The Watchmen

I feel really good right now. I'm reading The Watchmen, and I feel super cool. All I need to do now is sit at a coffee shop so people can SEE me reading The Watchmen. I'm thinking about writing my book review finally, at least for practice for when A King of Infinite Space comes out, so I can review that for Chiron, because that sounds really fun. I already know what I want to say. Anyway, I decided on another story I want to write, and that makes a million stories I want to write, so I'm good for inspiration. Now all I have to do is write them. Ha. I thought I had a lot to say for this blog, but I don't really. Ta!

All in the Timing

I love break more than ever. I'm reading SO much. I just read All in the Timing, a book of plays by David Ives, and I am now in love with David Ives. The house is empty except for cake and pizza, and I'm not complaining, just growing a nice new layer of fat to get me through the winter. Now that I'm done with All in the Timing, I'll have no choice but to start my nonfiction. I know exactly where to start, but I don't have the courage just yet to start there. It was around this time last year: winter 2007/2008. I can't be sure exactly when. Wish me luck. I'm really afraid, actually. And that just proves that I should write this. And to hell with what Cooper thinks about the structure of a story. I can write my life in my own way. And I just realized that it's probably good that I lost my phone. Because that asshole (not Cooper. Cooper is not an asshole) is no doubt calling it right now, wanting me to wish him a happy Christmas. No. No no no. My feet are numb, and I am shivering, and it's time to find some blankets.

the zombie years

I love break. I hardly ever drink, but I've had the equivalent of a day of binge drinking spread out over the course of this week, and I'm starting to feel it. I watched a bizarre Chek movie called "Little Otik" which I recommend to you all (especially the first half), and on Christa's suggestion I bought and finished Blankets, a coming-of-age graphic novel memoir. I've also been reading Dog Years, another memoir, and I've been starting mental notes for my own memoirs. It's almost unfortunate that I have so much to write about, but I'm starting to realize that maybe the only reason I'm a horrible person is because I have all this guilt and shame and pain that I need to just purge and be rid of. Ha, that's a great reason to write a memoir, right? I'm going to write it without any publishing aims, just my own need, and then we'll see what happens from there.

I have this expanding aching fragile heart lately, and I don't know what to do with it. I'm falling in love. I'm crying at sad songs. I'm thinking in bad poetry... It's the kind of feeling that usually leads to distruction. I've been reading a lot. I bought Flatland for my stepdad, and I can't stop reading it myself. I've been swimming in memories thinking of scenes for this memoir, and it's a little haunting, a little terrifying, like resurrecting the dead. And I'm afraid of zombies, I really am.

Underpants Day

More dreams. One of my dad's exgirlfriends trying to blow me up. That's it, though. Had the best party ever last night. Realized I love all my MFAers, and am happy to be in the program. It was like family. Got drunk and started talking all kinds of stupid shit. I told everyone I loved them, and by tomorrow I'm going to be known as the girl who's had other people's urine on her face twice. But really, how does that happen? I'm like a urine magnet. No pee incidents yesterday, though. Hurrah. Food was amazing. Got to page six on my paper. Had good conversations. ETC. Been procrastinating. Rewriting stories, which is productive but not the most important thing. Ech. Lost one of my sources. Boo. Sang some great kereoke with Katie Prow. And Omar sang a mean Roxanne. Gerri actually called me in from outside to witness it. Ugh, to work I got. Gotta go to work, work all day, it's an underpants day.

Your lips taste of poison

I love PJ Harvey. I'm listening to her like a mad woman. Pretending to outline and really wanting to write a story. I held my cat so close last night and all the way til morning, and we had this beautiful sleep together. (Real sleep!) He put his paw on my shoulder like a hug, and we slept face to face while he purred and I stroked his face. He's such a good cat. My mom says she's glad I like him, because no one else does. She's wrong. She's the only one who doesn't like him, actually. My brothers like him a lot. And my step dad talks to him like he's a friend. She doesn't like him becuase he has an anatomical problem, and he pees in little puddles on the floor. That's not his fault. I always feel really sad cleaning up after him, wondering how much pain he's in. My poor kitty. I had a dream where I was walking with him in a papous (sp?) held in front of me.

PJ Harvey, you're amazing. Run away with me, PJ Harvey.

Today I should work on my Paradise Lost paper. It's going to be harder than my 696 paper, I think. Maybe not. I have to do both of them. I'm supposed to go to an Amanda Palmer concert on Tuesday night, and it's just not going to happen. Amanda Palmer! I'd run away with you too!

