Sean’s life was drawn upon a blackboard. A beautiful mural of smiles captured, flowers holding their bloom-laden heads high against the rain, unerring faith, and rivers flooded with love. The virus became an eraser. Although Sean remained vibrant to the end, the mural had faded.

I sat on the edge of the claw foot tub and scrubbed my inner thigh down with rubbing alcohol, then with iodine. Sean had gone into town to fill his prescriptions. He’d be gone for at least an hour.

I started the bath, adding copious amounts of Fuzzy Peach shower gel. The air filled with the scent of Grandma’s cobbler. I slid into the tub keeping my sterilized leg on the edge. I shaved my legs in long sweeping strokes careful not to nick my shins.

I drew more hot water to warm the bubbles, grabbed Sean’s straight razor, swabbed the blade with alcohol, and swiped it across my inner thigh.

It stung for only a moment before the blood came. It came in drips and droplets falling into the water tinting the bubbles, swirling red and pink.

Why is this simple red fluid so important …how does it kill … is there a way of giving Sean healthy blood … I’m so tired of this pain … watching Sean die is killing me … how much more can I take … you stupid bitch feeling sorry for yourself he’s the one in real pain … yet he smiles and acts like nothing is happening … he acts like the blood coursing through his veins isn’t toxic that every person who comes in contact with him isn’t scared of him … why did they stop bloodletting … probably the Catholic church they hate everything … wonder if vampires get HIV … fuck vampires …

Sean knocked on the door. “You alright in there?”

Oh shit … did I fall asleep … he’ll kill me if he sees my leg … fuck all the water’s red … oh God ... how much blood did I lose …

“I’m alright. I’ll be out in a few,” I said.

“I got take out.”

“Okay, I’ll be a few minutes.”

I hopped out of the tub, pulled the drain plug and dried off. The porous, cracked porcelain clung to the water. I dumped toilet bowl cleaner into the tub and scrubbed with the toilet brush. The smell of bleach replaced the peach.

I rinsed the bathtub, bandaged my leg with butterfly closures, wrapped up in a towel, and dashed for the bedroom. I pulled on some loose flannel pant that wouldn’t rub my leg and an old track shirt I’d stolen from a visiting team as a prank.

Sean was on the sofa surrounded by pill bottles and Chinese take-out boxes. Sesame, curry and Szechwan filled the air.

“I got crab Rangoon,” he said offering me a box. “How was your bath?”

“Good,” I said.

“Why’d you clean the tub?” he asked stuffing a dumpling into his mouth. Sean cleaned the house while I was at school. However, I often insulted him by cleaning the bathroom everyday. I was obsessed with cleanliness after a news segment on bathroom germs.

I might have to take a year off from school just to be able to afford the application fees for Grad schools.

GRE $110

Syracuse $65
NYU $80
Columbia $75
Cornell $65
Missoula $70

Plus postage, plus travel to Denver for the GRE, plus picking out the perfect writing sample. Maybe it is time to start applying for all those credit card applications I get in the mail.

Maggie gathered herself for the weeks ahead. She cleaned the house, finished the website she’d been working on, and organized her school work.

She was about to take the GRE which she hasn’t studied for, a first draft of her senior thesis is due in three weeks, and she needed to spend the weekend writing cover letters and submitting to magazines. The more publications she had under her belt the better chance she had to get into Syracuse.

Maggie also cleaned to rid her mind of Gabe. Normally a large cleaning project did wonders to clear relationship cobwebs from her mind. She hoped this would help.

Maggie couldn’t continue to drown herself in wine again - not after last night. When she woke the bed was wet and covered with what she thought was mud. Maggie fretted about sleepwalking for a few moments before she realized she’d vomited in her sleep. It was all too much to fathom. She could have died in her drunken sleep because she wanted to forget about the boy that had ruined her day with his emotional bullshit and contrived suicide ramblings.

