Something Like
Homecoming. That’s it.
I’m back in Beachtown. It's been about three minutes since I stepped into this apartment, this place presided over by this Dangercat, (presently yelling and twining himself all around my legs), and it’s weird: A few weeks’ absence isn’t that lengthy a stretch of time, but when I opened my apartment door, extremely unwieldy suitcase in tow, and looked up that mammoth staircase, I inhaled sharply. I swear it surprised me, Henshaw, to see everything still there, that brown, shiny banister and the horrible fluorescent lighting and the dust.
I breathed it in, and breathing it in made me think these exact words with sort of a detached wonderment.
“It smells just like my old life.”
My first weeks and first semester here, a time which, as I pulled the giant suitcase up those 32-million steps, came rushing back in a disjointed and distant little montage (Thunk, thunk, thunk, went the suitcase.) Everything so far away, feeling about as personally related to me as do childhood memories that your elder relatives tell you about: “You remember that, don’t you?”
Sure, I do. Sure. Absolutely.

The feeling didn’t cease once I came inside. My belongings, all these books on this cherry-wood shelf, this black-and-white photograph positioned just so, currently far above the head of the little furry beast loudly proclaiming its ownership over me; someone named me once put these things together in this space and decided it was home, which, at the moment feels, not sadly, but utterly, ludicrous.

The best thing about sisters is they make you feel like like a non-crazy person.
Example #1:
We're about to go out. My sister notices what I'm wearing, says, “That blouse is so pretty. I’ve never seen it.”

"I know, " I say, practically whispering, practically conspiratorial, “I never wear it.”

Not practically conspiratorial. Absolutely.

Certain friends of mine are great precisely because they give me perspective on my weird neuroses. They say things like, “Why not? You should wear it all the time.” My sister, on the other hand, gives me a different kind of perspective, by mirroring that weird neurosis right back to me in a way that no one else alive on this planet would. Our exchange goes something like this: She says, “Yes! I totally do that!”
Me: “Because you don’t want to wear it too much—”
Her: “And risk getting, like, mustard on it—“
Me: “Or, like, just, wearing it out—”
Her: “—Yes—!”
Both of us: “I thought I was the only one!”

Example #2:
My sister and I are driving home from an afternoon of thrift store shopping. We drive by a Mexican restaurant. I say, “Chips and salsa.” She starts nodding like a crazy person, like I would nod. She says, “And Corona. With lime.” We look at each other, say, “Mexican food.” And that’s dinner plans.


It wasn’t always like this. My eldest sister’s a lot older than I am. When she was a moody teenager, I was a six-year-old more absorbed in the dynastic adventures of my stuffed animals than in the dull grown-ups that populated most of my interactions. When I was a moody teenager, she was getting married; she was learning about mortgages and scary rural Georgia neighbors. Now, we’re discovering each other in our adult years in a way that feels all the time to me—on the rare occasions that we’re together—like the best presents ever.

It’s associating every single stupid thing in the day with a stupid pop song, or with a commercial jingle we remember from our childhood. (“Go ahead: Get ahead, in fashion merchandising.”) It’s singing, constantly. It's understanding the nostalgia-thing: not just the pull toward our childhoods, but the constant urge to examine everything that once happened in some new light. Telling each other stupid stories. Listening.

It’s like someone telling me my crazy weaknesses are okay; that they’re not weaknesses after all. Maybe even things to be proud of.

Things Seen Along the Way
This weekend I drove down to Charleston, South Cacalacka to work on a story. The great thing about the drive is that you’re actually on a road, rather than an interstate, and that actual road winds through actual towns. You know you’re really traveling, rather than just relying on duplicate green signs to tell you.
Anyway. A couple things.

1. The whole sign-with-cartoon-pig-outside-the-barbecue-place has been made fun of, pretty much to death. You know, “Come partake of me! I am deeelicious!” But I saw one on Route 17 that I think brings the whole thing to a new level. The cartoon pig not only was parked before a heaping plateful of bbq, but underneath were the words, “Gut-Bustin’ Portions!” And Sir Pig’s expression as he looked up toward the viewer, clutching a fork, was that of bug-eyed horror, something akin to looking like he was about to:

a-vomit
or
b-bust a literal gut.

That is, die an excruciating death like that gluttony guy in the movie Seven, or like a duck whose insides are intended for pate, and good god this is a horrible line of thought, so I’ll stop there…

2. Around dusk yesterday, I drove by a golf course that looked like it hadn’t been mowed for a number of months. Right there, at the side of the road, and for some reason, really inviting, somehow. It made me want to pull over and have a picnic and then roll down one of its manmade hills, now soft with weeds and flowers, human negligence having robbed it of some of it manicured bite.

