Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
The cruel work of stillness
I read in bed for many extra hours, totally paralyzed by the cuteness of purring cats. If I moved they moved too, sometimes settling back before I'd even stopped shifting. Jasper looked at me when my elbow was resting on his head, like, "OK look lady I'm trynna sleep stop messin' it up!" He has an amazing ability to guess what I might do next, get there ahead of me, stretch himself in my path and give me dirty looks like I'm following him just to get on his nerves. When he's not being a jerk he's totally charming, which is why I find it extra hard to get out of bed when I have no clients or meeting scheduled and it's cold outside and my cat thinks I'm an awesome place to nap. In that moment I AM something, and some breathing creature is appreciating the shit out of me for just being still, which is nice.
However, I do have my customary giant list of things I'd like to get done. Three pillows and most of the fabric I need are sitting on the sewing table. Do I need zippers? Is the envelope style copping out on quality? (Oh perfection, you merciless bastard, nothing has been measured or cut and already I'm worried about it.) It's just that I want to use this lovely piece of fabric that has crewel work on it, my friend used to have it hanging over her kitchen window. She is wonderful at loving something and then letting it go. She knew how much I loved looking at it, so she gave it to me. That was over a decade ago. So, even though she has probably forgotten about, I imagine that when it finally does become a pillow, she will recognize it and express joy at the continued existence of it (which sounds perfectly delightful). And I am trying to decide, if in that moment, I would also like to say, “Look, it even has a zipper!” In typing that out I have solved my problem. That's too much worry for such a strange reward, I'm going envelope with it. That takes care of the pre-construction of one whole pillow.
Whew. That's solved. Wonder how long it will take me to make that pillow.
Electric prunes instead of arthritis
I have this super adorable Aunt, a wee little Polish bubble of a thing, who got drunk on Manischewitz and told all about electric prunes.
They are prunes in a mason jar, steeped in Kentucky moonshine until their drunk powers ripen. The topmost prunes are plucked out with the arthritic fingers of an old woman, who suddenly finds herself imbibed with gigglesome joy and kicky little dance moves, followed by great regularity. The ones at the bottom are gleefully tackled with a fork, just whenever. So good a body just can't believe it.
They are prunes in a mason jar, steeped in Kentucky moonshine until their drunk powers ripen. The topmost prunes are plucked out with the arthritic fingers of an old woman, who suddenly finds herself imbibed with gigglesome joy and kicky little dance moves, followed by great regularity. The ones at the bottom are gleefully tackled with a fork, just whenever. So good a body just can't believe it.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Dazed and Chinese
As much as I love Bongwater (and I really love Bongwater), I have lost the ability to sit through Dazed and Chinese.
I am still glad that it exists, I kinda love all the horrid complications, even as saying that I sound (to my own self) like a pretentious asshole. There is a masochism to listening to this song, it manages to hit my irritation button in a way other things can't, even though I know how long it is, that it will come to an end, what annoying thing comes next and even that I could turn it off at any moment. I hover as long as I can before I forward right through it. Today I chickened out early. It's so bad it's glorious. It's a sissy test.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
tweaking the release valves
I can't believe I'm jealous of my mom for allowing herself to take nervous breakdown vacations.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Come go along with me
Polly come and play with me,
I’m dressed up in my finery,
I’m dressed up in my finery,
I’m going to the winery,
I’m waiting on your porch.
Polly take the kettle off,
Tell the dogs to settle off,
Slip your foot inside a shoe and
Walk into tomorrow.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Things I forgot to tell you
Quitting smokes gave me my voice back. When I am alone I sing. All the time. When I am not healthy I forget about music and then when I remember it flows back through me like an alignment. This is something I've understood privately since I was a child, that sound in certain waves make energy that wails and rolls and moves invisible boulders. It changes my breathing, my heartbeat, core muscles and throat. So I know there is a fix and that it is simple and moving. That I have this cure any time I want it.
And still, I forget. And sometimes even when I remember the cure I hold out for more wallowing.
Any moment I might make a gorgeous dress of the curtains. If I come at you on a spiral staircase always check my hands for roughness.
_______________
Once in Georgetown a man approached to tell me I was a really good dancer.
He seemed more intent of making sure I knew he knew that than anything else, so I'm inclined to believe the truth of it. I mean. Right? You could have seen it too had you been looking.
_______________
I think I was once a belly dancer in a previous life.
________________
Music is a language I can't speak but understand.
And still, I forget. And sometimes even when I remember the cure I hold out for more wallowing.
Any moment I might make a gorgeous dress of the curtains. If I come at you on a spiral staircase always check my hands for roughness.
_______________
Once in Georgetown a man approached to tell me I was a really good dancer.
He seemed more intent of making sure I knew he knew that than anything else, so I'm inclined to believe the truth of it. I mean. Right? You could have seen it too had you been looking.
_______________
I think I was once a belly dancer in a previous life.
________________
Music is a language I can't speak but understand.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Not just anybody. Help?
All the lovely people in my world are made of straight up helping magic. So my babbling here is kind of like a catalyst, an exercise in catching a feeling like a snapshot, then getting firmer with the whole concept of what's going on in my life, plus tossing in some clarity and building something out of words, and then wow here comes rapid change, and those are the bootstraps in my own hand again, and here I am, clearer and stronger and wept out, but thoroughly tested and unbroken, washed clean by the clever conversations and sincere love and affection of some of my very favorite people in the whole damn universe.
J with his confirmation as one of my oldest, dearest friends, that yes, it was jacked up in a way he saw with his own eyes, and no, I didn't misremember the intensity of those moments. And also? That whole thing was pretty fucked and unfair, but I turned out much better than OK. Thank you.
B in her sass and fabulousness, insisting with strength and softness on patio sunlight and just the right aesthetic, pointing out the angles in buildings that sprouted up when my head was down, being fierce and incredibly kind and reminding me to be exactly who I already am, but maybe a little more unapologetic, and by the way HELL YEAH LIFE. Thank you.
K, so much more amazing than words can ever express, far more emotionally intuitive than I ever was, with all that wit and those big brown eyes, appearing so suddenly when I thought I was being sly about my own big sads, and then sitting while I tried not to break down and did it anyway, waiting for a break in my words to tell me, "Get your laptop, I'm gonna go get the Cheese Puffs and we're getting in your bed and watching South Park." Thank you.
J with her huge honest eyes and delightful expression of love for everything; dogs, babies, good salsa, dancing, me without my glasses, syntax, words and more dancing. She is stunning to me, like, I love her like I'm 12 and intense and want to show her every awesome thing that exists in the whole world just because of how fucking amazing it is to watch her love something, just please keep talking and oh man please keep laughing and oh god, how we snort in the grass. I imagine her in some cute little sundress all bathed in light, and I want to burst at how impressive it is when her willowy waving arms punctuate and the angle of her nose and the laugh and the giggle and the big gorgeous mind that makes sentences so perfect it's like gorging on chocolate in a silk draped carriage drawn by unicorns. Thank you.
HC accidentally dressed like a garden, her voice full of subtle intensity, holding an incense stick, the smoke curling out over her oasis of gorgeous greenery, asking, "Do you see that cascade of leaves and textures, that white flowered waterfall of flowers? Can you picture the breathtaking magic of that when looking down from the upstairs window?" On a day that was neither hot nor cold and our children were upstairs putting on wigs while we sat with the dogs, talking about physical labor and she showed me her amazing bicep and told me I was on the right track and what we both have are a lot of totally valid dreams, and I went home knowing it is time, right now, for all of them to happen. Thank you.
B and a bottle of emergency Jameson, pretty much like, fuck a bunch of typed out affirmations, I can be there in person and you will know you don't suck goddammit, I'm solid, sincere and not fucking kidding at all about how much you don't have to ever be mentally homeless and unrooted. Thank you.
R, clear and renewed of purpose, braiding her hair and pouring more wine, always so easy to talk to, so soulfully honest, so heart wide open and eyes so focused, listening while I told her my Fail Machine story and then following me to the basement to pluck it out (even though it was hiding) and admire the shiny heavy stainless steel heft of it and then follow me cheering, to the far dumpster, in the dark night ally, where I swung it over my head and finally let it go. Thank you.
