This bullshit has gone on far too long, and I am weary of it. Of course, it doesn't involve me directly, it is the things Outside of My Reach that worry me the most. Engraved permanently in my mind is an image of my mother, pouring a piping hot of tea into her coup, blowing on it, sighing, and quietly mumbling, "Why are you so worried about the world, what is happening out there? Take care of yourself."

It's that selfish attitude that creates all these ridiculous problems, that leads to violence and brutality. "I care only about myself, my land, my people. I am human.. and others are not."

Over and over, we flip from one channel to another. We see bloodshed, gore, destruction. We sigh, shrug, and switch to a sitcom.

We drink tea quietly, unaffected by visions of death surrounding us.

I see myself on television. I see my own body, drenched in blood, sprawled on the pavement. Alone and helpless. Perhaps I am both selfish and selfless at once: feeling so in touch with the universe, so connected to strangers, to supposed enemies, that I can feel my own face bleeding, sense my own children ripped from my arms. Vicarious trauma.

"Do you ever see yourself on television?" I whisper half asleep to my lover, and she looks at me as though I am mad. "Maybe more like reflections of a different version of yourself? We are all connected, somehow, overall... have you ever read Jung's work? The collective subconscious?"

There are stories I can't tell at all, stories about past lives, spirit animals, dying and being reborn.. Stories to remain untold. But these are not really my stories to tell, they are yours, ours, everyone's.

She checks my forehead. But I have no fever. Again, and again, I see myself on television.

Mousetraps: Part II

"Jesus Christ, this is all because we live at the bottom of the hill," my mother sighed, "This apartment complex is basically the neighborhood dumpster. No wonder there are these... mice everywhere."

The discovery of our first American Mouse, a year after we'd moved to the United States, was anything but pleasant. And my mother was taking it especially badly.

"Sasha," she turned angrily to my father, "What did I tell you, ah, Sasha? Do not buy the apartment at the bottom of the hill! I warned you, so many times: do not buy dirty, dumpster apartment filled with these... disgusting rats! "

"Well," he retorted sarcastically, "Maybe when you find work in this country, you can buy us whatever luxurious apartment you want, huh?"

I was getting tired of these silly arguments, but finally, after hours of bickering, it was decided that we would buy mousetraps. The Russian metalbox mousetraps never really bothered me. In fact, I sort of enjoyed opening the door, releasing the mouse, and watching it scurry away. But this time, my father went to a hardware store in Brookline and bought sticky glue traps.

"I don't really understand how these things work... does the mouse just... die slowly?"

"Amy, those things are disgusting creatures! They will give us diseases and kill us, if we don't kill them! Would you rather die, is that what you want, for us all to get sick and die?"

"But it just seems so unnecessary...."

I couldn't stop thinking about the mice, and moreover, the traps themselves were a nuisance. They glue was thick and yellow, and any time hair or dust fell onto the traps, it stuck permanently. And, in my insomniac five-am-wanderings around the kitchen, I'd always forget their presence.

"Shit!" I'd hiss, and rip the thing off my foot, unintentionally peeling the top layer of skin. The thick glue took nearly a week to wash off completely.

"It seems that we have caught zero mice so far, but three Amys!" my mother would giggle hysterically.

I'd quietly grumble and stomp back to my room, my foot sticking slightly to the rug with each step.

Mousetraps: Part I

The house was always infested with some vermin or another, whether we lived in Russia or in the States. Our apartment in Russia swarmed with ants for a few years. They'd cluster around the sugar bowl and I amused myself by squashing them, one by one. They'd infest the walls, laying piles of eggs that resembled nearly-bursting cysts.

The cockroaches came next, winged, swollen, and brown. Stomping on them with all your might only killed them about half the time. They survived several rounds of extermination. "Jesus, these Russian cockroaches," my father said, "They would survive a nuclear war!"

And then, of course, there were the mice, forever scurrying in and out of tiny holes in wall. My mother or grandmother would see one: the house would fill with blood-curling screams, or else they'd leap onto a chair or counter in fear to avoid touching it.

"The filthy vermin, they will eat our food and give us horrible diseases! We must lock up all cabinets," my mother said. It was useless to try to explain to her that the chance of actually catching a disease from one of these creatures was highly unlikely. Logic never really happened in that house. Or else, trying to explain that throwing away the festering piles of papers, the filthy rags in all the closets, the mess that the house had accumulated might actually help... she wouldn't listen.

My father diligently placed the traps, everywhere, little metal boxes with doors, and a piece of cheese inside. The boxes rattled when a mouse was caught inside. We'd go outside, open the little metal door, and watch the terrified creature pounce away, scuttle into a distant street corner.

We thought we would escape these creatures in the United States. America is different, they said. The homes are cleaner. Neater, perhaps. But on our second day in Boston, we discovered centipedes crawling all over the shower curtains. My mother nearly burst into tear. "Why have we come to this country? These centipedes.. they are uglier than the cockroaches."

But it took us an entire year in America before we spotted the first mouse...

failing economy

You say that I worry too much. You take another drag of your cigarette... I just hold mine uncomfortably.

