A page from the eX-Files.

Well, more like "the friends with benefits" files, but that's not quite as pithy, is it?

Warning: Flipping through XM radio stations may cause flashbacks.

The song: uber-atrocious "I Love You Always Forever".
The "artist": one-hit-wonder Donna Lewis.
The year: 1996.
The scene: Jill's car, the beach parking lot, summer.
The time: Sometime between nine pm and midnight. This I know because it was dark and we were killing time, waiting for our friends to get off work once the theater closed, and getting a head start on them by finishing off the bottle of whatever it was that I had gifted to my brother and then taken back when he wasn't home.
The cast: Jill and Drew, and I use his name only because it's relevant to the story.

Drew flips through radio stations and stops.

Drew: Listen to this.
Jill: You're not seriously playing that piece of perky pop crap in my car, are you?
Drew: Just listen. You hear that?
Jill: Yes. That would be why I'm asking if you're serious.
Drew: You hear all the you's?
Jill: That's called lazy lyric-writing.
Drew: They could be Drew's.



Drew smiles with great self-satisfaction.

Drew: "I love Drew, always forever."



Drew: And the best part: "Drew's got the most unbelievable blue eyes I've ever seen."



Drew: Come on. Admit it.
Jill: What's unbelievable is that we both fit in the car with your ego.
Drew: Ah, you love it... "Everything I will do for Drew."
Jill: You are so cut off for the night.
Drew: There's nothing left in the bottle, anyway.
Jill: Oh, I wasn't talking about the alcohol.
Donna Lewis: "Say it, say it again."
Jill: I definitely wasn't talking about the alcohol.

Dramatis Personæ

Hello. I'm Jillachetti. I'm in charge here. Miss Artistic Director...

...Jill Writes--she seems to think that she runs the place. But she's not doing too good of a job. She confuses people. She lets this one...

...the one that babbles--take over indiscriminately. That's right. I said "indiscriminately". What, you think just because I'm not old enough for pre-school, I don't know big words? A lot you know. I know enough to realize that someone needs to set things straight around here. And our "fearless leader", trying to juggle the play and the poetry and the expository stuff, she confuses people. She is vague. She is ambiguous. She writes random posts directed at God-knows-who--

I'm not God.

What?

I said, I'm not God.

Well of course you're not God. You're a chick from a Renoir.

Well, yes, I'm that. But I also know who JillWrites writes about. You said "God-knows-who", but I know who. And I'm not God.

Oh really, Miss Smarty-Impressionist-Pants!

Muse will do. You can drop the "Miss."

Uh, wait. I thought he...

...was our muse.

He is.

Not so easy to keep it straight, now, is it?

I didn't hear any one talking to you.

I was. You're me, kiddo. You were confusing yourself. Thus, you were talking to me.

Us.

Us.

So you're our muse?

I'm the head muse. I found him.

Why does he get the iPod avatar?

Because.

That is so not an answer.

Well it's a better answer than--

You're bickering with a fictional character.

What do you expect when she acts like you?

I expect you to remember which one of us is which.

You can't even keep it straight. I bet if Damon and I were both standing--

Someone call me? Hey man, what's up?

Wow.

Ambiguity. Ambiguity is up.

What do you have to complain about? You know exactly what's going on here.

Wow.

What?

And now you're male bonding with a fictional character.

Wow.

He's not fictional. He's me. Sorta.

I didn't think it was possible for you both to be in the same place, but... Wow.

This is not the time!

Are you kidding? This is the only time. This is the hottest thing I've ever seen.

I would have to agree.

Of course you agree. You're the one that gets us into these messes.

I would hardly call a well-developed appreciation of the male form and the male aura a mess.

What would you call it, then?

I think I'm too young for this.

Limitless inspiration.

You rang?

OH

MY

GOD.

I thought you'd see it my way.

Avatars courtesy of:
"Limitless Inspiration": Flandrin's Young Nude Male
"Muse": Detail from Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party
"Damon": Detail from Tillmans' portrait of Moby

Hot fudge ain't got nothin' on you.

Nearly 2am. I imagine you there. You are alone. The day was long, and you'd be exhausted--if only you could wind down. You can't, of course, and all the wine in the world can't help you.