Advanced Writing

Well, class wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. Except for the fact that I hate the genre Gabe chooses to write in - I can't stand over the top humor. I just hope I didn't come off as a bitch because it has little to do with his writing or his creativity, I simply hate melodrama and we all know this.

They finally agreed with my choice of a female protagonist and it's about time.

I don't want to go to tap class tonight. I want to stay home, clean my apartment and get my homework done. I have some writing and editing I want to do.

I think I'm going to start submitting this weekend. I need more publication credits for grad school. I want into Syracuse soooo bad I can taste it.

Glass ceiling

I keep hitting the glass ceiling at Western. I've learned all that I can from my writing professors. I feel like I could be teaching many of their classes. Workshops with other students offer me little for improvements for revision. And you couldn't pay enough as an editor to read some of the contrived bullshit I'm forced to read for workshops. These are senior level writers not some freshman with a Hemmingway fixation.

Why did I have to get sick two years ago and fail all those classes? Why couldn't I make up my mind about my major - english, pre-law, pre-med? If I'd been more decisive and healthier, I'd have graduated last May. I would be in a graduate program and far away from the dating cess pool of Gunnison. Next year can't come soon enough.

The shitty thing is that I'm still in classes so I can't devote any of my time to submitting to magazines or study for the GRE. I test well; however, I need to do REALLY well to compensate for the grades I got the semesters I was sick. I won't be graduating with honors but I will be graduating without regret.

There is nothing I didn't do. I was honest when it was painful. I loved my friends. I contributed to the campus and to the Gunnison community - Pathfinder, Marginalia, Top O' the World, Newman, Wordhorde, Lysistrata, Vagina Monologues, 24 hour Play Fest, Student Government, College Democrats, County Democrats.

Die Spider Die

"He's a spider." Marc said once Aislin had confessed the affair she'd been having for the past few months.

"What do you mean?"

"Aside from being creepy, spider are good because they kill other bugs. But when that spider crawls into your bed and bites you, it's time to roll up a magazine and get rid of him."

Aislin raised her wine glass and said, "Here's to killing spiders."

Two Front Teeth

Well, class wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. Except for the fact that I hate the genre Gabe chooses to write in - I can't stand over the top humor. I just hope I didn't come off as a bitch because it has little to do with his writing or his creativity, I simply hate melodrama and we all know this.

They finally agreed with my choice of a female protagonist and it's about time.

I don't want to go to tap class tonight. I want to stay home, clean my apartment and get my homework done. I have some writing and editing I want to do.

I think I'm going to start submitting this weekend. I need more publication credits for grad school. I want into Syracuse soooo bad I can taste it.

Side Effects

I definitely over did it last night! I keep forgetting that even though I am off the heaviest of the medications, I am still sick. I have to remember, my body has just had the poo kicked out of it chemically. I didn't lose my hair but the chemo took a serious toll.

I also wasn't expecting to deal with Gabe last night. He's been reading my blog and I haven't been kind to him. He was sincerely hurt and I was sincerely sorry. I don't want to hurt him, I just don't want to hurt anymore. The emotional toll of this conversation didn't bode well for sleep. (Gabe- don't be upset, I'm an emotional person and you know this.)

I missed my first class today. Went to Marios for a business lunch with the boss and some recruiters. They messed up my order and gave me marinara sauce - one sure way to set my stomach over the edge. I didn't want to miss class. I did my homework! I'm not a slacker. Although, I'm not too upset about not seeing Bill King (Professor Crawford).

Supposed to watch Die Hard to night with Torrance. We'll probably have to discuss Blackboard Productions. It should prove to be a good night - if my stomach holds out.

Deep Water

Aislin felt like an idiot as the waters of loneliness lapped at her feet. She hated the pain of the icy water. Figuring it was more humane to drown than to freeze to death, she embraced the water and waded out deeper.

Nerves

"Nervous?" Aislin asked aloud to herself, voice echoing in the empty apartment. Her hands shook, her stomach tied into knots that would make any Kelt proud, her heart leapt under her mother-in-law's first communion cross.

