I will now and forever OWN you...

(February 28th, 2008. 11:29pm.)

A Section or Two of My Steeple Chase

He'd arrived home on foot, burdening no one with a plea for a ride. The party had fizzled out slowly, people stumbling about or having younger, responsible relatives come pick them up off the street. Morty was one of the first people to go because he figured he wouldn't be missed and didn't have to make rounds in saying his goodbyes. Once the guys had left him to cope with his dizziness on the porch, he'd sat a few moments more and breathed into his lap, head lulled in raised hands, propped up by the elbows, until he could see straight again. Then he'd stood and made his way slowly out of the gazebo-like structure, back onto the driveway where he'd been standing not too long before, and glanced once more up into the window. No one really seemed to be going crazy anymore, as Morty couldn't find anyone just within the frame of the window. So he turned his head to look down the long extension of cement, out onto the street where the tall lamps glowed brightly.

It was early in the morning, too early, and Morty wasn't tired yet. The trek home wasn't very long, but it was extremely cold, to the point where he swore the hairs in his nostrils were frozen stiff. This made it difficult to breathe, so he gasped through his mouth while burning his esophagus with another cancer stick. By the time he reached his house, his face was tomato red from windburn but he was pretty sure that the rest of his body was the blue of a smurf, iced over. Thawing out in his basement bedroom, Morty stood beneath the heating vent that followed the perimeter of his ceiling like a train set in the air. He tried to remember where he'd last left his medication as the cold dripped off his skin and dampened his clothes. Normally he was good with keeping up on his drugs, because on most occasions he was already home and had nothing better to do but look at the clock. But going to a party was something that threw him off-course, and so his last dose was a few hours behind schedule and he was starting to feel the effects beneath his skin, itching, and his tongue was fuzzy like the outside of a peach and tasted just as bland.

Once he felt he was sufficiently warmed, he could at last feel his toes again, Morty moved to his nightstand across the expanse of his room. He rummaged through the contents - papers and paint, an old toothbrush and a rusty butter knife - but there were no transparent amber-yellow bottles. He realized that his room was rather dark and leaned forward, already slightly bent at the waist, and flicked on his low-watt table lamp with a twist of his fingers. Beneath the shade, right where he had left them he suddenly recalled, were two bottles full of pills. He took one of each, swallowing without water, his head tilted back, eyes closed. He felt both shapes slide slowly down his throat and wondered if someone were to look at him right now, would they see the little oval protrusions he could feel against his adam's apple?

Then he re-covered the container and placed them in their spot on the smooth wooden surface. Turning his body just a quarter rotation, Morty let his knees buckle and he collapsed backwards on his ass, landing on the center edge of his bed. His body bounced a little from the impact, palms facedown, colliding with the sheets and gripping tightly, bunching the fabric up so it poked out between his fingers.

He sat like this for a while, staring at the opposite, empty beige wall unblinking. It wasn't until he could see the blank dry wall ripple like a pebble interrupting a calm lake surface that he would allow himself to move, so he waited out the medications until they were settled and dissolving in his belly and through his blood stream. Slowly, after a few moments, he felt a warmth creep through his veins, a heat that ended in the tips of his ears and made his brain feel thickly swollen within the confines of his skull. The effects were setting in, pulling him out of reality, making him feel happier, less alone. His swelling brain throbbed against the bone rapidly, sending waves of chills throughout, and he, finally, could see the ripple.

So he stood carefully and the room rocked like a ship in choppy waters, but he smiled. Morty steadied himself and then tried to move, wobbily made his way to the center of the room where a single stool, two-tiered and matching his nightstand, waited for him. Next to it was a device that cradled his burgundy colored acoustic guitar whenever it wasn't at home in his hands. It opened up for him, inviting him to take the instrument into his own control. He felt a blast of fresh air sift through his pores, shifting his organs, resettling everything that made Morty who he was.

He slid onto the circular surface of the stool and steadied his legs on the lowest rungs. Then he bent slightly sideways and released the neck of his guitar from its holder, heaving it up through the air and onto his lap. The fluid motion with which the instrument flew made Morty pause, made him consider his guitar possibly owning a pair of invisible wings, and he looked down to see the open mouthed expression the cut out wood provided. The lips moved against the six strings, asking to be played, begging to be used, their metal aching.