M, with that voice that goes all the way back to always, straight through circumstance and distance, every layer of time, language, subtext and tonal vibration. If he figures out how to live forever, I want to live forever too, and I hope we do because forever is already too stupidly small to fit everything in it. Thank you.
P who is lovely and makes me laugh until I'm teary with the kind of stuff you have to say in a hush, who called me the crap whisperer and watched me eat a million fries, who warmed my Polish cockles by adding horseradish to the bloody marys (who once said the naughtiest, most horrifyingly hilarious thing I've ever heard) pretty much saying, Look, I trust you, here's me and there's you and we're both better for knowing all of it so let's dig in and not do it alone because that really sucks. Thank you.
L, always. Rock and root, wind and water, so bright, so kind, so true of heart, She tells me look, sometimes these stones show up. There’s one on your heart right now, have you noticed it? How about we roll it away from us? She packs a crowbar, It always helps. Thank you.
J with his confirmation as one of my oldest, dearest friends, that yes, it was jacked up in a way he saw with his own eyes, and no, I didn't misremember the intensity of those moments. And also? That whole thing was pretty fucked and unfair, but I turned out much better than OK. Thank you.
B in her sass and fabulousness, insisting with strength and softness on patio sunlight and just the right aesthetic, pointing out the angles in buildings that sprouted up when my head was down, being fierce and incredibly kind and reminding me to be exactly who I already am, but maybe a little more unapologetic, and by the way HELL YEAH LIFE. Thank you.
K, so much more amazing than words can ever express, far more emotionally intuitive than I ever was, with all that wit and those big brown eyes, appearing so suddenly when I thought I was being sly about my own big sads, and then sitting while I tried not to break down and did it anyway, waiting for a break in my words to tell me, "Get your laptop, I'm gonna go get the Cheese Puffs and we're getting in your bed and watching South Park." Thank you.
J with her huge honest eyes and delightful expression of love for everything; dogs, babies, good salsa, dancing, me without my glasses, syntax, words and more dancing. She is stunning to me, like, I love her like I'm 12 and intense and want to show her every awesome thing that exists in the whole world just because of how fucking amazing it is to watch her love something, just please keep talking and oh man please keep laughing and oh god, how we snort in the grass. I imagine her in some cute little sundress all bathed in light, and I want to burst at how impressive it is when her willowy waving arms punctuate and the angle of her nose and the laugh and the giggle and the big gorgeous mind that makes sentences so perfect it's like gorging on chocolate in a silk draped carriage drawn by unicorns. Thank you.
HC accidentally dressed like a garden, her voice full of subtle intensity, holding an incense stick, the smoke curling out over her oasis of gorgeous greenery, asking, "Do you see that cascade of leaves and textures, that white flowered waterfall of flowers? Can you picture the breathtaking magic of that when looking down from the upstairs window?" On a day that was neither hot nor cold and our children were upstairs putting on wigs while we sat with the dogs, talking about physical labor and she showed me her amazing bicep and told me I was on the right track and what we both have are a lot of totally valid dreams, and I went home knowing it is time, right now, for all of them to happen. Thank you.
B and a bottle of emergency Jameson, pretty much like, fuck a bunch of typed out affirmations, I can be there in person and you will know you don't suck goddammit, I'm solid, sincere and not fucking kidding at all about how much you don't have to ever be mentally homeless and unrooted. Thank you.
R, clear and renewed of purpose, braiding her hair and pouring more wine, always so easy to talk to, so soulfully honest, so heart wide open and eyes so focused, listening while I told her my Fail Machine story and then following me to the basement to pluck it out (even though it was hiding) and admire the shiny heavy stainless steel heft of it and then follow me cheering, to the far dumpster, in the dark night ally, where I swung it over my head and finally let it go. Thank you.
M, with that voice that goes all the way back to always, straight through circumstance and distance, every layer of time, language, subtext and tonal vibration. If he figures out how to live forever, I want to live forever too, and I hope we do because forever is already too stupidly small to fit everything in it. Thank you.
P who is lovely and makes me laugh until I'm teary with the kind of stuff you have to say in a hush, who called me the crap whisperer and watched me eat a million fries, who warmed my Polish cockles by adding horseradish to the bloody marys (who once said the naughtiest, most horrifyingly hilarious thing I've ever heard) pretty much saying, Look, I trust you, here's me and there's you and we're both better for knowing all of it so let's dig in and not do it alone because that really sucks. Thank you.
L, always. Rock and root, wind and water, so bright, so kind, so true of heart, She tells me look, sometimes these stones show up. There’s one on your heart right now, have you noticed it? How about we roll it away from us? She packs a crowbar, It always helps. Thank you.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Hello broken thing, may I sketch your smash pattern?
I've been working on a million things but the number one thing I've been doing is Trying Really Hard Not to Hyperventilate About The Future. Also trying to envision a future where my financial needs are met and I can spend my energy on better things than wondering if I'm going to be successful and how I might go about doing that.
The very fact that I exist at all is either a total fucking miracle or some kind of weird accident. Lately I've been feeling like I had a bunch of eggs and I put them all in one basket and then I feel down the stairs and now I'm at the bottom, stunned by slime, everything broken.
Why are money troubles are such a dirty little secret?
Why do I feel so useless?
I know what's broken but I don't know how to fix it. I need help but can't bring myself to ask because I feel like I should be doing it on my own and that needing any help at all makes me horribly vulnerable and being vulnerable terrifies me to the bone, and plus. Plus.
Plus, no one who wants to help is able and those who are able won't because I'm not worth it or they think I should be helping myself.
These are all very mean things I tell myself.
I should go eat something.
I will come back later. There are a million things I could write about asking for help and how shitty that turned out. I'm afraid of asking for help. I am the helper, not the helpee. I would rather saw off my leg than ask for help. How fucked is that?
The very fact that I exist at all is either a total fucking miracle or some kind of weird accident. Lately I've been feeling like I had a bunch of eggs and I put them all in one basket and then I feel down the stairs and now I'm at the bottom, stunned by slime, everything broken.
Why are money troubles are such a dirty little secret?
Why do I feel so useless?
I know what's broken but I don't know how to fix it. I need help but can't bring myself to ask because I feel like I should be doing it on my own and that needing any help at all makes me horribly vulnerable and being vulnerable terrifies me to the bone, and plus. Plus.
Plus, no one who wants to help is able and those who are able won't because I'm not worth it or they think I should be helping myself.
These are all very mean things I tell myself.
I should go eat something.
I will come back later. There are a million things I could write about asking for help and how shitty that turned out. I'm afraid of asking for help. I am the helper, not the helpee. I would rather saw off my leg than ask for help. How fucked is that?
Thursday, June 9, 2011
I whip my mouse back and forth
I am accidentally obsessed with this video. By which I mean, I found this video by accident and am instantly smitten by the ridiculous energy of these badass girlchildren.
Specifically the magical thing that happens from 1:36 to 1:39.
And, were I not especially daft at this moment, I might have slogged through all the stuff about ripping a Youtube video (without pissing off the agreement) and then creating a gif of that sweet 3 second chunk of incredible so I could loop it indefinitely while saving her poor exuberant neck the trouble of a fine YOU GO GIRL, but it appears I am not cool enough to manage it.
If someone were to say, extract that magical bit and gif it for me, I would probably go mad with the hair whipping dance.
Specifically the magical thing that happens from 1:36 to 1:39.
And, were I not especially daft at this moment, I might have slogged through all the stuff about ripping a Youtube video (without pissing off the agreement) and then creating a gif of that sweet 3 second chunk of incredible so I could loop it indefinitely while saving her poor exuberant neck the trouble of a fine YOU GO GIRL, but it appears I am not cool enough to manage it.
If someone were to say, extract that magical bit and gif it for me, I would probably go mad with the hair whipping dance.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
I quit smoking. Here are some text blocks about it.