There you are, in my mind: itchy, restless. Your bed is just through that door, but it's not even worth an attempt to lie down. You pace, untuck your shirt, nibble on your fingernails. You can't get my words out of your head.

I close my eyes and imagine your fingers. Then, other parts of you. Your forearms, as they cross and uncross in front of you. Your hand, as you rub the back of your neck.

You toss yourself on the sofa, hunched forward. That doesn't work. You throw yourself back, look at the ceiling. No answers there. Your eyelids flutter closed, the darkness letting you better imagine the scene I have set for you.

I wonder if the idea flashed across your mind, so quickly as to be a blur--but if it had been there nonetheless. To follow me into the bathroom. That bathroom--the bathroom with the window, the bathroom with the view. The one I had to steal away to, to stare into the mirror at my own face until I could stop seeing yours; to grip the sides of the sink until I could grip my own impulses. The ones that told me to follow you. Did you want me to follow you?

But that moment is nothing but a memory. In my mind. And now in yours. You open your eyes and you are still on the sofa. But now you are biting your lip. I am not there.

I close my eyes and imagine your fingers. Then, other parts of you.

Your fingers, on other parts of you.

Are you doing what I imagine you're doing?

Things Not to Say to the Man Who Just Bought You Dinner

Wandering through the multiplex, don’t stare too long at the guy with the skull tattooed into his skull, then begin musing aloud about why you don’t find that particular design and locale of body art particularly arousing. This begs the question: “Oh, so you find tattoos sexy?”

Suddenly floating through your mind: images of every piece of body art on any man you’ve ever touched, kissed, slept with, danced with, traveled with, worked with, been friends with, been more than friends with, thought about being more than friends with, ran into on the subway platform and began spontaneously composing poetry about…

Absent from the parade in your brain: the man questioning. He has no tattoos.

Then, by virtue of the two being so closely housed in your mental rolodex, images of the same men’s varied body piercings…

There is no safe way out of this conversation. You are now screwed. Royally.

”Damn, I didn’t know he had one there. Well, I guess I know now.”

“So. You find tattoos sexy.”

You can now only remember the few you found most surprising, or well-designed, or just plain hot.

“Yeah…umm…they can be.”

Shoulder. Upper arm. Leg.

“Really.”

You know what is coming. And you know it is a good idea, in your response, to avoid mention of any man that the man questioning
a) knows
b) has ever run into
c) has ever heard you speak about
d) can find programmed on your cell phone.

“On who?”

Bingo!

Shoulder, upper arm, leg. Shoulder, upper arm, leg. Shoulder, upper arm, leg. "Goddamn. I didn’t expect that to be there. Or maybe I did. Maybe I knew it was there all along."

“Uh…”

Ok, focus. Focus! There has to be a safe choice. An acceptable conversation topic. Brad Pitt? Does he have any tattoos? Even men think Brad Pitt is hot.

Shoulder.

What about Tom Cruise? Most likely gay. Totally a safe choice. Do Scientologists believe in body art?

Upper arm.

Colin Farrell. Obviously, a kinky fuck. A complete masochist. MUST have something, somewhere. But why can’t I remember? Have I been brainwashed? What the hell?

Leg.

Oh. Boy.

“Do you want to share some Milk Duds?”

When a Man Italicizes Feet, Then It Is Okay to Take His Suggestions

"Ruining your life...is an effective path towards writerly enlightenment. You should write a post of good ways to ruin your life for the sake of inspiration."

Disclaimer: It should not be assumed that Jill or anyone that confides in Jill has ever done, or ever intends to do, or even has ever had a situation that brought to mind the thought of doing, any of these things. Though it shouldn't be assumed the opposite, either. Believe what you will.

Good Ways to Ruin Your Life for the Sake of Inspiration

1. Regularly get drunk with one of your college professors who actually lives with his girlfriend and may or may not be certifiably insane. Let nature take its course. Let this develop into a long-term relationship. Write about it. Don't finish the project, though, because you HATE plots.

