Why I remember what I do

I've noticed that people get a little freaked out when I remember these small, seemingly insignificant details about their lives. They do a double take when I remember their middle name or the day they were born or their star sign or their favorite band or things that they hate.

How do you know that?

I pay attention. I pride myself on listening to others when they speak, to remembering the things that they might not deem important. Everything is important, even if I just want to get rid of a few birthday cards in my nightstand or listen to music that people won't yell at me for.

Maybe it's an error in my judgement, but people like to be remembered. People like to feel special every now and again, like maybe something in their life is important to someone.

As was said in the movie "Shall We Dance," We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."

It's true. If no one is around to remember us, did we ever exist?

We need these history books and people to tell stories about us. We need people to remember us, long after we are gone. They make tombstones and photographs for a reason.

We aim to exist.

So when I hear a bit of information, like a birthday, some part of me wants to store that around for later.  So I do. I remember it and then people forget that they ever said anything. And when I use that information, people are slightly shocked.

But can you possibly tell me that they aren't a little bit pleased that they were remembered?

My Father Who Lives Downstairs

I was eight years old when my parents got divorced. As a child I suppose I never understood what divorce meant; I simply observed the typical behavior of my parents. My mother would yell at my father, call him a fuck-up, call him an alcoholic.

My father would grunt, nod in agreement, and retreat downstairs. My father didn’t speak much, not unless he had to. Even today we don’t have novel-length conversations. He asks me about my day, comments on whether or not I need a haircut, and occasionally on a losing sports team. He’s a man of very few words, but he never says anything that he doesn’t mean.

He never told my mother that he hated her, never spoke a cross word in her name. 

There were the fights, the arguments that made me plug my ears or run outside, escape to my tree house or my secret place in the woods. I used a pocket knife I got from Johnny Massa in first grade to mark my flight from home. I never got to count all of the little marks I made with that rusty blade.

The tree got cut down when I was eighteen.

My mother lived upstairs and my father moved downstairs. My brother Matt and I shared a room. Our house was tiny. My parents only planned on having one child when they bought the house, but I was an accident. They had nowhere else to put me.

Just like we had nowhere else to put my father.

So my mother put him in the basement.

Neither of them spoke to each other, we never ate dinner together, went anywhere as a family. My father would go to work an hour early to miss my mother, sometimes stay out late. My mother would take us to school, go to work, fix us dinner, and then go to bed.

She would never fall asleep -- at least not right away. I had a feeling she would stay up late, listen for him, for when he got home, listen to the footsteps as he retreated downstairs into his basement.

Then the little lamp by her bed would flicker off. I imagine she just lay there, staring at the wall or the ceiling -- or the darkness that stood in the way of what she wanted to see.

My brother and I would do the same thing, whispering across the room, questioning the other as to whether or not he was awake. We would have contests -- Whoever fell asleep first would lose. Most of the time it was me, or it was me pretending to lose, refraining from answering my brother when he asked me if he had won, staying as still as I could when he climbed out of bed and tiptoed across the room to poke me. I was very good at not laughing, very good at not making a sound, not smiling. I was very good at pretending to be asleep, at ignoring everything.

When he had determined that I was sleeping he would sneak back across the room and crawl into bed. I would only wait a few minutes before he would start to snore, and then I would climb and creak my way down the stairs into the kitchen.

I had to move slowly to avoid waking the monster.

I could make it to the bottom of the stairs before he started making noise. I would close my eyes and wait, listening, beating myself up that I didn’t think to bring my can of monster spray. I would put my hands over my eyes when the stairs started to moan so I wouldn’t be tempted to open them when the monster came to eat me.

I would stand like that for minutes until the creaks stopped and listened, only to smell the monster.

I could never understand the odd mix of smells, but they would quickly disappear. 

“Why are you out of bed?” My father would chase the monster away.

“Water.” I would whisper and attach myself to his leg.

He would pat the top of my head and slur his laugh. “I’ll get it for you.” He would push me off of his leg and disappear into the darkness for a few minutes. I would close my eyes and wait for his return, listening to see if I could hear the monster from the basement. 

