The Second Installment of Fiction

Note: This is the second part of my first-ever fiction story.  You can read the first installment here.

Andrew would undoubtedly live until he was 100.  He would be "that guy" who, although he wasn't a strict diet-follower, ate well (and often), ran on a daily basis and made everyone around him jealous and somewhat annoyed at his dedication to being healthy.  It'd be cliche to say, but Andrew looked and felt like any late 20-something would aspire to.  And Andrew was pushing 53.

And yet ... he had indeed spent the night with his cheek pressed against the warm tile-floor, a product of the radiant floor heating, which Andrew had wanted to turn off, but Molly insisted on keeping on for a few more weeks.

Throughout the night, Andrew had prayed his body would remain motionless.  He had lay on the floor to ground himself, to say to his brain, "This is what I need.  I need for the movement to stop."  But the dingy still rolled and the constant, irritating and mind-numbing ringing in his ears (worse in the left than the right) couldn't be shaken.  In fact, it hurt to even move his head a few degrees one way or the other.  His life, the one that others wished they could have, had become hell.

Texts from a Horrible Day

I rolled over and grabbed my phone, just like I do every morning.  Today was different.  There were three news notifications staring back at me: 14 dead in Aurora. Gunman opens fire in packed movie theater.

Shocked.  It literally took me a second to decipher what I was reading.  Aurora.  Colorado.

And then my heart stopped.  My best friend was originally from Aurora.  There was no way she had been at that theater, I told myself.  She had moved across town into a new apartment.  She couldn't be there.  For my selfish reasons, I willed her not to be at that theater.

"Are you ok?"  A simple text message, one that I found fairly easy to send but as I sat there looking at it, realized it scared the living daylights out of me.  I couldn't wait for the answer ... I had to get out of the house.

My mind flitted from this thought to that thought as I walked the dog.  I felt angry and then sad.  And then I felt guilty because it was so beautiful here in Southern California.  And then I felt angry at myself for feeling guilty because in all honesty, I wasn't involved in this horrific attack.  I hadn't pulled the trigger.  I hadn't booby-trapped my apartment.

But of course, I was involved. 

"Yes, wasn't there.  Thank god." I received that text and suddenly, my sight became a little clearer, my heart, a little lighter.

It still affected me, though.  As I read through Facebook post after Facebook post, countless tweets and a blow-by-blow account found on Reddit, I felt worse and worse.  I couldn't concentrate at work.  My mind again flitted from this thought to that thought, always settling on the idea that a human being had done this to 71 other human beings.  I had this feeling of complete and utter sadness at how people treat each other.

I have no closing cliches or big-picture thoughts.  I will continue to read coverage of this horrible situation from the people on the ground who watch as bomb-sniffing dogs come out of the shooter's apartment and from people who are much more verbose and eloquent and able to connect all of the dots.  And I will send texts like this.

"I love you."



For continuing coverage, check out The Denver Post - they are doing an awesome job on getting tons of information out to the public.

The Beginning of the Story

Note: Typically, I'm a non-fiction writer - I write about my life and about things I know.  I have never dabbled in fiction, but a few months ago, I had a sudden urge (aren't all urges sudden?) to write a fiction story.  I scribbled it down feverishly in my journal before the urge evaded me.  The story is by no means finished, but I thought I would start to post some of it here, piece by piece. This is the beginning.


This bath rug is dirty, he realized.

In his 4:30 a.m. must-get-out-the-door-before-the-dog-wakes-Molly haze, he never would have noticed how the dirt clings to the rubber corners of the sage green mat.  Nor, how if you really looked at it, the sage color had dissipated into a desert brownish - a dying cactus color, if you will.

But he now finds himself face-to-face with the mat.  He can't remember the last time he lay on the bathroom floor.  He wasn't a boozer in college.  He hung out with the library crowd, and if he drank, it was never to extremes.  The fetal position was one he only reserved for the flu or a really cold night when Molly insisted on sticking her icicle-like feet under his legs.  And yet ... here he was.  We need a new bath rug, he thought.

