Friday, November 30, 2007

laughing at funerals

Here I sit in my computer chair, laughing.

It is amazing how paralyzing it is when you slide one socked foot along the carpet to turn and stand...

and a sewing needle sinks itself 3/4 of an inch into the meaty part of your heel.

Now the throbbing.

And a little more laughter.

God dang that smarts.


Yes I pulled it out. Put down my bowl and sat in that slow motion way of "What the living hell is stuck in my foot?"

Incidentally, it took some serious pulling to yank it out.

Good thing I got that Tetanus update in September :)

once upon a stove top

I changed purses rapidly before leaving for class Wednesday night. Up on my toes I stretched my arms to lift down my busted at the seams firebox, willing the papers and newly replaced passport squeezed between the detached lid and nestled boxes of jewelry and old cat tags and Sylvia's very first collar not to slip free; balanced it teetering on the top of the floor bound TV and pre-accident reprimanded myself not to bump it over; needed the hook of a white plastic hanger to latch the strap and pull the bag down, catching it mid-air.

In spare time at a red light during my morning commute I fiddled into the front pockets of the purse I was sure I'd stripped bare last spring and dug out an old grocery list and a ticket- UMF (University of Maine-Farmington); Iolanthe (a Scottish troupe); Sat 09/25/2004.

I remember it was very cold that night and we crossed High Street from our apartment to the auditorium/business building with our breath in the air holding hands I bet unless my arms were folded for warth, and at intermission I walked fast back home and ran up the stairs on a cough drop mission because I was halfway into coming down with something nasty and trying hard to not cough on my row mates.

Two weeks ago I destroyed our collander. It's common sense is it not? If a burner has just been turned off, putting a plastic collander on top is going to melt that collander right to the stove.

I didn't tell Boyfriend about it because I'd have to explain why it happened. I'd have to tell him that I just got lost in the past for a little while; that one of those cozy little waves of yesteryear overtook me and I was back in our kitchen in Maine, making supper while my (ex-fiance) ran out to the store for blueberries or milk ; how I was at my future in-laws for Sunday dinner or maybe Christmas and wondering what my life would be like now had I gone through with the marriage; and how it doesn't truly matter because I love Boyfriend and he's my best friend but sometimes I just get caught up in a visit with the happies of yesterday.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Okay, so here is an idea- rather than government keep cigarette smokers in its palm like a money making pet why doesn't it make a move that would not simply line the its own pocket?

It's certainly well known how detrimental cigarette smoking is to the cardiovascular system but cigarettes are supposedly more addictive than heroin. Government knows this. Government also makes a lot of money off smokers. Does Government really want smokers to quit? I don't think so.

Illegalizing cigarettes would be ridiculous. Raising tobacco taxes sky high is awfully hypocritical don't you think? Get the people hooked on something quite addictive and harmful, keep producing it at the same toxin level even though you know its killing the people, then make the candy more and more difficult to get, but more and more lucrative for the suppliers.

Why can't the nicotine level in cigarettes by incrementally lowered all across the board? Is that chemically possible? Is this a completely unsound idea?

Sunday, November 04, 2007

going about it

the dreams i dreamed in the days of olden
and time keeps passing
never come to be
and time keeps passing and the places i dreamed
changed without me
and i visit the places expecting the me
i left behind
expecting to find the me i used to be
and the you that dreamed too
the you that made the wind and tasted the salt and whistled my skin
the you that dreamed for me

and time keeps passing and the places they stay
while the dreams come and go
and the me passes by
with my baskets of people and harmonies
that used to be

Saturday, November 03, 2007

reignition

For a long time I lost my fire and my passion. I forgot how to dive into life and lick it.

But it's coming back now. It's all coming back.


For a very long time I've done my best at being someone I wasn't ever supposed to be, and now might have the chance to practice being just who I've really been all along.

Remember the paper cuts

I was just typing to Boyfriend on the merits of Microsoft Word.

I have a paper to write today. Well, I've had it for two weeks but writing it took reading up until a certain point in my text; and it took procrastination for days and days hoping to be inspired by an opening sentence.

The days of my college papers were not that long ago, but well before computers in dorm rooms were common place. No one I knew had a personal computer at college in the very early 90's and my computer class that first Freshman semester focused upon the IBM pc.
(don't ask me the model, if that's even the term. oh, poor boyfriend- computer whiz extraordinaire and I had to ask recently what you call the blinking hookup box my cat likes to lie upon for warmth :)

Today I can type my paper into the Word program, save it, pull it up later and add my quotes, even send it to Boyfriend's to finish and print there if this printer decides to be pissy again.

In 1992, I had my electric typewriter and White-Out, and two or three drafts to hand write on note book paper before even thinking about typing on my quality white typing paper. In 1992, if I screwed up badly I had to start the whole page over, even if I was on the very last line and if I ran out of paper too soon and after the stores closed, I was usually SOL.

In 1992, I had to wait for the library to open enabling me to haul home piles of text books covering in crinkling, aged plastic slip covers with cracked egdes and yellowed encyclopedic copies with notes of former loanees falling out from between the smelly pages.

I could grow nostalgic for the hows of writing a paper in the 80's and 90's, but Lordee is this was simpler!

work in progress

when i am deep in the noodles
of duodenum doodles
and school is rotting my head

mounting textbooks of muscles,
fungi, and pustules-
study? i'd rather eat lead

with coffee and soda,
IM's written in Yoda
a fleece covered flannely bed


Give me a hand- I need a final stanza!