Brute, Part 1

The sun was nearly too warm to be comfortable, but every once in a while the breeze picked up off of the pool and it wasn't too unbearable. I was in long jeans and a t-shirt made of thick, unbreathable fabric, but I was determined to get some sun. Try spending a freezing winter indoors with nothing to do but shovel snow and fear for your hail-battered car, and show me a sunny day where you don't try to milk it for all it's worth.

I was sitting -- well, lounging, really -- in a cushioned deck chair at a house one of my best friends was watching for some friends. Leandra studied teaching in college and had a job set up, but it wouldn't start until August. So here she was, stuck in a mansion with a private lake of a swimming pool, and nothing to do but use the grill and giant flat screen in the theater in the basement. Of course, I couldn't let her die of boredom on her own, and I offered my entertainment services. This is why I was lounging.

I lifted my head and pulled my hair out from under my back. The dark, wavy mass was a great pillow, and I readjusted it so that the back of my head was cradled by a large coil. Leandra was inside talking on the phone to her fiance. I could just barely hear the murmur of her voice through the glass doors. Jeremiah had called about wedding music or something. Who knows. I was outside, I could feel the sun weaving between my toes. Listening wasn't really that high on my priority list.

"Meli?" Leandra was at the door, the phone still to her ear, the mouthpiece end held in her hair. I "hmm?"ed and squinted up at her. "Jeremiah wants to know if you can design something for the place settings. You could just come with me later today," she suggested. I shrugged.

"Sure. Swirlies?" I asked. Everyone liked putting swirlies on everything. I pretended to hate them, but there're very few things cooler than a well-designed vine swirlie. Takes talent, that.

"I don't know," Leandra said. She put the phone back in place and slid the door shut. Seeing her on the phone made me want to check mine, too, and I dropped my arm down to feel for it in the shade under the chair. After a couple of tries I felt it and pulled it up, though that was after scraping my knuckles on the concrete.

I pushed a random button and tried to angle the screen so I could see the screen. No messages, no calls. I sighed for no real reason and dropped the phone face-down on my stomach.

---

A couple of hours later we were at Jeremiah's house, which is, not gonna lie, probably the smallest house in the universe. For such a young guy, he was doing really well. Owned a tiny house in a cute neighborhood filled with children on training wheels and smiling, waving parents, had a pretty fiancee, a solid job...

I had followed Leandra to Jer's house, since I was supposed to be helping my sister move out that night and would probably have to leave before Leandra was done smooching Jeremiah. She was out of her car and trotting up to the house before I even had my car off. Since it was her fiance, I only rolled my eyes once. Twice would have been pushing it a little, I think. Reaching to the legroom area of the shotgun seat, I tugged on my bag, which got caught on a lever underneath the seat. Then I had to lean over even further, fumble around to find the lever, and slide the cloth away from danger. I'm pretty sure I strained an oblique muscle leaning that far.

Tossing my phone and keys in the bag, I got out, made it halfway to the house, and then remembered that I hadn't locked anything. Thinking of the happy families walking the friendly sidewalk, and of my collection of what they would probably consider devil music, I hastily searched for my keys in the recesses of my bag. I'd rather not come back outside to a bonfire in my backseat.

I was only just turning away from my car when Leandra burst out of Jeremiah's front door, screaming something worse than bloody murder. I mean, I had no idea she had that kind of lung capacity. Seriously. Luckily I had good enough ears to hear my name being screamed, and a good enough sense of appropriate reactions that instead of congratulating her on the horror film audition, I sprinted across the trimmed green grass and flew past her into the house.

The entry opened into a small den area, and straight across from it was a small eating area, which led to the small back yard via glass and screen sliding doors. From inside the house, I could see Jeremiah on the ground in the back, writhing with his hands clenching and unclenching in claw-like grips. Leandra was still screaming, but it was mostly for me to keep moving. I threw my bag on the couch, ran through the open back doors, and slid to my knees at Jeremiah's side.

It was... hideous. You know those sci-fi movies where someone gets a bug or an alien under their skin and it sort of rolls around looking like a freak bulging muscle? They scream and scream, but the only thing the other characters can do is stare in fascinated horror. This was one of those moments, and it looked like Jeremiah had allowed entry to about a million tiny rolling muscle bugs. The effect was a rolling ripple effect over his entire body, even his face. He wasn't screaming, but his mouth was wide open, and it looked like his vocal chords were trying very hard to come up with something like a scream. Every muscle was strained, every nerve was obviously being stabbed in the extremities.

"What happened?" I yelled at Leandra. I tried putting my hand out to hold down Jeremiah, but I wasn't strong enough to do anything. Leandra was crying now.

"I don't know! We were just talking! I didn't do anything!!"

"Was he eating something?" It was the only thing that came to mind, though I didn't think Jeremiah was allergic to anything; I didn't even think an allergic reaction could be this powerful.