Although she made professional decisions every day, she was making an active decision about her personal life and was terrified. She couldn't remember a time when she'd been so consumed with nerves - not jumping off a bridge in Idaho with a rubberband strapped to her midsection, not her wedding day. The closest thing she could compare it to was her birthday eleven years ago when she was sitting in a doctor's office awaiting a diagnosis that would change her life.

Tonight, she was taking charge. She'd made up her mind and was pursuing it with a vigor she usually reserved for intellectual pursuits. Books, theories, and ideas could not fail her or disappoint.

However, if she couldn't have what she wanted this night she wouldn't consider it again. It was a one time opportunity. She didn't have the energy to be this nervous beyond a few hours.

Aislin showered, smoked a Russian cigarette, downed some Alka-Seltzer and brushed her teeth. Now, there was only time to wait.

Aislin crawled into bed and cuddled around Gershwin the stuffed toad. Soft cotton enveloped her; however, the sheets still smelled like last weeks visitor or was that her imagination. Rain dripped from pine needles at her window. It was a night for salt. She could feel sobs undulating toward her shores.

It hadn't been a particularly bad day; truthfully, it'd been a good day. The boss was happy and her writing professor was bubbling with the highest praise for latest piece. She was leaving in the morning for a city adventure. Yet all she wanted to do was cry.

Maybe it was the writing. In the past week she'd had to write about the worst moments of her life - confronting maleviolent ghosts along with her protagonist. Sending intimate writing out into the world was overwhelming but she'd done it before. Was there anything different this time?

Aislin wanted something to blame this saddness on - some part of her week: the bizzare phone call from lover-past, illness sucking her breath, mother calling her back to forgotten farmlands, recollections of a broken night of shattered virginity, a rejection she promised she wouldn't feel, or reminders of bleak days of insanity and loss.

Whatever the force, it was bending her double. Sobs purged her already empty stomach, sending her scrambling for sink, toilet, trashcan.

Sleep would not be a lover tonight.

Scambling

Aislin crawled into bed and cuddled around Gershwin the stuffed toad. Soft cotton enveloped her; however, the sheets still smelled like last weeks visitor or was that her imagination. Rain dripped from pine needles at her window. It was a night for salt. She could feel sobs undulating toward her shores.

It hadn't been a particularly bad day; truthfully, it'd been a good day. The boss was happy and her writing professor was bubbling with the highest praise for latest piece. She was leaving in the morning for a city adventure. Yet all she wanted to do was cry.

Maybe it was the writing. In the past week she'd had to write about the worst moments of her life - confronting maleviolent ghosts along with her protagonist. Sending intimate writing out into the world was overwhelming but she'd done it before. Was there anything different this time?

Aislin wanted something to blame this saddness on - some part of her week: the bizzare phone call from lover-past, illness sucking her breath, mother calling her back to forgotten farmlands, recollections of a broken night of shattered virginity, a rejection she promised she wouldn't feel, or reminders of bleak days of insanity and loss.

Whatever the force, it was bending her double. Sobs purged her already empty stomach, sending her scrambling for sink, toilet, trashcan.

Sleep would not be a lover tonight.

It has been at least a year since a piece of writing has kept me awake. I'm sick and I need my sleep - damn it!

The decision - should the protagonist be male or female?

My peer editing group says male. However, I think Ayrn and Gabe have too much emotionally invested in the male character to objectively make a decision. Ayrn played the lead once and I think Gabe doesn't want to admit that I am capable of being Margot. But Margot is part of my past.

I thank you both for your input; however, the protagonist will remain to be Margot. I think with Margot in the lead it breaks the male/female stereotype. More often you see men catergorized as pigs but women are often guilty of the same treachery - we just don't get caught. Nor do you see many men struggling with and confronting the problems of relationship past.

