approximate fractals

I know what a fractal is, he said. You don't have to tell ME these things. What he didn't know was that some natural phenomena are approximate fractals -- mountain ranges, snow flakes, lightning bolts, coastlines, certain oak trees -- or that they are what I imagine love would look like, if someone could see inside my heart and draw a picture, if that were where love lived, if any of us really knew its physical properties apart from the ether. But his ignorance hardly matters; I didn't love him, anyhow. It was a long time ago, and he was never very nice.

***

There are things I don't understand, beginning with why I feel as though I'm coming down with a cold when what's happened is I've cried so much that tears dry up and all that's left is the feeling of a trickle of snot from my right nostril. I want to know at what point I should stay up all night rather than half-sleeping before being woken by doorbells and alarm clocks and the pressures of yet another day. And also why my instinct when faced with anger is not to run but to stay, to stay and let negative waves wash over my skin, a sunburn I deserve, a toxic wash I feel is my due.

***

There are things I don't know how to learn. I am both terrified of conflict and unable to walk away from it, afraid that leaving always means for good. I stay through everything, always have: the black eyes and the broken noses, the handprint-shaped bruises, the kicks to the ribs, the rapes, the violence in general. It's a character defect, I've told myself, a sign that I'm unable to stand up for myself. But that isn't really it. More like I curl up into a little ball inside of a little ball inside of myself -- a fractal! Maybe I'm not too scared to walk away but strong enough to stay.

No one's ever tried so hard to be with me, D. tells me. It occurs to me that maybe he doesn't realize how easily that comes to someone who's come to expect a certain degree of pain.

***

Hours ago, I promised D. I'd go to bed. Things I don't understand, things I can't learn: they jumble in my head and sleep seems impossible. But because I said so: this is the end for now. I will turn off the lights and lie naked on top of my blankets. I will listen to the hum of the fan and feel its touches on my thighs. I will wake, eyes puffy, head thick with ache, not remembering having slept. Maybe I'll dream about fractals and oak trees, all the boys I didn't love, all the things I wasn't strong enough to stand but lived through anyhow.

feeding my addiction

411 won't give out her number. Until January, you needed a referral to get through her door. Her salon is on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, but you'd have an easier time waltzing into Estelle's Saturday at 3am than locating it. She's so secret, I won't even tell you her name. No, I want her all to myself.

I visited my eyebrow stylist's website (the only way clients can make appointments) today. There's always pressure to plan ahead with her. Don't visit within eight weeks, and get relegated to junior stylists (who are probably just fine, but they are NOT HER). Wait much past four weeks and get Tsk-tsk'd for too-unkempt brows. Try to pluck a few hairs to stretch out the time between four and eight weeks, and she'll know, and she'll lay a guilt trip. Big time. Like my Catholic Nonna big time.

Planning out my eyebrows for the next quarter -- visit before that wedding! -- I notice she's raised her prices again. My maintenance appointment ($35 a year ago; $40 last time I visited) is up to $47. And $47 a month for eyebrow maintenance is a lot for someone who can't afford to get her stilettos re-heeled, someone who's perpetually three weeks behind on the rent, someone who sometimes eats toast for dinner, someone whose CD collection appears to be sadly un-hip because of all the selling-of-used-CDs she's had to do as of late.

But $47 is the price of my addiction to the woman I warmly and affectionately refer to as the Eyebrow Nazi. It is the price of not-usually-perceptive ex-boyfriends who say your eyebrows look wonderful at dinner. It's the cost of one less thing I have to worry about because a professional -- WHO KNOWS WHAT SHE IS DOING -- is taking care of it for me. And for that 15 minutes a month I feel like a rock star, a celebrity, a put-together person who is damn willing to spend $47 (plus $10 tip...) for the luxury of having fine, fine eyebrows... until three weeks roll around, and stray hairs appear, and the urge to take matters into my own hands becomes so strong I need another fix.

I'll admit it. My name is A. and I'm addicted to the Eyebrow Nazi.

done with the dreaming

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. - William Shakespeare

It's the middle of August, it's raining outside, I'm cold inside, and I just woke from a horrid dream, the kind that makes you cry even after you wake and are thankful it wasn't real, the kind that feels so real you wonder whether it couldn't have been the truth. It was so bad I can't talk about it, so bad I wrote it down through the sobbing, so bad I'll be scared the next time I try to sleep.

This is the point when I realize, perhaps, there was a reason I wasn't dreaming all these years.

giving up the shit

Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. -- Toni Morrison

It begins as a niggling thought in the back of my mind, something that doesn't make sense if I were to think clearly but clarity seems unreachable and the thought picks at me, the mental equivalent of a woodpecker at my window while I'm trying to dream. I feel my heart quicken as the muscles around my neck and upper chest begin to tense. The space behind my eyes tightens, my forehead wrinkling into an expression of perpetual worry. I am on the verge of a headache, of crying, of screaming, of sleeping, of dying, of smashing everything in eyesight. I cannot think. I cannot breathe. I cannot see how this can possibly end.

***

I haven't always had anxiety problems. It's a recent phenomenon, starting around the time D. and I began dating, and it's been cropping up since we began talking again after our weeks apart. It isn't anything particular that happens or anything specific that's said or done. And it's not jealousy, insecurity, hatred, fear, or any other easily discernible emotion, state of mind, or perception of the world. It's just plain anxiety, of the generalized sort and often in the form of mild panic attacks at inopportune times throughout the day. Yesterday, I took the only Ativan I had. Today, I'm stuck feeling like my chest is going to explode.