You are probably right, it's true, I'm a nervous wreck. And the cigarettes only make it worse.

I start wondering about all the caffeine in my system: 3 cups of coffee, 60 ounces of diet coke, 2 glasses of tea. My teeth probably don't appreciate the abuse, and neither does my stomach. But is this something to worry about? Something to change? Addictions are dangerous; anything in excess kills, and the stress of worrying is killing me right now.

"Relax," you say in your soothing, parental voice.

But, honestly, how can one relax during an economic crisis?

There is madness on the streets. Revolution, or something like it. The noises reverberate through the walls in my room, the distant cheers, resounding screams. These are the sounds of long-anticipated victory.

Outside my window, there is a large group of girls, and because of the darkness, it is difficult to discern who they are, but they are hugging. There is some sort of connection. They may be very old friends, or they may have just met one another at the pub, but tonight, tonight it doesn't matter... tonight.

For a moment, I want to be out there, running around, screaming like a lunatic, and yet.. I am too sober, too serious, and maybe even too cynical. Sipping my tea quietly, I wonder about false revolutions. I worry about false messiahs.

What does it feel like to let go, for even a minute? To be carefree and spontaneous? It must be a whole different world out there, beyond this apartment.

Maybe I'm the only one who's worried.

I'm worried about the upcoming election, about false hope and unfulfilled promises, about the continuation of status quo and the possible assassination attempts. I'm worried about the ozone layer eroding, about gas prices rising, and the economy failing. And laugh all you want, mock me for my stupidity, but I am worried about the quickly approaching 2012, about the apocalypse.

I take another drag of my cigarette. But I'm asthmatic, and so I worry about my lung damage, or about having another attack. I never go out without an inhaler too far out of reach. Then again, if the apocalypse is approaching (and I can almost feel that it is), an asthma attack is probably the least of my worries.

"I haven't really been thinking about it at all, I hope the thought hasn't been keeping you up at night," you say.

"I'm an insomniac. No specific thought keeps me up at night," I answer, with a false sort of cleverness. But secretly, I'm disappointed. Yes, I've been thinking about it, at least on and off.

"Really, don't worry about it." You won't refer to what you'd done directly, and I wonder if that's part of the denial, part of the ability to stop worrying.

Humans are phenomenally resilient creatures. The fact that one person can hurt another so deeply, and then just forget about it, shake it off and move on... that kind of resilience is too pragmatic, too unfeeling. My mind goes into hypermode, I start making grand generalizations to rapists and serial murderers and their ability to shrug life off. All I can say is, "Well you have nerves of steel, I guess."

"I haven't really been worried about it," you repeat. "I hope you haven't been either."

Just shrug it off. Move on. Go to sleep, and wake up as though it never happened. Forget about it, and never bring it up again. Is that how people do it?

Meanwhile, I worry. About the cigarette, the presidential election, the ozone layer, and people who live but never feel. They say that stress kills. I wonder if I'll even live to see the apocalypse.

My half-torn, sickly-green diary never really got thrown out, the first and only paper journal I'd ever kept. To this day, it's still on my bookshelf at my parents' house, festering in its embarrassing, awkward teenage glory. Filled with ugly penmarks and expletives, it is a piece of the person I was then and, as difficult as it is to swallow, a piece of the woman I am today.

Almost every entry is about John, John the first boy I ever "like liked" (actually seen in context). The motherfucking asshole, as I described him, whom I wanted to kiss so badly... a bony-legged boy I couldn't stop thinking about.

Yes, we were friends, but we weren't very good ones. Sometimes I'd come over to his house, and he'd lock me in his bathroom, until I begged, pleading to be let out. But freedom was never free: no matter how much I pounded on that door, sniffled, stared at the cold white sink, he would not let me go until I told him secrets, so many secrets were revealed, whispered through that bathroom door. Secrets that he had promised not to tell... I should have known better.

In groups of three or four, we all played Truth or Dare. He'd turn to me and say, I dare you to:

flash me

pretend that you're humping this pole

kiss me

pretend that you're humping this sleeping bag

lick this sink

I did all these and more. But he never liked me, he smirked when I naively followed his commands, all the while he tossed pens and paperclips in my face. He told me, over and over, that I was fat, that my chest was too big, and that I would be "the worst person to have sex with, ever."

Expletives and inkstains. I wrote my frustrations out in the ragged green journal, but never told him in person.

Close to the end of out friendship, we were at his house, and he suddenly grabbed a cold, wet towel with his skinny arms. He slapped it across my bare legs, leaving a red mark. I didn't budge. He slapped me again. I twitched but didn't yell out, didn't move. And another slap, and another, until my legs were covered up and down in bright red marks. I stood, bravely, holding tears back. "Jesus," he gasped, staring at me from behind his spectacles, "It's almost like you have no feelings. It's almost like you're not really human."

So I lie and tell myself that this was eight years ago, before Bush was even president, that I am a completely different woman, sophisticated, confident, mature (or at least pretending to be), and yet... unrequited love hasn't really changed.

It's still full of tears, empty words, and messy inkstains. And my legs still feel shaky, unstable... as if they've been whipped nonstop all these years.