Even as I purchased my last bag of tobacco I thought, while certainly more economical, it would probably be a terrible idea to get the big bag. Clearly I knew I would need to confront the idea of quitting and I even thought it might be coming up soon. So while my rational side was prepared to accept the idea that I would/could be smoke free and really enjoy that, the dumb addicted part of me is still freaking out a little that I just gave up something that was such a huge part of my life. It was my go-to tool for thinking, writing, relaxing, socializing and dealing with stress. But it was also causing problems, in each of those areas plus others. Like labored breathing, chest pains, wheezing and waking up with a terrible taste in my mouth. These things were awkward and alarming and also a bad sign that I loved cigarettes 10 but cigarettes only loved me 2. Since I started rolling my own I stopped paying attention to how much I was actually smoking and some nights I would look down at the ash tray and just think, damn, where did all those come from? I justified it. (Really Self? Really?) Hand rolled smokes with a filter are cleaner and burn faster than a commercially created cigarette. I could see the tobacco that went into the cigarette and there were no obvious demon faces embedded in the moist fluff, no weird unrecognizable things, so I felt sort of safe about it. I embraced the smugness of the DIY kinda gal I am, the instant dance club hit at any pub or party. I gave a lot of Roll Your Own lessons. My smokes were described as “juicy” and “pleasant” and inspired declarations like “I gotta try this”.
This quit got a jump start because I thought I might need to quit soon, not because I HAD to, but because some of the perceived joy of it was now gone from the process. It occurred to me that I ought to at least pay attention to the Lorax in my own body that felt perhaps the Onceler oughtta fuck off and stop polluting up the place. I thought about that for a long time. Like pretty much every time my heart raced and I walked around alone in my house, swinging my arms and talking myself back to my happy heart place while doing stretches through an anxiety smack down, willing myself not to have a heart attack and deciding to take a just-in-case aspirin. Then I would pretend those moments were some kind of unrelated anomaly and the moment the feeling went away I would light up again. It isn’t like that happened ALL the time, but holy crap, shouldn't just once be enough?
This time quitting was a little easier because I had a lot of remorseful smoker moments banked up in my head and the circumstances that allowed me to be a comfortably dedicated smoker were starting to change around me. My sweetie had experienced a sense of disconnection from the health of his own body and he abruptly stopped smoking about a month ago. Just decided he needed some ridiculously expensive nicotine gum to get through the suck parts and he was done. I was very happy for him because quitting resolved the alarming health issues he was having, but I was also kind of selfishly sad because I had lost my smoking buddy. Smoking together (which I believed to be rather enjoyable) was no longer an option. I read that and marvel at the fact I felt so protective of my own habit that part of me felt sad that he had quit. What a confusing array of emotions! I got weirdly defensive even though he never asked me to quit. In fact, he told me it was for himself that he did it and that he would love me no matter if I quit or continued. And in my head I was like, “Yeah? Well...good for you... because...I do what I want! And... I guess I wanna... ya know... keep being dedicated to this shitty awesome habit I picked up... for now!... and stuff!”
There were many other things that had been occurring to me that made me believe that deep down I did not want to be a smoker, even as I pretended to myself that I was a cutting edge badass who looked really impressive and hot with a cigarette (an identity mostly crafted when I was 14 and thought smoking was intrinsic to being a grown up and also a key component of being a writer). I craft a lot and I was getting worried about selling stuff that smelled like smoke. I was so worried about I allowed my etsy store to expire. This is pretty ridiculous, but it sounds like such a silly problem compared to the fact that I was also having some trouble breathing. I could not belly laugh without coughing. I could not sing without coughing. Sometimes I would cough and a nasty chunk of lung shame would shoot out onto my hand. Revolting. When I got sick I smoked through it. I never kept track of how many smokes I had in a day because I rolled them myself. And then, I was sitting in my office, feeling anxious about my own future and stewing in the rage of mortality and thought “I will just have a cigarette” only to realize I was already smoking one. That was the moment I knew there was a monkey on my back, pulling my hair, rubbing its junk on my neck and poo-flinging all over my life while I was asking myself to please not protest because I liked the company.
I knew it was coming, but quitting also freaked me out. Last time I tried to quit it was horrid. I made it 10 days in a miserable state of deprivation and sadness, curled up on my bed crying like a junkie because I just wanted a fucking cigarette, like some kind of drug addled whackjob, totally ashamed of myself and super super angry. That is the thing I feared the most about quitting this time, and one of the reasons I put it off. I quit once for two years just because, only to dupe myself into believing I could be a casual smoker (hahahahainfinity). I quit for my children so I could be a healthy pregnant lady and also so I could nurse. It was easy then because smoking was revolting to me when I was pregnant. In fact, it was my first clue that something was up, it made me gag before I’d even missed my first period. But then I took it back up because I knew once I did nursing would be over, and after two kids and 350 gallons of breastmilk I saw it as a totally terrible way to reclaim my body as my own. I also quit for Katie’s 6th birthday because she asked me to. I quit for about six months. I threw a party and decided to be naughty and get smokes and claimed I would give the rest away when the party was over, but in the morning, there they were and it seemed so wasteful not to finish the pack. Just like that I was hooked all over again. Also, every time I quit I gained 30 pounds. Every. Single. Time.
With all this broiling around in my head, and all the stresses I’ve been dealing with and all the dealing with stresses I’ve been putting off, I was not thinking NOW IS THE TIME.
I knew I had a week long stretch where I would be staying with my sister to help her with the babies while her husband was traveling and the idea of this made me anxious because it would make smoking tricky. If I went outside a lot I would miss things. I would come in stinking of smoke and would have to scrub down before I would feel comfortable picking up babies. And because all this would be inconvenient I might not enjoy my time as much as I could. Butt disposal would be an issue. I thought these thoughts as I packed up my maker and tobacco and tubes, worried my supply would run out and wondering how inconvenient it would be for me to find a tobacco shop in an unfamiliar town. I seriously obsessed about it. Even AS it was pissing me off to obsess about it. I felt like a heroin addict trying to plan out where I might discretely shoot up if I were coming to babysit. Not that anyone else ever dared make such a ridiculous correlation, but the whole addiction thing swam into focus and made me really ashamed of myself. I knew it freaked me out, and I knew my non-smoking sister hated that I smoked, as do my children. It was TIME, but holy crap, what about the HOW of things?
I was nervous about the weaning period, afraid I would turn into an emotional asshole at exactly the worst time to be an emotional asshole. I was there to help, not turn into an angry addict in the throes of withdrawal. The entire drive up on Friday I smoked like crazy and talked to myself and vented a great deal of stress and anger and self pity and blah blah blah about everything but smoking, with no intention or expectation of quitting by Sunday. When I arrived I was stressed (I have a lot on my plate, seriously, it’s a heaping helping of WTF lately) and I was reflecting on how easy it is to help someone else cut the bullshit and see the path (they already know, I just help clarify, no meandering) but it’s so hard for me to do it for myself sometimes. I kept thinking “I wish I had a ME who could come and help me offload all this mental clutter” and then I thought, “Well, duh. I DO have a me. I already know the steps. I’m allowing myself to be shitty and proclaim that nothing is working and everything is hard. I am sucking the energy out of my own life”.
Puff. Exhale. Nausea, Puff. Exhale. Pretend this is relaxing. Puff. Exhale. Facepalm.
I arrived, I hung out, I pushed myself as long as I could before ducking out into the hot air to smoke and feel pretty unsatisfied about the whole thing. My boyfriend came over, he stayed inside while I went for a smoke again. I came in self-conscious and sat around in my invisible smoke suit and felt like crying because I hated the idea of giving up something I didn’t even love, like breaking up with a toxic friend and then feeling sad they were gone without really knowing why. I did not want to have that feeling. I did not want to have the feeling of wanting to avoid that feeling. Suddenly I was all about feelings. On Saturday I smoked twice. I went to bed tired and wiped out, but discovered that it was doable, even beneficial that I was not in my own environment and could avoid the traps I laid out for myself at home. I decided I would get some gum the next day and just see what happens. I had a lot of emotional conversations with my sister, snapshots of my own life where I was unforgiving of myself and pissed off about the waves of difficulties I’ve encountered, all my feelings right up at the spill point when I realized I was beating myself up pretty hard, like I had kind of made a profession of it. The emotional shit I really have to deal with has nothing to do with smoking. The smoking was an avoidance tactic. I worked through it. The gum helped. I never had a full on freak out but I could feel myself getting edgy sometimes, defensive and raw and kind of pitiful. I could usually track it down to craving and chewing gum helped.