Also: Favorite song lyric from favorite song at present: "I had this friend, his name was Marc with a C./His sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV."
Because you needed to know that.

On popcorn, and perhaps also, on larger problems Alice tends to muck herself up in.
White cheddar popcorn is supposed to be one of those snacks you savor somewhat, oh, I dunno, daintily, I guess. The shape of popcorn demands a one-at-a-time consumption if you’re not to look like a complete slob. Not that anyone actually does this.
No. Listen. I’m serious.
Popcorn is served in such venues—movies, fairs—that call for this carefree, devil-may-care sort of enjoyment, right? An air of, “Oh, I’m not really eating this for sustenance. I’m eating this for the Victorian (or possibly, Edwardian) wonderment that we might partake of this popped corn for the sheer amusement of it all. Ho-ho!”

But instead of carnivals, I always seem to end up eating popcorn, oh, on my break at my hourly-waged job in the break room underneath the fluorescent light, when I’m really hungry. I tear open the bag and—the problem of Slobbery, it’s compounded by the fact of this dusting of cheddar cheese and quite possibly and probably, MSG—I start really enjoying the taste and the texture and everything about the popcorn too much, and instead of taking small, genial bites, I’m soon grabbing these craven handfuls, loading my mouth. I get dissatisfied with those moments between the popcorn-in-the-mouth moments. I become completely greedy, ugly and white-dust-spittley-fingered. Someone who hopes to God that no one else will walk into the break room while I’m making such a raging fool of myself, eating this popcorn. Someone whom, at any rate, they certainly wouldn’t want for their friggin’ popcorn ad.

Call Center Blues
You’ve got to have a short attention span. You must. Much of the time, working your way through the day means working your way through these lists of names/phone numbers, and you can’t let yourself think too far ahead while doing that or you will just feel really, really lost and frustrated with lots of “This is My Life Oh god, no” thrown in for good measure.

You must incorporate a zen-feeling instead, a now-and-only-nowness, so that these call lists only really consist of a name, Phyllis Swenson of Greensboro, for example, and not 40 names, not an endlessly monotonous rabbit hole of sameness that only leads to more sameness and more. Phyllis Swenson, you are it. This moment is about you and me. Hi there, Phyllis Swenson of Greensboro; let’s try to make this real. Let’s try to be more than blank voices to each another. Please don’t hang up on me or be otherwise rude, Phyllis Swenson of Greensboro. Please don’t—oh, you don’t live there. Oh. It’s a number that’s been disconnected or is no longer in service. Oh. Phyllis Swenson. Perhaps you are no longer of Greensboro. Maybe you never existed at all. But what of you, Wanda Hart, of Wake County?
Always the falling, with no satisfying shock, no thwack, of landing.

When I get sucked into this horrible anxiety, it is usually when I’ve been at the Medical Center making outgoing calls for a couple of hours. I am completely convinced that the supervisor who hands me list after list must hate me, never more so than when, practically gasping, I hand her a list of 40 checked-off names, two hours’ or so worth of work. Without pause, she takes it and hands me a fresh one. Smiling. Smiling while saying, “Oh. Sisyphus. It’s you. Okay, well, all that work you just did? I am now wiping clean. Look. This new list has no checkmarks at all. Go do the same thing, now, for five more hours.” She smiles as she does this. Often she is on the phone with someone and it’s a sort of catch-all, distracted social-pleasantry kind of smile and it makes me irrationally angry. I take the list and I sit and I imagine some rash screaming, jumping-up-and-down-on-my-desk thing. I put my headset back on and crack my knuckles and dial.

Other days are different. On other days, I’m getting trained on new medical studies, which means I’m talking with real people and learning things, and whether or not these are actually things I’d ever choose to learn independently, it means my brain is being stimulated in a variety of ways that feel like actual Variety, compared to sitting there dialing numbers and making the same speech for seven hours. I swear I can feel the dried-out sections of brain being drizzled with sweet water. Or something like that; anyway, it’s good.

On these days, I’m taking inbound calls, which means I get to spend the day reading books I’ve brought in, between having a variety of conversations with interesting people with interesting medical problems. These days, I figure out that, wait! I’m actually a secret favorite of my supervisor. I forget—honestly, like, wiped from the slate—that I ever felt any other way. Now the two of us are on absolute par, walking around in the sunshine of Science, making a difference in the lives of people with Problems that Require Studying. I am a problem solver! On these days, I look around at the others who are working off call lists, at their pale little, unhappy ratlike visages, and I feel downright impatient with their stick-in-the-mud attitudes. They should really learn to lighten up, mainly because they’re bringing me down, slightly.