***

It's difficult to know how to relieve this sort of uneasiness. There's a part of me that thinks this is just what I need to learn to live through, the logical consequence of all that's happened over the past few weeks. Another part of me wants to blame D., since I was a completely normal person until he came into and out of and back into my life. But even when he asks What can I do to help? I don't have an answer. The feelings, the anxiety, the physical impact -- they are all so unfocused and nebulous and reluctant to be pinpointed, it's nearly impossible to figure out how to make any of them go away. And there's the guilt, too. The guilt that I can't be a stronger person, that it's a bad thing to ask for help, an unconscionable thing to admit I feel like I'm a complete mess and don't know why. I am reluctant to say anything to anyone, for fear of being labeled weak, knowing too little, asking too much.

***

On the phone with R. today, I theorize: Maybe this is just the way things will always be with D. Everything has always been so intense, so why should this be the exception?

I don't know, she says. What do you think?

It makes sense, but it's not what I want. I don't know if all the good times are worth it if I feel reduced to taking Ativan to make it through anxious times. But I don't want to give ANY of it up, not after all that's happened.

It's still early, she reminds me. Talk to him. Tell him how you feel.

And therein lies the rub: I feel defective, guilty, responsible. Surely a "normal" person would suck it up and deal with it and move ahead with a sunny and cheerful disposition. Talking with D. seems an imposition, an indulgence, an endeavor itself producing anxiety that I'll get it all wrong or accidentally blame him or fail to be strong enough for him to want to stay.

***

I'm trying to decide whether to go to the loft in the village to hear A. play with five other musicians. Earlier today, I e-mailed N. to see if he wanted to join me, but by late afternoon I was unsure. I'm not feeling well, I wrote. Is it okay to let you know later?

No problem, he said, which he always does, since he's that kind of guy, which has served me well these past few weeks, which is why he's the one I email when I'm wanting in a half-assed way to do something but can't make up my mind.

Later, my guilt had caught up with me -- what kind of weak asshole am I to let a little anxiety prevent me from going to what will likely be a damn cool performance? -- and I sent N. an half-hearted e-mail: I'm broke and A. has the car, so if you want to go, you'll have to drive and buy the beer. And, oh, any tips on dealing with panic attacks and anxiety?

I'm fine driving and getting the beer, N. replied. But how psyched are you for the party? I'm not sure I'm 100% up to it myself. As for anxiety: breathe. Just breathe and breathe some more and focus on the breathing until your breath is all that's left. And let me buy you lunch or dinner this weekend.

In my response, I told him I could take or leave the party and to call and let me know when he decides -- it will either be the one thing to get me out of this funk or the one thing that forces me deeper into it, and I'm not going to make the decision that moves the invisible hand.

***

I don't know how to give up the shit. There is nothing to do but wait for the woodpecker to grow tired.

For now, I'm going to take a bath. And I'm going to breathe.

suburban angst

I am in Lombard reviewing a hotel for work, and I have never hated the suburbs so much before. The only good thing is that gas is less than three dollars a gallon here, but the only reason I needed to buy gas to begin with was so I could come out to this horrible, horrible place. Oh, and the malls. But, again, if there were more things to DO around here other than hop in your car and drive to buy things you don't need and can't really afford, the malls wouldn't be around, either. And, yeah, I know some of my best friends live in the suburbs, but that doesn't mean (a) I have to like being outside of the city or (b) I have to shut up about hating leaving the city. Even B. knows something is amiss, as he noted: "Mom, I don't think we're in Chicago anymore, and I don't like it." Indeed, my little city mouse.

It might be wise to hope I don't mercilessly kill a hapless suburban person before leaving. Thank goodness I'm spending tomorrow afternoon in Wicker Park. I may just have to roll around in the alley behind the Subterranean to feel like myself again.

hmmm.

Random unsolicited conversation at a Wrigleyville sports bar with a rotund short woman wearing a Phillies jersey and a Phillies hat and a red foam No. 1 finger

Random Woman: Are you two getting married?

Me: No, he's my brother.

RW: Are you from here?

Me: Yes.

RW: Are you sure? You don't sound like you're from here.

Me: Well, I wasn't born in this bar.

RW: Funny.

Me: We grew up in the suburbs.

RW: I don't believe you.

Me: I don't guess you have to.

RW: So, then, are you like Jack and Kelly Osborne?

Me: Huh?

RW: You know, you're the crazy sister with tattoos and piercings and funny hair and your brother is the normal one.

Me: You do realize you're the one who looks like a troll who was molested by the Phillies fan club, right?

RW: Uh, yeah. I'm going to talk to your brother. He seems nicer.

Me: You're exactly right.

august, after the beach

Seventeen years I've lived in this city by the lake, and it's a Monday afternoon whim that takes me to the beach for the first time, carrying towels, trying to remember how to walk on ground that shifts with each step. I stand at the water's edge, pants rolled up past my knees. Even though it's nearly August, the water is still cold, something the boys don't notice. They throw a beach ball, splash each other, sit in the shallow reaches, pull up handfuls of wet sand and stone and shells that they squish with their palms, which before too long will be larger than my own, before letting the gritty mix slip through their fingers.

After a time, we leave for the playground, where the boys play with my brother and I take a nap using beach towels for a pillow. The sun spreads its fingers across me as I drift in and out, until D. calls. We talk for a while, I cry for a bit, and then the boys' bathing suits are dry and it is time for dinner.

I have been negligent. Categorically, the beach moves from the whimsical to the necessary. I make plans to go again, on Thursday, with W., so I can sunbathe while he swims. And I make plans to go again, next Thursday, to sit on a blanket in the sand while the sun goes down, the first sunset in this place I've only recently found, both in fact and spirit.