Where is that smell coming from?

Did I mention that I live alone?

In case you’ve only recently joined me, much to my utter aggravation—and due to extenuating circumstances—I live alone. Alone in a studio apartment in the pleasantly insular, tangerine biosphere of North Orange County. Alone and recently graduated and learning to care for my—and my apartment’s—domestic needs. It’s important to note that the quality with which I am identified most closely is probably Socialism. Not the share-and-share-alike, cold and snowing Soviet form of Socialism, but rather the I’d-sooner-eat-my-own-hand-than-have-‘alone time’ sort of Social-ism.

So now I have been abandoned (extenuating circumstances, like I said) to brave adulthood on my own. Many of my friends and acquaintances are accomplishing the same feat (albeit with roommates), and I’ve noticed the ease with which they’ve made the transition. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the same results.

Here are a few concepts of domesticity I’m having trouble assimilating (this could also be titled Things I Must Convince Myself Are Normal In Order To Feel Sane):

-There is nothing wrong—read me, nothing wrong—with a few errant beverage bottles occupying my counter space for a few days after the date of consumption. Even if it’s a few weeks.

-Thunder and lightning occurring in the middle of the night—waking me up from a peaceful slumber—could have been a bomb, okay? It could have.

-Soap scum is a living, breathing entity, and to discover a way to combat this rogue is worth congratulations. Not eye-rolling.

-Calling the number posted on the “Sick of your job? Discover what your worth!” signs on freeway offramps to report a spelling error (via a strongly worded message) should be considered a Good Deed.

-When I am hanging things, it’s not helpful to sit on my couch whilst tapping the “cool” button on my remote control A/C unit and saying things like, “It’s still not straight.” Well, I clearly knew that, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the time to position the nail and hammer it into the wall in hopes of someday hanging something there.

-Cooking is not for everyone. Enough.

-The Terror of Bugs: Critters who seem to inhabit my apartment with an almost transcendental amount of comfort and ease. Why is there a Giant Threatening Spider in my shower? Was the Giant Threatening Spider there—gasp—this morning while I was rinsing and repeating? How did this GTS arrive in such a place? Were the serfs in the dark ages really mistaken in their negligence of personal hygiene?

…and while I’m on the subject of peculiar phenomena, my car has started rejecting each and every gas pump I’ve managed to pry into its Scandinavian gas hole. Three times now I’ve watched my world utterly disintegrate when the nozzle mysteriously dislodges itself from my car and flies wildly into the air. Now a normal (albeit painfully expensive) trip to the gas station has morphed into a fearsomely difficult task which often ends with me dodging a sputtering geyser of gasoline while spewing an impressive array of choice expletives to the amusement of any spectator within a three mile radius. (I know that last sentence was long, take a deep breath. It’s not fun reliving the experience, either, you know).

I wish I could say events like this only occurred sparingly.

I also wish that Californians hadn’t decided to settle and prosper on a fault line.

My point is, I am single and I live alone, and when things do go right, I give credit where credit is due. I frequently have to congratulate myself on my small triumphs as such. Having said this, I have a friend whose very existence is an utter mystery to me. The logical way by which he orders his thoughts into a particular arrangement is baffling. I’ve never questioned my own sanity until I spent time with this glutton for common sense.

It doesn’t matter what condition my car or apartment is in—freshly scrubbed, pleasantly cluttered, or toxic trash heap—to the exclusion of all else, he will comment on whatever evidence of non-domesticity he can find. There’s nothing quite like underhanded comments to really bring your shortcomings to light. Normally these things can build over time, but there are certain verbal shortcuts, certain zero-to-sixty asides that can really get my blood boiling.

Case in point.

I don’t even remember how we got on the subject—and really, it doesn’t matter. In reality, we very likely weren’t even within the same library as the subject, but nonetheless It came up (‘It’ being my apparent inability to function normally in Adultland). I believe I was verbally applauding myself for cleaning my apartment, when (and this is where my threshold for bonehead Type A remarks is really tested), my friend snorted and sort of guffawed to himself.

“You’re the only girl I know of who is messier than me,” He stated.

