i yawn. my back aches. i have been cleaning since i got home. got home from work after a long bike ride back. back from a day where my job went from filing to fundraising at jet rocket speed, with flyer design wedged in the middle some how. the first act of my new age will be to go in early to work, to sit down and understand what it takes to get people to give you tens of thousands of dollars.
i have no money in my wallet. no united states legal tender. only multi-colored and very weathered egyptian pounds.
i think i have dred mostly. i am trying to summon up particles of hope to at least accompany it. this for sure is older, this for sure is grown up. not growing but grown. as in i file taxes and am tired after work, bone tired with full time, like all of my friends now. there is something good about it -- i will get my bone tattoo (jonathan is giving it to me for my birthday, hurrah) and i will have finally the permanent ever-present rememberance that bones break. and then they heal. and i will die. and will live a life, a famous life, well before that happens. i will take a picture of it for you.
i had a birthday wish list but i forgot to tell anyone about it: 1 a longboard skateboard 2 my tattoo -- though i suppose i will be able to scratch that off the list 3 a rowing machine
...there were other material things but they seem uninteresting here. or at least, i do not feel like sharing them. they are for me to give to myself.... ...there are other intangible / somewhat tangible though still abstract things that i am wishing for quietly in my head.... ...there are specific things i am wishing for from specific people but of course i cannot tell you because then they will not happen....
there is this life i am living hey look aren't you doing it to and wasn't it supposed be something more than this?
I was a mess. I think from all the caffeine because I don't drink caffeine much. I was pacing around my house losing things trying to eat food because I hadn't eaten anything more than a bagel and three reeses peanut butter cups and some strawberries an old odd fellow from north carolina gave us at work. I watched the last ten minutes of the Simpsons and found and lost and found again my beat up dot matrix print out of Lebanon, the only copy I have, the one that I printed out in Cairo and then lugged around Spain, that has penciled there above the title: it is almost like a prop.
I took a barstool up to the mic when they introduced me because I had just watched someone else try and almost unfortunately fail at reading a short story in this noisy Friday night bar, and had decided on a few things because of that, one of which was that if I have to go through this I am at least going to allow myself to sit. I leaned in and said ... because it sucks to be reading in a bar, to be reading a story about war in a bar: for those of you that want to listen, listen loudly -- I will read as carefully as I can; and for those of you that don't, well, keep on drinking.
Everyone says it went well, surprisingly well, which I tend to agree with, even though Evrim Dogu, Joey Lively, Jonathan Rice, Bill Tester, James Hudson and his friend Josh did not show up like they said they would. I wish Allison Titus and Unoma Azuah could've come, but maybe they did not get my messages via machines... I will give the girls the benefit of the doubt. Jonathan Arp paid for my drinks like a gentleman trying to pick me up and afterwards we drove to Ryan McSweeney's step-mom's house so I could drink sweet miso soup and rum and cokes, and hang out with huge old gentle dogs, and I did end up going home with Jonathan Arp so I guess his ploy worked.
whiplash. w h i p l a s h . i have whiplash. i think from a combination of flying off my skateboard and dancing a bit too enthusiatically to the cure cover band even though all i really know of the cure comes from a compilation i got in high school of yet other people -- this time local bands like the dismemberment plan and jawbox -- covering their songs... so i cannot move my neck really so well and there is a lot of sharp nasty pain involved when i do do so. which means i had to cancel band practice and couldn't go play anarchist soccer like i had looked forward to all week.
it is silly. silly embarrassing injury stuff.
anyway. i think i am supposed to tell you:
if you are in anyway interested, i have been recruited to read some imaginary things i have written. out loud and to an audience. which may include you if you decide to be at chuggers at 7:30 pm on friday, this friday the 25th. you know chuggers... the bar on franklin and schaffer right across from vcu; vcu who is publishing these imaginary things in their literary magazine... which is funny as i no longer attend that fine institution...
anyway. i am no good at this self promotion thing. i am going to just go there and drink a shot of tequila and a glass of beer and read for the twenty minutes they want me to read for and we will see what happens.
the skateboard launched me at least four feet through the air and when i got up there was a big dark mark on the asphalt of the church's parking lot where my clothing had soaked up all the pollen lurking there. i could point to it and easily explain how everything had happened: look here is where i landed full force on my belly and my chest mostly, here is where my arms were splayed out in front of me, here is where my glasses bounced to, here is where i put my palm down to get myself up.
as i was lying there doing the mental tally of all the things i had somehow not hurt i thought: this is great, my first fall, this is what i am skateboarding for, i wonder where my breath has gone as it is not really in my lungs anymore... but after i got up i saw stars and everything ached and felt pretty jolted and i said i think i'll go home now and jonathan arp said you know you are supposed to just get up and keep going and i said next time, step three.
i guess, you know, there is more than that. but that is the only really interesting part of my life lately as far as i'm concerned. nobody writes comments no more anyway.
conditions were bad but i drove up anyway. visibility was poor, i could often only see a couple car lengths in front of me, so i held the steering wheel tight and sung at the top of my lungs.
my voice is deeper, calmer with some kind of capability and confidence that comes from catching trains and find ways in unfamiliar towns speaking unknown languages. i figure subconsciously if i could carry that bag that far up that mountain in fifteen dollar shoes and no sleep, if i could run as fast as possible out of control down that other mountain in order to be lifted up into the sky, if i could get myself there and back by my lonesome, then this shit... this shit is nothing.
i bought a new pair of jeans yesterday to replace the ones worn down since high school. i will write a resume and get a job. do you know anyone who needs to hire anyone for twenty-three dollars an hour? seriously?
i have a bitterness that i want to blame on the brothers quay. three solid days of stop animation and my eyes are heavy with puppets and pollen. the streets are yellow, the cars beaten down with the season and i always mention when in the company of others how we are at war and how that explains our general depression, least we forget to name these unnameable things.
i painted arrows on the poles at the farmers market then went home and shaved my legs and put on dresses and high heels. i watched movies and went dancing in a suddenly strapless dress and rode my bicycle home alone. there are many things in richmond that make me want to make it my home, though i am told my ceiling is made of concrete and is about to fall down. though i am scared of america, i have bought a wooden writing table that is actually a woman's make-up dresser. i talked the woman who owns the hanover thrift store into selling it to me sans three fold-out mirrors, then took it home to clean the years of face powder out of the cracks. there is something i like about it, something about the ritual i imagine of it, that i will change into my own daily habit.
