|oystershell|

I THINK WE'RE HAUNTED

goodbyes.  i hate goodbyes. i don't do goodbyes all that well.  the way they linger there, in the air.  the way they penetrate my stoic frame.  goodbyes.  get in, get them done, get out.  i am a murderer of swan songs.  i am quick to drop the ball, and let it roll away.  and later cry into my empty hands.  i hate goodbyes.  because they are so hard.  and even harder to swallow.  i tend to ignore what i can't accept.  what i know i can't emotionally handle.  i haven't always been this way.

long ago and far away i fought, fought, fought to hold on to what i believed in.  to what i wanted.  to what i loved.  but fighting just got so exhausting.  and i kept losing.  and eventually i was the only one to keep showing up.  so now i get out of dodge.  i drop my hands to my sides.  i roll over.  there are too many wars, these days, anyway.

i have changed so much these past 6 months.  and not in a way that's worth saying.  in ways that astound me.  in ways that mug me on late night walks home.  in ways that take me for all i have, and leave me with no form of id. no traces of anything. 

i don't know if i'm a softer person or a harder one.  if i'm more of one, because i'm more of the other.  i don't know.  i don't know that it matters.  i feel good, for the mostpart.

but i still hate goodbyes.  i keep them brief.  i make no promises.  i just close my eyes and say goodnight.  and i listen as the door closes in the dark.

TITTIE BARS

we are unflappable.  this business of forgiveness is sky rocketing.  and we don't even think to look down.  i have a knack for the ironic.  pissing with my friends onto the walls of a catholic church.  on my way to titty bars.  getting beligerant and talking back to the strippers.  but we are unflappable.  nursing hangovers with bloody marys at holmans on saturdays.  every saturday.  talking.  talking shit.  laughing hard.  my crooked smile and beaming cheek bones, chuckling into my coffee cup. 

we are so out and about.  and i get lost in the fact that this is totally my home.  the hipsters playing four square on the sidewalk, drunk lily whoring belmont's inn, the dixie mattress company lesbos.  these are my people.  we see the same strangers time and time again, and it reminds me of new orleans.  it reminds me of home.  until i remember that it is.

i opened my eyes this morning and was startled with the reminder that i had stumbled to the boyfriend's in the middle of the night.  it felt so disjointed.  it felt so weird.  it felt so... normal.  suddenly my life is a life, and not just a pause.  no longer a refrain.  suddenly something sweet and permanent.  well, as permanent as anything can get these days.  in this business of forgiveness.  in the little things we say and do.  in the way i remember everything before.  like there and him and spectacular views. 

ryan, jen and pam are coming up in a couple weeks.  and i am unflappable.

CREST

so mundane, the things that make us smile and swoon.  a tube of crest toothpaste, sitting quietly next to a sink.  a tube of crest i'd not given a thought to the first time i used it in his bathroom.  with the tooth brush he got for me to keep there.  did you see the toothpaste, he asked, smiling.  yeah, why?  it's the same kind you use.  is it?  yeah, he said smiling.

i don't buy any particular brand or type of toothpaste.  i take that back.  the particular type or brand of toothpaste i buy is the third cheapest at the store, whatever that may be on whatever given day i'm buying toothpaste.  i never buy the cheapest, because it's the cheapest.  the cheapest can't be good.  and the second cheapest is, well, the second worst toothpaste.  the third cheapest is fair game, though.  and cheap.  cheap, but not the worst, nor second worst brand of type. 

evidently, the last time i bought toothpaste, this particular type of crest was the third cheapest that day.  i can't even remember what brand and type is sitting in my medicine cabinet now.  i just had to check.  it's colgate.  these are the things i don't notice, nor remember.  on the rare occasion i actually like a brand and type of anything enough to be compelled to repurchase it, i have to save the empty bottle, can or tube, make a note of it, and take it to the market with me.  i don't remember these things.  these things don't matter to me.  i don't think to remember or care about these things.

but he.  he used my toothpaste once.  he remembered the brand and type.  and he bought it for his own bathroom counter.  because he thought i liked it.  not because it was the third least expensive brand and type.  he can afford the most expensive.  but there it was, the at one time, third cheapest tube of toothpaste.  sitting there for me.

i just used it.  it made me smile.  it made me swoon.  it made me wonder.  he's almost out.  what will he replace it with?

THE DUST

we kick up the dust.  and what goes up must come down.  we do what we can to fill the empty hollows of loneliness.  we quietly re-read the lines we so long ago recorded.  no more walls to bear markings, we stare at the ceilings, haunted, as the particles of what we used to be fall back down around us.  reminding us.  reminding us of the realities we find ourselves running from.  kicking up dust to hide behind.  all our smoke and mirrors.  there is no such thing as a clean getaway.  no great escapes.  no forgiving and forgetting; especially when it comes to the mistakes we have made.  the things we've lost and lost sight of. 

this place feels so weird.  it feels like home, and that feels so weird.  he feels like home.  everything before it feels so far away.  decades away.  pages behind and bound and brushed aside.  covers covered with dust. 

we kick up the dust.  and what goes up must come down.

WEATHER AND WEATHERING IDEAS

it's sunny now.
it was sunny two hours ago.
one hour ago, when i left for coffee, it started hailing.

hypothesis:   god hates gays.
result:   wet pants. sad face. general disdain.

sr. shattuck comes to town on saturday.  boyfriend's folks come to town tomorrow; and i am completely intimidated.  'hi. i'm your used-to-be straight and married, ivy league graduate, er doctor son's 11 year junior, junior college drop-out, gay boyfriend.  how's it going?  let's make a good impression.'

i have a bug up my ass to make stuff.  one trip to home depot + one trip to the rebuilding center + one subscription to readymade + dream of selling homemade creations online = lots of talk and cobwebs.  a few years ago i had a bug up my ass to become an artist.  i spent $200 on art supplies (oh the days of expendable income), which are now sitting in boxes in california.  we'll see though.  on the agenda: platform bed, lamps, wallprints and chair.  the boyfriend is committed to overseeing for follow-through.  so, this could actually happen.

DECADE

today has felt like a decade.  a decade of incendiary nothings.  one of those days where you wake up warm and just right.  one of those days where you know getting out of bed is going to be the start of a swan song.  a swan song of nothing in particular. 

i'm tired.  i want a vacation.  i need a vacation.  i'm weary.  and wary.  maybe it's concrescence.  can one be waxing and waning simultaneously?  a decade of incendiary nothings.  knowing the sun is just beyond the horizon.  shivering in the dark, cold, waiting.

GRINDHOUSE

two things:

1.  rose mcgowan is a badass.

2.  rose mcgown makes me question my sexuality.

i hope everyone finds lots of eggs today. 

GOOD START

time travels in crescendoes and breaks.  we swear sometimes we can see the future before it's begun.  and sometimes we feel like the past never really concluded on its own.  like we're still breathing the same breaths. 

life is good.  i am happy.  and for the first time, in a long time, happiness doesn't make me anxious. 

yesterday sue and i looked for beavers and talked about mountain lion classes.  when you grow up in the country, near the mountains, you have mountain lion classes in school.  where experts teach you hot to avoid, survive, and stop a mountain lion attack.  i never, until yesterday, realized how bizarre this was.  of course, rodeo was a high school sport. 

i'm happy.  and i'm optimistic about what's to come.  and even when i'm tired, i want to step outside and enjoy everything that surrounds me.