I hope with some strong dialogue changes and an additional character (the rapist) you might see it my way. Now maybe I can get some sleep.

Is there anything better than tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches when you are sick?

I finished a new draft of Catharsis and that's exactly what happened. I've waited fifteen years to write that ending and it didn't feel good. I wonder what would happen if my mother were to ever read my stuff. Can we say Ya Ya Sisterhood?

How much should children keep from their parents to protect them? When was the point that the tables changed, when Mom could no longer protect me and I started taking care of her?I forget how dependant she is on me. She doesn't her husband so at Christmas I'm left doing much of her bidding. Furthermore, she's slightly agoraphobic. She's fine in stores she's known for years but new stores she wants to shop at have to wait for my visits.

I've taken care of plenty of family members - alcoholics, addicts, compulsive gamblers and bi-polars. I didn't think I take care of my mom until she was much older. The worst part is I think my writing would kill her.

I had a professor tell me that you can't write but what you are and I agree. My best writing comes from honesty about my life and sincerity about who I was and am now. My mother has made mistakes. All mothers make mistakes. But holding a mirror in front of my mom would send her over the edge.

Goodnight Mom. I don't hold you responsible. You are lovely and amazing.

Aislin woke in the night with a rattling chest. At first she thought it was a truck outside, but phlegm broke loose sending her into another painful coughing fit. If she were to cough any harder she thought her diaphram would rip from her chest.

Aislin felt around for the inhaler she taken before drifting off to sleep. Two puffs and all was calm again.

She couldn't help but to think of those nights she'd lain awake with a hand on Sean's chest, praying it wasn't pneumonia this time. She recalled his frail body curved into hers, fighting to breathe, fighting to live.

Aislin refused to cry. Crying brought on more phlegm and more coughing. She missed Sean, but she now understood the pain he'd endured with a smile so many years ago. It was her time to smile and ignore the pain, her time to win the battle. Unlike Sean, she knew she would win. Chemo had damaged her immune system, but it was nothing to the ravages AIDS did to Sean.

Tonight Aislin prayed for her lost love and prayed - this time for herself - that it wasn't pneumonia.

In Sean's presence I felt full, he answered some question that had been nagging me all my life.

Maureen's was the gentle and firm handshake women apply only to other women, a handshake that holds someone in place for a moment while they are surveyed.

Sean was never guilty of post-adolescent blameshifting - he did not define his life by the mistakes made by others.

I met Sean's eyes, noticing that he seemed more comfortable in this strange new house now that I was there.

Sean doesn't haunt me as an apparition. Rather, he is a constant, silent presence in my writing, his the substance the papers and shelves of journals.

I felt like Alice looking up a magical rabbit hole.

His fear was visible: brittle in his bones and waxy in his skin.

Aislin awoke from her afternoon nap to the ringing phone. Most people just called her cell phone but this call was on her land line.

"Hello?" Aislin's voice rumbled with the chest cold that had ruined her day.

"Hey, its Sarah Haines... you know from high school."Sarah Haines was the girl everyone wanted to be in the high school hierarchy - thin, blonde, rich, fucking the football captain. The villain of every high school movie since John Hughes and the brat pack.

"Sarah, I'm not feeling well and I'm not in the mood for any of your jokes."

"This isn't a joke. I'm calling about next year's reunion. Can you believe it's been ten years?"

"It hasn't been long enough. How did you get my number?" Aislin had been hiding in the mountains of Colorado for seven years and her whereabouts had become legend in her sleepy Iowa hometown.

"I ran into Will at the country club and just asked him, because you know, you guys were like really tight for a while."

"Sarah, did you ever go to college?"

"I went to Wellesley and now I'm teaching second grade.

"Who in the hell goes to a private, ivy league, all girls school to teach a bunch of brats? Did you ever marry?"

"Justin and I have been married for five years. Can you believe it?"Visions of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion danced through Aislin's head. She wasn't about to make Sarah happy.

