How I Failed My Way to Success

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Found

  This drawer is cluttered

there’s no one here

to remind me where

the Chinese menu is.

I’m ordering alone

(or trying to)

when your list appears.

This one asks for

laundry softener

(our sheets were always)

soft,

bandaids, shaving cream,

and orange juice.

Did I ever buy these for you?

Kitty litter (Daisy and I fight

for your pillow at night),

blueberries and green tea.

I miss the way

your handwriting was only

legible to me,

your loopy cursive,

you went over things

for extra emphasis

making them bolded,

black, ink bleeding

through.

If you were here

I’d mutter something

about the Chinese menu.

You would respond

a half second later,

“Beneath the Italian

menu, address book

and notepad.”

And sure enough,

that’s where it would

be.

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

The Weight of a Father

As I line up, my navy sleeves brush my brother's navy sleeves. We try not to look at Mom. Her big sunglasses block her from seeing us: younger versions of my father. We wait for the bagpipes and suddenly the moment has come. As my hands grip the silver handle, I think of the silver in the necklace you bought Mom Christmas of '99, the shiny silver key of the first car you bought me, and finally and most importantly, the silver of your hair and mustache. You always said, "I earned this gray." And as the youngest I can't help but think how I unfairly got less time with you, you'll never dance with my wife at our wedding as she looks radiant in white and say how lucky I am to have met someone as beautiful as Mom, and my kids won't call you Pop-pop and they'll never know the sound of your laugh except from home movies I'll play when I'm feeling brave. And all this weighs on me, as my brother, sister and I, begin to carry you.

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Things I Didn't Like Before You (An Ever Growing List)

Large groups of people.

My body.

Cous-Cous.

Greek Yogurt.

Fine Restaurants (new types of food!)

Traveling (alone and with someone else).

Sex (not truly until you).

White Wine (hell, I like it all because of you.)

Exercise.

Being social.

Kids.

Distance (because absence does make the heart grow fonder).

Working Hard (and enjoying the benefits).

Billy Joel.

Fireball.

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Snow

And out of black

I almost see heaven's light.

But it's not light at all

it's your face hovering

above mine mourning

and somehow

your pale skin

was all I could see

like looking up in the summer,

to be blinded by the sun.

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Life as a Self-Professed Creeper.

When I was fifteen my first boyfriend cheated on me, I didn’t possess the advanced technology then to creep through his Facebook messages but if I had I may have saved myself some time and heartache over my first real “love” (I say love ironically because when you’re fifteen you’re not actually in love with someone you’re just desperate for someone to notice a few of your redeeming qualities, compliment your cute dimple or your great smell – which at fifteen you can only attribute to free samples handed out in the mall by overdone Asian in a black faux fur vest). I digress, although I find the habits despicable, at twenty two my creeping has reached profound levels. It’s actually impressive. This past summer I participated in a few online dating rendezvous. You wouldn’t believe the discoveries you can make about a person by simply using Google’s Image Search feature. If you’ve never done this, your little creeping mind is about to be blown. Of course, I learned about this from a smutty television show built for catching these online disasters, “Catfish”. It’s simple really, you right click on the image, for example a photo of a hot guy with blue eyes on a dating website and you get the image link. Then you take this link and copy and paste it into Google’s image search. More often than not, you’ll be able to find where else they’ve used this image, like Facebook, or a blog. From here you learn a lot more than a biased profile can tell you. I’ve learned that a guy is hopelessly devoted to doing and learning magic tricks (I never messaged him back), discovered a few dirt bags that already had girlfriends, and I found out that my current boyfriend went to high school with my older cousin and nothing is safer than a character reference. It pays to creep and do your background research but in case you’re wondering, after the first two months I gave up trying to hack my boyfriend’s Facebook because I learned that no amount of creeping will prevent you from getting hurt , some things are better left unseen and although maybe there’s a message to an old hook up hiding in his mailbox, there’s a profound difference between knowing all the intimate details of that and merely wondering for a moment and then putting it out of your mind. As someone who’s been on both sides as a grownup it’s finally occurred to me if I wouldn’t want them to read mine maybe I shouldn’t take advantage of their trust and read things that were never meant for my eyes. But I’ll still totally help my girlfriends do this to their slime ball boyfriends only after briefly cautioning them against this. 

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Fold More, Fold Faster.

There were many times before I became a retail slave where folding was enjoyable, some may even say therapeutic.  For instance, my college laundry room, being in there at 1am and finally hearing the buzz of the dryer – that was the sound of pure bliss. After a week of trying to scrounge outfits out of the old and uncute part of my closet I was finally able to retrieve my skinny jeans, clean, and back to being tight AND they now smelled like the laundry sheets my Mom uses at home…now that’s comfort. But after college my life of blissful folding gave way to folding for the masses. You see, I’m great with customers, I’ve got that smile and baby face that still allows me to pass for a naïve sixteen year old, even at the age of twenty two.  I love the part of my job where I go into the stock room and find that perfect size for them, perhaps a medium hidden in extra smalls, or when I get the customer to try on our newest jeans and they look great on her, she’ll take three! But after the joys of customer service there’s always closing time. There’s good parts to this too…the loud obnoxious teeny bopper music turns off, I take my headset out of my ear, finally free of the nagging voice of my manager and I can finally sip that Red Bull I bought two hours ago on my break. But then there it is, there it always is…the eight foot high wall of graphic t-shirts. This week’s say “I Adore You!”or “La Vie”, there’s even a chest wide sequined mini mouse t-shirt and although they were folded this morning when I walked in they are now strewn everywhere, some are now on tables in the front of the store, or some have fallen behind shelf fixtures and are smothered with dust bunnies and even more lie captive in the fitting rooms of hell: turned inside out, maybe even next to the gross unmentionables that sickos decide to toss in here for us retail slaves to attend to. I’ve seen it all. And after the collection process is done, I stare at a wall of clutter and spend two hours board folding just so it can be destroyed tomorrow and my days can continue with this pattern. What’s the reward for a job well done? More work.

[livingforapromise]

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Blue October: Into The Ocean.

[failedmywaytosuccess-blog]

Morning.

I woke up in a dark room. The four am morning tried to sneak through my blinds but the impenetrable darkness of my room fought it away. My clean clothes tangle around my limbs and I can feel the impression of the textbook spine in my forearm from falling asleep beneath the covers with my anatomy textbook. I made it through the first chapter of my homework…endocrine system? I was supposed to finish the urinary system but just the diagram on the first page made me have to go to the bathroom so I guess I did that… and came back here and fell asleep.