born into this mess
Poem for Monday, June 28, 2004
The Old Pines
by Cid Corman
The old pines
axed. Lumber.
And some stumps.
More space at
the temple
now. But roots
alone are
meaningless--
buried mouths.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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so yesterday Clive walks in with like 10 pounds of fresh blueberries, and says, make something with these, we brought them back form visiting the family. and tonight we were slow again because apparently they are telling everyone on the radio not to come downtown because of the national baptist convention, and so I decided to make "soup and half a sandwich:" a cold blueberry soup (just pureed with some riesling, honey, and lemon) topped with a fucking bad-ass pecan shortbread cookie (I made up the recipe, 1/2 lb of butter, 2 loose cups of brown sugar and 3 of flour about 3 T of starch and a pinch of salt and some pecans) with some whipped cream and more of the berries on top as the half a sandwich. very nice. cute as shit. Thomas Keller as shit, too.
My boss Johnny Kirk has the sweetest smile, and all I want to do is make him proud of me, and so when he said that's a damn good cookie and damn that looks good enough to eat, it makes me feel all warm and happy and then I remember that I am leaving cos I am fucking crazy and it's just not fucking fair. it fucking sucks that my brain decided that now that I finally have a job I am fucking good at it is time to meltdown.
I hate it I hate it I hate it I just want to stay in bed in a ball and read Anne of Green Gables and other such comforting books, eating Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Pot Roast and spooning with my cat. or else drink Irish all night.
it IS like tunnelvision, standing there rolling out cookie dough, so proud of myself I am fit to burst and blinking back hot tears and swallowing hard against the lump in my throat knowing that it doesn't really fucking matter because I'm incapable of being normal, that even though I am great at my job and love it it doesn't make a difference as far as whether I have a nervous breakdown or not. and i KNOW that
everyone is a little crazy, and sure there is rampant alcholism and drug addiction in all restaurants, but I'm talking about being incredibly fucked up for basically no reason at all.
people shouldn't have to snort Xanax, especially after drinking 3 Jameson and sodas and 2 Guinesses and a Budweiser. I really fucking scare myself when I get like this, all these fucking snakes in my head.
At least twice a year it's like this, at the beginning of summer and the end of the fall. the drugs they'd give me just make it worse, the side effects make me feel even crazier: anorexia, sexual dysfunction, insomnia or hypersomnia, not to mention hallucinations.
This shit's been going on for maybe 12 years now, since I started bleeding, more or less. It gets worse and worse every year, and I am terrified of ending up a bag lady feeding pigeons in Court Square. I hope and pray that when the day somes that I decide to really lose it that someone leads me gently by the hand to a Zen monastery and locks me inside so I can sit and stare at walls and rake gravel until the deisre to "carve holiday designs" into myself goes away.
I don't think I even believe in "normal," but there HAS to be something better than this.
"well, don't you worry, you'll find yourself, follow your heart and nothing else
you can do this if you try..."
I'm trying So Fucking Hard.
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the world thanks you, jason spaceman
Every day I wake up
And I take my medication
And I spend the rest of the day
Waiting for it to wear off
Every night I stay up late
And make my state more desperate
Spend the rest of the night
Waiting for it to wear off
I'm waiting for the time
When I can be without
These things that make me feel
This way all of the time
Every now and then
I get the urge to drive around
Get into my car
And then I'll maybe go up town
Take my medication
Do my best to get it on
Spend the rest of the night
Waiting for it to wear off
I'm waiting for the time
When I can be without
These things that make me feel
This way all of the time
Every time I say this
I just know this time I mean it
But a feeling deep inside
Says "it's okay one more time"
I'm waiting for the time
When I can be without
These things that make me feel
This way all of the time
Makes me feel so good
Makes me feel so fine
Makes me feel so good
Leaves me fucked up inside
Medicate my days
Medicate my nights
Medicate my life
Don't it feel alright
Don't it feel so good
Lord don't it feel just fine
Don't it feel so good
Don't it feel so fine
Don't it feel so good
Leaves me fucked up inside
spiritualized, from "ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space"
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stick my finger in the baby's eye
Wow, I can't believe I came out of that black hole so fast. I must have cried on 5 different people today starting at 9 AM. I'm still exhausted, but now that I know that things are going to change it's become much more bearable.
