born into this mess
she ain't got nuthin at all
I'm pretty sure that the Velvet Underground's
Loaded is my favorite thing in the world right now, with the exception of fried chicken.
Which I made for my mom yesterday, right after throwing up cranberry bile as a result of the wicked hangover I acquired getting wasted with a friend of mine the night before.
All I have to say about that is this:
he's awful cute.
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I need mittens
So when my cat went up the tree and I pulled him down, he gave me poison ivy.
It's on my neck and my upper arms, so far, and it's spreading and driving me insane. It itches unbearably, and I keep giving into temptation and clawing at it so now it's all oozy and bloody.
It itches so hard I can't eat.
I'm ashamed to go out in public coated in calamine lotion.
To add further injury to this insult, I wiped out HARD on my bike yesterday, going over those metal plates they put over big hole in the road. I skinned the fuck out of my left knee and palm, and bruised up my right hand's knuckles.
Please, misery fairy, go away. I'm sorry you weren't invited to my christening. I wasn't old enough to talk and it isn't my fault. I promise to invite you to my wedding. I'll even throw you the bouquet.
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Poem for Monday, July 26
Hood
by C. K. Williams
Remember me? I was the one
in high school you were always afraid of.
I kept cigarettes in my sleeve, wore
engineer's boots, long hair, my collar
up in back and there were always
girls with me in the hallways.
You were nothing. I had it in for you--
when I peeled rubber at the lights
you cringed like a teacher.
And when I crashed and broke both lungs
on the wheel, you were so relieved
that you stroked the hard Ford paint
like a breast and your hands shook.
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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so kiss me once and then I'll go to hell, I might as well be whistling down the wind...
I haven't slept well for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl I was terrified of the witches in the closet and the wolf under the bed, and now I just wake up every hour and a half dying of thirst. I can't fall back to sleep unless I get up to pee and refill my water bottle.
I still haven't got internet in my apartment yet (I'm writing this in the big house), which is my normal answer to insomnia. So last night, after half an hour of staring numbly at the brick chimney in the corner of my bedroom, listening to the mix CD I made in a bitter mood a few months ago, I dug up my old journal, the one I started back in Ohio, the day after Colin and I split up.
Sometimes I wonder where all the time went. Things seem so blurry now that were so sharp and urgent two years ago. There were entire relationships I had forgotten completely about. I feel like I'm dissolving, like the inside of me is growing vaguer and more colorless and drab as time passes. I started this blog a year ago, but it seems like either only a few months or like ages and ages.
I'm fantasizing more and more about leaving. All the close friendships I have here are crumbling, and so is my sense of who I am or what I want to do. the only thing I can stand doing is walking the dogs and reading on my futon.
if I get any more lonesome I might just break into a million pieces.
es decir, me voy a estrellar.
I yelled and I cursed
if I stay here I'll rust
and I'm stuck like a shipwreck out here in the dust...
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24 and there's so much more...
I woke up feeling discontent. Maybe it's the lack of social contact, maybe it's sleeping on a crappy futon, maybe it's being broke.
All I want to do is write, clean house, cook, and read fiction. I wsh that were a full-time job. I guess it used to be, you know, housewife, but I don't think I could let somebody take care of me. I guess it's more or less like swapping cooking and cleaning for room and board.
It's bright and hot out, and I'm in the big house doing laundry. My cat is up in the window in the little house where I live, looking down at the dogs lolling around in the yard. My apartment is amazing, things are looking up, so why the fuck am I sad?
I know why, I just don't want to talk about it.
I miss you.
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Every night he'll get off work around ten and walk down the alley to the place on the corner for a couple of beers. Most of the time she's still stuck there, on the other side of the window, just a little bitty thing, scowling down at the plate she's working on, up to her elbows in chocolate sauce, swearing at the clock, sucking on a Budweiser, waiting for that last ticket to come rattling out of the printer.
