the where

Indeed I do think that's the better question, the where are we and how do we meet. I did have to take a day to think about that and return to it as for whatever reason yesterday morning I set about on the wrong foot with it and everything else really. Preschool teeming with full-moon driven children who threw toys and upended baskets for sport. The normally docile ones shoving each other and filling each other's clothes (even a diaper?!) with playground mulch, all admonishments falling on very deaf ears. More ear problems then plagued the afternoon with pulling the children from school early to visit the Expensive Specialist for KLo's persistent complaints. Although I liked the new nurse practitioner there, a ponytailed, vest-wearing, kind of mystical man? He left a lot of space between his thoughts, the effect of which was calming. But also was very amused by us, which in turn amused me back. The remaining KLo ear tube was removed, canals were vacuumed and KLo behaved like some rented child, hired to be angelic. Otherwise, results were inconclusive as to why she's having ear pain, aside from an extremely stuffed nose. So now she's theatrically downing Mucinex (tastes bad!) and taking it upon herself to administer nasal spray in a similarly theatrical manner. Except that she sort of enjoys the spray.

This moon (wolf?) is a very, very weird one.

We returned home post-appointment to find our yard spray painted to indicate utility/cable lines, as well as the neighbor-who-hates-us' yard - what. I imagined her constructing a barbed wire border between us to keep our infernal dogs off her property once and for ALL. And I was half overjoyed, half irritated at the prospect. Like at least tell us you're having work done if it involves our yard? Because that spray paint was pretty much on top of our house in the side yard. So I had to call her and ask and she had no idea. Then J.Lo found the work order in his systems (handy) and uncovered that the spray was for cable installation - at another address. duh. I do hope they figure that out before they start digging. Something else to prespire vaguely over.

Back to the question of our meeting place. What is the answer. In this season of life I admit that I don't miss writing or feel any level of commitment toward it. And I feel distantly like I should feel something about that but then I just shrug and continue plowing through the day. Creating is an important element, yes, and words might be the medium, but they don't have to be necessarily. It's like the way I, seemingly without any forethought, gave up twittering well over a year ago and then a few months ago, instagramming. Which was sporadic at best anyway. There was no why to it, it just suddenly wasn't. And all I've done is shrug over it. 

But I miss you. (duh!) Somehow we must renew our commitment to the conversation, I think. Or the narrative, or whatever we want to call it. Apparently the word writing causes me to flee like a scared, winged thing, but I'm not going to ponder that one too deeply. for now, anyway.

This morning (it's a day later that I'm finishing this, of course - yesterday I was pecking the draft out on my phone while inexplicably eating a Sonic breakfast sandwich in my car - I was that desperate for a moment alone before work? - and today I'm in the living room next to a puppy with Game Show Network on the background, oh the 70s...), an idea popped in my head. I don't know if it's a bad one and probably it's the result of coffee energy but sometimes some of those go somewhere! so they are worth having. Anyway, I was thinking about questions or lists. Kind of like those buzzfeed quizzes are so addictive, except as a side note, all of my recent quiz results have been bizarre: mental age, 24. The place I should live, Cape Town. the fuck? Because I'm the kind of person "who never sits still for a moment." Right. And then the Muppet version of me is the guy who throws fish? You know, the one kind of dressed like a clown. What the hell.

Questions, lists, snippets. How I love them so. And I like this idea of throwing them out to each other like a prompt. Like the "What's Making Me Happy this Week" segment on my favoritest podcast. Well maybe it's dumb, but -

From me, of late:
1. Biggest feat:
Finding a Very Lost Library book. In a place I looked five times already - book shelf in the two-year-old classroom. Literally I was losing sleep over this thing, this book with the happy bunny and his damn happy rainbow, because it's not so much the fine of being overdue (nominal), but the inability to take out new books while it's MIA. Unacceptable! And then the unfinished business of either replacing said book or paying some inflated, standardized replacement fee - bah.

2. I might have a problem with:
Larabars. They've been on sale at Target for at least two weeks now and I can't stop trying new flavors. While I have no interest in Blueberry Muffin, anything with peanut butter or chocolate chips can't be beat. Or cherries, that wasn't bad either. They're the best-lunch-ever when sitting down with a table of tiny people who need assistance at every turn. They're ugly enough that no child wants to steal a bite. They're filling enough that I'm not starving my face off half an hour later. And I really can't delight more in such a short, protein-packed ingredient list that eschews GMO things and supports fair trade.

3. I have the sads about:
my dying Bender. She really can't even run anymore, or shouldn't. We leave her inside while throwing ball for puppy and she cries for the length of this torture. The lumps and bumps grow, the limping and creakiness increase. Watching her lay down or attempt to stand is a cringe. Though we've made her more comfortable with some painmeds. Mental snapshot: Bender on Christmas morning, Giving Up in the midst of the chaos by collapsing in a pile of wrapping paper.

4. Most amazing discovery:
The sketchy-looking business near Food Lion isn't actually a human trafficking operation/illicit massage parlor, but an upstanding adult toy shop. (It's called "Shhh... !ntim@cy on a New Level.") Which actually has a ch@nge dot org petition associated with it, but to keep the place open, not shut it down for human trafficking. Apparently it's way too progressive for this community, to sell toys. Oh, the irony! But really, they ought to choose a better name. My mind ran in circles for months over it.

5. Favorite Downton moment:
Lord Grantham and Carson's faces over the prospect of dining with a singer. YES. What would they talk about, after all..

Your turn?
love,
pen

dear bruckner,

I know, right? It's a total crisis, this Book Purgatory thing. And that terrible thought about All Books - I shudder thinking it ever even skipped across my brain-screen, if only for a nanosecond.

My favorite book currently is "Will Grayson, Will Grayson," which is a collaboration between my two favorite authors, David Levithan and John Green. Separately they slay with me with their wit and heart; in this book they get together and it's like, boom. Mind. Blown.

Now for the hap-py-blog-iversary questions (which I'm writing before reading M's own responses):


1) Do either of you remember why you started blogging? And why do you suppose nine years later you're still doing it?

I distinctly remember that I started blogging because M insisted. I didn't really get the whole concept of blogs at the time, or what sort of thing we were each meant to contribute, but I could not ultimately resist the offer to collaborate. Nine years later, I still can't resist that offer. And, as M has often said, this has become a written record of us. A little treasure box in the ether of our words. It's Pen&M, a history.


2) In these last nine years, what has been your most personal post?

Hmm, tricky. The Best of Bailey post comes to mind, although maybe there is another squirreled away in there. Certainly M is going to have many more to sift through and choose because, and this has always been and continues to be a blog-philosophy split, I veer away from the personal. Or at least too personal. For years I stuck to reality TV and other mostly non-personal topics in my blog-posts, and with prodding evolved to at least share daily life details and a slice of my feelings toward them.


However, I have trust issues, and while I do believe one's best writing can happen when one is at her most vulnerable, I am pretty firm about not delving into that vulnerability on a blog. So in some ways that's a hindrance to my writing here, but then, different forums dictate different styles, so I feel like my blogging retains its own value. I just refuse to bare my soul here, where anyone can just happen by and sift through its contents. Trust has to be earned, dammit!


Maybe that was my most personal post, right there.


3) Are there any topics that are off limits to blogging? If so, what are they?


Please see above.


4) If this blog continues on for another nine years, what do you suppose you will be writing about then?


The aches and pains of aging, for sure. And the increased incidence of death surrounding us. Also, holy crap, my children will be well into their teens by then, and I'm sure I'll have a lot to say. And I'm hopeful that I'll have more travel stories by then. Or some at all, as the case may be.



5) If you could go back nine years to just before this blog's inception, what would you tell yourselves about the arduous literary journey ahead?


I'd show me the recent words M wrote reminding me about unique voices, perspectives, experiences, and how not only are they meant to be shared, but that they are completely worth sharing. I'd tell me to shut up and just blog already.



6) Do either of you have drafts of unfinished posts? If so, how many? And what were your reasons for not pushing the publish button?


It's possible that I have unfinished posts, but more likely in my brain rather than on the blogger dashboard. Because I can't stand the idea of such detritus and would likely delete it to clear away virtual clutter. Unpublished drafts in my brain remain so purely because of time.


7) Have you ever considered posting under your real names? Would doing so dramatically change your blogging approach?

I've thought about it many times over the years. I imagine my posts would be more polished and pointed rather than rambling? Perhaps product-driven, rather than process-driven. So basically, my posts would all be pretty, shiny finished things, rather than scribbles and half-thoughts. But I don't think that'd necessarily be any better. I think there's more freedom under a pseudonym.


8) If a stranger happens upon your blog for the first time today, what do you believe they'd think about it? What would you want them to think about it?

I think there would be a whole lot of head-scratching at first. But ultimately after some sifting, I think they'd see it as a long and important conversation between friends.


9) Have you ever placed a hidden meaning in a post? If so, would it be too much of me to ask you to share an example? And if it wouldn't be too much for me to ask you to share an example, will you share one?

I'm sure I have, but what? That's one of those questions where you can think of the answer until you're asked.

Oh - maybe there have been references to terrible family members on here that were veiled. That's entirely possible.



10) Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say about your blog when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
I'd like for God to tell me that my blogging, for all of its flaws and lacking, were still enough.