"Do you remember that time freshman year at a volleyball game when you told me I had pretty hair and then braided gum into it?"

"No! I wouldn't do something like that!"

"And I won't come to your reunion." Click.

Aislin rolled over and fell back asleep. She dreamed walking into the reunion with an Atlantic Monthly under one arm and a published book under the other and beating dear Sarah Haines with both of them. Maybe she'd have a date and he could hold her down.

"The thing I've learned from you is to find the beauty in every moment," Colm said as Aislin shifted in the bed. "No matter the struggle you find the joy."

Aislin was scared of men who thought they had insights into her. Colm had said that she'd always been honest and tonight her fear was sincere. She didn't like it when people knew too much about her past. But this time he was right.

Aislin and Colm had been spooned tight most of the night laughing at the ghosts of their past relationship. Now the conversation had focused on Aislin.

Colm had focused on one of her strengths, an asset she'd worked years to perfect. Life had handed her many tragedies and she learned to smile through the tears.

Aislin hugged him, wrapping her body around him feeling vulnerable and beautiful and invincible all at once.

They talked on through the night about things that were inconsequential to lovers seeking a night of refuge: friends shared, laughs remembered, times shared.

Aislin was slipping into slumber and looking forward to waking up to a warm body; however, Colm's toothache kicked up again and he disappeared into the small hours. "I promise I'll spend the night again," he whispered with a breathy kiss.

Aislin preferred to have him stay the night. Waking up next to someone made her feel like less of a whore, made her forget the passion of the night before. Waking up alone with strange tastes in her mouth and smells in her bed reminded her it was only one night and that he was gone again.

Maybe this time would different. He did promise another night or was that just to appease her.

Aislin was able to chat with her little sister about Colm. The night had been amazing but with no one to share it with. Elspeth did not judge and was stoked that things had gone so well.

Aislin was not looking for a relationship with Colm, just a night of laughs, a night of healing, a night when the past was absolved.

Then the call came while Aislin was brushing her teeth and laying out her clothes for the morning.

"When are you coming home?" Liam asked.

"I am home," she answered this perennially sticky question. The farmlands of Iowa may have seen her birth and rearing but Colorado had been her home for the past eight years. "I'll be in Iowa for Christmas. Why?"

"Could I fly you out for Thanksgiving? My dad would love to see you."

"Liam, I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. I already have plans with a friend of mine. Besides, isn't your dad still married to Sybil?" Sybil was the supreme wicked witch of step mothers. She treated Liam as a servant to her own ill-behaved brats.

"Yes, but she's going to see her sister in Washington. Baby, please."

"It's been ten years since you could get your way with baby please. I will be in Iowa for Christmas and that is final."

Aislin only returned to Iowa once a year to spend time with her mother and piece together missing memories. After high school and her own husband's death, she'd lived out of her car for about seven months. Most of that time is missing from Aislin's memory and for some reason putting it all together had become a quest.

"What if I came out there? My mom still lives in Denver."

"The answer is no. I start filming next month. This is one of my hardest semesters. I need to be able to concentrate."

"You're dating someone, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not. I actually got stood-up this weekend."

"What about that theatre guy you were seeing? Is he still hanging around? Is he the one that stood you up? Didn't he stand you up once before?"

"You were a theatre guy once, too. I remember a certain intermission during Sherlock Holmes in the light booth."

"You're avoiding the question. Are you still fucking him?" Liam's voice had raised an octave to imply accusation.

"I never had sex with Colm. We're still friends. Why are you getting so upset? Did something happen?"

"Why would something have to happen for me to interested in my friend's life? I just want to see you."

"Why don't you tell me what happened?"Liam paused before he confessed that he'd had dinner with his in-laws and things hadn't gone well. They wanted all of their daughter's possessions back, arguing they spent more time with her than her work obsessed husband.

"Baby, I know I work too much, but I always took time when she needed me - doctor's appointments, hospital stays, or days she was just too sad to get out of bed. They want everything," Liam sputtered before decending into uncontrolable sobs."