Lately she's been staying around after she gets done for the night, sitting up at the bar, maybe 3 or 4 seats down, gradually working her way over on the pretense of getting a light, til she's sitting next to him, talking to him in her low, quiet voice, looking off into the mirror in that way she has, she doesn't really look at him when she speaks, not unless she's really worked up about something.
Tonight she's sitting next to him and his old friend who works back there with her is rubbing on her shoulders, he's got her practically mewing like a kitten, and then she looks over at him, and she's making these noises like she can't really help it, but the way she's looking at him, her eyes half-closed, he knows she's putting on a little bit of a show for him. Then she smiles and hooks her foot around the back of his leg, scoots her barstool a little closer, and grabs ahold of his hand and starts pressing her thumb into the tight place in his wrist, then runs her finger over the knife callus on his forefinger, peering up into his eyes like she's waiting for the answer to a question.
All of a sudden he thinks to himself, this little girl wants to fuck me. He's got to be 20 years older than her, not that old, but set in his ways. He lives alone, works 6 nights a week running the hotel kitchen, stays up late getting high and watching movies on the TV and drinking beer. On Sunday he mows the lawn, goes and visits his folks, gets Chinese food delivered. He's used to it, he wouldn't ever come out and say it, but every now and then he'll sit there in the half-dark staring at the flickering on the screen, thinking how it would be nice to have someone to put his arms around.
She's a strange little girl, back there in the kitchen with all the boys, trying to act tough. She keeps hacking her hair off shorter, looks like she might've taken the clippers to it yesterday. Her clothes are all raggedy, sleeves cut off at the shoulders, showing off those big tattoos. He's seen her doing prep work in the afternoon in a tank top, and she's got burns up and down her arms from taking sheet pans out of the oven.
She talks real mean sometimes to the boys, she's got a dirty little mouth, but he can tell there's some broken off little piece inside of her, something sharp embedded in a wound somewhere that she's curled herself up around, acting like it's not there. She's got a few scars that don't look like she got them cooking, puckered up pink lines that look like it would hurt to touch them.
So when she's sitting there, her hand just resting in his now, and she asks him to walk her to her car, he starts trying to decide what he ought to do with her. She's maybe a little drunk, so he puts his arm around her as they walk to the garage, her leaning her head up against his chest as they wait for the light to turn. When they get into the elevator in the parking garage, she pulls away from him and flattens herself against the wall, those dark eyes staring at him from her sharp little face. Then she looks down for a second and before he knows what's happening she's got her hand on the back of his neck and is kissing him real gently.
He's got his hand on her back, there's just nothing to her really, such a tiny little girl, and he pulls her up against his chest and rests his chin on top of her head, then when the doors open he turns her around and pushes her out onto the dark roof, into the rest of the story.
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I'm getting more and more outraged as time passes.
Yes, the US has secret prisoners of war. Yes, children are being raped in Iraqi prisons. And, no, the Dictatorship doesn't give a shit if you know, cos they ain't gonna talk about it.
Wow.
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After waiting almost six weeks with bated breath, my copy of Nate Powell's
Tiny Giants finally got here. It's already falling apart, but that's ok. The art work is beautiful, millions of titchy black lines and the writing makes my stomach hurt.
Like trying to tell your best friend you're in love with them, that kinda hurt.
You oughta
email him and get a copy.
Every time I get a new graphic novel it makes me want to draw. Maybe once I move and have an actual table to sit at I'll keep it up. I doodled a little bit at the coffee shop, but I didn't have any of the right pencils and then
Cory Branan came over and sat his fine ass down and proceeded to talk with me about García Márquez and then it was dark and the mosquitos were out.
First time I ever talked to that boy sober, I think.
Huh.
So now that I've gone from working 60 hours a week to 12 or so, I have no idea what to do. Half my friends are in Europe and the rest aren't answering.
I've got a million maybes and hopefullys all piled up, enough to last me for six or seven years, but the should haves and the didn'ts keep dragging me back into the middle of last summer.