Then I spent a few days with my boyfriend which were mostly lovely except for three stupid fights about my own turmoil and an overflowed toilet that had nothing to do with me, I was tapped out and crumpled up and crying for no reason and laughing because the crying was so embarrassing and my poor bewildered boyfriend was holding my sobbing head against his chest while I ugly cried all over his shirt and he exhaled in stunned empathy and finally understood I was not trying to make him mad, I was just a big old hot mess of snot and tears and big roller coaster feelings and he was my safety bar.
I am home again after being gone for 11 days. The car ride home was filled with urges to smoke because that’s what I did to renew my focus. Without it I sweltered in my busted AC/half stuck window heat box. I listened to the radio. I did not sing. There is a mid point of the drive where no good NPR comes in and I listened to some churchy AM talk show women going on about what Oprah meant when she said G.O.D. in her final show and whether it was a New Agey kind of thing where they were supposed to think Jesus was an energy or consciousness (and both words were used with such comical derision, because they KNEW him as a real man) or was she talking about their specific Lord? Apparently Oprah forgot to call her to specify, so it was all so terribly non-specific and this was terribly important because Oprah had so much INFLUENCE (and then the host said she wished she had as much influence as Oprah, which was obvious but also kind of sad and amusing for her to declare.) Then these two biddies went on to admonish Oprah for having a relationship “without the benefit of the sacrament” and noted that she had never done a pro life show. I don’t really give a shit either way, but the whole conversation was such an annoying and judgey missed-point rant that it made me want to slap them both. You might rightly imagine my great desire to smoke, my inner fiend trying to whip up extreme annoyance in an attempt to make my brain make my hand make a smoke and then make my lips smoke it. Though my remaining supply of lose tobacco and filtered papers rolled about the back of the van in a jaunty animal cracker tin, I never stopped the car to fetch it. I just drove for four sweltering hours, sad to leave Mike, emotionally jacked up and financially cranky.
So now I am home, and I put my ashtray in an away place (and thankfully the sight of it made me go, EEWWW). Woke up early and took the kids to school. Had my first morning coffee in the car with no smoke to go with it after dropping them off. Weird. Came home and did not smoke some more. Also weird. Not exactly a hardcore craving issue, more like a strange absence of doing. I am still chewing the gum and that’s been helping with the nic fits. Some people say it’s just swapping the addiction with the same addiction, but I’ve used patches and gum before and it helped without leaving me addicted to patches and gum. My real issue is the romantic nostalgic love of actually smoking, that’s the habit I have the hardest time letting go of. I’m not even chewing the recommended amount of gum (9-12 pieces? Sweet jeebus, I would vomit from that and I’m sure I smoked more than a pack a day.)
Gum has certainly made the transition away from the act of smoking bearable. I have not had a real honest to god slap yer mama kind of urge yet and I hope I never do. All this sudden “free time” is making me aware of how much time I wasted. I’ve been back in my own environment for about 24 hours now. I’m not smoking in it and that feels kind of weird, but I’m not sure why it should. I should be proud of myself I guess, but I’m also struggling with that. It’s like I bashed my head into the wall and then stopped and instead of patting myself on the back I'm wondering what kind of idiot does that in the first place? Congratulations on no longer being an idiot? And on the heels of the self-unfair harshness of that it occurs to me perhaps smoking was a way of expressing my own pointless self-loathing and now that I’m all done with the smoking it’s time to let go of that toxic habit as well.
This quit got a jump start because I thought I might need to quit soon, not because I HAD to, but because some of the perceived joy of it was now gone from the process. It occurred to me that I ought to at least pay attention to the Lorax in my own body that felt perhaps the Onceler oughtta fuck off and stop polluting up the place. I thought about that for a long time. Like pretty much every time my heart raced and I walked around alone in my house, swinging my arms and talking myself back to my happy heart place while doing stretches through an anxiety smack down, willing myself not to have a heart attack and deciding to take a just-in-case aspirin. Then I would pretend those moments were some kind of unrelated anomaly and the moment the feeling went away I would light up again. It isn’t like that happened ALL the time, but holy crap, shouldn't just once be enough?
This time quitting was a little easier because I had a lot of remorseful smoker moments banked up in my head and the circumstances that allowed me to be a comfortably dedicated smoker were starting to change around me. My sweetie had experienced a sense of disconnection from the health of his own body and he abruptly stopped smoking about a month ago. Just decided he needed some ridiculously expensive nicotine gum to get through the suck parts and he was done. I was very happy for him because quitting resolved the alarming health issues he was having, but I was also kind of selfishly sad because I had lost my smoking buddy. Smoking together (which I believed to be rather enjoyable) was no longer an option. I read that and marvel at the fact I felt so protective of my own habit that part of me felt sad that he had quit. What a confusing array of emotions! I got weirdly defensive even though he never asked me to quit. In fact, he told me it was for himself that he did it and that he would love me no matter if I quit or continued. And in my head I was like, “Yeah? Well...good for you... because...I do what I want! And... I guess I wanna... ya know... keep being dedicated to this shitty awesome habit I picked up... for now!... and stuff!”
There were many other things that had been occurring to me that made me believe that deep down I did not want to be a smoker, even as I pretended to myself that I was a cutting edge badass who looked really impressive and hot with a cigarette (an identity mostly crafted when I was 14 and thought smoking was intrinsic to being a grown up and also a key component of being a writer). I craft a lot and I was getting worried about selling stuff that smelled like smoke. I was so worried about I allowed my etsy store to expire. This is pretty ridiculous, but it sounds like such a silly problem compared to the fact that I was also having some trouble breathing. I could not belly laugh without coughing. I could not sing without coughing. Sometimes I would cough and a nasty chunk of lung shame would shoot out onto my hand. Revolting. When I got sick I smoked through it. I never kept track of how many smokes I had in a day because I rolled them myself. And then, I was sitting in my office, feeling anxious about my own future and stewing in the rage of mortality and thought “I will just have a cigarette” only to realize I was already smoking one. That was the moment I knew there was a monkey on my back, pulling my hair, rubbing its junk on my neck and poo-flinging all over my life while I was asking myself to please not protest because I liked the company.
I knew it was coming, but quitting also freaked me out. Last time I tried to quit it was horrid. I made it 10 days in a miserable state of deprivation and sadness, curled up on my bed crying like a junkie because I just wanted a fucking cigarette, like some kind of drug addled whackjob, totally ashamed of myself and super super angry. That is the thing I feared the most about quitting this time, and one of the reasons I put it off. I quit once for two years just because, only to dupe myself into believing I could be a casual smoker (hahahahainfinity). I quit for my children so I could be a healthy pregnant lady and also so I could nurse. It was easy then because smoking was revolting to me when I was pregnant. In fact, it was my first clue that something was up, it made me gag before I’d even missed my first period. But then I took it back up because I knew once I did nursing would be over, and after two kids and 350 gallons of breastmilk I saw it as a totally terrible way to reclaim my body as my own. I also quit for Katie’s 6th birthday because she asked me to. I quit for about six months. I threw a party and decided to be naughty and get smokes and claimed I would give the rest away when the party was over, but in the morning, there they were and it seemed so wasteful not to finish the pack. Just like that I was hooked all over again. Also, every time I quit I gained 30 pounds. Every. Single. Time.
With all this broiling around in my head, and all the stresses I’ve been dealing with and all the dealing with stresses I’ve been putting off, I was not thinking NOW IS THE TIME.