I'm fairly excited about going back to cleaning houses. I'm going to keep it reasonable this time, just one house a day plus 2 hours over at Clive and Cindy's with the dogs. My main goal is to rest up a little bit, try really hard to get my shit together, and spend as much time as possible in the sun. I'm thinking about maybe going back to school. We'll see.
I know that my wrists will start hurting worse, so I'll have to see about maybe going to the clinic to get Vioxx. Or else buy some online.
I bought a fifth of the Tyrconnell, this damn good irish whiskey, and was very good and had just a tiny little highball while watching
Bad Santa. Billy Bob Thornton is such a fucking weird guy. I was hanging out at Last Chance a few months ago and B played me his album, sort of Johnny Cash with the Fear and Loathing on too much Xanax. The movie was decent, though, even if the only parts that actually made me laugh involved getting kicked in the balls.
So yeah. My last day at Stella is the 3rd. Everyone has been a lot nicer about it than I thought. The sous, who is capable of being a total fucking asshole, said something to the effect of respecting the fact that I don't want my craziness to fuck with my work ethic and that I am being honest about it.
and now, dear readers, I need some fucking sleep.
also toilet paper, but sometimes that's just too much to ask.
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"so we trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales..."
"Bipolar, or manic-depressive disorder, is a mood disorder that causes radical emotional changes and mood swings, from manic highs to depressive lows. The majority of bipolar individuals experience alternating episodes of mania and depression.
Bipolar II disorder is characterized by major depressive episodes alternating with episodes of hypomania, a milder form of mania. Bipolar depression may be difficult to distinguish from a unipolar major depressive episode. Patients with bipolar depression tend to have extremely low energy, retarded mental and physical processes, and more profound fatigue (for example, hypersomnia; a sleep disorder marked by a need for excessive sleep or sleepiness when awake) than unipolar depressives. "
it's been this way since I was 12. is it like this for everyone, or am I really sick? constant doubt, little voices in my head, inability to be happy for longer than three days at a time. drining binges, promiscuity, inability to make up one's mind about ANYTHING god i am sick of this.
my last day of class as an undergrad was my 21st birthday. since then I have worked in a deli, as a social worker, as a waitress, taught college spanish as a TA, run a deli, catered for art galleries, cleaned houses, babysat, dogsat, and cooked.
when the fuck will I be well enough to make up my mind? it's such a catch-22; if I had insurance maybe I could get a therapist, but to get insurance I have to keep a job long enough... but I'm too crazy not to walk away from my jobs.
I love cooking, it's totally in my blood, but I am too fucked up to keep doing this without becoming a serious alcoholic or just losing my shit bad enough one night to just walk off my line and not come back and leave them all stranded without their gar-man bitch.
and it really sucks, and i hate it. medication makes me feel like i'm either coked-out or a zombie, but unmedicated i'm incapable of functioning like a normal human being. i keep quitting things i love. i loved graduate school, and i dropped out. i love the kitchen but i gave 2 weeks today cos i cant let my bosses clive and cindy and johnny down.
they say every generation gets worse. i sure hope i never have kids cos this shit, i wouldnt wish it on ANYONE.
so anyway, here i am, dogsitting for the people i care most about not letting down, about to let them down, typing away on their i-book, me and the jameson and soda, wishing i could spend tomorrow in the sunlight, wishing i could just be normal, wishing i knew what the fuck it was like to be ok for fucking once in my life.
god, i don't know how the fuck i am going to make it two weeks. i haven't been this bad off since last november. i wish i had a padded room to bang my head around on.
instead i'll swallow the last of my drink and hope i make it thru tomorrow.
wish me luck.
fucking wannabe plath(without the head in oven courage) signing out...
they dont sleep anymore on the beach...
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I heard the voice of reason, and it was speaking in tongues
I can't find my Godspeed
F#A# or either of my Sigur Ros cds.
My eyes won't focus because my allergies are so bad.
I'm going on 2 weeks without seeing any of my friends.
I'm about to let someone down, I think. I've had enough of company for a while and am happy being alone right now.
I've just gone and burned copies of my favorite cds that won't play anymore since my computer fills in the skips.
So tired.
So out of touch.
they don't sleep anymore on the beach...
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never too late?
Poem for Monday, June 14, 2004
from "Another Night in the Ruins"
by Galway Kinnell
How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren't, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work
is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
sorry, that was just my uterus talking
I gave two weeks notice yesterday in a fit of estrogen and then took it back.
I have nothing else to say except:
it's hot out, I work too much, and don't sleep well.
I wish I were in SanFransciso. Brooklyn sounds nice, too.
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Poem for Monday, June 14, 2004
from "Another Night in the Ruins"
by Galway Kinnell
How many nights must it take
one such as me to learn
that we aren't, after all, made
from that bird that flies out of its ashes,
that for us
as we go up in flames, our one work
is
to open ourselves, to be
the flames?
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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georgia on my mind
in October, I am driving to the ATL with some friends to see the Pixies and visit my family.
right now, though, both of us grade manger bitches are deathly ill. Lemme tell you something about eating out:
the people who make your food are probably sick, at least 1 out of 4 times.
so my lungs hurt, I am exhausted after sleeping 10 hours 2 days in a row, and my whole body is all hurty.
and
Ray Charles died.
god speed your soul, you black emperor.
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Poem for Monday, June 7, 2004
Proud Songsters
by Thomas Hardy
The thrushes sing as the sun is going,
And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,
And as it gets dark loud nightingales
In bushes
Pipe, as they can when April wears,
As if all Time were theirs.
These are brand new birds of twelve-months' growing,
Which a year ago, or less than twain,
No finches were, nor nightingales,
Nor thrushes,
But only particles of grain,
And earth, and air, and rain.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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find something you love and understand...
all I really want is a "well done," even it comes from the dishwashers.
which is why I come in 3 hours early and make about 857 sweet potoato and cornflour gnocchi and 942 ricotta-potato-truffle oil gnocchi, just in case we get them damn vegetarians. which we did today, two of them. and they were fucking bad ass thank you very much mister non vegetarian doesnt know how to cook without demi chef.
so I got a few whiskey drinks as a thank you and have decided that that is enough for now.
I just wish everyone worked as hard as me.
yep.
and was simpler.
and called me back.
and put out.
being a girl sucks sometimes.
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so we trade liquor for blood, in an attempt to tip the scales...
I've somehow taken on the responsibility for making any vegetarian entrees.
Perosnally, I think asking for ANYTHING not on them menu is annoying, but the good thing about veg entree is that I can send them pretty much anything.
IE:
Tonight I sent out potato blinis layered with parmesan and roasted garlic mascarpone filling, topped with parmesan crisps and surrounded by a beautiful and shockingly pink beet bechamel, drizzled with black pepper and clove beet coulis.
Like Dr Seuss at $20 a plate.
Tomorrow I will go in 3 hours early to stock the freezer with sweet potato gnocchi.
Just cos I have nothing better to do.
summer's gonna come, it's gonna cloud our eyes again; no need to focus when there's nothing that's worth seeing....
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my kind's your kind; I'll stay the same
Somehow, miraculously, I have paid all my bills and still have a wee bit of money. Enough to trot my ass down to pay for parking, that is. I have a stack of about 6 unpaid tickets that have probably got some bounty hunter sniffing around in Ohio...
Last night, as we sat waiting out the storm, I became increasingly more and more obsessed with plate decoration.
I kept bending closer and closer to the plate, fussing over tiny little drizzles of beet oil, basil oil & balsamic glaze in circles around the flower shaped lobster and bibb salad.
Thank you, Thomas Keller, for eating my brain.
Sonya is in New York, and I am stuck here in the humidity and the pollen and the lack of creative outlets.
woot.
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Poem for Monday, on Tuesday, June 1st, 2004
Jar of Springwater
by Rumi
Jars of springwater are not enough
anymore. Take us down to the river!
The face of peace, the sun itself.
No more slippery cloudlike moon.
Give us one clear morning after another
and the one whose work remains unfinished,
who is our work as we diminish, idle,
though occupied, empty, and open.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
burkesbooks.com
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