It's later than it feels like it oughta be.
some girls make me reach for the bottle
some girls make me reach for the sky
you got me reachin in every direction
for just one reason why
i gotta have this crush on you...
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cos tramps like us, baby, we were born to run
I found out just a minute ago that the Food Co-op is closing.
No more microcrafted organic miso and tamari.
No more free box.
No more tab.
Square Foods is a good place, but it's not home like the co-op is.
Fuck you, Memphis, for not supporting it. You ignorant rednecks with your monster SUVs'll spend $40 filling up a gas tank and won't spend and extra 50 cents on organic groceries.. I shop at Schnucks, too, but I spend about $100 a month at the co-op.
God, this sucks.
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much more to fear than fear itself
Lately, since I'm often alone in my apartment at night, I've been compeletly unable to fall asleep because I'm afraid of the dark. A few days ago, after Al moved out, I hauled my mattress into her empty room so I can sleep in the air conditioning.
Something about her empty room gives me the creeps. Last night I had to force myself to get out of bed and close the closet door so nothing could creep out of its recesses after I fell asleep. I sleep with a light on in the bathroom and the hallway so the room isn't too dark. I always check behind the shower curtain before I sit down to pee. I arrange my stuffed animals around me in a strategic defence pattern. I wake up every hour or two and can't go back to sleep. It's been like this as long as I can remember.
I'm not just scared of the dark anymore.
Something about that young man from Mississippi's hateful expression (see below, 2 posts back) chilled me far worse than any imagined wolf or vampire or black fire tongued demon.
The fact is, it's not going to get any better. I hate being pessimistic, but the honest truth is, I have lost faith. I don't think that the world is going to become a peaceful place. I think we'll keep hating each other, exploiting, murdering, fearing, whatever, until there's nothing left. Til we've all killed or been killed.
I registered to vote today. Not that it's going to make a difference. One liar or another.
The thing is, he didn't say, I'm going to shoot you cos of your anti-war stickers. He just said, watch out, cos SOMEONE is going to kill you because of your anti-war stickers. He said it so confidently, as if he belonged to some vast faceless group that gets away with murder on a daily basis.
Oh, wait.
He does.
Suddenly, even though it's over a hundred out, I'm freezing.
How the fuck can I be proud to be an American when I am terrified to be an American?
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Poem for Monday, July 12, 2004
from "The Speed of Darkness"
by Muriel Rukeyser
My night awake
staring at the broad rough jewel
the copper roof across the way
thinking of the poet
yet unborn in this dark
who will be the throat of these hours.
No. Of these hours.
Who will speak these days,
if not I,
if not you?
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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be afraid. be very, very afraid.
Dear Desoto County redneck,
Thank you for your warning. I was not aware that my old anti-war stickers would get me shot out here in the quiet green suburb where my parents live. I'm sorry that I didn't get to hear the rest of what you had to say- those big-ass mufflers on the back of your pick-up sure are loud; I'm sure that whatever it was would have lifted my spirits even more than opening up IE on my parents' computer to see this amazing headline.
Thanks to your shouted warning and raised fist, I'm reconsidering the confident way in which I maneuver through the Memphis streets. Yep, unpatriotic traitors like myself, why, we oughta just stay home and keep our mouths shut. Cos any second now, Al-Qaeda could attack again. Just in time to postpone the election. Then I would feel pretty durn stupid.
So thanks so much for your warning,
Susie Q
P.S. Nice truck. I'm not sure what exactly "GIT-R-DUN" means, but it looks nice in the middle of your back window in those big white letters. Matches the duck heads on the bumper, kinda.
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hello, new blog crush
(so don't feed them by hand...)
the sound of masking tape being busily applied to boxes is emanating from behind Evil Roommate's closed door.
which means I have to hustle my ass to get the _______* done at my new place so I can hurry up and move in before she leaves and takes the utilities with her.