2. Regularly get drunk with one of your college professors who actually lives by himself and quite possibly is gay or at least bisexual, and most likely has some sort of crush on the professor who lives with his girlfriend. Sleep with him. Refrain from killing him when he decides to cut off all communication with you even though you are still in his class. Get an A in the class and then write about all the ways you could have killed him. Get grad school credit for the writing. Sell mucho tickets at a festival.

3. Date an actor. Write about his inability to accept compliments or express his feelings. Place very high in a writing contest with the result.

4. Become best friends with your ex-boyfriend, the actor. Write about how you get nothing done when you hang out together. Simultaneously, develop crush on 400 year old dead procrastinating fictional character. Write about how delusions of conversing with aforementioned fictional character dovetail nicely with how little work you get done when hanging out with aforementioned ex-boyfriend. Write an academic essay about your creative writing about your delusions. Get grad school credit for both. Sell out run at major festival.

5. Pine.

6. Pine.

7. Pine.

8. But, you know, don't admit the truth.

9. Truth, you see, is stranger than fiction.

10. Therefore, when you write the truth, vaguely enough, people think you're creative.

11. So, you know, why live the truth, when you could just write about it?

12. It's all in the telling.

13. Run away to someone you barely know.

14. Run away with someone you barely know.

15. Think of how many hits your blog would get if all in the blogosphere knew what you'd done, and couldn't wait to hear the sordid details. Think you, possibly, wouldn't care.

16. Self-publish your multimedia journal from the excursion.

17. Sleep with some guy who's probably gay, but at the least is unsatisfying. Become buddies once you get over it. Collaborate.

18. Leave that phone message you've been dying to leave. Sit back and wait for the response. Record the conversation. Transcribe. Publish.

19. Obsessively save all your email and IM conversations. Stop going out into the real world, so that you can stay home, cut and paste them, and turn them into a novel.

20. Ignore someone for as long as you possibly can. Then let sparks fly. Chick lit is hot market.

21. Wake yourself up every two hours and force yourself to write down all the naughty dreams you're having about the person you're ignoring. Sleep deprivation may be a torture method, but clit lit is a hot market.

22. Take a shower.

If you all have any additional suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Toey, Revisited

Some people hate feet. How? Each toe is a wonder. As when a baby arrives and parents joyfully count each digit, thankful for their existence, each one. How can you love someone and not love their toes?

His beauty is his innocence, I realize. There is darkness but no shame. When you’re a little boy, no curiosity seems inappropriate. Everything beckons. I paint my toenails—sparkly and pink--and think of him.

“Inappropriate” is a word I use when I am too shy to explain the truth. It is the lazy way out. The cowardly. I never mean it. I would never use a word I didn’t mean on the page. But I will say it to avoid the long truth. Even a truth I want desperately to share.

He is still a child inside. But so alluring. He balances opposites. He shelters wonder.

I am three years old with a new baby brother and a cousin on the way. I rub my aunt’s belly. She leaves for a doctor’s appointment and I announce, “She is going to see the people that make the feet.”

His toes are those of my baby. I want to tickle them and kiss them and count them and name them. Each one.

"C" is for Clueless

Late 1992.
"He's looking."

"Who cares? He's not him."

"And he's looking."

"Also, not him. Do you think he knows?"

"Can you think of anyone else? There's like a hundred guys here."

"Right. So, do you think he knows?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. You act too cool."

"So I should be more obvious?"

"Yes. Try obvious."

Latest 1992
"Do you think I was too obvious? I mean, I nearly spelt it out for him."

"Boys need the actual spelling out."

"Not the nearly?"

"Not the nearly."

Early 1993
"He read me Yeats. So do you think he--"

"Uhhh...yeah."

"But maybe he was just, I don't know, in the mood to recite poetry."

"Right."

"Studying for an English exam?"

"Try again."

"You think he meant it?"

"For someone so smart, you're awfully dumb."

Later 1993
"That's it. Today or never."

A day later, 1993
"Detention. Yep. Detention."

"You're joking."

"No joke. It's a message. From the universe."

"What's the message?"

"Learn to spell."

2001
"So, uh, when did you figure it out?"

"What?"

"You know, that I adored you."

"Huh?"

"Adored you. Couldn't tell you."

"Now."

