Today I jogged outside for the first time in ten years or more. Although the goal I set was modest I didn’t make it. Early on I thought I was going to have a heart attack. You know when you're driving in your car and you see somebody trying to convince themselves they're running but really they're walking in a stupid way. Today that was me. For about an hour after I kept thinking I was going to pass out. All day since I've felt more grounded than I have in 5 months.
This afternoon N. and I went grocery shopping together. We just needed parsley, strawberries, and milk. You know when you're shopping and some idiot keeps getting in your way trying to have fun with his kid? Today that was me.
Right around mall closing time I went to get my hair cut. The woman who cut my hair had a lot on her mind. She said Jesus conquered death and defeated Satan and no other God had done that. She said his name was on every tongue. She said recent events told her that the end times were close. She said earthquakes and storms and even the President in power now read like signs and wonders straight from Revelations. She got in my face and peered into my eyes to see whether I saw her point. She said these were signs but more were yet to come, that they were birth signs of a new world.
You know sometimes it does feel like the end of the world and you could almost agree with a person who spoke to you in such a manner? Today that person wasn't me. This world doesn't get to end on my kid. I gently made my case against her vision and we left it as friends who disagreed but in respect. The haircut's pretty good.
3.21.2010
3.20.2010
floor plan
The storm that blew winter away was so fierce, it seemed like the trees had grown tired of being surrounded by suburban blight and one by one would take their shouting splintering revenge. Five feet of rain in a weekend. We added a couple hundred pounds of salt and made our basement into a giant aquarium. Now we have an octopus and a Portuguese man-of-war and some Atlantic blues. We have jellyfish and a skate and a depressive tuna. We have diving suits in his and hers and toddler sizes. We have a coral reef and even sunken treasure, a piggy bank split open along the floor bed, nickles pennies and quarters awaiting the intrepid diver. I hope we've properly sealed the drainage. In the morning the baby whale surfaces near the top of the basement stairs and gives us a good morning spout.
We've knocked out the walls of the ground level of our house and turned it into an indoor soccer field. Our young son is Ronaldinho or Diego Maradona or better yet Zidane, running up and down the field with the ball in his hands. He's impossible to catch. He runs laughing from one goal to another. He does not yet know how to throw with any accuracy so to score he runs and touches the ball to the back of the net. At halftime he sits for supper. He scores constantly, recording shut-outs by margins of 150 or more. He is much coveted by Boca and River Plate. There is the potential he could play for both. The ball is an expanding world that he runs with, laughing, held tight, almost off balance. Goal! Goal! Goal! (goal, goal, goal, goal).
Upstairs we brush our teeth and go to sleep in single file. And dream, he of a bowl of butter three feet wide and five feet deep, eaten fastidiously with a large plastic spoon. We of multiple disasters that we dream, so as to avoid living them.
We've knocked out the walls of the ground level of our house and turned it into an indoor soccer field. Our young son is Ronaldinho or Diego Maradona or better yet Zidane, running up and down the field with the ball in his hands. He's impossible to catch. He runs laughing from one goal to another. He does not yet know how to throw with any accuracy so to score he runs and touches the ball to the back of the net. At halftime he sits for supper. He scores constantly, recording shut-outs by margins of 150 or more. He is much coveted by Boca and River Plate. There is the potential he could play for both. The ball is an expanding world that he runs with, laughing, held tight, almost off balance. Goal! Goal! Goal! (goal, goal, goal, goal).
Upstairs we brush our teeth and go to sleep in single file. And dream, he of a bowl of butter three feet wide and five feet deep, eaten fastidiously with a large plastic spoon. We of multiple disasters that we dream, so as to avoid living them.
3.16.2010
crystal crucifix
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for rosary beads that play in the light finger by meditative finger. She tried to go to church this morning but it was like God didn't want people around today the trees had been ripped out of the ground taking the sidewalk with them to form a natural barrier blocking both doors the priest didn't know what to do at all. Like God had decided her house wasn't fit for company today, the sidewalk ripped of its moorings and transmogrified into a crooked staircase of roots and straggler worms and unknowable divine intention.
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for beads that play in the light prayer by prayer and could you hold this world together on the strength of your wish that it be so with your wish that nothing fade or fall away.
