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I want a banana. Like a baby wants a banana. Sitting outside I just want to say "please don't be mean" or maybe show men what women look like without skin. I could take them to a museum where they would be lined up on display, and then we could discuss it on a daytime talk show. I would explain that these women have no skin now even though they have spent years growing it back. I wonder if it would have any effect, like the burn victims on the television screen. The burn victims are massaging ointment on to their arms-- or their stubs, the places where their arms used to be. They speak directly to you, me, God and the cameraman, they say "it still really hurts."

I ask him to come in the room and watch this with me. I think he says "this is sick" or "this is fucked up" or "what is wrong with you?" And then he goes back to playing some video game where he gets to have a machine gun, where I don't get to talk. I keep speaking even though I am sure he cant hear me, and I say "you know they were babies too, you know they had high chairs," I continue, "someone puts cheerios on a high chair and they still eat them, don't you get that?" I try, and I try, but I cannot get up to the change channel.

All of the phone calls I make are long distances, but it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't know how my phone works, or how phone works in general. I don't understand how you can hear me right away. I don't like the telephone and I wish there was a thirty second delay so I could feel like it was working somehow. Long distances phone calls also don't matter, because I don't think my cell phone provider takes note of this. I can call anyone nationally and it makes no difference. I am always under my minutes every month so they roll over to the next month, and I cant get a smaller plan than what I already have. I miss my lovers and their landlines. I want to call and ask if you are home. I think that text messages could have quite possibly ruined our lives.

And I can't make excuses anymore, I can't say "oh, I'm sorry I wasn't home," because it doesn't matter if I was home or not, anyone can reach me anywhere. People can even gps my location with their phones. We can make maps of each other across the city. We are a video game that I obviously am not good at. I force myself to work through this, I sit down and listen to all of my voice mails and sometimes it shocks me that anyone says my name, the way my name sounds coming out of other peoples mouths. He leaves me a voice mail, "Daniela, it's me" I suck my stomach in and I stare at the television screen.

I swore I'd quit, you know, like some people say they will quit smoking, or how certain men have really great ideas. I've put myself all over the internet since puberty, it was a natural response to outside circumstance, to being thirteen years old. Sometimes I wish there was one giant delete button, I guess we all feel like that sometimes. But the rest of the time, I just don't stop. I am part of a larger hybrid that does this also, I don't know if this is a collective society, if we are doing this together, competing for attention or still just having an outlet. I feel like this is habit, because I can do this easily, and I cannot answer the phone or respond to my own name. I don't know how this name thing has happened-- when I began to feel it was unfair for anyone to say my name. My parents call and I want to say "I AM SORRY NO ONE LIVES HERE bY THAT NAME," as if they'd never met me. I don't want to hear about the running tab I am as a human, my carbon foot print or the words I said as a toddler. If anyone asks me why I lied, I will tell them it is because I do not remember getting teeth.

After I've finished reading and writing my papers, I learn my real life lessons through daytime television. I watch one year of a woman's life as she loses half her body weight through gastric bypass surgery. I like this story for so many reasons. I like it because they are not acknowledging the real issue at all, it's a three hour special and all they talk about is the food she consumes in secret. They don't stop to make the connection to emotional eating, or maybe they do, but not enough. I don't think they make note of it enough because they act like it will go away. I have read about people ripping through their new stomachs, snapping through their lapbands. And it has nothing to do with being hungry. You don't go to a drive thru, pull up in your car and order three value meals because you need something to eat.
They say she is happy now, except for the excess skin. A surgery is scheduled. She cries in front of the camera, and I think I would cry too, but I don't. He comes upstairs and glares me down, like he does not make love to me, I am just some body that shares his body. His eyes are blank and I almost start laughing. This is a man or boy that has no knowledge of our government, doesn't understand how anything in the political system works and refuses to register to vote. He tells me about his high scores and I want to say "I am sorry, the person you are looking for does not reside at this residence."

I just wanted to be the prodigal son, mom. Can't I come home now? Can't we change the genders and prove everything right, mom? Why don't you listen to my voicemails, mom? I make these requests to God himself and it's like his secretary is mimicking me, when I ask to speak to him, they just tell me I have the wrong number. It doesn't even matter that I called the landline.


A famous author hangs himself. I know I should tell you he hanged himself but it still doesn't sound right to me. I have never understood that pattern in speech, and I never had to think about it until Sadam Hussein is going to be executed. I do not watch this event on daytime television, I instead watch it on youtube the next day. Everyone is watching the ball drop, bringing in The New Year-- and I can't help but to find this so disturbing. I wish he would have offed himself, or that they could have given him the choice. I understand that he was a horrible man, but I know that tomorrow it is going to be 2007, and I don't want to see a video of a man being hanged. I don't like the way it sounds. I don't want to imagine the presidents face. I tell myself that things will change when I move to the city, like this is not a global event. Alone in my childhood bedroom, I take this very personally.

On television nearly two years later I watch the Republican National Convention every night for a week. The whole time I keep putting my hand on my heart. I cant chant "drill, baby, drill" and I am not understanding any of the jokes. The boy or man I mentioned earlier doesn't walk into the room because he does not live here, has never lived here, has never slept in my new bed in my new bedroom. I tell myself this is sterile ground. I change my phone number. I get new mouth wash. I answer the phone and I sound as uplifting as I can, someone on the other line, maybe you says "Daniela?" and I am so happy, so happy with the receiver that isn't a receiver at all, so happy with the minutes that arent minutes at all. I start to tell you right away, before it cuts to the machine, I start to tell you "I am so happy to hear from you! I don't remember the last time we talked! Did you hear all the men were hanged? Do you remember getting teeth? Oh you do! Well that's good. That's good." I lie, "i do not remember getting teeth."