"How clueless were you."

"Pretty damn. So what about you?"

"What about me, what?"

"When did you figure it out?"

"Huh?"

2005
"So what did we learn from our fiasco?"

"Not nearly enough, apparently."

"Not nearly."

"But I couldn't be more obvious."

"Not nearly enough. Take it from me."

"You would be the expert."

"I am. Spell. It. Out."

"Next time the phone rings. I swear."

What It's Like to Be Me

“What I love about you,” he tells me, “is that you don’t make mistakes. With numbers. Your taste in men—not so good—but your math is flawless.” I study him and try to see what other girls see. He is my friend. I spend most of our time together running interference for him. He would argue this, but he breaks hearts. His eyes are clear and green. He is beautiful. He would argue that as well. The girls are not heart-broken to be separated from his naturally shrewd business sense or his artist's eye. Probably no contention there.

We hug warmly, his arms wrapped around me, his body against mine. People see us and assume the most. None of it is true. In private, he musses my hair—what remains of it after ordering the stylist to chop it off in a fit of post-adolescent frustration over guys telling me “don’t cut your hair.” It is short, pixie-ish. “You don’t need long hair to be sexy,” he tells me. “Wear your glasses. I love hot smart girls with glasses.” My fingers trace the tribal band around his upper arm.

We have no shame about changing clothes in the same room. His boxers are low as he pulls up his pants; fluorescent light bounces off the sharp lines of his bare hips. Aesthetically fascinating—so different from what's under the waistband of my jeans. His angles bring to mind the geometry of the architectural studies he sketches for homework. I wonder if he would rather be penciling curves.


We dance in the lobby of the local diner, to disco songs we sing off key. “Older sisters,” he confirms. “Girls like to see your feminine side, as long as that’s not all they see.” He dances just close enough to make me wish he’d get closer. He knows too much for seventeen. So do I, but that’s because my dance partners are always older. High school boys are afraid to look you in the eyes when you’re dancing. Not him. His eyes are golden-brown, and they match his hair.

He shows up on my back porch and asks me to his senior prom. I say yes. He shows up on my back porch and says we ought to be just friends. I say “I guess.” “But,” he asks, “you’re still coming to the prom with me, right?” I go, because I have a fabulous sequined dress that I want to wear again, and because he can dance.


His lips taste faintly of coconut. It’s not chapstick or anything; it’s him. Always faintly of coconut--sweet but still masculine. I watch as they draw back into a smile and I know without looking up that he is glancing down. That’s what he does when he’s about to cast aside inhibition. He will kiss me again and his eyes will shift to the greener side of hazel, and I will know what he is thinking.


“When you look at me like that, I think of chocolate.”
“Well, we are in Starbucks,” he laughs. “I’ll get you a brownie.”


I know his eyes are cobalt, but I can’t see them. We are on the phone, debating competitiveness and office politics and drive. I ask him leading questions; he makes me define my terms. A screech cuts through the phone signal and for a few seconds, we are kids, giggling, bickering in the school yard. “Was that you?” “No. You?” “Well it wasn’t me.” Boyish. Charming. Then back to business. I ask him questions requiring statistics, and gauge his facility with numbers. I put words in his mouth. He cuts in. I talk over him. He says: “listen.” And I do. I stop mid-sentence. It is a small submission I do not begrudge. He doesn’t call himself a writer, yet he always uses his words precisely. And I want him to talk some more, because the sound of his voice makes me squirm.

He pauses, making sure my abrupt stop is not just instinct. He wants to know it is a conscious decision to yield. I wait--willingly, because he seems aware of the crucial but delicate balance. Without my willingness, his power has nowhere respectable to go. Acknowledge my authority and I will want yours. He modulates his drive as well as he does his voice, something feral only flickering occasionally—in the silences, between his careful phrases, when I catch him off-guard. Always tantalizingly close, but clearly well under his control. I hear assurance in his voice as he speaks of ambition, and imagine how lamplight looks playing across the skin of his bare hips.

Baggage (Part 1)

Jeremy taught me how to pack.