She tries to get to church best she can but doesn't make it and seeks no alternative (thus a sin) by alternative she thinks they could have gone in I guess through the windows but the priest was sitting on the ground paunchy in his inconsolable cassock, soiled and sorry with his nose kind of red in a tacit and spontaneous confession of how he'd held his own life together draught by draught up to this point. Those veteran trees still standing shudder together and in the smell of rain she senses or feels predetermined a collective flash or vision of the end of the world on those renewed drops the rippling back echo of the explosion thus ending all and no on and no forth.
Which is why help me Jesus/Mary she holds in her hands a crystal crucifix to bind the world together prayer by prayer. People killed in stupid fashion each day on their way to church by earthquakes or in head-on collisions or by random bullets hearts give out etc, when that happens do you note that they died fulfilling their chosen purpose or in the cheap and non-helpful irony that that supposed protector never had their backs in any fashion.
A crystal crucifix, prayer by the glinting of the light as a form maybe even of time travel to protect the ones she's lost. Maybe it's just the prayers of people that help other people she thought, maybe it's the prayers of people that bind our intentions and hearts to wish each other well and in collective wishing could there be some binding glue to hold the world together such that nothing fade or fall away.
She doesn't recall how it came into her possession only that when she prays in a rhythm when she is in the rhythm of her prayer she can feel those around her safe in a kind of holy halo. It is the days where distracted or otherwise preoccupied she neglects to pray or God forbid to give these prayers her true intentions that unforeseen misfortune befalls her friends or family or at least those sad people in today's paper now missing one or more of their number through unforeseeable calamity.
Out at the edge of town she's driving crystal crucifix in her fingers gone to wrinkle the beadstrings strung partial curved like a wilted infinity across the driving wheel. The light no longer feels to show her or save her the light is a dim threat of extinction dim fear of last moments and wasted lives a revealing of last days kind of brought too soon. Lately she doesn't believe in God or care much for her if she does exist she thinks and goes on These prayers of mine are prayers to link only with those of other people, prayers to make a net for each other's prayers and for those who don't pray too to be caught in on the way down. And the cross is where our bodies touched in love or compassion and the beads are justice lost and held together point by point and though we pray to no one or no one who cares we pray together.
She isn't sure even who she prays for today or who for her out at the edge of town driving with the crystal crucifix dangling down almost to her knee beneath the wheel. Is it going to rain or is the light to break through out at the edge of the dark clouds. Let this darkness take my sight, she thinks, let this full stop come and find me where I huddle under whatever debris praying bead by bead with everyone I've loved held together in my memory. If you mean for this to end then honey you do your worst.
She wonders what will be on TV this afternoon, light just starting to break through clouds being pulled apart tuft by tuft by the brutal wind, what she'll put on for dinner.
A crystal crucifix with diamonds for beads that play in the light prayer by prayer and could you hold this world together on the strength of your wish that it be so with your wish that nothing fade or fall away.
She tries to get to church best she can but doesn't make it and seeks no alternative (thus a sin) by alternative she thinks they could have gone in I guess through the windows but the priest was sitting on the ground paunchy in his inconsolable cassock, soiled and sorry with his nose kind of red in a tacit and spontaneous confession of how he'd held his own life together draught by draught up to this point. Those veteran trees still standing shudder together and in the smell of rain she senses or feels predetermined a collective flash or vision of the end of the world on those renewed drops the rippling back echo of the explosion thus ending all and no on and no forth.
Which is why help me Jesus/Mary she holds in her hands a crystal crucifix to bind the world together prayer by prayer. People killed in stupid fashion each day on their way to church by earthquakes or in head-on collisions or by random bullets hearts give out etc, when that happens do you note that they died fulfilling their chosen purpose or in the cheap and non-helpful irony that that supposed protector never had their backs in any fashion.
A crystal crucifix, prayer by the glinting of the light as a form maybe even of time travel to protect the ones she's lost. Maybe it's just the prayers of people that help other people she thought, maybe it's the prayers of people that bind our intentions and hearts to wish each other well and in collective wishing could there be some binding glue to hold the world together such that nothing fade or fall away.
She doesn't recall how it came into her possession only that when she prays in a rhythm when she is in the rhythm of her prayer she can feel those around her safe in a kind of holy halo. It is the days where distracted or otherwise preoccupied she neglects to pray or God forbid to give these prayers her true intentions that unforeseen misfortune befalls her friends or family or at least those sad people in today's paper now missing one or more of their number through unforeseeable calamity.