I would hear the cupboard door whine before closing loudly, ice rattling around in the tupperware bowl we kept in the freezer, the tap water exploding out of the sink. Then nothing. A brief moment of silence, then shuffling feet across the floor. My father would put his hand on my head again, and I would take the water.

He would pat me on the head, “good night” me, and then he would slip away into the basement to fight off the monster. I would run up the stairs, spilling half of the water in the glass my father had given me on my way.

#

My father left his basement and took the monsters with him.

My brother left for college. 

My mother no longer had to pretend the basement didn’t exist.

I no longer had to pretend to be asleep.

Once a week I would stay up later than usual, flashlight in hand, stolen family picture album with me under the covers. 

Our family vacation to my grandfather’s house in Pennsylvania when I was six: the road trip, the numerous accidents along the way. Mostly pictures of me sleeping in the car, later staring at my great grandmother like she was an ancient witch. I could imagine her, slinking out of her rocking chair and onto a broom.

The wedding album from before my brother’s or my time. Photos of my mother with a smile, of my father in something other than his work shirt and jeans. My grandparents, all living, my uncle Joe with his wig on backwards to make my brother laugh.

My grandparents were mostly dead now, uncle Joe had accepted his baldness, and my father was still wearing the same clothes. The wedding dress was now hanging in the basement, falling every now and then from the hanger to collect dirt. My brother once made me try it on, it would “make me cool” he would say.

It just made my mother angry. 

When she would go to the bathroom late at night I would turn the flashlight off and pretend to be asleep. The toilet would flush and the faucet would run and then her door would close. I would sneak back down the stairs with the album, careful not to step on the last stair, replacing the book of the past before she woke up the next morning. Not that she would go looking for memories that she hated.

My brother wouldn't come home too often. When he did he would go out with his old high school friends, avoid home as much as he possibly could. They would drink cheap booze and smoke cheap cigarettes under the one bridge in our town. They would throw their beer bottles into the river and watch them sink.

I watched a lot of things sink. Never a beer bottle.

My mother told me not to be an alcoholic. She told me not to be my father or my brother. I was her angel. She would grab my cheeks and call me her sweet everything before she went back upstairs and closed her door.

Some days I would sneak back down into the basement and sit in the dark, waiting for the monsters to come out. 

I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to scare away the monster. I never got the chance. He never came back.

I left for college.

#

“What are you drinking?”

“Iced tea.”

“Oh.”

I had enough of trying to find monsters by the time I was twenty-six. There were enough monsters in the world without me trying to find any more. The only monsters were the monsters in my son’s closet.

I wiped a bead of sweat off of the beer in front of me. “Dad.”

A grunt.

“Remember, when I was nine or ten or, whatever age it was... And I would come downstairs for a glass of water. And you would somehow scare away all of the monsters from the basement and get my drink?”

A man of many words.

“How did you do it?”

A shrug. “There were no monsters.” I envisioned him patting my head, ten years old, standing at the bottom of a staircase in the dark.

“Listen. I don’t, uh, I mean I don’t know how to say this. Or if you want to hear it. I mean, you probably don’t.”

No grunt this time. He just stared at me, waiting for me to go on.

“I, well. She...”

He stirred his drink with his straw, over and over again, around the glass. We both stayed silent for what seemed like an eternity. I was pretty sure that he understood what I was trying to say.

“Mom. She... she died... Last night.”

He looked up from his drink in silence, his hand still on the straw, stirring, always stirring. He nodded slowly and let the straw go. He waved over the waiter and said something to her, a woman that reminded me of my wife.

“She had cancer, you know. Well, you don’t. She didn’t want me to tell you, wouldn’t let me.” It had been a long time coming. 

“Your brother told me, Peter.”

It was my turn to watch him in silence.

“He told me a year ago.”

“And you never went to visit her?” I clutched my drink a little too tightly. I was afraid it would explode, I would explode.

“I tried.”

“You tried?”

He offered no more.

The waiter came back with a tray of drinks. A beer for him, a beer for me. 

He covered the check.

#

It rained the morning of her funeral. We stood under large black umbrellas. 