I knew I had a week long stretch where I would be staying with my sister to help her with the babies while her husband was traveling and the idea of this made me anxious because it would make smoking tricky. If I went outside a lot I would miss things. I would come in stinking of smoke and would have to scrub down before I would feel comfortable picking up babies. And because all this would be inconvenient I might not enjoy my time as much as I could. Butt disposal would be an issue. I thought these thoughts as I packed up my maker and tobacco and tubes, worried my supply would run out and wondering how inconvenient it would be for me to find a tobacco shop in an unfamiliar town. I seriously obsessed about it. Even AS it was pissing me off to obsess about it. I felt like a heroin addict trying to plan out where I might discretely shoot up if I were coming to babysit. Not that anyone else ever dared make such a ridiculous correlation, but the whole addiction thing swam into focus and made me really ashamed of myself. I knew it freaked me out, and I knew my non-smoking sister hated that I smoked, as do my children. It was TIME, but holy crap, what about the HOW of things?
I was nervous about the weaning period, afraid I would turn into an emotional asshole at exactly the worst time to be an emotional asshole. I was there to help, not turn into an angry addict in the throes of withdrawal. The entire drive up on Friday I smoked like crazy and talked to myself and vented a great deal of stress and anger and self pity and blah blah blah about everything but smoking, with no intention or expectation of quitting by Sunday. When I arrived I was stressed (I have a lot on my plate, seriously, it’s a heaping helping of WTF lately) and I was reflecting on how easy it is to help someone else cut the bullshit and see the path (they already know, I just help clarify, no meandering) but it’s so hard for me to do it for myself sometimes. I kept thinking “I wish I had a ME who could come and help me offload all this mental clutter” and then I thought, “Well, duh. I DO have a me. I already know the steps. I’m allowing myself to be shitty and proclaim that nothing is working and everything is hard. I am sucking the energy out of my own life”.
Puff. Exhale. Nausea, Puff. Exhale. Pretend this is relaxing. Puff. Exhale. Facepalm.
I arrived, I hung out, I pushed myself as long as I could before ducking out into the hot air to smoke and feel pretty unsatisfied about the whole thing. My boyfriend came over, he stayed inside while I went for a smoke again. I came in self-conscious and sat around in my invisible smoke suit and felt like crying because I hated the idea of giving up something I didn’t even love, like breaking up with a toxic friend and then feeling sad they were gone without really knowing why. I did not want to have that feeling. I did not want to have the feeling of wanting to avoid that feeling. Suddenly I was all about feelings. On Saturday I smoked twice. I went to bed tired and wiped out, but discovered that it was doable, even beneficial that I was not in my own environment and could avoid the traps I laid out for myself at home. I decided I would get some gum the next day and just see what happens. I had a lot of emotional conversations with my sister, snapshots of my own life where I was unforgiving of myself and pissed off about the waves of difficulties I’ve encountered, all my feelings right up at the spill point when I realized I was beating myself up pretty hard, like I had kind of made a profession of it. The emotional shit I really have to deal with has nothing to do with smoking. The smoking was an avoidance tactic. I worked through it. The gum helped. I never had a full on freak out but I could feel myself getting edgy sometimes, defensive and raw and kind of pitiful. I could usually track it down to craving and chewing gum helped.
Then I spent a few days with my boyfriend which were mostly lovely except for three stupid fights about my own turmoil and an overflowed toilet that had nothing to do with me, I was tapped out and crumpled up and crying for no reason and laughing because the crying was so embarrassing and my poor bewildered boyfriend was holding my sobbing head against his chest while I ugly cried all over his shirt and he exhaled in stunned empathy and finally understood I was not trying to make him mad, I was just a big old hot mess of snot and tears and big roller coaster feelings and he was my safety bar.
I am home again after being gone for 11 days. The car ride home was filled with urges to smoke because that’s what I did to renew my focus. Without it I sweltered in my busted AC/half stuck window heat box. I listened to the radio. I did not sing. There is a mid point of the drive where no good NPR comes in and I listened to some churchy AM talk show women going on about what Oprah meant when she said G.O.D. in her final show and whether it was a New Agey kind of thing where they were supposed to think Jesus was an energy or consciousness (and both words were used with such comical derision, because they KNEW him as a real man) or was she talking about their specific Lord? Apparently Oprah forgot to call her to specify, so it was all so terribly non-specific and this was terribly important because Oprah had so much INFLUENCE (and then the host said she wished she had as much influence as Oprah, which was obvious but also kind of sad and amusing for her to declare.) Then these two biddies went on to admonish Oprah for having a relationship “without the benefit of the sacrament” and noted that she had never done a pro life show. I don’t really give a shit either way, but the whole conversation was such an annoying and judgey missed-point rant that it made me want to slap them both. You might rightly imagine my great desire to smoke, my inner fiend trying to whip up extreme annoyance in an attempt to make my brain make my hand make a smoke and then make my lips smoke it. Though my remaining supply of lose tobacco and filtered papers rolled about the back of the van in a jaunty animal cracker tin, I never stopped the car to fetch it. I just drove for four sweltering hours, sad to leave Mike, emotionally jacked up and financially cranky.
So now I am home, and I put my ashtray in an away place (and thankfully the sight of it made me go, EEWWW). Woke up early and took the kids to school. Had my first morning coffee in the car with no smoke to go with it after dropping them off. Weird. Came home and did not smoke some more. Also weird. Not exactly a hardcore craving issue, more like a strange absence of doing. I am still chewing the gum and that’s been helping with the nic fits. Some people say it’s just swapping the addiction with the same addiction, but I’ve used patches and gum before and it helped without leaving me addicted to patches and gum. My real issue is the romantic nostalgic love of actually smoking, that’s the habit I have the hardest time letting go of. I’m not even chewing the recommended amount of gum (9-12 pieces? Sweet jeebus, I would vomit from that and I’m sure I smoked more than a pack a day.)
Gum has certainly made the transition away from the act of smoking bearable. I have not had a real honest to god slap yer mama kind of urge yet and I hope I never do. All this sudden “free time” is making me aware of how much time I wasted. I’ve been back in my own environment for about 24 hours now. I’m not smoking in it and that feels kind of weird, but I’m not sure why it should. I should be proud of myself I guess, but I’m also struggling with that. It’s like I bashed my head into the wall and then stopped and instead of patting myself on the back I'm wondering what kind of idiot does that in the first place? Congratulations on no longer being an idiot? And on the heels of the self-unfair harshness of that it occurs to me perhaps smoking was a way of expressing my own pointless self-loathing and now that I’m all done with the smoking it’s time to let go of that toxic habit as well.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Bed is clearly for flat chocolate only
I reluctantly bought a four pack of Cadbury Creme eggs. #4 was a real asshole.
First Egg had all the action, being the One I really wanted, apparently not because they are actually delicious, only because I always manage to psyche myself up about their deliciousness in some odd loyalty to a vague memory of once really enjoying one. So when I see this silly once a year thing I go "OMG delicious!" and I am compelled to get one. Except they only came in four packs and it was the day before Easter and for fear I might not have my slightly disappointing Cadbury Creme egg moment at all, I bought the damn four pack. I peeled back the foil, bit a little off the top and sucked out the sugar bits. My gratitude that the egg was no bigger kicked in and I began to wonder, if I had really REALLY enjoyed that shouldn't I be sad to come to the end of it rather than kind of glad it was over? Is it possible that these are not at all as delicious as I once thought? Could the recipe have changed? Might it be a side effect of being a grown ass woman that cheap sugar blobs no longer hold the same appeal? Was the love truly over?
Egg Two - A few days later I remembered I had more creme eggs, but did not remember that I decided I don't actually like them, so I ate one. I pulled back the foil and tried to bite off the top but it cracked in half and my mouth was flooded with far too much cheap chocolate at once. The inside was runny, which is normally kind of the weird creme egg holy grail for me, but this time, with such a breech in the shell, it came at me faster than I could eat it and just got all over my hand. I don't like having sticky hands. Creme eggs were starting to get on my nerves.
