Floor Possible

Angry?

Miffed?

Ticked?

Turned inside out over little stuff gone big?

Try ripping out a floor. No seriously, it works!

I started with my hands. One little spot in a cheap old linoleum already gone bad floor and I was in business just pulling away a days worth of frustrations. And when the pulling had pulled all that it could, it was to the trusty tool box to find some useful tools.

I felt like a doctor...

Hammer.

Pliers.

Screwdriver.

Band-aids. (For those tender moments.)

And I huffed. And I puffed. And I pulled that nasty old floor right from where it was until it was no more.

Now that it's done, I have just one thing to say..

What do I do now?

Filling In the Gray

Another glass of wine. This one goes down far easier than the first. The second even quicker. She's feeling all her years tonight wrapped up alone in her blanket, the suspension of her silence hanging heavy on the air.

Waiting, watching the clock and wondering if maybe there was some shift she forgot to notice. Some catalyst that toppled her over when she was distracted for a moment by something else.

She feels off tonight as if there's something not quite right, something not quite wrong. She closes her eyes, committing herself to focus on just breathing. A steady catch and release, in and out with no thought required.

No thought. That's important for her tonight. She doesn't want to think anymore than absolutely necessary. She doesn't want to interpret any of these actions as anything that might resemble a beginning of an ending, or an ending to something that never really was.

She doesn't even know if she knows what she's been doing. Whether it's wrong, or right, or something inevitable, something she could not have resisted had she tried.

If I were a man stranded in the desert, she reasons to herself, no one would blame me for taking a sip when handed a glass of water.

She doesn't think that this is just an easy excuse for bad behavior. Black and white has a gray she says with some authority. You don't really know what you know until you know it. And even then, you know you knew it all along.

She smiles. Laughs at herself in the darkness, trying to ignore her own questions. Trying to ignore just how much she could use a comforting hug to chase away the cold that lingers on her skin like a dull and settled fog. But there are no hugs tonight, and she's trying not to dwell on the question that would ask why.

My New Laptop

Waiting, my hands lovingly stroking the keyboard of my intended. I read the description again. RAM, GB, processor, all that computer lingo that could really jazz a girl up if she understood the half of it, rather than the bright shiny light attraction that is the real reason she's about to put her money where her mouth is.

I wait for the beardless sales boy to figure out I'm waiting on him. "Here to buy!" I want to yell out across the store. "Service please!" I'm impatient. No surprise there really. If I were a super hero, I'd be Instant Gratification Girl without the cape. My motto, "Now is not soon enough."

He swaggers over, his geek squad badge riding high on his chest, his pocket protector high on the other side. He is not John Wayne. "Is there anything I can do for you little lady?" he drawls.

I answer gleefully, "I'll take this one."

He gets a look on his face that says he knows that I know that he knows that the only thing I really know about this computer is that the keyboard lights up and that's why I'm buying it. I decide to let him think this even though I know that he knows that I know that he's still a virgin. This as it turns out is besides the point.

And then he does it. Asks the one question that no one should ever ask a woman such as myself . Not if they know better. Not if they know me better.

"So what will you be using this for?" he asks.

I try to keep my mouth shut. I really do. But I'm stuck with the first answer that pops itself inside my head and there is no resisting.

"Porn," I say and smile.

Pondering

Why do people decorate their bathrooms with seashells?

Is it because the flush of their toilet bowl reminds them of the roar of the ocean?

Consider the floor open for discussion...