Oh, why thank you.

And I’m sure in his neat, organized accountant mind, this sort of statement qualified him for some sort of grateful pat on the back. But that’s because while the world’s (and surely his) center of logic is precisely here, I find that mine is precisely elsewhere. And in this delusional state, I’m fairly certain a statement like this could nominate him for a swift kick in the ass. But I’ll digress, because while the details in my domestic life are small triumphs, I regard them as being no less than monumental. Whether anyone else agrees with me or not.

For What It's Worth

Here I find myself caught in the tempest of high flying emotions. From all sides I am assaulted with squalls of that four-letter word, the dirtiest word I can think of: love. If it’s true that we as humans are afraid of what we do not understand, then I am fear’s most devoted protégé.

A few cases; a few points.

A friend has expressed his undying love for another human recently, and although I’m sure the utterance was at first in person, I was the unfortunate recipient of this knowledge via the internet. What a cold, unyielding messenger. The lucky one-and-only, the object of his unrequited blathering, however, is not the wide-eyed innocent you’d expect her to be. A series of ill moves on her part in the midst of Spring Fever left the boy’s heart broken—and what’s worse, there was no Relationship to speak of yet, so the shattered feelings found themselves falling on indifferent ground. There was a period of anger, a period of bitterness, and finally a long stretch of silence. It seemed that this relationship (lowercase ‘r’) had dissipated, as many (or most) relationships do.

However, in the heart of this boy was a spark that I’ve yet to define. But this spark led him to do the unthinkable as the fall turned its bashful cheek to the summer. Forgiveness? Not a dirty word like love, but no less mystifying. And now, the detached pronouncement over the World Wide Web has confirmed it: the boy is in love.

And in the midst of this, another weighty gust of wind pushes itself over the horizon. The logical conclusion of the Love declaration is, of course, marriage. And here, in the disjointed, disillusioned land of Private Christian Schools, the logical conclusion of a first date is also marriage. Of course.

But in this case, there was a proposal, a spectacular view, and a ring: a modest wink of a diamond grafted to the still-polished golden band that signifies so much within its wide-eyed countenance. And now two people with whom I’ve grown and experienced young adulthood with have united their own individual pasts with a vow to the future.

My friend was practically cross-eyed with delirium. She seemed younger than I remember (since I last saw her, two days ago), awash in wonderment and carrying the undeserving posture of someone who has received an unexpected, yet lavish, gift. I could see in her eyes that she was facing herself for the first time, in a way I wonder if I will ever experience myself. And now she is planning a wedding, and what’s more than that, a life—planning adulthood, charting a map for the future, drawing the road and stretching it toward the horizon. But it was her language; the mystic way with which she formed her words, that got me thinking.

It seems that she and so many others around me have tapped into a formidably sacred and highly secretive code: a new language, accompanied by new expressions, by a new flicker in their eyes.

“He loves me.” She declared, her voice quivering with earnest disbelief. And yet there was belief behind her words, and a stronger, soul-stirring confidence that I hadn’t noticed about her until now.

It was then that I suddenly felt myself teetering on the edge of a great divide; a chasm created by the earth suddenly yawning, shifting, crumbling, parting ways. There were still words, to be sure, and lengthy explanations for every tiny detail of the blessed Proposal and ensuing matrimonial plans. But the voice had gotten far away, had sunk inside my head until it was only a muffled garble, like swimming in a pool while the chatter of the party continues above the surface. You’re still there, but suddenly you are disengaged.

It seems that in my dwindling comprehension of that four-letter word, I have discovered inside of myself a distant, empty-eyed soul, illiterate and dumbfounded. I can see my friends, but there is something unfamiliar about them. It’s similar to a beloved blanket or pillowcase being laundered with different detergent; it’s still the same thread-count, but the smell is different—the familiarity has been jarred.