My brother stood with his wife on one side, I stood with my wife and son on the other. We never looked at each other.

I waited to catch a glimpse of the father, just like I waited at the top of the stairs waiting to catch a glimpse of the monster that had so long fascinated and terrified me. I did not laugh, did not smile. I had pretended, like I had in bed, to feel nothing.

He never showed. Not in the small crowd, not on the hill far away.

My brother and I went our separate ways. He went back under his bridge to sink bottles of beer, I opened the car door for my wife and fastened my son into his seat.

#

I stayed home from work. I slept during the day and sat awake at night. I listened to the rain, the wind, I listened for the monsters.

I listened to my son whimper, “Daddy?” 

I waited for his second call and slipped out of bed, across the hallway that I had crossed many times in the dark. 

I turned on his lamp and watched his head poke out from under the covers. I watched his eyes light up. “Daddy.” He pointed at his closet, whispered. “There’s a monster.”

I would pick up the bottle of water labeled “monster spray,” just like my mother had done, and go over to the closet, open it slowly. I would spray it a few times, wait, close the closet, and set it down again.

“Did you kill the monsters, daddy?”

I patted my son’s head, sat down on the floor next to him and closed my eyes.

“There’s no such thing as monsters, Peter.”

Never been kissed: The movie

Remember that movie about a journalist that, at the age of 25, has never kissed a boy? Ridiculed in high school for being a nerd, basically no friends, supposedly needed a makeover? So she goes back to high school to cover the scene undercover in order to make it as a reporter.

Ignoring the last bit, full circle around to a nice little place we like to call: My life.

Meet Dani, a college-aged photojournalist weaving her way in and out of a university of 46 thousand students, armed with a camera, a shitty sense of humor, and something that people don't actually take seriously: She's never been kissed.

Tag line for a movie, right there. Somewhere, someone in Hollywood could be making another pretty penny off of the life of college students that, for lack of better term, don't get any.

People have this misconception that, as a woman, it's really easy to get laid. Step back for a minute: Have you met me?

Sure, you might be able to supposedly walk up to a random guy and say "Hey, have sex with me," but I need a little bit of a commitment before that were to happen.

Now that we got that off of my chest, to the actual point of this blog.

People don't believe me when I tell them I've never before in my life kissed anybody. I'm almost twenty. I'm like a fucking unicorn or something. They think that I'm either lying, exaggerating, or all around just an idiot.

Well I am doing none of those three things, although I may have my stupid moments.

Yet when they do realize that I'm actually telling the truth, they don't take me seriously. Not seriously as in "Oh, she's telling a joke," but seriously as in "How, as a human being, are you even possible?"

I feel behind on "the curve."

Apparently society has branded into the minds of everyone that if you're almost twenty years old and you still haven't kissed a single person, there's something wrong with you.

I'm sorry, there's nothing wrong with me. This isn't a case of missed opportunity. This is a case of me, throughout high school, simply not wanting to kiss anybody. I found nobody in my graduating class (or , let's be honest, in my home town) appealing enough to want to share spit with them.

Is that graphic? I'm sorry. But it's the cold truth. You should have seen my high school.

And now that I'm in college. One person has told me they don't see me as the significant other type, one person has told me the first person I date will be the person I marry, and most people look at me and tell me that there are a lot of opportunities for me to "get some."

I, first of all, have never come across one of these opportunities. Maybe I'm blind to them, which is probably accurate. Someone could be throwing themselves at me and I probably wouldn't be able to tell very well if they were being serious or not. Probably because the last person that supposedly wanted to date me was basically a big joke.

Regardless. I can't bring it upon myself to get smashed and go around kissing everyone in sight. I would be, upon sobering up, far too embarrassed.

Besides, even the journalist in that shitty chick flick ended up happy in the end. Maybe it just might take a little while.

Welcome to walking with a woman.

Today, while walking down the street at like 1 in the morning, some ass hole felt the need to shout at me from the window of his car.

I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and a poncho with flats and walking with a somewhat bigger male friend of mine, and this lovely work of a human being decides to ask "Where them hoes at?"