Just as Morty adjusted the groove of the instrument perfectly on his knee, a voice behind him crooned, "Go on Morty, paint me a picture."

It was the voice of Kristy. He didn't turn around, couldn't in fact, as his eyes glued themselves to the fret board, neck stiff. But he knew. So he said, "Okay, Kristy, but you have to stay quiet."

She obediently said nothing more and Morty closed his eyes, positioned his left hand and pressed callused fingertips down against the solid neck. It shivered in his hands, grew prickly from chills, and begged again to be strummed. Morty raised his right hand, propping his elbow on the hip of the guitar and let his thumb and forefinger tell their story across the strings. The tune rose to his ears and immediately negated the sound of the heating vent whooshing through his tiny room. He could taste the notes in the back of his throat, sour like the first bite of a green apple.

He played for a few fleeting moments and then looked up, wondering if Kristy sat impressed behind him or restlessly bored. In front of him now was a canvas, sitting wide and white on an easel, taller than Morty was when standing erect. His shadow filled an eighth of the board while the very top was smothered in fresh paint, colors and arrangements that matched the mood, movement, and melody of the chords he had just played. Curious, he placed his hands further up on the fret and plucked a few strings, watching as images appeared just beneath those that already existed. He smiled, his heart pounding, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on just playing whatever his fingers directed him to play.

Behind his closed lids, splashes of vivid color splayed out against the blackness like Jackson Pollack lived inside of his head and tossed buckets of paint at his eyes. When he opened them and focused again, there they were. Primary colors mixed together, blues and reds and yellows, creating layer after layer of imagery. Each of them, first behind his closed eyes, were now transferred onto the canvas in front of his face. He was sweating, picking at each string with more urgency. His fingertips turned red, hurt with a dull, throbbing pain and imploring him to go on while perspiration dripped from his eyebrows and mixed with the art before him, making it glisten.

Her voice caught his attention again, filling his ears like church bells.

"Keep going."

He did. He kept playing for her. The colors now whirled around him. The boring bedroom, all white and beige, thrived. The stool beneath Morty rocked. His whole body shook. He felt as though his overhead light was flickering on and off. Shadows waltzed around the room. Morty knew he wasn't alone. He knew that he and Kristy weren't alone. Who else was in the room? It didn't matter. He didn't really care. What he cared about was the painting he was creating. This masterpiece for Kristy. He would not stop playing until the canvas was filled.

Not a speck of white will be seen, he thought to himself.

"That's the spirit," Kristy murmured in his ear. He could smell coffee on her breath, covered barely by a mint. He tasted foreign lips. But even when the canvas was filled, he kept going. Images overwrote earlier ones. He was trying to be as perfect as possible. This one really mattered. But even the inconsistencies seemed purposeful. The small rectangular windows in his room were covered. Each drape was shut. Still, Morty could feel the sliver of moon setting on his back. The faint heat of the morning's sun washed over his body. His head tilted toward the sky now. The strings continued to twang loud, vibrating. He could taste the absence of nicotine on his teeth and craved. When his hand grazed the waxed surface of the body, he shivered.

"Come on," Kristy whispered.

"I'm trying," he breathed, inaudible and fast. His lungs burned like he'd just run a mile in record time. Suddenly, he wanted badly to be done. His fingers kept moving. Against his will, his body rebelled. His knuckles locked. His fingers were constantly pressing and plucking. Pressing his eyes closed he fought to focus. He felt his mind leave consciousness. He was unaware of anything going on around him. And then he was forcing himself up. On his feet, he dropped the guitar out in front of his body. With its wings spread, it fluttered back to its home effortlessly. He stood before his work. Dripping from the edge were globs of paint. Dark colors, blacks, reds, blues. Nothing bright and beautiful as everything had started. The further Morty's eyes roamed down the canvas, the darker the images became. The thicker the paint. The looser the strokes. It continued until all that was left was a solid black. It seeped from the portrait and pooled. The floor spread out like a black hole. Morty was sure he would be swallowed up.

Raising a foot, Morty observed paint fill the space. He put it back down and lifted the other. He watched again. And then he wanted to push the painting face down. Pull it from the easel and smash it on the floor. It wasn't what he thought. It wasn't something for Kristy. This was a message. A message to himself and to all of the other people. The ones who didn't remember him, didn't care. A pouring out of his heart. It bled out, dripping, sliding down the easel legs. He waded in it.

Only for a few minutes, he told himself.

Then Morty moved to his bed. He switched off his lamp and collapsed on top of the covers. He closed his eyes and sighed. The rhythmic sound of a droplet of paint stayed in his ears. He pressed his face into his pillow. Breathing slow and labored, he wanted badly to sleep. The noise kept on. He squeezed his eyes shut. For some reason, she was still there. She was still sitting at his side, further out. And she was disappointed. He could feel her displeasure without looking at her. He just wanted her to go.

Kristy. What was she doing here?

(February 16th, 2008. 4:20pm.)

I Feel Like a City Girl.

It's only taken a year and a half for me to finally grasp the feeling. The idea of belonging in Chicago has been just grazing my skin for the past three semesters of my college career. But only in the last couple of weeks has it finally sunk in and settled beneath the surface, deep in my veins.

So what does it mean to finally reach this level of "city girl" status? Or better yet, what exactly does this "status" entail? I'll tackle the latter first: I don't know. Honestly. I've felt, consistently until recetly, that I was a suburbanite who frequented the city on obligation alone. Someone who desperately wanted to be part of the big hustle and bustle of Chicago. So maybe it's because I don't literally live downtown. I'm not there day-in and day-out. I go when it's necessary, which is almost always for class.

This commute from Suburb to City has been monotonous, tedious even, from week number two. You know, after the novelty of "freedom" wore off. I would board a train in my hometown at an hour that was marginally earlier than I'd even be awake to witness during my high school years. The ride in would take thirty-five minutes at best (if express) or moreso otherwise. Then comes the mile and a half or so walk to campus. Although this could very well be enjoyable during a rare, perfect Spring or Autumn day, Winter and Summer were seasons I'd rather skip entirely. Then, after a class or two, I'd turn around, back-track, and be home an hour and a half or more after class ended.

I repeat. Tedious.

Just this semester though I've discovered the CTA. Though I'd taken it a few times on a need-to basis, I was intimidated to be on a train such as that alone. So I finally sucked it up, found a couple different variations of lines I could take, and have since cut my post-Metra Train commute in half. When ice-rain is pelting me in the face, snowflakes clinging to eyelashes, freezing the tips of my ears and fingers, I can hop onto one of the various colored CTA lines and for a few stops, be free from Mother Nature.

Even though it's only a few minutes worth of a ride, I think doing this is really what has been the catalyst for my feeling of belonging. Oh, CTA!

Then I get a text just a moment after writing the previous passage. I'd been complaining to my good friend Cassie, and her response made me smile.

"But you're in Chicago, bitch."

I am in Chicago.

(January 21st, 2008. 12:22pm.)

Flash Fiction Installment 1.

Her foot pressed against the wall, the blackness of the paint merging with her three-inch heel as she swayed to the music only slightly and glanced around the club. The band on stage was singing and pounding out chords and rhythms that made the entire place shake and they were shouting their lyrics and everything about it just dripped sex. All the pretty little girls around her had their hair done up just right, their faces on, their clothes tight and sucking in any problem areas just like they sucked on their cigarettes, embers at the end glowing more orange with every inhale and the filters stained with lipstick. She was wearing her own slinky outfit, horizontally striped stretch pants with a long and flowing shirt over top and she had her own cigarette which she dropped while scanning the crowd. Removing herself from the wall, chipping the paint with her spike as it slid away she crushed the burning butt. She pressed off from her space with her back and it quickly filled with another body as she moved further out onto the floor and entered the hundreds of sweaty, dancing bodies.

The music pounded and vibrated the floor. Someone was pressing up against her back and she didn/t care at first but then the guy started getting grabby when she tried to move away. Whatthefuck ya doin, buddy? Just having a little fun sweetchips. And she kept dancing because there wasn/t any harm in dancing a little and plus she knew people and if this guy was gonna try anything he/d definitely be sorry and eventually she was bored and decided it was time to move on . Hey where ya goin? I/m tired. Oh no you don/t, you/re the prettiest girl here and I/ve gotya to myself. She pulled away and he grabbed for her arm again but she was thin and quick and ducked between bodies. Seconds later she was out the door and on her phone, purse swaying on her arm, tangling with long red hair that blew wildly about and he was behind her now, coming out the club door and his hair caught in the breeze, tufts of black lifting up and twisting about. Hey slow down I don/t mean any harm I wanted to dance, wanted your number maybe. I said I/m tired and leaving you have no right to follow me okay? He paid no attention and followed while her phone dialed the first person she could think of and now she was shaking and the wind was so strong her eyes watered and smeared mascara across her cheek and she pushed tears away with the back of her wrist. Hey what/s up? There/s some guy from the club following me will you (Hey I/m not just some guy baby hang up) come help me out here I/m getting (Hang up it/s okay you don/t need protection) worried now. I/ll be right (Dollface I/m not going to do you any harm I/m looking to have fun) there. The guy slurred his words and she wondered why she hadn/t noticed it before because she was not drunk (One cocktail maybe and half a pack of cigarettes definitely) and walked fast as she could but taking public transportation was a bitch and her heels clicked noisily and his shoes thunked just as steadily behind her and she was pretty sure her eyes weren/t watering because of the wind anymore. Hey where ya runnin (Leave me the hell alone!) offta? I could giveya (I don/t need a ride) a lift if ya need it (I don/t need it) ya don/t have to run so fast and hurt your pretty little feet. People were on the street but everyone kept their heads down even though it was obvious someone was looking for help so she kept moving and hoped her friend would catch up to her in time before she boarded the el train and got stuck with this guy and she looked for a taxicab but they were all taken and she was crying now out of frustration and anxiety. Every corner she turned she pictured her friend rolling up to the stop sign in his black Mazda 6 to sweep her off the street and drive her home but the guy behind her was getting closer and didn/t give her much distance but yapped away like maybe she/d give in but she wasn/t giving in without a fight that/s for goddamn sure.

(January 19th, 2008. 10:19pm.)

Eight-Year-Old Birthdays.

So picture this:

You are nearing twenty. You have no life outside of work and (soon enough) school because all of your friends are away at their various colleges and Universities nationwide. So, when your eight-year-old brother is preparing to have a birthday party, you are not merely invited - you are a secondary chaperone. Ten kids. No, correction. Ten eight-year-old boys. And where is the party held? Not your house (well, partially). Not Chuck E. Cheese. Not some kind of fun zone. No. An AHL hockey game.

Sure, it sounds like a cute idea. You would believe that a bunch of young elementary school students would think going to an almost-professional sporting event kicked ass. But remember, you're JUST the sister. You have no authority. Aside from being one of two taxi drivers, these kids did not understand that when I said something, they were to obey it. And I'm not talking about some ridiculous bossing around. I'm talking, "Hey, quit punching so-and-so in the eye. QUIT PUNCHING SO-AND-SO IN THE EYE. CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!?"

Now, all the complaining aside (I am exhausted) and after deciding I will never have kids EVER, I have to discuss what it is like to be driving four of said children in two half-hour time periods. One kid in particular, we'll call him Bobby for the sake of caution (I do not want to get sued by Bobby's parents [is this what the world has come to?]), sat in the front with me. He was the biggest of the gang and definitely teetering on the edge of a stereotypical bully-esque build and personality. On the way to the game, I just kept turning the music up a notch in an attempt to drown his screeching, incessant voice out of my head. I didn't listen much to what was actually being said. It was the conversation on the way home that kept me attentive.

Quickly, I must reference the fact that during one of the breaks, that deliciously wonderful song "Crank Dat" by the infamous Soulja Boy was played over the arena. And at least half of the ten boys started doing the dance (I shit you not) and a good eight of them "knew" the words and "sang along." I say this in quotes because it was mostly lip movements and random shouts of "YOU!" and "SOULJA BOY!" I sat, mouth hanging open, watching it all unfold while a piece of me died. So, when we got in the car later, it was requested that I play the full song. I turned to look at the three in my backseat, where the request emerged from, and then to Bobby in my front seat, and said simply, "What makes you think I would have that song on CD?"

"Because it's a really cool song," said one voice.

"It's awesome!" shouted another, over the first.

"Why don't you have it?!" gasped the third, louder than the first two.

And finally, Bobby, the loudest of all: "You suck!!!"

Me. Flabbergasted. Turning the radio to Q101 to listen to real music.

The conversation didn't end there. Not for Bobby, anyway, who began a rant that lasted about five minutes before becoming an argument that lasted another handful of minutes. "You need to go on YouTube," he told me. "And you need to look up Soulja Boy. And also, 50 Cents. 50 Cents is really cool. His songs are really good. Do you know who 50 Cents is? And M&M. Like the candy. Do you know him? M&M has some really good songs. He also did a song with this guy Icon. Icon is really good."

Up until this point, I had held my tongue. But I couldn't stop myself from inquiring, "Do you mean Akon?"

Him: "No. Icon." Then with a look of confusion, "Yeah. My friend told me to look up Icon and I thought the same thing. You know. What you said. I asked him, 'Do you mean... what you said?' And he was like, 'No. Icon. Look up Icon.' So I did. But I thought the same thing as you."

I'm bored by that time and I stopped listening to him right after his first pause. So of course he just keeps going. Eventually I pick up on another topic he started about his origins. At first I'm thinking that, hey, this might actually be an interesting topic. Like, why would this young kid randomly break into conversation about his family history? And then came the punchline. "So that's why so-and-so hates me. Because I'm Romanian and he's Russian, and Russians hate the Romanians. So I hate him because he's Russian."

On this, I did not comment.

So the final bit that really gave the drive home an additional kick was when, suddenly, he goes, "What the hell?!" And I, undeniably the owner of one of the worst mouths I know, told him not in my car. Immediately he busts out with this rant about how his parents let him talk like that and yadda yadda. I started thinking back to when I first began swearing, forced and awkward, thinking it was cool. Probably about the third grade, I decided, and I guess that's not far off from Bobby and co. Nevertheless, after seeing them sing and dance along with Soulja Boy and having to deal with their attitudes all night, I was done. Done, done, stick-a-fork-in-it finished.

They all finally left by quarter after ten. I am sitting in a plush chair that has a back massager on it, battling an increasing headache and the idea that I will never, ever, in a million years willingly bring a child into this world. I just do not want to deal. Talk about selfish!

(January 16th, 2008. 4:38pm.)

Ghosts.

There's this belief that the house I live in is haunted.

When I say haunted, I don't mean in the way that people hear noises and gasp, "Oh my god, it's the ghost again!" And it's not just from the opinion of myself or my family. Friends, relatives and visitors have all shared with us their experiences within our household. And the reason I bring this up at all? It's because of my mom.

Since she was young, she's dealt with spirits in both dreams and reality. From a childhood bedroom that is still eerily haunted to the house she moved into after marriage (where we all still live), my mom was approached by and had communication with spirits beyond our living, breathing world. Her closest sibling, my Aunt Karen, has lived with the same burden and I could tell stories upon stories of their experiences, but let's not get off track here. After all, this is the newest post I've made in months, right? Right!

So what I'm getting at is that somehow, some way, my sister and I both inherited this creepy, unnecessary ability to pick up on oddities. If I go into a room and it is what I'll continue to call "haunted," I can pretty much know right away based on the way I feel. Like the first time I stepped into my mom's childhood bedroom, as previously mentioned, and I later asked her about it. You can call it an active imagination, but I think anyone with an open mind is capable of seeing, feeling, or hearing the presence of something not alive.

This whole idea surfaces right now because when I arrived home from work this past Monday morning, my mom was sitting with my sister waiting for me. She began immediately to tell the story of a dream she'd had the night before. I won't go into details of the dream, but it took place in a carnival (a place I hate) and the three of us were in it. Nearing the end, she heard someone calling her name. If I'm not mistaken, she started looking for the person in her dream that was repeatedly saying, "Kathy...Kathy..." until she realized that it was in her ear. She felt someone lay down next to her, on the side opposite of my dad, and she opened her eyes and started to scream. Whatever had laid next to her floated upwards as my dad began to panic and I don't know how I didn't wake up during this whole fiasco.

After that, I was both pissed off and terrified. The two were interchangable feelings; I was about to go to sleep in the basement, by myself, after a story like that. Unfair! So of course, I'm curled up in bed, covers over my head to the point of suffocation. Willing myself to fall asleep, every noise set my nerves on end and good god were there a ton of noises. I was literally shaking in my skin.

Sure, it all sounds overdramatic. I probably seem like a big chicken. But you don't know the half of it.

So when I was growing up in this specific house (since I moved around a lot) my bedroom was in the upstairs portion of our house. Inside the closet (and I have a thing with closets) was a board that, if removed, allowed access to our attic. Of course, this led to night after night of terrified, fitful sleeping because if the closet was not shut and the light was not on within it, shining through the slots in the wood, I couldn't close my eyes. And even when the light was on and the two doors were pressed together tightly, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. After years of dealing with that specific situation, my brother was born when I was in the sixth grade. Everyone shifted rooms and I was moved to the basement.

Now I have to interject with some out-of-family experiences. Take Jo, for example, a good friend who frequents my house to the point of being part of the family. There have been several times where she, in a part of the house that I was not in, started to carry out a conversation. After finding her, she'd explain to me how she was 100% sure she'd seen someone pass through the room out of the corner of her eye...and we'd be the only ones there. In the same respect, in a few cases, people have thought to see my brother enter a room when he's not home. So I'm pretty sure one of the "ghosts" in my house is a young kid.

So I've moved into the basement. After having no occupation for years, suddenly there's this body consistently moving and sleeping in a space that - as you've probably guessed I'm getting at - was previously filled by a spirit of sorts. Of course this is going to upset, or maybe confuse, whatever had been staying there. So for the first few months, the randomest of things would happen. I had this wall mirror that I never actually hung up on the wall. I propped it up in a corner of the room safely. One day, I was in the room just next door (designated as the computer/toy room) and heard a loud smashing noise coming from my bedroom. I raced over to find the bottom right corner of the wall mirror smashed to pieces as though someone had punched just that section in anger. How does that happen any other way? Things would fall and disappear regularly for a while and it slowly fizzled out after time.

One time I brought my brother, just a baby, down to my room with me. While lying on my bed, I was lifting him over me like Superman and he was giggling and smiling like any couple-month-old baby would. Until his eyes met my wall. My blank, posterless, merely painted wall that sectioned my room off from a back storage area that no one ever really goes into. His little baby eyes widened and, on cue, he started screeching at the top of his lungs. Just staring and hysterically crying. I freaked the hell out and ran upstairs with him in my arms.

It also seems that there is a strong force in our living room. Just a few years ago, late at night, everyone in my house was asleep except for me. I, downstairs on the computer reading, suddenly heard this explosion of noise coming from our living room. Freaking out, I ducked like a spazz under the pool table and prayed for someone to wake up. I thought we were getting robbed. The next thing I heard was my dad, so I got up and met him at the bottom of the stairs to find the following: our China cabinet, the door now closed had been emptied of what seemed like all of the contents. Glass was everywhere throughout the room, not just beneath the china cabinet. When we opened the cabinet, we found the middle shelf was empty, but not the top or bottom. It seemed like someone had reached in and pulled out all of the glasses on that shelf, let them drop on the ground, and threw a few for kicks. Then they shut the cabinet like nothing had happened.

If that's not strange enough for you, let's look at this year. Our Christmas tree, in the same spot as the cabinet had been, toppled one night. Just went down with a loud crash. And the odd thing? Out of all the expensive furniture we have in that room, and how sporadically placed it all is, the tree hit nothing. Like someone had pushed it in the direction of empty space. And while my mom, sister and myself spent time cleaning it up, we joked about how it was the spirit getting frustarted at Christmas again. But then? It happened again. That same night. In the same exact place. Coincidence? Maybe. Doubtful.

After all of these occurances (and these are few compared to all the stories I could tell), dreams and experiences like my mom had Sunday night do not settle well with me. Our house is definitely haunted and I try to push these things away, because as cool as the stories sound after the fact, it's terrifying at the time.

This all may sound stupid, but if you're one of those people who lives it...it's not. Hopefully you're intrigued. Maybe you have stories of your own! Welcome back to kayleighownsyou.com; this year should be better than the last!