Here’s what I’m trying to get at. There is something stirring in me lately that I have yet to understand, much less explain. It’s a feeling akin to homelessness—rootless, rooting through the dredges to find a shred of the proverbial. It’s as though my heart has yet to find its home; its place of belonging. I suspect it is precisely that which causes such dissonance between these new strangers and myself. I suspect his or her heart has found a home—in confidence, in ownership, in grace, in the comfort of someone else. Whatever it may be, it shirks my feeble attempts to understand—much less attain—it.

What’s more, it seems impossible to write about love. Especially if I don’t understand it. So whatever you want to call it—and to my detriment, there seems to be no other qualifying statement that better explains that bitter mystery—love has eluded me. And until I can grasp its powerful effect on myself the same way my friends have, I will remain homeless.

water once a week

Sometimes I wonder about living alone. It seems that when I bring it up in conversation, I get one of two reactions. The first is the dumbfounded gawk; the eyes-wide-mouth-gaping reaction akin to telling someone you have a fatally contagious skin disease or, worse, that you are a democrat. “You live alone? You? Ah-lone?”

Yes. Alone.

“No! You? No…”

Yes.

People just can’t fathom what all the minutes must amount to. What do you do when you’re not with other people? I mean, it’s just so…empty…and lonely.

The second, and more mystifying reaction goes something like this:

“…And I live alone.”

Eyes wide. “You’re so lucky. I wish I lived alone. Oh, you’re so lucky!”

Either way, I feel the need to defend my state of alone-ness. Either I have to give a detailed account for how I spend all my superfluous alone-minutes, or conversely I need to swoop in and explain why it’s not lucky—not lucky at all—to live alone.

At any rate, in a single act of defiance against the living-alone stigma, I decided to buy a companion. I spotted him nestled in the company of at least a dozen other flourishing succulents. He was smaller than all the other cacti but there was something about those thorns, those spindly little arms outstretched rebelliously. And so I bought him at the Monrovia farmer’s market. And he was called Boo Radley. And he was to protect my apartment, therefore securing him the position of ATTACKtus. And he was very good.

The nature of a person’s proclivity for companionship is bewildering. And there I was naming and giving ownership to a cactus. Boo Radley was such a splendid cohort, too. He sat obediently on my coffee table, watching the door, observing the comings and goings of the apartment’s sole inhabitant. Of course in the absence of human companionship, I would occasionally bounce ideas off of Boo, who would respond with the unbiased opinion of a good friend.

“Boo Radley, do you think I should accept this job offer?”

Silence. Spindly little arms. Fierce and friendly at the same time.

“Ah, yes. Point well taken, point well taken. I will ask about the benefits.”

Silence. Spiney, green and fantastic.

“Again, touché. It’s up for negotiation, so I should respond accordingly. Such good advice, Boo. Such good advice.”

And so on.

However lately, I’ve been feeling guilty. I mean, I leave my apartment in the morning (bastioned and fortified to brave traffic on my Brea-LA commute), I work all day and I return, often well past 7pm. If people ever wonder what I do with my alone time in my sweet Junior One Bedroom digs, what they should really question is what poor Boo Radley does all day.

So in an act of compassion against the stigma of cacti alone-ness, I bought Boo Radley a friend, a garden gnome—a wee three inches tall and crowned with a rouge pointy hat. And he was called Mr. Britches. And he was very good.

Now I had a companion in Boo Radley, and Boo Radley had a companion in the stout Mr. Britches. And all was at peace in the quiet, balanced ecological unit of my apartment. However, lately I've been noticing that Boo Radley is sprouting some sort of preternatural arm. It is unusual to me because the plants I’ve had in the past (R.I.P. Bruce the deflated cactus and Chuck Norris the bonsai) haven’t sprouted anything; in fact, the only thing they ever did was die.

But now Boo has an arm, a barbed appendage, pale green and growing at an alarming rate. The arm has grown more than an inch in the last few days, and I’m beginning to wonder if Boo Radley and Mr. Britches aren’t secretly planning a coup to take over my apartment.

I fear I’ve created a monster. So perhaps companionship is overrated; after all, I used to live alone, and now I am at the sadistic mercy of a cactus and a miniature garden gnome. Isn’t adulthood grand?

The Bagdad on Hawthorne

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It's as if they are showing you the way."

-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz