When everything is lonely I can be my own best friend
I'll get a coffee and the paper, have my own conversations
I see the sidewalk and the pigeons and my window reflection
The mask I polish in the evening, by the morning looks like shit

And I'm not sure what the trouble was, that started all of this
The reasons all have run away, but the feeling never did
It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live
Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is

Dagmaster

Kris was trying out the whole online dating thing. She set up a profile on The Onion (a good pre-screening to eliminate all those with no sense of humor) and was sifting through her emails daily.
I was also single at the time and although I would love to say she had to put a knife to my neck and twist my arm, it wasn't quite so. I was curious and willing to try. What harm can it be. It's anonymous, it's online, I don't even have to talk to anyone if I don't want to.
So I set up a profile, plastered my photo onto it, and sifted through emails daily as well. Exchanged a few emails, but never liked anyone enough to meet in person. I mean, it was difficult to choose between a guy with a full sleeve tattoo, a doctor who likes hours of sensuous kissing and soft whispering (I would have to smack him with a rolling pin to get away from me) or a pilot who'd like to have a pretty maiden in every harbor.... It got old pretty quick and my ad was soon abandoned and forgotten. Besides, my boomerang boyfriend started showing up every weekend again and things were moving rapidly towards re-bonding, and eventually, months later, moving in together.
We had a perfect little house. I played the homemaker. An emancipated homemaker. I painted walls, chopped some trees down with a chainsaw, hauled many rocks away from the garden that was abandoned for ten years, that sort of a thing.
The garden. My garden. Inch by inch I turned it from a dump to a nice piece of landscape. I put some primroses out by the everything-invading forsythia, along with narcisses and snow whites to have a little spring garden. Then I put in some shrubs, a double flowering japanese rose, trimmed rose bushes that were already in there, sowed in seeds of marygolds, tossed some violets that invaded every empty space and crevice like a horde of Attila's Huns...
That particular morning, I was raking the devil out of periwinkles. They were covering most of the backyard and I wanted to get rid of them, put d0wn a nice lawn on which I could put a blanket and read in the sun. Phone call. E was calling from work.

- Hey, how are you?

- Good good, I'm raking the lawn and and I want to...

- Is everything okay?

- Uhhhh, yeah.

- Have you seen the Boston Globe today?

- No.

- Check out the online edition, Dagmaster.

Dag..what? Wait, how did he...? I mean that was my.... did we ever talk about....where the hell is this coming from....?.... I run to the computer, rake in hand, splattering mud all over and load up the Boston globe. Scroll down, pearls of cold sweat on my forehead in anticipation of some disaster. International news...nothing outrageous, Domestic....whatever.....Sports...not even looking....Personals........ Wham! There I am, my photo and all, on the front page of the bloody Boston Globe. "Dagmaster.....About me: I am the best Slovak this vicinity has to offer, if perhaps the only one...." I fold my head on the table and beat it against the teak wood that I polished that morning a few times. Why did I ever post a profile up? Why did I not delete it as soon as I was bored of it? Why did nobody ask me if I agree to have it plastered on a front page of newspaper that everybody in this whole damn town reads...why ,why, why?
That day was not a pleasant day. I had to drive to school to first stop by at the Registrar's Office, and then teach my International Relations class. At the registrar's, the student at the desk grinned and asked: "So, you're a Taurus?"
Basomazapat azandelat, just give me my stupid paper and don't meddle into what's none of your business. Grrrrrrr.
I asked my students to read international news section of the Globe at the very first class. It's easy, I told them. You just go online and subscribe to receive international news via email. Or at least browse through the headlines online before class. Apparently they were good students. For they all did peruse the online edition of the Globe that day.
"Miss Kusa, can we go through the news from the Boston Globe now?"...chuckle... "You are from Slovakia, professor? What is the number of Slovaks in this vicinity?"...hee hee hee, ho ho ho... "Miss Kusa, have you found anyone yet?".....
Little bastards. I need to be much more stern with these wisecrackers. No more Mr. Niceguy. No more jokes, no more games, no more debate teams. I've had it with you, you lousy little shitheads....
So I had to teach a bunch of cackling gremlins, but somehow I survived to the end, with a bit of self-deprecating humor and a lot of feigned composure.
I got home completely drained. Boomerang boy was, however, beaming with energy and good humour. At least he wasn't pissed off. He liked the ad. He said it said the right things in the music and interests department. He would have called me himself if I wasn't already living in his house. Wiseass. Well, musn't grumble. The Best Slovak this vicinity has to offer, was taken out to a nice dinner. And learned an invaluable lesson about anonymity and safety of personal data out there in the online universe.

What the crones are for

Nora turned 30 last week. Now that doesn't seem a big deal when one is, say, 50, but from the twenty-something side of things, it is a cause for a pause, if not outright for gloominess. One is expected to be a mature responsible individual and there's nothing glorious and exciting sounding in that. She reserved a whole restaurant, where she had just about 30 friends. Some of us were a high school gang reuniting after years.
I was de-seated from the goody-goody first row of seats in high school in my senior year for disturbing. To the back I went, where the troublemakers sat. Nora was my immediate neighbor. We barely spoke the first two weeks. I was too good for her, she was too bad for me. Over time I found out that this scoundrel does have a remarkable sense of humor, as does Diana and Marina behind us. They taught me how to smoke, how to network white lies and back each other in order to get out into town behind parents' back, how to generate documentation in order to skip school without punishment. I had my first C on the grade report that semester, and 3 or 4 C's the second semester. It was naturally the best year ever.

And now Nora has her own apartment and her own dentist's office. She comes home exhausted after ten hour days at work and rarely ever goes out. We chatter on the phone, grumbling about significant others or a lack thereof. Diana is a representative for a large construction company and is saving up money for a house that she'll buy with her man. They go everywhere together. Without Richard, there is no Diana.
Sandra had her second child on 1st of January, she now has a full house, what with four of them squeezed in a one bedroom apartment.
Only Mira and I remain afloat, shooting out into various parts of the globe without much planning, doing this and that. But she, too, is planning a traitorous escape from spinsterhood and afloatism. Mira is looking to settle down with her old time boyfriend, to whom I introduced her. Silly me. Luckily she tasted the freedom this lifestyle brings and she won't last long in one place. At least she's a fellow globetrotter.

But when Nora turned 30 last week, we all had a grand ole time. Drinks were for free. Many a gin met many a tonic and there was dancing on chairs and tables. Houses, jobs, significant others, all was forgotten and we were the high school troublemakers again. We decided to open a bar in Bratislava when we retire, the Olde Crone Bar, which we shall bartend in person. Among five or six of us, that should be no problem, even if we'll be tied down to wheelchairs. I wish to retire already, don't want to wait another 40 years to be a silly old lady that can get away with just about anything.

gloomy monday

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter
I guess you call that paintin' in a cave
And there's a word I can't remember
and a feeling I cannot escape
And now my ashtray's overflowing
I'm still staring at a clean white page
Oh and morning's at my window
she is sending me to bed again

So I will find my fears and face them
or I will cower like a dog
I will kick and scream or kneel and plead
I will fight like hell to hide that I am giving up