Being the wishful and ever hopeful person that I am (in which I sometimes try to have faith in humanity), I jokingly imagined that they were referencing my friend, who conveniently has the name of a gardening tool worked into his last name.

My friend looked over at the car and then back at me and asked a question: Are they talking to us?

I kept walking and calmly said "Welcome to walking with a woman. Ignore it and keep going."

They continued to remark on my legs and how, given the chance, they would supposedly "lick the shit out of my ass hole" -- which, hold the fucking boat on the dock, how the hell would that be enticing to anyone? What would even possess you to think of this when you come across a stranger at 1 in the morning walking down a poorly lit street? Would you say this to your girlfriend? I was more caught up in the 'why the hell would this thought cross your mind' portion than I was with the fact they were yelling out the window at me.

I was simply disgusted.

Half of me wanted to give them the middle finger and tell them to "eat this, you cowardly motherfucker," but the other half of me told my body to keep walking and ignore them. I chose the latter. Despite the fact my male friend was bigger than myself, I didn't want to cause any trouble. Having witnessed a mugging a week prior to, I was in no mood for any sort of action or dealings with the law.

Because we all know I could have easily beaten the shit out of some ass hole like that. I wasn't explicitly trained in martial arts, but I learn a lot from watching -- and I watched my brother do tang so do for seven or more years. I am deceiving in that manner apparently, knowing small amounts of self defense.

But the fact that I said "ignore it and keep going" was relevant in and of itself.

Society constantly demonstrates that sexism and misogyny and all around ignorant fucks are common.

I have to have people walk me to my car late at night so I don't get followed, harassed, or raped. Women have to ignore sexist and overly rude remarks about them so they don't cause trouble, get followed, harassed, or raped. Society teaches women to carry pepper spray and never walk alone, to ignore harassment, and keep walking.

Society does not teach men not to rape and not to harass.

If a woman walking down the street with a friend can blatantly ignore ignorant remarks as previously mentioned, then men are perfectly capable of ignoring a woman walking down the street enough to not shout these rude remarks at her.

There is something blatantly wrong with that picture.

Sometimes I feel inspired to purchase a paintball gun and to open fire upon the cars of those cowardly ass hats that choose to shout sexual things out the window to strangers.

Here's a tip: If you can't get out of your car, say it to my face, and then let me be the living shit out of you, don't open your fucking mouth.

Why you should love a writer in the first place

Despite the emotional turmoil, writers are often great people to be in a relationship with. Not that I'm, well, biased or anything.

You will never again run out of things to read. Self explanatory.

You will fall in love with words, because she will use them to paint a picture in your mind, a picture of a beautiful place. She will write you love letters and poems and dedicate novels to you. You might not know it at first. She will probably be writing poems about you and basing characters off of you before you even speak to her. You might possibly be her muse and not even know it.

But when you do know it, you will become immortalized in ink. She'll create characters modeled in your likeness, she'll write down the words that you speak, the things that you do, the places you go and the stories you tell. She will use you, but you will forever go down in print. And maybe only you will know it. You will share this secret with your writer. You are hers, but she is also yours.

There is no in between with a writer. She wears her heart on her sleeve for all to see, and if you look close enough you will either see how deeply she loves you or how much she despises you. She may be secretive, but you will know if she is happy or if she is sad. Why she feels the way she does is an entirely different question, but she won't keep you guessing what she's feeling.

If you forget a Valentine's Day present, pick up a notebook and decorate the cover. Or just pick up a notebook. Or give her an old book you found laying in your closet. Or a bundle of pens and pencils that you don't plan on using anymore.

If you thought writers were creative on paper, you should see them in real life. A mystery writer might ask you to tie her to a chair so she can try to escape, try to figure out how her main character is about to get out of a sticky situation. And if you thought a writer's mind can drift, I can guarantee that yours is currently.

If she writes for a living she can go anywhere. When you move, if you want to take her with you, all you need to do is pack up her desk and her writing utensils and take her on an adventure. And she will love every minute of her.

It might be difficult at first, and these reasons may seem shallow. But in all honesty, you should date a writer because she, with every inch of her body, will love you until you break her heart.