Out at the edge of town she's driving crystal crucifix in her fingers gone to wrinkle the beadstrings strung partial curved like a wilted infinity across the driving wheel. The light no longer feels to show her or save her the light is a dim threat of extinction dim fear of last moments and wasted lives a revealing of last days kind of brought too soon. Lately she doesn't believe in God or care much for her if she does exist she thinks and goes on These prayers of mine are prayers to link only with those of other people, prayers to make a net for each other's prayers and for those who don't pray too to be caught in on the way down. And the cross is where our bodies touched in love or compassion and the beads are justice lost and held together point by point and though we pray to no one or no one who cares we pray together.
She isn't sure even who she prays for today or who for her out at the edge of town driving with the crystal crucifix dangling down almost to her knee beneath the wheel. Is it going to rain or is the light to break through out at the edge of the dark clouds. Let this darkness take my sight, she thinks, let this full stop come and find me where I huddle under whatever debris praying bead by bead with everyone I've loved held together in my memory. If you mean for this to end then honey you do your worst.
She wonders what will be on TV this afternoon, light just starting to break through clouds being pulled apart tuft by tuft by the brutal wind, what she'll put on for dinner.
3.15.2010
spirit vs. mechanics
I've been trying to teach myself to read Spanish. I'm doing about 5 pages a week. The best help has been from my friend Meddie, who speaks Spanish from birth and who taught herself English when she moved here by reading the paper. I think she feels sorry for me because I'm trying to learn her native language by reading its obscure literature.
The last couple days when I've gotten stuck on the odd sentence, phrase, or full page she's helped me to unpack it. In that, she's showing me how to read for figurative meaning, how to find the the author's spirit and humor behind the narrator's voice.
These human elements and the psychological analysis underlying them are why I'm reading this particular book. But I get so caught up in the mechanics of grammar that if I am to glean deeper meaning it can only be by getting familiar enough with the mechanics to have them become a subconscious process, to free up brain space for interpretation. Or by getting a friend to help.
Sketch of world view: difference is static, commonality the signal. That what we can't understand about each other shouldn't matter in the least.
The last couple days when I've gotten stuck on the odd sentence, phrase, or full page she's helped me to unpack it. In that, she's showing me how to read for figurative meaning, how to find the the author's spirit and humor behind the narrator's voice.
These human elements and the psychological analysis underlying them are why I'm reading this particular book. But I get so caught up in the mechanics of grammar that if I am to glean deeper meaning it can only be by getting familiar enough with the mechanics to have them become a subconscious process, to free up brain space for interpretation. Or by getting a friend to help.
Sketch of world view: difference is static, commonality the signal. That what we can't understand about each other shouldn't matter in the least.
3.14.2010
year and a day
Drunk, blogging while driving. Also reading a book (The Elements of Style) and trying to program my car stereo to spring forward. What I drank was a cocktail sequence I like to call Noah's Ark. What I've discovered is that I can drive with my dick using only scotch tape and a jelly bracelet. Follow my updates on Twitter.
Pee break. Question posed to Burger King rest stop cashier do you love me answer unclear/possible no. Question posed to Starbucks rest stop cashier answer also unclear/possible no. To Exit 7A toll collector answer unclear/possible no, shocked look at steering column.
Question posed to self answer definite no. Twitter grows tiresome. Burning sensation from steering. Revert to by hand. Persistence of burning sensation. Question of three or nine southbound lanes. Re-engagement with Twitter. The important thing about blogging is that you have to keep doing it, you just have to write whether you want to or not. Press on. Re-imagine childhood as lovable kangaroo raised by human family. As baby bear raised by human family. As cuddly alien etc. Re-imagine childhood orphaned at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc. Re-imagine childhood as slightly overlong setup to the greatest porno ever made as selected by a panel of 4 feminists and 4 male lizards. Re-imagine childhood as king cobra raised by human family, as swarm of bees etc.
Perfection of steering design (improved knot, sustainable misuse of ED meds). Travel thermos full of 100 Pipers whiskey. Driving for Deepwater, for Carney's Point. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory etc. A twip is a tweet one word in length. A twero is a tweet with no words. Partial loss of vision. Review of past Connect Four losses. No one strategy to win them all. Chirping. Vomiting. Pull car to side of road for purposes of mixing.