"N-No! I don't think so," she said. Jeremiah's mouth suddenly snapped shut, so he was just writhing with his mouth pinched closed. Leandra reached out to do something, but one of his flinging arms knocked her hand away. "Should we call--" she began to add; but I stopped her.

Jeremiah had begun to stop writhing, but it was only barely noticeable. The boiling effect his muscles were going through subtly went from rippling to waving, and when he stopped arching his back, I gasped. Leandra silenced and we both watched, more than horrified, as Jeremiah's finger, wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints all came out of place. It was like the muscles had each decided to take his bones somewhere else, and they all jumped at the same time. I thrust my arm right in front of her face the instant it happened.

This time, Jeremiah screamed. Leandra and I were shocked to stillness. Looking back, I'm glad we didn't call 911 or something; even then, neither of us were retaining enough of our wits to get that far. Maybe it's sick to watch your best friend's fiance roll in agonizing pain in the middle of his manicured lawn, but I couldn't move, much less think or help. What in the world do you do in these moments? Unless you have combat training and experience working in a war hospital, I don't really think there is anything you're capable to do.

When his joints broke, Jeremiah finally screamed -- a tortuous cry straight from the depths of you-know-where. For the first time, I was actually afraid of what was happening. It hit me that all this rolling, screaming, and muscle-moving was not something that you hear about on the news. I had never gotten home from work and turned on the tube to hear about scientists who were steadily working towards a cure for Rolling-in-the-Grass-Screaming Syndrome.

And then, suddenly, Jeremiah's body went limp. It just flopped down and was still. I stopped thinking about the TV and everything and grabbed Leandra's elbow. She reached for my arm at the same moment, and we kneeled there, holding the other's arm, waiting.

Go away, fishy fishy fishy

I should probably apologize for not blogging since, well, I don't even know when. But I hate excuses, so I'm not sorry.

We recently went on a cruise to Progresso and Cozumel, Mexico. I hope you enjoy this short story:

The ship pulled into the harbor at 8 am, and there was no mistaking that this was going to be the most terrifying day of my life so far. The water was clear, like the water in a swimming pool with a bright blue floor at the bottom. My mother and sister were grinning, excited to feel the water around their legs. I put on my swimsuit as slowly as possible, and then to make up for it I threw on my shorts and tank top without bothering to really make sure that they matched. Whatever. I was going to take them off anyway.

On the pier I tried to stall by taking pictures of the other cruise ships, which were, in a word, ginormous. There were people everywhere, fat farmer-tanned tourists posing in skimpy swimsuits and being in general an embarrassment to American society. We walked quickly, following my determined mother through the duty-free shops to the taxi line-up. After a ten minute, ten dollar ride, we were at Chankanaab Park, a resort-style national park made of a beach and the water. Walking through the slightly damp, warmish air, we found the dolphin enclosure and watched for a few minutes as tourists were led through an amusing series of hand motions and sound-makings that make the dolphins jump and nicker.

After we rented snorkeling gear, we dropped our clothes on a trio of wooden beach chairs and walked the ten feet to the wall. The beach was made of beautiful white sand and didn't blend softly into the water like normal beaches. No, here it was bluntly stopped by a solid wall of grayish black stones, and the only safe way into the water was to climb down the metal stairs placed intermittently along the beach.

There weren't too many people in the water yet. It was, after all, still only 10 am. My mother and sister jumped in the water and were about ten feet out before stopping to look at me. My grip on the handrail tightened when I saw a tiny striped fish stroll past my ankle. Taking another step down those stairs was definitely not an option. My lungs were small and tight and another fish showed up, and the two little buggers just sat there, talking or something, while I tried to remind myself that fish are friends, and I am not their food.

All of a sudden a kid barreled past me and launched himself into the water, practically killing me in the process. I decided that having a heart attack and then drowning was not an exciting enough death for me, so I forgot where I was and dove.

The water was cold at first, and I squealed when it hit my stomach, but with the snorkel tube in my mouth, the sound reverberated off of nothing important or cool. I kept my head above the water like a preschooler doing the doggy paddle and with a couple of kicks I was treading water next to my little sister, who grinned at me. We swam out a little more, and they were busy sticking their heads under water while I looked at the clouds. My sister came up from a dive and cocked her head at me.

"You're going to have to look under the water," she said. Oh, really? Who says? I closed my eyes and was going to put my head under like that, but the memory of that little kid on the stairs flashed in my mind and I knew it was ridiculous, but there was no way a little kid was going to best me. I held a deep breath -- silly since I had the snorkel in my mouth -- and dropped my face into the water.

We weren't above any coral, but 25 feet or so below us, on the ocean floor, was a baby forest of sea plants. They looked like the dead bushes that "good" neighbors complain about after a month of having no time to do any gardening. I didn't see any fish. I didn't feel anything brush my leg. Nevertheless, the first thing I did when I lifted my face after two seconds was scream.

Ok, so the scream was more of a low squeal, and it was through the snorkel, so really it sounded like a scream sounds when you're dreaming about screaming, but you're really not. It was muffled and sounded even more ridiculous than it really was. My sister laughed at me. A few minutes later, I tried it again, this time forcing myself to be silent and brave. The barracuda almost convinced me to get out of the water, but when I turned away a school of gray fish was weaving its way toward me.