You might also substitute the word blogging for other things there. Friendship. Parenting. Wife-ness. All around person-dom. I think it's something everyone needs to feel or hear.

To Bruckners 10, by Mendacious

Thank you Bruckner for taking the time to draft such sincere questions to which I sincerely respond. I can't say I was sarcastic, pithy or comical once. What has happened to my heart?

Do either of you remember why you started blogging? And why do you suppose nine years later you're still doing it?

At the time, I think we came late to the blogfad even back in 2004, I was a year out from gradschool where I produced daily in a highly neurotic and compressed environment. So obviously displaying my work seemed a logical next step and forcing output vital. I look back to our first post and it still stands- I had a fear going through grad school that I would stop writing. I remember some of the best writers looking at me thinking, no way, you won't stop, and besides this blog, I have. I'm not producing anything for it's own sake. The great Californian novel lying dormant. Phyllis Moore, our favorite teacher at SAIC, would be haunting us right now if she weren't a recluse somewhere with her cats and typewriter and amazing pecan pies (last heard was in Kansas/no will never forget her). Coupled with that fear, my friendship with Penelope or AMRF (L), gained traction and flourished over electronic media, and so our tethering together was a wise and pertinent choice at the time, since we were ever faithful in our correspondence- and at the time we'd already had 3 years behind us- so what could go wrong? And wouldn't it always be? ACCOUNTABILITY.

I hold myself to that same standard 9 years later. Why aren't I writing? Telling my friend what's going on and how I feel is a small but significant, however challenging, stab in the face of not writing at all. So for me it has worked in varying degrees, to continue to believe in magic, and act against the dark in us all- perhaps just a gasp- and maybe the blog is a visible record of its success and its neglect- even as our letter writing over email fades in and out you can't really track the loss like you can over yawning gaps on the kronos meter that is the blog. I like it because in that sense it's a truth teller. And that's something isn't it?

2) In these last nine years, what has been your most personal post?

Ooo, I don't know. I'd have to go through the archives. I don't have interns to do that. I will say fresh off anything where I express anger or hurt (not just pithy sarcasm, or epic storytelling) is pretty personal. I try to tread lightly, despite the missteps. But my journey from wrath to a hurt heart is pretty personal- so maybe the arch in general. And that there is something significant in the shift. We rarely argue so when we do... ouch.

3) Are there any topics that are off limits to blogging? If so, what are they?

I think Pen has more than I do. Probably part of our tension. Ironic I will say as she is a non-fiction writer. I probably talk about friends less on here though then I could. I am, I don't know where it came from, a referential writer-- and so to me it's not so much gossiping but struggling over difference. Beth remarked she tried to read our blog, or had off and on but that it felt she was peeping into something personal. It didn't used to be that- it was much more "writerly". Even if you were still reading between the lines and when Pen was still talking about Survivor. It was a big shift for me to begin to write about faith so much, and to try and share that with my cohort- as I felt the things that I was experiencing and going through were difficult to translate and how to translate them over a continent.

4) If this blog continues on for another nine years, what do you suppose you will be writing about then?


Bruckner, you are gifted at question asking. I only have one other friend so adept at it- and that's Danica who gave up reading blogs apparently, but has the same gift at pulling threads. Perhaps I can talk about her more since. But anyway- that's a good question. I'd like it to be less self-conscious of even how boring I can be or same- we have always been conscious of our space and usness. I suppose our proclivity will be to talk about life in varying degrees of honesty and revelation. Perhaps at the end we'll just tweet words after updating only sentences until just symbols will be used to communicate nothing at all but a vague sense of emotionally deceptive circumstances and nothing whatever to do with reality- but it will also be the tension of the two of us- our coming together and our failing in coming together- the shifts and differences in our lives- and if in giving up on the blog does it say we give up on one another? Why should it? Is it something that should keep going or do we consider one more year to make it an even 10 and let ourselves off the hook to do something else? It makes me ponder the cancelation of such a long running show. Long after everyone has gone- something to think about. Like, if as a response to her silence, I return the silence? And for what purpose? Or do I continue to believe and to reach out like a sad extinct species? Or do we keep it neat and clean before anything like that happens? Are we still getting anything out if it and does that matter? Have we surpassed that in relationship when it becomes more about love and covenant than it does about titillating fulfillment. Ive had some sad friendship revelations but I can only hope she and I have built this friendship house on rock. But you never know.

5) If you could go back nine years to just before this blog's inception, what would you tell yourselves about the arduous literary journey ahead?