Pee break. Question posed to Burger King rest stop cashier do you love me answer unclear/possible no. Question posed to Starbucks rest stop cashier answer also unclear/possible no. To Exit 7A toll collector answer unclear/possible no, shocked look at steering column.
Question posed to self answer definite no. Twitter grows tiresome. Burning sensation from steering. Revert to by hand. Persistence of burning sensation. Question of three or nine southbound lanes. Re-engagement with Twitter. The important thing about blogging is that you have to keep doing it, you just have to write whether you want to or not. Press on. Re-imagine childhood as lovable kangaroo raised by human family. As baby bear raised by human family. As cuddly alien etc. Re-imagine childhood orphaned at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, etc. Re-imagine childhood as slightly overlong setup to the greatest porno ever made as selected by a panel of 4 feminists and 4 male lizards. Re-imagine childhood as king cobra raised by human family, as swarm of bees etc.
Perfection of steering design (improved knot, sustainable misuse of ED meds). Travel thermos full of 100 Pipers whiskey. Driving for Deepwater, for Carney's Point. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory etc. A twip is a tweet one word in length. A twero is a tweet with no words. Partial loss of vision. Review of past Connect Four losses. No one strategy to win them all. Chirping. Vomiting. Pull car to side of road for purposes of mixing.
3.13.2010
year
It's been one year since I had a drink. My plan was to reach this goal and see how I felt. In that time I've realized that I was over-reliant on alcohol, that it was keeping me in a narrow place, and that to go back now would be a mistake.
A lot of people I know can pull off drinking fine, I would just say that if you have a nagging voice in the back of your head on the subject, it might help to listen to it.
The physical act of not drinking has gotten almost easy. What's remained challenging most days is that I was using drink to medicate pain that I didn't understand or know the name or extent of. This next year I want to make progress in making that pain stop.
Lest I seem to have grown overly sincere sans sauce, the fucked thing about Captain Morgan is that he's an android whose whole program is to robofuck your significant other into submission. Next thing you know he's living on your couch and having his mechanized share of your sweetheart the second you leave for work and every day you have to all make small talk and shit, try to be his friend, let him borrow your clothes, etc. Stay in school, champ.
A lot of people I know can pull off drinking fine, I would just say that if you have a nagging voice in the back of your head on the subject, it might help to listen to it.
The physical act of not drinking has gotten almost easy. What's remained challenging most days is that I was using drink to medicate pain that I didn't understand or know the name or extent of. This next year I want to make progress in making that pain stop.
Lest I seem to have grown overly sincere sans sauce, the fucked thing about Captain Morgan is that he's an android whose whole program is to robofuck your significant other into submission. Next thing you know he's living on your couch and having his mechanized share of your sweetheart the second you leave for work and every day you have to all make small talk and shit, try to be his friend, let him borrow your clothes, etc. Stay in school, champ.
3.09.2010
Gain as Much as You Fucking Can
Foil to"The Biggest Loser." Sponsorship opportunities for Cinnabon, Playstation, whiskey, the music of Cheer Accident. Each time somebody busts out of a pair of pants they get 20 bucks, a subway token and a week's supply of Cinnabon. Each week the one who gained least gets kicked off and is made to chug a ceremonial Slim-Fast while the other Gainers sing "The End" and gently pelt her or him with mushed-up Cinnabon.
Viewer interest segments where Gainers name the emotions/back stories/failures that are actively being buried deep inside and how good it feels not to have to deal with that terrifying shit directly. Working at one's normal job is allowed as long as it's mindless and at a desk. Masturbation is allowed without limit. Cinnabon: allowed.
What's your secret?
"I got so much ice cream on my shirt I couldn't tell what color it really was"
"Wish I could stop shitting, that the design of the human body might be improved"
"Chocolate bars dipped in tubs of mayonnaise then chugged the mayonnaise"
"Cinnabon in sandwich of deep-fried cookie batter"
"Yoga to teach my body to stop shitting"
"Feel Mars want feel Jupiter"
"Tiny arms, tiny arms"
"Liquified Nutella IV drip"
"Munch, munch"
Days before setting both gain-per-week and total-gain record Gainer #25 dies. Per custom the other gainers descend to eat the remains.
