I only read poetry and philosophy books lately, mostly because I think they’re the same thing when done well. Maybe I don’t have the patience for fiction anymore. But I keep finding myself standing in front of philosophy books and feeling dizzy and impatient. I want to absorb them without opening any, and then produce endless poetry books, all scribbled and precise. I read things like this, and think, why can’t I write that? Do I need to be a 60-year-old Turkish man? Am I too American?
I need to smash more things to be a poet. I’m relatively quiet on most days, hunched in corners and waiting for things to happen to me. When they do happen, I disengage and come home and write down everything I remember, but in the end, the details are sifted until what’s left might not even be real — fat, ringless fingers and spinning girls in gold disco shirts. What event do these moments even belong to? I don’t remember anymore. I keep reading these books to find out, to shake free my locked memories. I do and I don’t recognize myself in the passages, but, really, it’s mostly just the words — flung, busted, tired bird, concrete.
My body isn’t used to a fourth floor apartment. When I walk in the living room and look into the street, I get vertigo and nausea, a motion sickness without moving. I keep practicing by sitting by the window and staring hard at the horizon, forcing my body to adjust. I take my books and read a chapter of each, rotating, while leaning against the open window. My eyes don’t focus. It’s like being in a boat on dry land. I keep looking and looking, but I can’t seem to find anything without turning my stomach into a wobbly drunk.
AOL 1075 free hours
Cat hypochondria
Butterfly bandage
Aloe vera
IKEA in regards to Dante, see: 7th Circle of Hell
Cat ass
Curly hair, see: stick straight hair entire life until six months ago, also see: no perm involved
Tea kettle excitement
Normal updates to resume when I have internet that doesn’t involve a southern man telling me I have mail. In the meantime, I’m updating pictures here and there.
First night in the new apartment yesterday. We don’t have internet yet or anything to watch movies on, so Chris and I sat on the couch with our new cat, Raza (formerly known as Bean Pie), and stared at each other. Then I tried to take a shower, and man, learning a new shower might be one of the most horrifying experiences of all mankind. The pipes in our building are 60 years old, so the water ran copper for a while, and then dwindled to a pale yellow. Then I discovered there are no outlets in the bathroom or near the bathroom, so I entertained Chris a while by drying my hair in the middle of the living room. I have a very specific hair-drying ritual, involving singing certain songs to time the drying, all depending on the length of my hair at the time. This morning, the new cat Raza pounced on our heads at 6 AM, and so, we are now learning a new apartment and a new cat.
In the near future, I will have pictures and writing and less nervous breakdowns. Tonight: taxidermy party.
Well. I’ve been slowly moving all my stuff into the new apartment and will start living there this weekend. I also adopted a cat from the humane society. Her name is Bean Pie. I’m not kidding. Also, my Mom was here for a week, and then she left. I got an A in my class this semester. I’m taking a summer class, then going full-time school, plus part-time work in the Fall to finally finish up my degree. Thanks, seven years of college! Do you sort of feel like you have no idea what’s going in my life? Because I’m not sure I know what’s going on. This year has been so eventful. Which is a rather boring way of saying HOLY SHIT PLEASE SLOW DOWN. Except I sort of like the exciting parts, the ones with whiskey and groggy mornings. The cat is good, too. The moving and the few hours I spent this weekend seriously thinking I was having a stress-induced stroke — not so much.
For the second time in my life, I fell hands-first on the cactus in the kitchen. I always think this should be a sign of some sort, but I don’t believe in jinxing anymore.
In the bookstore today, I was clutching two poetry book (people with poetry books always “clutch”), and then I was standing in the philosophy section, looking at all the titles and I was sort of amazed how I could find a title for each chaotic problem in my head. I had one of those moments where I felt in love with learning and academia and poetry and words and the people that inspire me to want these things, and I stood in front of the books, my chest congested with some sort of phlegmy cold, my shoulders tense from a stupid day at work, and I felt okay, like — tomorrow, I will go into work and be in situations I’d rather not be in, but at least I have memories like this locked away somewhere. So they can’t take it, whoever “they” are. But I think, really, if you have to declare posession over something like this, if you have to announce its walls, it’s already a little bit gone.
You hate to say — I sat on the floor tonight and read through Charles Bukowski and his poems about his Scarlet, his redhead, and felt something twist and lift — but sometimes, things happen that way. Sometimes it’s the only way things happen for me.
I wonder when I’ll ever tell you the truth.
I am way too fucking curious about people. Once I find out something slightly interesting about a person, I seriously want to know absolutely everything about them and, if drinking, will question them obnoxiously until I’ve elicted every dirty skeletony secret they have. I always assume people are holding back, but maybe some aren’t. I hold back — I don’t mind sharing surface things or comparative stories, but I never want to share anything darker.
I was standing on the fringes of a club with a friend the other night and we were yelling at each other over the music. I kept saying, “Tell me secret,” and he would, and then I’d repeat my question, and he kept telling me things, all sorts of beautiful and disgusting stories. He finally grabbed my elbow and shouted, “Now tell me yours!” And I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t say anything. All my secrets seem too silly or personal or uncomfortable. So I gave him my best eyebrow-raise (which is no raise at all) and ran off to the bathroom, where I sat in the stall and tried desperately to think of something interesting. When I came out, he was standing where I left him, his hand still extended where my elbow had been. I leaned in and said, “I’m not ticklish. That’s my secret,” and he didn’t say anything, just let the moment slide by, and we both went back to the dance floor, disappointed.
Everyone seems to know the basic things: I’m scared of driving on highways. I’m scared of flying. I’m scared of swimming. I am not scared of drinking too much or kissing someone first. I am not scared of talking to people I don’t know at parties or falling down the stairs. When I was eleven, I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. I lost my virginity to a gay boy when I was 17, though he was only bi-sexual then. I have dated or had one-or-two-night-stands with a pilot, an actor, a professor and a frat boy. I am scared of the wrinkles forming on the corner of my mouths and I’m scared of being ditzy and young.
I don’t think any of this tells anyone anything. When I think of where I’d like to escape to, I have visions of cutting off my hair and living in a rainforest with chimapanzees and slowly getting sunburned and dirty until I don’t care about sun or dirt, or, rather, until I care only about sun and dirt. Maybe that says something, but I don’t think so.
I’ve been sort of getting things published in a lot of places, and not telling anyone. I can’t imagine what would happen if I actually published a popular novel. I would have to move to an underground island and sing “LA LA LA LA” a bunch so I wouldn’t be able to hear any reviews.
In other news, the following things are happening:
1. I’m moving in the next three weeks, mostly likely to the Calhoun area (but on the west, cheap side of things)
2. My mother is visiting on Tuesday
3. Deleted because I realized too many people I know in real life read now. Oh, for the days of the dorky anonymous internet.
4. I have to get glasses to replace my contacts because the eye doctor said the aforementioned contacts are gouging holes in my eyes
5. That eye doctor didn’t get any of my 10384 nervous jokes, so I hate him
6. I start yet another school soon. Hopefully, this will be my last, goddamnit. At least, that is, before grad school.
7. I’m up too late and am going to feel hazy and grumpy at work tomorrow.
A poem about matches, just because.
The way
fingers flip
match books
on Thursday
afternoons in
Minnesota April sun,
which is no sun
at all, just three shades gray
one part yellow, but
the way his fingers
flip the match over
the book on a Thursday
afternoon, the grainy
bending black
the sharp cardboard
and suddenly,
the spark, quick orange
immediate, eyes
not leaving my
my face as he palms
the book and squeezes
his thumbs, a smoky
steeple, smudging
the leftover soot
and grinning
in slate sun
like pyromania meets
love