I painted for 5 hours today, accompanied by the lovely Niki for a joyous half on one of theose hours, singing along with the Almost Famous soundtrack, an old mixCD, the new Modest Mouse, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the top of my lungs.
now it's time to go have a Budweiser and say goodbye to the Europe-bound members of the posse.
holla.
*caulking of all the cracks, scrubbing and painting of the trim, hooking up of the stove, finding a truck to get a fridge from the burbs, painting of the entry room
OMG I'll never move in...
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so I skipped the painting...
oof.
read for about 13 hours straight yesterday, the first 2 of the newest series by Tad Williams, about Virtual Reality. Re-read, that is. I prefer to read a series all the way through; I hate reading those smarmy little catch you ups at the beginning of the newest book since it's been 4 years, but then I hate not remembering who is who and did what. same problem with Robert Jordan (oh secret fantasy novel vice! I can't hid you any longer!)
so today I am tying my ass to a paint roller, then bidding adieu aufwiedersehen hasta luego and arrividerci (sp?) to half my posse, who are leaving tomorrow for Europe. Lucky wankers.
snif.
it's a lovely day.
holla.
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so I'm a bookworm
I sure do love the library. The big central library, all glass and chrome and shiny colors, is sort of plopped down right where Union and Poplar make an x. It's got fancy see-through elevators, escalators, and tons of computers (which are all being used to play Yahoo! games all the time), and to get to the kids' section, you have to walk through a forest of crayola colored cement trees. not that it has that many books, though.
this is great and all, but I miss the old central library that was WAY closer to me. they tore that one down to make little cottagey thingies that are repellent in their uneasy desire to look like the rest of midtown.
so whenever I can, about every 3 or 4 days, I go in and load up. Sometimes I read the whole stack, and sometimes I don't.
last time I got the new Stephen King (one more left and he can retire), essays by Jonathan Franzen and Barabar Kingsolver, a sci-fi by China Mieville, and something else I can't remember. Something kinda Eggersy-ly pretentious, told all in footnotes, that I have decided not to read. HA.
So today, after I finish my yogurt and cereal (yesterday was a nightmare of soreassed stomach upset), I'm gonna pack up my stereo, go to the library, get some new books, go to my new apartment, paint til I am faint, and then read until I'm blind.
sound good?
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you know there's nothing more than this
It's not as if I wouldn't have had the day off anyway, it being the fifth and all, but even though I stayed up til 3 reading
Gatsby, eating smoked salmon and miso in bed, I still woke up at 9 feeling horrendously paranoid about not working today.
I eneded up at my parents' house, washing all my clothes twice to get rid of the kitchen funk. When they came home my mom couldn't resist giving me the little speech about how I should take this test to tell me what I should Do With My Life. I started bawling at her about leaving me alone cos all I care about right now is eating, cos I'm stuck in this catch-22 of not going to ever be stable enough to get a good job and I have to get out of debt before I can really be stable and I have to have a good job to get out of debt.
Including interest and all, the credit cards, student loans and back taxes are almost 30,000.
I've got such high APR on the three maxed out cards that they haven't gone down at all in the past 2.5 years since my ex and I split up.
I'm almost ready to just fucking declare bankruptcy. Fuck it.
I've been binge eating lately. I'm always looking for a little dopamine surge I guess. I get these shooting pains in my stomach though, so it kind of sucks.
Spiderman 2 was pretty stupid. It was nice to ride my bike and go by myself and all, but I bet Saved would've been funnier.
I bet blogger eats this post. so who cares.
stupid fucking bipolar disorder. ruins everything. just want to fucking be happy.
rrr.
I am drinking heavy cream at 40% milkfat out of the carton. mm.
dairy fat.
mmm.
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Poem for Monday, July 5, 2004
Vision
By W. S. Merwin
What is unseen
flows to what is unseen
passing in part
through what we partly see
we stood up from all fours
far back in the light
to look
as long as there is day
and part of the night
Burke's Book Store
1719 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com
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