I reached out and poked my sister in the stomach; she turned towards me, saw the fish, and screamed. Then, of course, we both started laughing. They were largeish gray fish (maybe bluestriped grunt fish, but we don't know) who, I promise you, looked like they knew that we didn't want them near us.

My sister screamed again, and I screamed, and then we both laughed. The fish were swimming right past our faces, now, and no matter where we swam, they followed us. We tried kicking at them, but they just floated lazily out of reach before coming right back up to us. What followed was the perfect sisterly bonding experience: five minutes of screams followed by hysterical laughter. Laughing with a snorkel mask on is not, I repeat, not, easy.

After two hours, two barracudas, one trumpet fish, a gazillion gray creepy fish, a stingray and a jellyfish, my mom let us get out of the water. On the way out we found all the cute colorful fish, and that wasn't nearly as creepy as everything else.

An hour later they made me get back in the water again. It took two more hours, a water snake, and a bunch of jellyfish to get them out again.

Moral of the story? Go snorkeling in Cozumel, it's awesome.

Where I didn't want to be

Last friday the Colorado Press Association had a job fair at the Brown Palace. I decided that I sort of had to go. (I am, after all, looking for a job). So I got all dressed up: gray pants, black shirt, black heels -- which are very slippery on the shiny tile floors of the hotel, by the way -- and I drove down to Denver. I stuck an hour and a half in a parking meter on the other side of 16th street and walked the block or so to the job fair.

I got inside the room and almost started laughing out loud. The room itself was relatively good-sized, but definitely not vast. There was a big octagonal pole in the middle, and the back half was full of small circular tables, just large enough for three people to sit and eat lunch. There were about 12 of them, and at each was seated an editor of a newspaper or a chain of papers. The rest of the room, the side closest to the door, was peppered with students, all standing, who were clutching their resumes in leather cases and eyeing the tables.

See, the idea was, if you were first, you went and sat with an editor, handed over your resume, and started being interviewed. When you were done, the next person to sit down did the same. There were no sign-ins or schedules; you just had to make it to the table. Because of this, the line of students was full of people pretending to talk to one another. In reality, they were absentmindedly speaking while keeping an eye on the next table they wanted to sprint for. Hunters, all of them.

Sometimes I think I should have been an sociologist, because I just love watching people. In the time I was there, the line of students went from being six feet away from the doors and seven feet from the tables, to being just a foot or so away from the tables. Every time someone walked forward, everyone else did the same thing, inadvertently, as though that one other person moving was going to make them lose their own place. I kept laughing about it, about the ridiculousness of it. Maybe I was nervous or something, I don’t know. I just know that I really didn’t care if I talked to someone or not. I only wanted to talk to a single editor, who the internship director had told me knew a bit about the copyediting business. I knew from talking to a few other students that none of the other papers I would consider working for were hiring copyeditors.

After a while, I went and talked to the editor, and he was nice enough. I mean, I’m sure he was a wonderful person to work for. But the instant I gave him my hand and my resume, I didn’t want to lie anymore. I wanted to say, “Hello, I’m here because I studied journalism and now have no other majorly marketable skills except for French. I hate newspapers and just want to be creative.” We talked for a little bit and he drilled me on grammatical things, which was normal; it was a little unnerving when I messed up on a whom/who question, but whatever, no one remembers that anyway. At least I correctly answered the semicolon question.

My favorite part was when he asked if I had school newspaper experience. I figured starting a paper in sixth grade didn’t count; besides, that was the last time I did anything with a school paper. He kind of laughed at me and I enjoyed his raised eyebrows when I said, “None. Transferring took up all my time and then I got sidetracked.” I knew from looking at him that he was thinking, “A real journalist would have jumped in right away.” It was true. We both suddenly were very sure that I was in the wrong place. It just took him a little bit longer to figure out.

I left after that, slightly dejected in spite of my firm knowledge that I didn’t belong in that room any more than a male prostitute belongs in mine, and walked back to my car. I remembered on the way how much I liked to hear the sound of heels on hard floors, and I concentrated on making the rhythm of my paces very constant. I walked in a straight line. And then I got to my car and found the yellow envelope and a thin white slip tucked under my windshield wiper. Dangit.

I couldn’t see at first why I had gotten the ticket. I still had 12 minutes on the meter. I wasn’t parked over any lines or colored things. I stood there, angry at the stupid anonymous officer, glaring at the ticket. I unlocked the door, got in, and locked up. As I started my car and adjusted everything, I glanced down again at the offensive piece of trash, and that’s when I saw the reason: “No front plates affixed/displayed”.

My car doesn’t HAVE a place to affix front plates. Where am I supposed to put it? On top of the dash? Yeah, that sounds safe. A thin piece of heavy metal at neck level. Mhmm. I'll just have to get over it all and pay it.