Many Philadelphians (natch, Pennsylvanians) place electric candles in their front windows at night. When I drive through the city, the candles hold silent vigil: constellations created of reminders. The candles whisper that ghosts that still walk these streets. I asked Shaun why everyone has these candles. He said that the candle-lighters believed that people who had died would know that someone was still lighting a candle, waiting for their return. If that's true, I've a thousand candles lit. Subtle and shy, they make up the molecules of my very body. I know about ghosts and the ones left behind. We all need a little closure or just a sign that someone cares that we lived.

* * *

I walk down the avenue, passing a little old man, smiling and carrying a leash upon which smiles a little old dog. Man and dog move against the wind. I wish I had a little dog and that my little dog could be friends with the little old man's little old dog. I offer a smile, marveling at how it feels to be a stranger. In my last place, everyone knew everything of my comings and goings. I hated that I could have no secrets or that others made secrets of things they surmised, rather than those that had actually existed. Now, I can vacuum early in the morning, toss back a rum in the middle of the day, or listen to New Zealand throat-singers or the Beastie Boys very loudly late at night and no one has a thing to say about it or even cares. I never thought I'd enjoy anonymity and slipping through the cracks so much. It's refreshing, as cleansing as a sip of clear, clean water or no thoughts tangled with fear.

* * *

Speaking of tangles . . .

Rebecca informed me that there was a snag in a deal we made. While at Arco, I made my living space better in many ways, like painting it and repairing the baseboards. Another thing I did was build a closet out of materials I purchased. Most Arcosanti residences lack closets, a symptom either of frugality or stinginess (building a closet would take more materials and therefore, cost more). Seeing this, I designed a closet that covered a wall at the far end of my room. As I was leaving, Rebecca asked if she could have it. I said sure. She indicated that she'd feel guilty not compensating me in some way for the materials (over 200.00), so we made an arrangement that she'd pay 35.00 and come to remove the unit upon my departure. Most of my roommates were home for the holidays, so I was unable to communicate this with them. I did communicate it to the one person who was waiting to move into my room and wasn't officially a roommate yet.

After I left, people got upset about the deal and everyone on-site decided to weigh in on it. Some people were very outraged, saying, "Jewel can't take things out of a space arbitrarily." If I were still living at Arco and made that deal, no one would have said a thing. So instead, an inspection was made to decide whether or not I'd actually purchased the materials (because yeah, I'm going to just scavenge things from the Arco Boneyard and then sell them to my co-worker and friend for 35.00. My integrity means that much to me). When it was determined that I had paid for the materials, the issue was dropped, no apologies tendered to Rebecca or me.

However, the individual who'd moved into the room wanted to keep the closet, so she asked Rebecca for it. Rebecca, being the considerate person she is, allowed it. When she told me about this, it irked me, small as it was, because I wished for Rebecca to have the closet. Also, she shouldn't have had to be attacked for the deal. Why was it anyone's business? This little story illustrates yet another reason why I am relieved to be gone from that place.

People who care that much about what other people do need to get out of the concrete, take a walk, make friends with a dog, do something rewarding, listen to great music, or conjure up a poem. Life is so much bigger than the wars we create.

* * *

So far, the newest job search of four days has reaped few rewards. The one person who responded was a cross Arabic woman who wanted to know why I'd want to be a nanny when I had so many qualifications ("Best resume I've ever seen," she raved, her voice like sharp-clawed birds). "I'm writing a book and need something to settle into the city," I told her. What I wanted to say was, "Before I find my dream-job, the little niche that was created for someone like me, someone who's worked in legislature, tended bar, run businesses, kept ledgers balanced, edited books, written articles, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars for someone else with her ceramics." I've high hopes that there's an employer out there who's willing to take a chance on someone with extensive education and a varied work-history. All I need is for someone to gamble on me and I will be a champion. So far, no one's gotten back to me, beyond the Cross Arabic Woman.

I know it takes most places a week for responses, but damnit, I'm impatient. My twenty-four dollar checking account weeps and alternately, caws at the travesty (almost five grand was spent getting me to the dot on the map that says Here). I even applied at a swanky restaurant less than a mile away from the Apartment. I was excited about earning large tips that would sit folded in my pocket until I felt free to use or invest them (one of my goals this year is to get my finances completely in order, develop a good system of savings, and start researching investment strategies). I was lured by the love I've always had for working at posh places and the friends I've made serving and bartending. When I offered my resume, I was told I would have to take a test immediately.

It's no surprise that I think I failed it.

Never, in all my years of food service have I taken a test like this. After being hired and given information, I've taken tests, but never before. The first question was to name three viticultural regions of France. "Burgundy, Rhone, and Champagne," I scrawled, palms sweating. "Booze, booze," I kept thinking, searching for the answers. Someone who's been as drunk as I have over the years should have had it down. Of course, once I left the establishment, my brain turned back on, but sitting there, staring at this evil piece of paper that had the potential to help me move towards my future and dreams or deny me entrance, scared me.