Egg Three - Several days later I again remembered that I had two more creme eggs. I resolved to eat one as though I'd never tasted it before. Without nostalgia as a motivator for eating it in the first place, and with a resolve to actually taste it, I found it to be kind of disgusting. The chocolate was pretty gross and I sensed a burnt flavor with a stingy sort of chemical essence which is probably glossed over by the inner sugar blob. The innards were gloopy and stiff, granular and slightly nauseating, with that odd yellow food colored center. I suddenly imagined this is an actual raw egg and recalled with an entire body rush just exactly how revolting I find runny egg yolk. Seriously, the only time watching something almost made me throw up was during a random channel change to Fear Factor where I saw a woman try to drink a pint glass of raw ostrich egg. I can't even talk about it without gagging.
Egg Four - It wasn't looking good for egg four. I was debating just chucking it in the trash, but that seemed so wasteful. I didn't forget about this one. I knew it was there, lurking in a basket in my office, next to some Oriental Rice Crackers and horehound throat lozenges. I'd spent the day moving things around in my basement and hurting my back and had decided to climb into bed with a book and allow myself to relax. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to take the egg with me because chocolate and reading in bed is one of my top secret favorite things. I settled in with my book and told myself, "I will eat this egg in bed! With my book! Slowly, slowly! And I will not even consider thinking about raw eggs or that an egg posing as chocolate is still pretty disgusting, and I won't think these thoughts because I worked really hard today and my back hurts and I have a sweet tooth, and this creme egg is right here and not to eat it would be wasteful!" But I couldn't dissociate the creme egg from the pint glass of horror or keep my mind from humming the words, "Would you like to become a fat ass diabetic?" and I asked myself, "Self? Do you really want to eat this thing?" and the answer was no. And because I was cozy, I left the egg on the other pillow (where I had placed it for easy reach) and after half a paragraph, I was asleep.
In the night the egg made other plans, though I knew nothing about them until this morning. Like a dazed detective I have pieced together the events. All my mean creme egg thoughts must have penetrated the gaudy foil and headed straight to the fondant. I imagine it rocking and muttering, boiling with rage. Or you know, I shifted and it just naturally rolled toward me, but whatever, by the time it barreled at me in the night it was a nasty little ball of burnt sugar on a suicide mission. Like a sneaky little Easter zombie it went for my neck. It melted under the foil and leaked out all over everything, leaving a sizable chunk of my hair matted with dried sugar crumbles and fakey chocolate. It stuck my necklace to the tiny tender hairs at the nape of my neck and smeared my cheek with gore. It had its way with the sheets. I found its flattened husk pressed between my ear and my pillow, whispering me awake, "HAHA I was manufactured with hfcs and zombie vampire juice in a Canadian factory by a company that makes pretty sub-par chocolate where no bunny knows what the hell eggs or bunnies have to do with each other or Easter in the first damn place and now you've gone and made me feel bad about it, so I showed you! You think you're so cosmopolitan with your international sweet tooth and quaint little treat dreams and book reading and your big clean bed! I didn't ask to be number four! Now you have the first world problem of a lot of laundry to do because you brought round chocolate to bed, you idiot!"
And I was like, "OH NO YOU DIH-UNT" And now the creme egg whose name was asshole, who melted all the time and tried to eat my neck, is resting at very bottom of the trash can and I am doing a lot of laundry.
First Egg had all the action, being the One I really wanted, apparently not because they are actually delicious, only because I always manage to psyche myself up about their deliciousness in some odd loyalty to a vague memory of once really enjoying one. So when I see this silly once a year thing I go "OMG delicious!" and I am compelled to get one. Except they only came in four packs and it was the day before Easter and for fear I might not have my slightly disappointing Cadbury Creme egg moment at all, I bought the damn four pack. I peeled back the foil, bit a little off the top and sucked out the sugar bits. My gratitude that the egg was no bigger kicked in and I began to wonder, if I had really REALLY enjoyed that shouldn't I be sad to come to the end of it rather than kind of glad it was over? Is it possible that these are not at all as delicious as I once thought? Could the recipe have changed? Might it be a side effect of being a grown ass woman that cheap sugar blobs no longer hold the same appeal? Was the love truly over?
Egg Two - A few days later I remembered I had more creme eggs, but did not remember that I decided I don't actually like them, so I ate one. I pulled back the foil and tried to bite off the top but it cracked in half and my mouth was flooded with far too much cheap chocolate at once. The inside was runny, which is normally kind of the weird creme egg holy grail for me, but this time, with such a breech in the shell, it came at me faster than I could eat it and just got all over my hand. I don't like having sticky hands. Creme eggs were starting to get on my nerves.
Egg Three - Several days later I again remembered that I had two more creme eggs. I resolved to eat one as though I'd never tasted it before. Without nostalgia as a motivator for eating it in the first place, and with a resolve to actually taste it, I found it to be kind of disgusting. The chocolate was pretty gross and I sensed a burnt flavor with a stingy sort of chemical essence which is probably glossed over by the inner sugar blob. The innards were gloopy and stiff, granular and slightly nauseating, with that odd yellow food colored center. I suddenly imagined this is an actual raw egg and recalled with an entire body rush just exactly how revolting I find runny egg yolk. Seriously, the only time watching something almost made me throw up was during a random channel change to Fear Factor where I saw a woman try to drink a pint glass of raw ostrich egg. I can't even talk about it without gagging.
Egg Four - It wasn't looking good for egg four. I was debating just chucking it in the trash, but that seemed so wasteful. I didn't forget about this one. I knew it was there, lurking in a basket in my office, next to some Oriental Rice Crackers and horehound throat lozenges. I'd spent the day moving things around in my basement and hurting my back and had decided to climb into bed with a book and allow myself to relax. Somehow I thought it would be a good idea to take the egg with me because chocolate and reading in bed is one of my top secret favorite things. I settled in with my book and told myself, "I will eat this egg in bed! With my book! Slowly, slowly! And I will not even consider thinking about raw eggs or that an egg posing as chocolate is still pretty disgusting, and I won't think these thoughts because I worked really hard today and my back hurts and I have a sweet tooth, and this creme egg is right here and not to eat it would be wasteful!" But I couldn't dissociate the creme egg from the pint glass of horror or keep my mind from humming the words, "Would you like to become a fat ass diabetic?" and I asked myself, "Self? Do you really want to eat this thing?" and the answer was no. And because I was cozy, I left the egg on the other pillow (where I had placed it for easy reach) and after half a paragraph, I was asleep.
In the night the egg made other plans, though I knew nothing about them until this morning. Like a dazed detective I have pieced together the events. All my mean creme egg thoughts must have penetrated the gaudy foil and headed straight to the fondant. I imagine it rocking and muttering, boiling with rage. Or you know, I shifted and it just naturally rolled toward me, but whatever, by the time it barreled at me in the night it was a nasty little ball of burnt sugar on a suicide mission. Like a sneaky little Easter zombie it went for my neck. It melted under the foil and leaked out all over everything, leaving a sizable chunk of my hair matted with dried sugar crumbles and fakey chocolate. It stuck my necklace to the tiny tender hairs at the nape of my neck and smeared my cheek with gore. It had its way with the sheets. I found its flattened husk pressed between my ear and my pillow, whispering me awake, "HAHA I was manufactured with hfcs and zombie vampire juice in a Canadian factory by a company that makes pretty sub-par chocolate where no bunny knows what the hell eggs or bunnies have to do with each other or Easter in the first damn place and now you've gone and made me feel bad about it, so I showed you! You think you're so cosmopolitan with your international sweet tooth and quaint little treat dreams and book reading and your big clean bed! I didn't ask to be number four! Now you have the first world problem of a lot of laundry to do because you brought round chocolate to bed, you idiot!"