It's a marathon. It's pace. It's relationship and tenacity. I don't know if that would've helped me or prepared me for what it looks like to be faithful to this construct for so long- 2520 posts? What is that? And is anyone going to care? Does it matter? Are we perhaps being Proust on a larger scale- so that to pluck out the story maybe 100 posts will suffice to tell you something- but not everything. Are we actually succeeding in communicating or is all of this failed chitterchattery. I would've told myself to prepare to repeat yourself over and over and over, and in that, the left over parts is something that won't be swept away, like 50 1st dates- vital remnants remain. I think I would tell myself this is the one and only way you will sometimes be faithful to writing or to your self-- and to believe in what you're building even if you can't really see it. Though maybe more deliberateness- can you imagine if we'd developed a story arc for a decade? like projected what we would do and how it should go? How it's going to end? Maybe that is why we are sometimes a little like Lost.

6) Do either of you have drafts of unfinished posts? If so, how many? And what were your reasons for not pushing the publish button?

Funny that. We are very tidy. Oddly. There are only 4 drafts currently on the blog. 2 of which are being written to you right now, another to pen and there's a fourth but I don't know what it is. But the number is likely to go back to zero. We'll delete them before leaving them to dangle too deathly.

7) Have you ever considered posting under your real names? Would doing so dramatically change your blogging approach?

I've grown so fond of our pseudonyms but it's true- as we've become more personal and less lit/fic meets E! meets...  Why? You could accuse of us of trying to be clever, and writerly. But also we were so sensitive to the current moors of our schooling- of the absolute push to succeed. Hence the blog name and our mocking of fame and but if not that, then what? I'd say maybe if Pen is up for it, we could do that- it would sort of be shocking to me to learn to relate to her as herself. There is and was a barrier in the beginning- but why not write as ourselves? Would it push us to be honest despite the readership? Because of the readership? Would it truly be great and at what cost? Our faces are already out there. But maybe Pen can give better perspective on this. By the nature of being read and known already keeps up hemmed in- what does it matter- would it change how we write? I can't say.

8) If a stranger happens upon your blog for the first time today, what do you believe they'd think about it? What would you want them to think about it?

Oh man, I don't know anymore. I haven't thought about that in a few years. Perhaps after Kurt left us and Sarah stopped blogging or caring if anyone else was. I did have a friend out of blue realize we were still blogging. She said she was surprised and that I was a good writer and loved the piece I wrote about the 'hate letters'. So there is something lovely about being rediscovered. I think I'd want to be known in someway. Some meta way that I don't even know myself. I think though if they were investigative they'd say holyshit! what?! What is this? Who are these people? I don't know if it's entirely obvious at the start. I'd want them to be curious maybe to try and discover and mine and explore the depths and find it worth their time- but I can't say I write with that in mind or that the minutia of our lives is that interesting to anyone who doesn't know us. We've never been good at marketing. It would be funny in this next year to actually market us- with friend quotes and pictures and bios. really make a SALE maybe. Pen what do you think? Also what would it be like to discover us and start from the beginning?! What would keep a reader going? IF it were me? Would I ?

9) Have you ever placed a hidden meaning in a post? If so, would it be too much of me to ask you to share an example? And if it wouldn't be too much for me to ask you to share an example, will you share one?

Absolutely.
No interns.
When another one comes across I will [*] for you.

10) Finally, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say about your blog when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

(A record of love in all it's facets)
M.

As I sit here pretending to smoke this mini-golf pencil,

my gums aching, nothing much on tv, and nothing I want to look at on the internet. It's like returning to my inbox to see if anyone has sent an email and no one has. Like waiting for money to drop from the sky or pondering earthquake weather.

Sipping rooibos iced tea as param snakes past me and hops out the broken screen door. Seems a shame to fix it. Wondering about having dreadlocks, knowing I could pull it off but would I want to. There are things still to do on the list- short term- curtain rods, trim, closet, and why are my gums aching anyway.

?

Something so earnest about a question mark.

I was going to talk about some of the church conflict stuff. So much there about truth and love and how our heart disorders them- but I think i'd rather go to bed. It's crazy. I mean I've had coffee even. I guess potting that one plant totally exhausted me. It came out of nowhere as I was watering- it just suddenly was impossible to ignore- and earlier I did become crazed and start ripping weeds and dead sunflower stalks out of the ground and into a giant untidy heap on the lawn.

So sleep. Sleep's ok for now right? After some portlandia and turning off the sprinkler.

m.

suggestions:

• carousel:11 months past due. what does 31 look like? (suggestions, commentary, where do you turn in the blinking red chip?)


• at work snacks?


• stuck in traffic suggestions?


• state taxes?


• how much of you do you put on your desk? like maybe a big piece of artwork
• or?do you flaunt your good looking badge pic?


• how long should the new adjustment period be exactly?