ve taken a lot of German classes.”
“Yes, I’m going to double major.”
“FABULOUS! THAT IS GREAT.”
I stepped back and she eyed the paper again.
“You should minor in German with all these credits.”
“But…I’m majoring in it…so…”
A cackle of laughter. “You are SO RIGHT.”

She then debated the merits of print journalism against the workings of The Man. She waved my paper again and slapped it against her palm. “I know what you should DO!”
“Um, what?”
“You should minor in GERMAN!”
“But the double major…”
“NO, a minor, with all these credi-”
“I’m MAJORING IN IT.”
A pause with a toothy smile, “…That is SO GREAT!”

This is when I decided to take my education in my own hands.

~

Tomorrow, how I made a story that landed me on the front page.

I heard a mechanical voice announcing to “Try. Again.” It was a typical 1980s robot voice, a halting midi sound, and I found it interesting that the polling machines now spoke. Turns out it was an elderly poll worker who had a voice box. “You. Have. To. Wiggle. It,” his voice rasped as he touched his throat as I finished the ballot.

I felt immense pride by the action, but immensely less by the state of the country as it stands and how lackluster the turnout tends to be. Women have died to vote and men and women die still to give us the chance to activate our freedom tangibly. An hour after the poll opened, I was only #16 to vote.