And I was like, "OH NO YOU DIH-UNT" And now the creme egg whose name was asshole, who melted all the time and tried to eat my neck, is resting at very bottom of the trash can and I am doing a lot of laundry.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
No monkeys allowed
When I was a kid the thing I wanted more than even lunch or a brand new Trapper Keeper was a monkey. I had hardcore monkey lust. I was pretty certain I would have been Jane Goodall Jr. if I could just convince my mom we should get a monkey. She claimed we could not. She claimed they would "masturbate all the time", which was not a good reason. A better reason was the one my father gave me. He said his Dad won a spider monkey in a bet and that it was AWESOME. For three days. And then it would sit on his shoulder, put its arm around his neck and shit down his back. So, I never got my monkey.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
OK Spring, hurry up and get here
little green fingers
spring through the soil, hoping
to rip down winter.
spring through the soil, hoping
to rip down winter.
25 word stories of dubious goodness
He was mocked by her cherry red Popsicle mouth for only having a nickel. Sitting curbside, sucking hot cinnamon from a toothpick, he hated her.
****
His intentions were good, but mental illness fucked his berries. Just ask the stain. It would take an expert to figure out what she didn't.
****
When he showed her his plan for The Perfect House, it included no room for her. They stopped taking silly quizes. She relented. She's homeless.
****
Maggie thought Reginold was amazing. She hated that his friends remembered him as the guy who puked in his hat and put it back on.
****
He awoke once again, in a diaper, with a rash and shameful hangover, and could finally admit he was the adult baby of an alcoholic.
****
Horrified my family would allow Grandma to lay her head on a dead maggoty horse, I sped off in my rocket car to the bathroom.
****
They made smooth from rough, over time shuffling into each other like a deck of cards. He whispered to her fingertips, “Now we play”.
****
Adelaide wished to be sensual, pliant, saturated with providence, but unlike Frida Kahlo, could never embrace or manage her uni-brow, and instead read a lot.
****
The bed sagged from a time when two fat people had once awkwardly fucked and slept. He was gone, she was thinner, the dip remained.
****
Thank you, thank you, thank you, who am I? Chain smoking, terrified, trying to recall the plot of the shit show she'd just starred in.
****
Geared up, they slipped through the sewer grate to find the under city tunnel party. They were in the cave so long bones became boring.
****
She had an emotionally nutritious sweetie, sometimes distant, sometimes inside her. His fierce grasp on some wonderful things also slipped on others. Hers did too.
****
Standing in a kitchen sunbeam, melting a tiny bit of frozen orange juice concentrate on my tongue, an entire orange grove reconstituted in my mind.
****
Horns and hips rolling, a saunter. A meander. Strings and beats. Deft hands working the sound from everything; the stones all worn smooth from dancing.
****
Over and over it would rain so they could not dig the body up. They'd have to accept that no one could win the argument.
****
The neighbors vacuumed at 3am. I thought, “CRAY-ZEEE!” Turns out, they were trying to suck up a real demon! Can you believe that shit?
****
His intentions were good, but mental illness fucked his berries. Just ask the stain. It would take an expert to figure out what she didn't.
****
When he showed her his plan for The Perfect House, it included no room for her. They stopped taking silly quizes. She relented. She's homeless.
****
Maggie thought Reginold was amazing. She hated that his friends remembered him as the guy who puked in his hat and put it back on.
****
He awoke once again, in a diaper, with a rash and shameful hangover, and could finally admit he was the adult baby of an alcoholic.
****
Horrified my family would allow Grandma to lay her head on a dead maggoty horse, I sped off in my rocket car to the bathroom.
****
They made smooth from rough, over time shuffling into each other like a deck of cards. He whispered to her fingertips, “Now we play”.
****
Adelaide wished to be sensual, pliant, saturated with providence, but unlike Frida Kahlo, could never embrace or manage her uni-brow, and instead read a lot.
****
The bed sagged from a time when two fat people had once awkwardly fucked and slept. He was gone, she was thinner, the dip remained.
****
Thank you, thank you, thank you, who am I? Chain smoking, terrified, trying to recall the plot of the shit show she'd just starred in.
****
Geared up, they slipped through the sewer grate to find the under city tunnel party. They were in the cave so long bones became boring.
****
She had an emotionally nutritious sweetie, sometimes distant, sometimes inside her. His fierce grasp on some wonderful things also slipped on others. Hers did too.
****
Standing in a kitchen sunbeam, melting a tiny bit of frozen orange juice concentrate on my tongue, an entire orange grove reconstituted in my mind.
****
Horns and hips rolling, a saunter. A meander. Strings and beats. Deft hands working the sound from everything; the stones all worn smooth from dancing.
****
Over and over it would rain so they could not dig the body up. They'd have to accept that no one could win the argument.
****
The neighbors vacuumed at 3am. I thought, “CRAY-ZEEE!” Turns out, they were trying to suck up a real demon! Can you believe that shit?
Monday, January 10, 2011
Nothing like a good old fashioned exorcism
I knew I was cold but I wouldn't believe it until I looked at the thermostat. I was right. I am cold.
----
Him in the bed is the best drug. Warm and sweet and gorgeous. When I was there last we went to bed very late every night, after staying up to watch movies and then talk about them. Usually some time between four and six AM. Then the timebending mindblowing, which lasts exactly as long as it should. Then the sweet actual rest that comes without worry. The first rising. The looking over and knowing this is real life, plus the heartfelt joy and gratitude of of that. It's very strong. It's huge. It nestles us back to a new melding, a warm twining. Skin to skin is a recharge. I know we need as much of that as we can get. His arms are very long. One alone can wrap around me entirely but there are two. He whispers to me in the dark, sometimes fully conscious, sometimes at just the barest edge of it, but always the same message... “I've got you. I love you. This. Is. The. Best. Thing.” No wonder we don't get up early. There is nothing sweeter than those moments. The saddest part comes the second night alone again, with 200 miles between us. All the distractions of being “home” again are less urgent. My bed feels lumpy and terrible and there is no joy in getting in or out of it. I am always two places at once as long as my sweetie and my children are in two different states, which will probably always be the case, which breaks me in half.
I fantasized with my fourteen year old self that one day I would live alone with plants and cats and I could listen to whatever I wanted and be sad any damn time I felt like it and no one could tell me to feel any finer than I actually felt. Then, because my life took a long time making that even possible, the idea got shoved way down, only to push it's way up long after I had forgotten I'd ever planted it. Now it's a thorny weed. It chokes things when I am out of town. I have to do a lot of swearing and slashing to clear a path big enough to get in and wake up the princess. Right now she's trapped in there. I can't even tell where the damn door is. Sadness sucks the doing out of the day.
Going home is so full of intense emotional geography. I pass all these landmarks with terrible memories trapped in them. I pass the Ram's Horn where I worked the night shift and the spot up the road where I once avoided a 4am assault by making insane chicken noises until the guy ran away. I pass the giant gothic high school where I suffered through my own tortured young poetry and messy understanding of how things worked. The house where I was raped at sixteen by a thirty two year old construction worker who assured me beforehand that everyone else in his family was a lawyer. My best friend's house where every interior wall was pink, where I was granted emancipation, which was a refuge until it wasn't. I pass the donut shop, pie shop and Target I worked at, concurrently. The cockroach infested apartment on Horger where the prostitute lived upstairs and worked out of the bedroom above mine. The haunted house on Robindale where the walls shook; the house I escaped earlier than expected but then had to slink back into when Oregon turned out not to be my home either. The apartment on Appoline where I listened at the heater vent and heard my mother OD on cocaine in the apartment downstairs. The church on Altar road where my mother stood and drunkenly shouted her many abysmal sins. I pass too near the horrid ghetto apartment in Taylor where my parents still live, where their hoarding got out of control, where I was made to understand I was worthless and regrettable by both of them, the last place I lived before hitching another ride with the same wrong man and starting over in Ohio. Past the house of the ex-boyfriend where things far too old for me took place as often as I could manage it. Past the apartment where the tree fell and crushed my father's car, where my mother's stupid friend Stanly told me if I tried to strike out on my own the best I could do for myself would be to become a hooker, where we washed our laundry in the bathtub, where my mother got me a cat and then hated me for loving it and got rid of it. Past the Detroit public school where I attended 6th grade, where I was once shoved into an alcove and very aggressively groped. Past the chunk of Warren where I took up cigarettes so I could walk with the boy who always asked for a smoke but kept on going when I didn't have any. Smoking was safer than being alone after a gang of over-ripe 8th grade boys followed me on my long walk home, trading stories of the vile things they planned to do to my twelve year old body. Past the place where I was once hit by a car while riding my bike down Ford Road. Biking down Ford Road is an insane and foolhardy action, there are no sidewalks, there is no bike lane. But I had flunked gym because I hated it, and I flunked algebra twice because my glasses broke in half and without them I couldn't see a damned thing. I was trying to get to summer school (which I had paid for myself on the threat that I would never graduate). My parents wouldn't give me a ride and the buses didn't run like that. I was hit by a car and flung onto the lawn of The Ford World Headquarters. My bike was destroyed. I remember lying in the grass, winded and shaken, staring a the bluest sky through the spinning spokes of the one good wheel left on my upside down bike, thinking OK, that's it. There goes my future. I flunked summer school because I couldn't get there. I entered 11th grade at yet another new school knowing I was already one credit shy of graduating, only to learn there were new standards there and I was two credits shy. My life outside of school had not gotten any easier. I filed for emancipation and moved in with my friend. I finished 11th grade and moved to Oregon. I got three stupid jobs at a time. I never went back to school again. I moved into my future as a brilliant fuck up, scrambling out of holes like a champ because I never had the guidance or self worth to avoid the holes in the first place.
