Bingo Every Tuesday (Part III)

More unqualified scraps from my journal:

1.

I want to wear a dress. It's a dress that doesn't fit me until I start eating mostly rice cakes. My mother wore the thing to her first high school prom. I say first because she always had an older boyfriend who took her to prom each spring. The dress is red, falls just above the knees, and is on the cusp of appropriate for the 60s. I need help; there's a zipper in the back. I'm alone. Ever since I started eating mostly rice cakes, I'm mostly alone.  I need help.

2.

Sunday afternoon in Vermont at Orchard Hill Farm. An elderly woman's fingers skim the blueberry bushes with the frivolous grace of butterflies. But when we reach for the same cluster, she grabs my wrist. "I'm so lonely," she says through the bush. "George died, and I want to die too. I pray for death every night, but God won't have any of it. I hate God. Blueberry picking is the only activity I still enjoy." She releases my wrist. I let her pluck the blueberry cluster I wanted, and she places it in the tin can attached to the string she wears around her neck. I say, "I'm lonely too," but she's moved on.

3.

Confession #5: When I kiss you, I am bored.

4.

In the very slow elevator in my grandmother's nursing home, a piece of paper scotch taped to the wall reads: Crazy Hat Day! But when the door opens, nobody's wearing a hat except for the old man who likes my legs. He wears a fedora. In the common room, another patient named Estelle tries to force feed pudding to a sleeping woman. "Mary Anne," she says, "You'll die if you don't eat your pudding!" The man in the fedora asks me if he can comment on my legs. "Robert Senior, that's rude," says Estelle, putting down the pudding spoon. And then, like bugs moving towards light, the gazes of the non–sleeping patients shift to the television. "Yesterday, a man was attacked with a meat cleaver outside Target in a parking lot in Acton," says a news reporter. "And now, for this week's' weather forecast . . . "

5.

I've never had a fabulous summer internship, boyfriend, hairstyle, idea . . . Until now, I don't think I've ever even used the word "fabulous." Other people use it lavishly. For example, people touch a cashmere sweater and say, "Oh, this is fabulous." I looked it up, and the word's Latin root is "fabul," which means "fable." Disregarding synonyms of "fabulous" like "wonderful," which people may use interchangeably,  the Latin root implies that much of what we choose to call fabulous has no basis in reality. Which implies that those fabulous boyfriends probably aren't that great after all.


6.

Cherry trees blossom with
The first gulps of spring.

Then it's cold again.

The trees stand dejected
Like maidens who've lost their "virtue."


7.

True story: If you eat a big bowl of homemade oatmeal every morning in good company, you'll have a good life.

8.

At Henry's house on Mount Desert Island in Maine, we eat chicken. Not chicken with anything else. No peas, no rice, no anything. Just chicken. Henry gets some in his great big beard. We laugh.

9.

Confession #8: I forgot my toothbrush again, so I used yours. Again. Sorry!