He cracks his right eye, instinctively cringing, as his ears start to ring and his mind makes his body think that he's on a four-star cruise ship minus all of the stars.  A dingy, perhaps.  Through all of the stimuli, he sees Molly's red fleece pajama pants, the ones with the snowflake design that should have been put away long ago, as it was April and the tulips were starting to say hello to the world.

Out of the bottom of her pants peek Molly's feet.  Why am I staring at her feet, he thought.  Did we have wild sex last night and that's why we ended up in different positions on the bed?  He smiled, hoping, and the act made him wince.  There was the rocking boat again.  Must have been one hell of a night, he mused.  And then it dawned on him that he was on the bathroom floor.  And it all made sense.

To Mia

My mom FINALLY said we could get a dog.  After being screened by big adoption agencies that made us feel like we weren't good enough for the dogs they were trying to place, we decided to go to the local shelter that sat off the highway.  It would be our luck that on the day we went, there was one lonely dog in the kennel - the rest, the guy behind the desk told us, had been taken to an adoption fair in the town over.  They'd be back, he assured us, but of course, only the ones that hadn't gotten adopted would be left.

One dog came back.  She was a puppy, with paws that definitely had room to grow in to.  Her kennel-given name was Megan and she looked like a Siberian husky who had been rolled in Moab-red dirt a few times over.  She was perfect. 

Thirteen years later and on a Wednesday, my mom called to tell me that our Mia had died in the backyard sun, just beyond the door to my parent's bedroom.  It was at this door that she had always waited in the morning darkness for my dad so they could go on their daily run.  Those two were true buddies.  It could be said that you never know someone until you run in winter mornings along frozen trails that line dead corn fields.  These two had. 

Mia was a runner from the beginning.  In the cool evening between summer and fall on the day we brought her home, we took her up to the high school track and let her loose.  Part Siberian husky, part red heeler, she moved in a manner that would make Shalane Flanagan jealous.  Her love of it was contagious - soon we were all running around the track.  Were we chasing her or was she chasing us?  In the fall, she traveled with us to my middle school cross country meets, lolling around in her hot pink collar and matching leash.  She was the cutest.

She grew, we grew.  We moved, made new friends and started new jobs.  The line is familiar and the next one will be too.  She was loyal as any dog is expected to be. 

But her love for running never, ever, ever decreased.  As my mom cried in the background that Wednesday night, my dad reminisced on the memory of 13-mile-Saturdays, with Mia by his side. She was running half-marathons before I ever finished a 10k.  Tears dripped down my face onto my comforter as we laughed about how dad always brought water for himself, but never thought to bring any for Mia; she never complained.

She never made a peep, either, when the vet found tumors in her.  Not just one tumor.  But the next one.  And the one after that.  And those that continued to grow, those that my parents decided not to go after because they had had enough.  Mia had had enough.

Lucky for me, I never saw her as a dog I wouldn't want to remember.  I didn't have to see her splayed legs when she tried to get up to greet you as you walked out the back door.  I didn't have to see the huge chunk of her hindquarter gone as the one last attempt to give her more time.  I get to remember the hot pink collar.  And the long walks.  The way her hair used to come out in chunks in the summer because she had so much of it to shed; we used to say we should knit all of her hair into a sweater.  I get to remember what an amazing runner she was - a true running partner.

Well, Hello Again

Sometimes, you just have to take a break from it all.  Unplug.  Recharge.  Feel the grass between your toes before you can jump right back into the crazy.

Apparently that's what I've been doing lately.  But I think I'm getting back into the groove again.  I have a new roommate (hey, Lauren!), a handsome man by my side and a dog who loves to give kisses.  I am setting goals for myself and trying to stay away from the T.V. as much as possible (The Bachelorette aside, of course).  Here's the plan:

• Read during dinner instead of watching mindless crap.
• Jump on Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish at least 30 minutes every day.
• Exercise at least five days a week (did I mention that my sister and I are registered for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon in January?!).  Back in the saddle again.
• Write more, whether that's here on the blog, in my journal (encouraged by this couple) or for other outlets.
• Get back into Twitter.  It was inevitable ... no one can quit Twitter.
• Listen more.
• Be understanding and positive.

The summer is going brilliantly and hopefully making these things happen will add even more awesomeness to my life!  Have you guys ever taken a break to wind down and recharge?