Memory Lane is pretty much full of high speed potholes. It's a good thing there ARE lovely parts to going home. Maybe one day I will detail those things instead of this dreadful list. I feel like I am supposed to be doing that now, since all this talk of insanely crappy things is bumming me out. There are beautiful parts but apparently those things don't press the keyboard right now. It's just this sucky haze of Man That Used to Suck, and It Sucks How Much That Sucks and Wow, How Interestingly Sucky My Own Patterns Are. I woke up and my internal voice was like, “Wake up asshole, you have to figure your life out.” So I went back to sleep and had a lot of dreams. Lately my dreams are like driving past those landmarks. Maybe I am resolving things there. Maybe that's where these sustained bursts of late night typing come from.
Mike thinks I should write it all down. “Think of it like a story that doesn't belong to you and it will be easier.” Sometimes I can do that. I should probably figure it out. I'm on the lawn again, peeking through the one good wheel. How did I get here? How can I fix this? I'm still trying to figure out how to meet my own basic needs.
----
Him in the bed is the best drug. Warm and sweet and gorgeous. When I was there last we went to bed very late every night, after staying up to watch movies and then talk about them. Usually some time between four and six AM. Then the timebending mindblowing, which lasts exactly as long as it should. Then the sweet actual rest that comes without worry. The first rising. The looking over and knowing this is real life, plus the heartfelt joy and gratitude of of that. It's very strong. It's huge. It nestles us back to a new melding, a warm twining. Skin to skin is a recharge. I know we need as much of that as we can get. His arms are very long. One alone can wrap around me entirely but there are two. He whispers to me in the dark, sometimes fully conscious, sometimes at just the barest edge of it, but always the same message... “I've got you. I love you. This. Is. The. Best. Thing.” No wonder we don't get up early. There is nothing sweeter than those moments. The saddest part comes the second night alone again, with 200 miles between us. All the distractions of being “home” again are less urgent. My bed feels lumpy and terrible and there is no joy in getting in or out of it. I am always two places at once as long as my sweetie and my children are in two different states, which will probably always be the case, which breaks me in half.
I fantasized with my fourteen year old self that one day I would live alone with plants and cats and I could listen to whatever I wanted and be sad any damn time I felt like it and no one could tell me to feel any finer than I actually felt. Then, because my life took a long time making that even possible, the idea got shoved way down, only to push it's way up long after I had forgotten I'd ever planted it. Now it's a thorny weed. It chokes things when I am out of town. I have to do a lot of swearing and slashing to clear a path big enough to get in and wake up the princess. Right now she's trapped in there. I can't even tell where the damn door is. Sadness sucks the doing out of the day.
Going home is so full of intense emotional geography. I pass all these landmarks with terrible memories trapped in them. I pass the Ram's Horn where I worked the night shift and the spot up the road where I once avoided a 4am assault by making insane chicken noises until the guy ran away. I pass the giant gothic high school where I suffered through my own tortured young poetry and messy understanding of how things worked. The house where I was raped at sixteen by a thirty two year old construction worker who assured me beforehand that everyone else in his family was a lawyer. My best friend's house where every interior wall was pink, where I was granted emancipation, which was a refuge until it wasn't. I pass the donut shop, pie shop and Target I worked at, concurrently. The cockroach infested apartment on Horger where the prostitute lived upstairs and worked out of the bedroom above mine. The haunted house on Robindale where the walls shook; the house I escaped earlier than expected but then had to slink back into when Oregon turned out not to be my home either. The apartment on Appoline where I listened at the heater vent and heard my mother OD on cocaine in the apartment downstairs. The church on Altar road where my mother stood and drunkenly shouted her many abysmal sins. I pass too near the horrid ghetto apartment in Taylor where my parents still live, where their hoarding got out of control, where I was made to understand I was worthless and regrettable by both of them, the last place I lived before hitching another ride with the same wrong man and starting over in Ohio. Past the house of the ex-boyfriend where things far too old for me took place as often as I could manage it. Past the apartment where the tree fell and crushed my father's car, where my mother's stupid friend Stanly told me if I tried to strike out on my own the best I could do for myself would be to become a hooker, where we washed our laundry in the bathtub, where my mother got me a cat and then hated me for loving it and got rid of it. Past the Detroit public school where I attended 6th grade, where I was once shoved into an alcove and very aggressively groped. Past the chunk of Warren where I took up cigarettes so I could walk with the boy who always asked for a smoke but kept on going when I didn't have any. Smoking was safer than being alone after a gang of over-ripe 8th grade boys followed me on my long walk home, trading stories of the vile things they planned to do to my twelve year old body. Past the place where I was once hit by a car while riding my bike down Ford Road. Biking down Ford Road is an insane and foolhardy action, there are no sidewalks, there is no bike lane. But I had flunked gym because I hated it, and I flunked algebra twice because my glasses broke in half and without them I couldn't see a damned thing. I was trying to get to summer school (which I had paid for myself on the threat that I would never graduate). My parents wouldn't give me a ride and the buses didn't run like that. I was hit by a car and flung onto the lawn of The Ford World Headquarters. My bike was destroyed. I remember lying in the grass, winded and shaken, staring a the bluest sky through the spinning spokes of the one good wheel left on my upside down bike, thinking OK, that's it. There goes my future. I flunked summer school because I couldn't get there. I entered 11th grade at yet another new school knowing I was already one credit shy of graduating, only to learn there were new standards there and I was two credits shy. My life outside of school had not gotten any easier. I filed for emancipation and moved in with my friend. I finished 11th grade and moved to Oregon. I got three stupid jobs at a time. I never went back to school again. I moved into my future as a brilliant fuck up, scrambling out of holes like a champ because I never had the guidance or self worth to avoid the holes in the first place.
Memory Lane is pretty much full of high speed potholes. It's a good thing there ARE lovely parts to going home. Maybe one day I will detail those things instead of this dreadful list. I feel like I am supposed to be doing that now, since all this talk of insanely crappy things is bumming me out. There are beautiful parts but apparently those things don't press the keyboard right now. It's just this sucky haze of Man That Used to Suck, and It Sucks How Much That Sucks and Wow, How Interestingly Sucky My Own Patterns Are. I woke up and my internal voice was like, “Wake up asshole, you have to figure your life out.” So I went back to sleep and had a lot of dreams. Lately my dreams are like driving past those landmarks. Maybe I am resolving things there. Maybe that's where these sustained bursts of late night typing come from.
Mike thinks I should write it all down. “Think of it like a story that doesn't belong to you and it will be easier.” Sometimes I can do that. I should probably figure it out. I'm on the lawn again, peeking through the one good wheel. How did I get here? How can I fix this? I'm still trying to figure out how to meet my own basic needs.
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