Of course, he didn't teach me until he realized I was bad at it, which was right about when he saw me unpacking in a hotel in Rome. It was my first time out of the US. I was 18. Being taught how to most effectively pack a suitcase might not sound like a particularly formative experience, but coming from a writer who lists "wanderlust" as her favorite word, this is nearly in the realm of the sublime.

Soggy January, 1994. My first year of college, his second. We were on a study trip with a university group. He had packed for nearly two weeks in one large military duffel bag. He unpacked quickly, showered for dinner quickly, met me and my rooming buddy in our room. Two girls with long hair. We were not ready. My clothes were everywhere. And they were wrinkled. Grunge may have been in, but there was no need for wrinkled dinnerwear.

He knocked some idiosyncratic knock that I now wish I could remember. I opened the door and--though I was pretty hot for him--thought nothing of letting him see the mess. He'd known me for three months; if he didn't like my mess, then he didn't like me. His black button-down was wrinkle-free, no doubt due to the miracle of a steamy shower. He strolled on in and took up more space in the room than I would have expected from a guy his size.

"Hasn't anyone taught you how to pack?" A bit more bite in his voice than I'd been hoping to detect. I gave it back to him.

"Why, are you going to show me?" I knew he'd traveled a lot, but I wasn't sure a man could teach me how to organize my own wardrobe.

Great job, Jill. Bait him. Good plan.

What did you expect? I was 18. I hadn't yet learned how to check my ego at the door. (Um...have I fully learned that yet? I don't know.) I wasn't about to take any crap from a know-it-all upperclassman, no matter how turquoise his eyes. Though, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have realized from the pragmatic way he would arrive in a new city and have a gameplan for us all before we'd even showered, that he was someone to be reckoned with. And that perhaps I shouldn't bait him. His glibness and self-importance notwithstanding.

Seriously, he could make things happen. Like a few months before. In Chicago. It was a weekend trip. I'm not sure what we were supposed to be learning. We'd been seated next to each other on the flight out, as the seats had been arranged alphabetically by last name. Only a few weeks into my first semester of college, I would be spending my birthday with a horde of students I didn't know. It was our first extended conversation.

(Technically we first spoke at the meet-n-greet, wherein the upperclassmen were supposed to welcome the freshmen. Months later, I learned that it was more like the upperclassmen rating the freshmen. Ah, adolescence.)

As we checked in and found our rooms, Jeremy surveyed the people we'd become friendly with. He discovered food preferences, dietary restrictions. He found a guidebook. He located an appropriate restaurant. I think he may even have made reservations. He made plans for after dinner. He figured out to get to the Improv. (And all the while, he took a series of really cool photos which I saw when he developed them a week or so later.)

What, a man with organizational skills?

This was astounding to me. I'd gone to a very competitive all-girls high school. The place was filled with leaders. Girls who could organize a prom in their sleep. Girls who could stage-manage a cast of 50. Girls who could raise $100,000 for the charity of your choice. We didn't mess around. I wasn't used to a man taking charge. (Isn't that ironic? Such is the value of same-sex education.)

I was enamored. Wow. Slight problem, though. Sorta-boyfriend back home. (Eventually, it turned out that the sorta-bf wasn't into the whole "monogomy" thing, and the unbelievable self-control I demonstrated by not kissing Jeremy right in the hotel lobby for his amazing freakin' competence at all things I was just discovering that I found impressive was for naught. But hey, live and learn. Next time you don't kiss someone, think of me.)

So, back to Italy: He folded and rolled and stacked my clothes, tough-love-teasing all the way through. Besides mocking my packing skills, he had to rub it in that his French was way better than my Italian and was more likely to help us out of a jam, even in Rome. Bastard. I wanted to slap him. But I also wanted to kiss him. Again. Which I didn't. Again.

(Still had the sorta-bf back home, who by this time had left me for his ex and came back. You'd think I would have learned my lesson, but no. Good job, Jill. Don't kiss the cute bi-lingual world-traveling intellectual photographer with killer taste in music who makes you excellent mix tapes monthly. Who, by the way, also had single-handedly organized the outing for the evening of your 18th birthday. Good job!)

Tune in tomorrow...or the next day?...for more of "How stupid was Jill at 18?"

