small talk

I am finding it increasingly difficult to talk these days. Not to actually utter words, not to push air through vocal cords, not even to be grammatical (although still split infinitives). I just don’t know what to say. This emptiness comes over me in cycles, and I feel like everything I have to offer, conversation-wise, is shallow and boring. I hear myself blathering on about topics others can’t possibly want to know about, but I feel bound to fill the empty space. I feel bound to write this entry. To establish that I am, indeed, just fine, and even rather cheerful sometimes. And that I’m starting to talk again. In snippets, in jingles, in fast-food happy-meals, but at least I’m talking, right? Last week, in dreams, I had a parade of...

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Posted on 31 Mar 1999 | Comments Off

checking out

I bet you’re all wondering, waiting with bated breath, to find out what a glorified check-out grrl does after she gets off work from the library. Why, she goes to another library, of course. Not usually, though. Just last night. I was feeling rather … bookish. After nine hours of checking in and out books on pathology, histology, and gynecology, I was itching for some non-medical ologies to read. I’m not a good shopper. Or rather, I’m an excellent consumer. I am attracted to bright, shiny things, pretty covers, sales, percentages off. Once I got into the library, I was glad it was closing soon, or I’d have left with more than just one armful of books. Note the “once I got into the library.” Yes, I got lost going to the...

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Posted on 17 Mar 1999 | Comments Off

revisited

I drop my arm even though my hand remains waving a few seconds after the van drives out of sight. For a few seconds more, I stand on the edge of the parking lot and just sob into the sunlight, then slowly turn and wander back inside. Once inside, my crying hollows out until I just moan, kneeling on the stairs, looking up at the grandfather clock as its brass pendulum swings toc-toc-toc and the van that carried it here drives farther and farther away. “I’m so tired of saying goodbye to people I love.” The weary kleenex is folded into a neat rectangle ó when did I do that? ó and I fiddle with it as I swallow over more tears. The furniture in Dr. Doctor’s office is not office furniture at all, aside from the desk and chair; there are two...

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Posted on 13 Mar 1999 | Comments Off