"They're grieving and overreacting just like you. Please calm down. You're not doing anyone any good when you get this upset."

Suddenly, Liam began laughing.

"What are you laughing at?"

"I told you that once when you got sick at the Hard Rock in Kensington Park. Do you remember?"

Four years ago I was getting ready for an 8 am math class when the phone rang. As always Mary Ann and I had lost the damn phone so it went to the answering machine before we could find the receiver. My boyfriend, Gary, was going on and on about how I don't watch television but I should probably turn it on today and something about a Hollywood plot gone terribly wrong.

I was watching TV when the second plane hit the twin towers. I did not leave my room for the rest of day. Mary Ann and I cried all day.

My grandparents remember the day Kennedy was shot. I will remember sitting at the Denver Diner when I learned about the shootings at Columbine and I will remember September 11, 2001. Furthermore, I will never stop questioning. What have we done to insure our security other than restrict civil liberties? Do we know what really happened that day? Will I ever watch television news again?

My thoughts and prayers remain with the people of New York. The city pulled together and triumphed as will New Orleans.

My final thought - what other days will come and shake our world, days that cannot be forgotten, days that leave the world gasping for breath and running to the nearest church, synagogue or mosque?

Dear God help us all.

Peri's wholistic neighbor gave her a scone and an apple. Peri walked home eatting the delicious sugar-free and perservative free blueberry pastry. Suddenly, she began choking. Tears rolling down her cheeks, coughing turning her diaphram upside down; yet, the doughy spec would not budge.

What to do? What if she died in this shitty little appointment? Would anyone find her? How many times would her cell phone ring before someone tried her door?

This was the worst way to die.

To my little sister and anyone else who cares -

Marry a man that loves to eat and loves his momma.

Love the one you can't live without not the one you can live with.

Smile whenever your love walks into a room, if you can't manage a smile then its time to move on.

Never go to bed mad - and we wonder why I don't sleep.

To avoid years of heartache, never fall in love with someone who is sick or has a terminal disease. (AIDS, MS, etc.)

IF it is important to you, it should be important to him. If he can't make the time, you aren't important in his life.

Says bless you when you sneeze, even if you sneeze alot.T

hat's my advice. You must take it with a grain of salt and consider the source. I've been single for a very long time. Furthermore, I'm still dealing two relationships that ended a decade ago.

This week has sucked. First, I got way too much information about Jeff. I have a hard time looking him in the eyes now no matter how many nice things he says. Next, I found myself missing someone I shouldn't. Then, William's sad news.

I'm glad it is raining today. It feels like a rainy day. I should stay home and work on my thesis - in other words, I should watch Angels in America. I want to cut and colour my hair. Maybe that's what I'll do. Snip snip

I must refuse depression. I'm stronger than letting this small series of events get me down.

I don't want to hope William still thinks about me. I don't want to be his comfort. I was his comfort when Jackie dumped him and that got me a two year relationship. It's his loss, it's time for him to grieve. I just hope he doesn't take the route I did.

I want him to be stronger, braver. I'm sure he can do it. He was always brave. He dated me, he had to be brave and daring. Liam - I promise one day it'll all make sence. Remember it all - don't push her memory away - don't blame yourself - embrace your grief - cry - scream - be angry - scream. Just don't abandon your friends or family - don't run away - don't date until you are ready and only you know when you are ready.

I'm still not sure I'm ready. I keep fucking things up. Too distant, too clingy, too cold, too emotional, too sexual, too prudish. Damn it! I'm so tired of thinking about the things I've done wrong and if I think too much about Sean I'll never heal.

It's the same old whiny bullshit. Poor me, Maggie can't get a date, Maggie goes for the wrong guy, Maggie gets hurt from the smallest comment. Maggie can't accept that her friends love her. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Fuck Maggie! Maggie sucks!

I need to go back to bed.