as you move through the world, do you wonder who you would be in another place?  born to greek parents in rural turkey, where olive trees pack the vistas and goats roam in your yard, would you still have the youness that exists now?  how much of yourself can you guarantee is really you and not some coincidence of time and place?  would you still pick at your cuticles if you spent the day shoveling horse shit in kentucky?  

i have no training in this field.  no experience with being so desperately in love with such a wretched adolescent creature.

do not remember your own self, dark and passionate and angry.  it will only make the job harder.  it will only make you love her a little bit more for her grand pronouncements and vitriolic moods.  though you must catch her in her lies, you would like to turn away.  catch a movie, grab a sandwich, drive through the car wash with the radio blasting.  but you live beside the fear, the memory, of how it could all go bad.  really bad.  on your watch.

i want too much from the job.  i want her to like me.  i want her to be good.  but sometimes she hates me.  and sometimes she's rotten. 

you still have to feed her and love her and let her spill the messy contents of her heart all over you.  and you have to pretend that it doesn't faze you.  that you're not bothered by the gore.  and when it's quiet, when the coast is clear, you can make a mad dash for mexico. . .

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we are such beasts.  really.  just a good rub down and a clean bowl of water.  a convivial smile and a leisurely walk.  nice bright patches of sunlight in which to nap and plenty of time to poop.  rewards for good work and a dinner on time.  who are we kidding?  happy new year.

we all know how lucky we are, right?  even when the atm receipt shows negative $17 and the house is rank with the post christmas blues.  even when there hasn't been a word written in days and the heater breaks down and the dog's teeth are covered in putrid plaque.  even when the moon is a sliver of beauty that hardly gets noticed and the best time is right now, but you're thinking about later.  because luck is spiteful and doesn't like to go unnoticed.  luck will change itself just for sport--just to watch you wish for what you already had.

the emergency room housekeeping staff jokes about what's in the squirt bottles that adorn their carts.  this is the humor that the job requires.  you want a squirt of this?  which one is my best squirt?  i'll show you. . everyone has their assigned tasks.  there is a chain of command.  take the temperature.  draw the blood.  suture the skin.  swab the vomit off the floor.  push the wheelchair.  sign here.  put that in.  take that out.  you will be fine.  you will never be fine.  none of it matters if you are not there.  if you are arguing with an adolescent about the necessity of brushing their teeth; if you are pushing yourself closer to the warmth of the man in your bed; if you are scrubbing burned cheese off the dinner plates.  but still--the lights glow all night.  the cold seeps under the electronic doors.  lives are saved and ruined.  you'd never know.  until it's your life.  until it's all that matters.  

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all around me there are old women and men sitting in their chairs, thinking about how easy it used to be to tie shoelaces, drive a car, brew a coffee, protest the rent increase, crack a joke, or comfort a lover.  now everything is hard.  even eating without choking.  remember to chew, honey.  this from a girl who even at twenty-two doesn't know how to line her lips without looking like a whore.  or maybe they all want to look like whores these days.  whores from another planet with landing strips between their legs and computer screens in their back pockets.  another thing that's become nearly impossible:  understanding what it is people want.

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pickling red onions has become one of my favorite things to do.  partly because i know that i'll get to eat them later--on a salad with goat cheese and walnuts and what could be better than that!?!?--but also because making them is one of those rare tasks that is incredibly simple but feels really sophisticated in a domestic kind of way.  somehow having a jar of homemade pickled anything in the fridge feels incredibly satisfying.  and now that i've written all of that down, i realize how this is exactly the kind of thing one should not declare in public.  not unless you want everyone under the age of twenty-five to start snickering.  i can see my 12 year-old's eyes rolling.  kill me now, she'd be thinking.  if that ever becomes one of my favorite things to do, i will know it's time to go.  yep.  that's me.  not really caring about the shame i should be feeling.  that's me going to put on the kettle and unscrew the vinegar.  didn't i say something about a precipice?

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