She Told Me So (aka I Want Spike)

I write so much about Violet, you'd think we were married or something. Uhhhh...no. But I do keep a toothbrush in her bathroom.

For years now, I've been hearing about her obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I've never gotten around to watching more than one or two episodes. Sure, they're good, campy, kick-ass fun, but I never got addicted. I did develop something of a soft spot for Angel, because the show played before Charmed during the days a few winters ago when I was trying to catch up on every episode of Charmed I'd never seen. (That was all of them. I'm a bigger geek than you ever imagined, huh?) So I would tune in a few minutes early, and catch Angel kicking some ass and then being all sweet and/or brooding. All I knew about him was that he was Buffy's love, but what I saw was him falling for Cordelia. Kim didn't want me to think of Angel as in love with Cordelia, because, clearly, he was Buffy's man...uh...vampire.

Last night I was in a dark mood. Not depressed. Just dark. As in, not sunny. As in, "Hey, let's plumb the deep recesses of Jill's psyche! Let's wander aimlessly uptown and figure out how we can turn my twisted imagination into some very penetrating art!" We did so for a few miles, then took the subway the rest of the way. Finally, after listening to some drunk abuse every man on the A train, and watching a tiny dog chase a rat as big as its head, we arrived at her apartment. We poured some iced tea and she told me "Okay, be quiet." Very few people get away with telling me to be quiet. Then she introduced me to Spike.

Oh.

My.

God.

Yeah, ok, I'll be quiet for him.

Somehow, in my fumbling with my words on the long hike home, I was able to convey to Kim exactly where my head was at. Or she was able to surmise it psychically. In three short scenes, this character catapulted straight to the top of my "Fictional Characters I Have Lusted After" list. Seriously, in a brawl, he would kick Hamlet's ass, hands tied behind his back. I like that. I really like that.

Yeah, yeah, I get it, he's not real.

But damn, if someone didn't pry into my subconscious one night to create him, then I don't know where he came from.

She told me so. But why did she hold out on me for so damn long?

And who else is holding out on me? If there are more of him out there, I want to know about it. Any suggestions?

The Island

I've just discovered another entry for my list of Fictional Characters I Have Lusted After.

Do not mistake this as a ringing endorsement for The Island as a piece of cinematic history. It's a hybrid sci-fi/action flick, and if you don't like to mix your sci-fi with your action or vice versa, you're very likely going to get a bit ticked off. If you're not a purist, though, you might just be entertained. Because just when the sci-fi looks as if it might get heavy, just at that place where it started becoming painful to sit through A.I., The Island shifts gears. And if you like your action heroes to be ruthless and don't mind their impossibly-good luck, then you'll have a damn good time. I did, even when I was not gawking at Ewan McGregor.

I won't spoil the big mystery of The Island, but I think it wouldn't be a spoiler if I conceded that, yes, in fact, the movie is what the trailer makes it out to be: a metaphor for treating humans with dignity. For not living lives of quiet desperation. Et cetera. I think everyone gets that off the trailer, right?

(Some trailers are just way too transparent. Let me take you back a few years. My friend Tim and I are watching the preview of The Sixth Sense.

Jill: So...um...the Bruce Willis character is...
Jill & Tim: Dead.
Jill: Right.
Tim: Yeah.
Jill: Ok, no need to see that one.
Tim: Pass the Milk Duds.)

Well then. Back to The Island. So if the film is a metaphor for not living lives of quiet desperation, the hero will of course be the utterly-charming-and-resourceful-non-conformist. I'm a sucker for this type. I know this. All the better when played by a cute scruffy guy with a great voice. Who isn't afraid to violently wield crowbars, wrenches, and futuristic motorized vehicles of all kinds.

I won't divulge any more except this, my favorite moment. The moment when McGregor's character, Lincoln, joins my list. He had never previously encountered any motorized vehicles. He's been asleep out by a deserted stretch of highway with Jordan, Scarlett Johansson's character. A motorcycle flies by. They both wake up. He runs out onto the road. "What was that?" Jordan asks. Lincoln gets this look of pure mischief on his face. "I don't know," he replies. "But I want one."

Yeah, me too. I want one. Can I get one of him?