How to love a writer: Dating her

After you've won her heart, you need to keep it. It won't be hard for her to love you after you've already won your place there. You're now like one of her favorite novels, stuck nice and neat in a specific place in her book shelf. You aren't going anywhere. She's got you bookmarked.

Understand that writers can go days without having a meaningful conversation with you. She might need her alone time. If she does, let her have it. She's working through a plot hole or something that's been bothering her, hurting her novel. If it's hurting her work, in her mind it's hurting her. Let her work it out on her own time.

If she wants to stay awake until three in the morning trying to perfect something, trying to get inspiration, let her. If she wants to watch the sun rise so she can experience it, let her. Stay up with her, keep her company. Watch the sun rise with her over the top of the horizon. If you fall asleep, she understands it's the thought that counts. You might even be endearing to her.

Remember when you promised to hold onto that one pen for her? Keep it. If you lose it, find another one just like it. She will know you weren't lying, know that you will always be there for her.

Ask her if her favorite author has written a new book (If s/he's still alive, that is). Chances are that it will be noticeable when your writer disappears for a few hours or wakes up to a package and grins. Ask if you can borrow the book when she's done with it. If there isn't a new book, ask her if there's something you should read anyway. She probably has a large bookshelf full of things she would be willing to let you borrow.

Bring her alcohol or coffee or tea. Sit and drink with her. Engage in meaningless conversation. Talk about the weather or about trains. Ask her about her characters or about her plot. Don't criticize them. She's not finished. Don't edit her work. If she wanted you to she would ask.

Always ask if she has anything of hers you can read. She probably does. Read it. Ask her about it.

You must be patient with her. Writers can be a very peculiar and finicky type. You need to be dedicated and positive that she is what you want, even if it's for a short time. Because, if in the middle, you change your mind and hurt her, you will probably regret it.

Never hurt her. Or at least try not to. Writers, when hurt, always have the option to take out their grief and pain through the written word. And that means print, and that means publishing for the world to see. If you make a writer cry, she will turn her tears into print. And once in print, she can't take it back. So don't break her heart. If you must, let her down gently, a soft landing in the grass. Buy her another notebook and tell her to hate you with the best words that she has.

How to love a writer: Earning her heart

Buy her a book. But not just any book. Buy her a book with blank pages and ask her to write you a story. But never tell her what to write. Ask her to write for herself, whatever she wants. Tell her she knows best. She is the writer, and she will choose to write you a story or she not.

Furthermore, pay attention to her. Maybe she only likes to write on certain paper. Maybe she has a special notebook cover that has refillable pages. Maybe she has a favorite writing utensil. If you know what she writes with down to the brand, the tip size, and the ink color, you inhabit one of the most intimate parts of a writer's brain. Buy a pen. Keep it on you at all times. She might lose hers and ask if you have one. Give it to her. Make her give it back. Tell her that if she ever loses her pen in your presence that you will always have it for her.

Make her a cup of coffee, tea if that's her thing. Writers don't get much sleep if they're any good at their craft. She is always in search of caffeine or something to drink. It helps her take her minds out of the small places that it sometimes get stuck in. Sometimes she just needs a break. Give her one. Talk to her. Find out what makes her tick.

Ask her why she writes. Chances are she was inspired by someone. Maybe it was a book, maybe it was an author. It could even be something that happened in her past. She has a reason. If it's an author, a book, ask if she has any copies. She's probably read them several times, she'll probably let you borrow one. If she does, read it. Even if you hate reading. Never tell her that. It would be like telling her that you hate breathing. She may never forgive you. When you finish reading the book, give it back. Always give it back.

If she asks you to give her a name, give her one. Don't take it as a joke. Give her the best name that you could ever come up with. If she can't make one up on her own, there's a high probability that she will use the one you give her in her finished product, in her life's legacy. She has put faith in you. Don't break that faith that she has.

Ask if you can read what she's writing. Don't just take it. Don't read it over her shoulder. If she says no, don't insist. Chances are it's because she hasn't fallen in love with her writing yet. She needs to love the writing before you can love the writing. When she's ready to share her writing, this is the ultimate trust. She may have started to fall.