At one point, I freaked out so badly that I forgot a third type of white wine, which is silly. I know this shit cold. I wrote Chenin Blanc and Chablis as the first two and blanked. O, Alanis Morrissette, if only you'd been there to guide me, by wailing about the "black fly in your chardonnay" in "Ironic." I decided to take the honest route and wrote, "I am nervous and cannot remember this. I promise you that I have an extensive knowledge of wines. Also, I am a red wine drinker and have more of a base of knowledge of those. I am willing and able to learn anything that this job might entail." The bus crashed into the tree after that.

One of the servers gave me a very sympathetic look when I left. Fine dining is hell.

I pray some of the other employers get back to me soon or it's going to be rough. Even so, my hope is a flag I wave in the winter air. My place is cuter than a piglet, I have a gym, the 'fridge is finally full, I've opportunities to meet new people, the guy down the way still likes giving me free cake, the love of an honest and true man, and I live blocks from the coolest section in Philly.

That's not a bad start to my new chapter here. Not bad at all, Blackfeather. I tend my candles well.

Badtesttaker McGee

[My mentor and angel in human flesh, Mr. David Hutchens and I are in the left-hand corner, carving our bells in a patch of sunlight. This is our favourite place to sit in the wintertime, since the apse faces south. As the sun gets lower in the sky during fall and winter, the whole space is cast in sunlight. In the summertime, the sun goes high, so the apse is filled with shadow. This is why our summer-skins are paler and our winter-skins the colour of nuts and Island paradises. The scene to the right is our manager, Ed, giving an informational talk about the Ceramics department to some workshoppers. They’re into it, as you can see.]

The sky is a giant tongue that licks the desert blue. This sky is a reminder of the memory of rain, a reminder that we’re water-seekers in this land of coyote-legends and saguaro that turn to dancers in the moonlight. Every time I look at this sky today, I think of how the clouds are all teeth and wings. It’s moments like these that make me love living in my little desert Valhalla. Night wears her jewelry—all heishi strands like river pebbles and squash blossoms, petaled in silver and turquoise.

At work, I show David and Rebecca a picture of Shaun and I at his parents’ house. Lush things cover the background, so different from this Arizona I call home. Seeing the bright green plants makes me think of our road trip and the smell of the ocean, all thick and salty. Being there reminds me of living in Virginia on the bay and the water green as my mother’s eyes, gulls carried by wings and wind, a study of kinetic movement. Fisher people in rubber boots, haul creatures from the sea. The longer they fish, the more their features take on the cast of what lies below. We live above the waves, safe and warm, blind and soft as newborns. Sometimes, we are so strange in this earth that made us.

But back to the picture: Shaun and I have our arms around each other, and we’re both smiling so hard, caught mid-laugh. He’s smiling so that he’s all laugh lines and tousled hair. Laugh lines cut Shaun’s cheeks and seam his eyes. I tell Rebecca that the lines make me want to kiss everything that’s ever made him smile. These lines are the scars of his sweet moments. I am glad they exist, just as I am tonight’s sky. Plus, there’s something really sweet about a guy that’ll send you Cars lyrics to cheer you up when you’re all afoul of the world. Both of my co-workers study the picture for a while.

David, one of my truest and best friends ever, crinkles a wizened smile and says, “A lucky guy.” “I am a lucky girl,” I admit, whispering and covering my grin with my fingertips, touching how much the smile means to me. “Yes,” David tells me, “but he is a lucky, lucky guy,” and I summon up visions of rushing green rivers and lush roadside ferns beckoning with the curl of a frond, “Come play, come play.” The place in the picture is a goblin paradise, and I could get lost there. I could play, but I’ve places to be. I’ve a boy I love like breath, and I must sew myself to his side, give him the forest of my thighs, and laugh as we race into the woods.

[This is what my workspace looks like at night. The giant red circles are meant to resemble the Evil Eye, but are not representative of any particular superstition. The main architect here simply likes culling different motifs and beliefs and using them to his own purposes. Nighttime sure makes the apse seem magical, and when it's lit like this, it is, it is.]

I want to be where he is. More than that, I need to be where he is, this sailor-king of a boy that leans against me like a garden fence, bare and true, with his hands on my throat and all the places of my pulse. It’s funny because in the years that I’ve known Shaun, I always saw the boy in him. I am starting to see and know a man there, and that man makes me glad to know him, glad that he’s in this world and that he’s growing tremendously in it. Being patient is difficult when something like this waits for me. There is a life beyond this skin that needs me. These dreams keep me safe.

So instead of wild times and numbing drinks, tonight will involve putting on my favourite songs—the tiptoeing guitars of Cuban and Afro-Caribbean music—and writing erotica, both for publication and for my own secret purposes. I want to watch American Beauty, too. It’s so fucked up and beautiful. I keep thinking of the line one of the characters, Ricky Fitts says, when another character asks him why he videotapes everything. “It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing, and there's this electricity in the air. You can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me, like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and . . . this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember . . . and I need to remember. Sometimes, there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in,” he explains.

The closing lines just kill me (softly), too: “I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars, and yellow leaves from the maple trees, that lined my street. Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper, and the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird. And Janie, and Janie, and Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes, I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst, and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then, it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But, don't worry. You will someday.”

After immersing myself in this, I am going to find the wind on the roof and let loose my inner Valkyrie. It’s been a while of waiting for this moment, and every sky like this deserves more than a few minutes.

Jewel