Culinary Eulogies
"Redolent of Cinnabon"
"Redolent of partially-digested Nutella drip"
"Redolent of non-shitting"
"Redolent of... Diet Dr. Pepper?"
Each their rituals, each their mysteries. Love story of Gainer #3 and Gainer #57, their shared love of self-love in a Cinnabon haze. How Jesus and in particular the Last Supper inspires Gainer #18 (who sees each meal as her last supper), how the presidency of Taft inspires Gainer #50 (who sees each year as his lame duck year). Whimsical accordion fanfare. Sprinting 18-member jug band enters and exits. Now amid a circus of color and light and cheese doodles a whisper-thin man with a washtub bass strides on to belt out:
The Gain as Much as You Fucking Can Theme Song
This land is your land, this land is my land
To gain as much as, you fucking ca-an
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
When I went walking, through the food court
I almost died on the cold mall floor
Thanks be to Cinnabon, my heart kept beating
Gain as much as you fucking can
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Ponderosa, to that amazing crab place on Shelter Island
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
(etc)
Season II Finale
Enterprising Gainers #15 and #17 create a compound of Nutella and Cinnabon in liquid form that they vow to guzzle and receive via IV drip. If they survive one will win it all. Work shots: getting it done. Rapid meal preparation and unwrapping of ready-to-eats, munching. Vigorous self love of Gainers #11, #17, #22, #24, #28. Back story of Gainer #11: Parental abuse, inanity of spouse, children, job, one remaining friend. Tug of war between Gainers #15 and #17 over last carton of Cinnabon. Inspiring dark horse victory by Gainer #11 who clubs both Gainer #15 and #17 and spends the last quarter of the episode feasting on their remains. "Redolent of victory."
Viewer interest segments where Gainers name the emotions/back stories/failures that are actively being buried deep inside and how good it feels not to have to deal with that terrifying shit directly. Working at one's normal job is allowed as long as it's mindless and at a desk. Masturbation is allowed without limit. Cinnabon: allowed.
What's your secret?
"I got so much ice cream on my shirt I couldn't tell what color it really was"
"Wish I could stop shitting, that the design of the human body might be improved"
"Chocolate bars dipped in tubs of mayonnaise then chugged the mayonnaise"
"Cinnabon in sandwich of deep-fried cookie batter"
"Yoga to teach my body to stop shitting"
"Feel Mars want feel Jupiter"
"Tiny arms, tiny arms"
"Liquified Nutella IV drip"
"Munch, munch"
Days before setting both gain-per-week and total-gain record Gainer #25 dies. Per custom the other gainers descend to eat the remains.
Culinary Eulogies
"Redolent of Cinnabon"
"Redolent of partially-digested Nutella drip"
"Redolent of non-shitting"
"Redolent of... Diet Dr. Pepper?"
Each their rituals, each their mysteries. Love story of Gainer #3 and Gainer #57, their shared love of self-love in a Cinnabon haze. How Jesus and in particular the Last Supper inspires Gainer #18 (who sees each meal as her last supper), how the presidency of Taft inspires Gainer #50 (who sees each year as his lame duck year). Whimsical accordion fanfare. Sprinting 18-member jug band enters and exits. Now amid a circus of color and light and cheese doodles a whisper-thin man with a washtub bass strides on to belt out:
The Gain as Much as You Fucking Can Theme Song
This land is your land, this land is my land
To gain as much as, you fucking ca-an
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
When I went walking, through the food court
I almost died on the cold mall floor
Thanks be to Cinnabon, my heart kept beating
Gain as much as you fucking can
This land is your land, this land is my land
From Ponderosa, to that amazing crab place on Shelter Island
Oh Cinnabon is, your only friend
Gain as much as you fucking can
(etc)
Season II Finale
Enterprising Gainers #15 and #17 create a compound of Nutella and Cinnabon in liquid form that they vow to guzzle and receive via IV drip. If they survive one will win it all. Work shots: getting it done. Rapid meal preparation and unwrapping of ready-to-eats, munching. Vigorous self love of Gainers #11, #17, #22, #24, #28. Back story of Gainer #11: Parental abuse, inanity of spouse, children, job, one remaining friend. Tug of war between Gainers #15 and #17 over last carton of Cinnabon. Inspiring dark horse victory by Gainer #11 who clubs both Gainer #15 and #17 and spends the last quarter of the episode feasting on their remains. "Redolent of victory."
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