This is my third day without antidepressants. I ran out, and I haven't been able to go turn in my new perscription. So. Not only am I going to be crying like a maniac all weekend, but I'm most likely going to be sick, because going off of antidepressants cold turkey gives you flu symptoms. I am so irresponsible. I'll try to get them today. I don't have a car right now... but when Omar gets here. I don't have caffeine either. So I'm slumped. Like those kids in the anti-pot commercials. Blech. It's noon, and my feet are asleep, and I am cold and unmotivated. Well, motivated by fear, I guess.

Potluck at Jason's tonight. Woot. I shouldn't go. But I will.

Dreams for Finals Week

I don't really want to write about how stressed I am or how depressed I am or my sleeping problems right now. So... I want to talk about my dreams. I've been told (by Mark Doty) that dreams are only interesting to the dreamer, but I am selfish and the main reader of my blog, so I'm doing it anyway.

The dream I had this morning was convoluted and didn't happen in a story structure, so I won't delve into it. I was a mermaid/human (like in Splash!) which is expected since I just wrote a mermaid story. There was this guy who was my prince, but I don't know much about him. There were twin baby boys that always needed to be held and cared for, and we were always either captured by or on the run from torturerers- a whole island of them, and they had an entire society I won't talk about. I also had a little girl, but she was screaming and screaming and always showing where we were. At the end I reached to her face and it broke inward, and there was all this machinary inside. In fact, the only reason I find this dream interesting is because it's another dream with family (like all the others) and it's a second dream where a female family member who shows up way later and ends up being a doll.

In the other dream that I had two nights ago, I was visiting my cousins. Their house was on this big pile of machinary (do you see how many parallels there are? crazy) and I had to climb it whenever I wanted to get inside. I forgot my toothbrush and wanted to buy one, but my cousin (who is in real life very aloof) wanted me to use his. And I didn't want to. I just wanted to buy my own. But he threw this really awful fit, and he kept following me everywhere making sure I wouldn't buy one, so I ended up using it, and I felt disgusted.

Come one, come all, and look at the crazy cat lady

I am so depressed and stressed and now also physically ill. I have a lot to do, but I don't even think it's that. I can't sleep. When I finally fall asleep I wake up again, and it's dark outside, and I'm alone and sad and too awake. I'm feeling really needy and dependent. "Mommy, tell me I'm smart. Tell me I'm doing good things. Tell me you like me living here." I've been feeling like every moment I'm separated from my cat is awful, and I spend a lot of time looking for him in my backyard. I even made him a toy yesterday, and he played with it a little bit, but he's in pain and can't play for long.

I think I'd be happy as a crazy cat lady. "Why am I at this job I hate? Oh yeah, to feed my cats." Just give me a hovel with some cats and let me live until I die taking caring of them. That's a good life, I think.

The Dream

I've been having a dream over the last two nights, and maybe writing and sharing will... I don't know- do something.

I am traveling to my grandmother's house, but she lives really far away, and I am travelling alone. My mother drops me off at the station, and I have two small bags with me, only enough to get by. It is like a train station, but the platform itself is a hole that is a tube running with water (think Raging Waters, Wild Rivers). I am clothed and dry and well made up. I am trendy, and that's unlike me. I look professional. I step into the platform/tube of water, and I am whooshed away. I am thinking about my mother's instructions. I will ride this for over an hour and then take a train and then take a bus to my grandmother's.

I exit the tube after a long time and wait for the train, and I am nervous because I am alone, and the faceless people offer no help to me. In fact, they don't really move. They are ensemble, tableaux. I take my train. I take my bus. And then I walk to my grandmother's house which is actually (meaning in waking life) my great grandmother's house, which is a two story wood cabin in the forest. I stay (in my dream) for two days as we wait for others to visit.

When it is time to leave, I know to take a shower. When I open it, the shower is on, and my aunt is in there. I say I'm sorry, but then I look again and she is only an inflatable doll. I push it aside and it becomes a kind of shower curtain. This time, I am not wearing clothes. A man comes in, who I know to be a relative. He says hello, but I tell him that I am just on my way home. Then the shower floor rounds and becomes the tube again. I am transported for over an hour to the train station, and when I exit, I find my bags and put on my clothes.

And that's the end so far. It's probably boring to other people. It makes a kind of sense to me, but I feel really awkward all through the dream, so I don't want to have it again. And maybe now I won't.

vagignments- a correction

I really liked the way vaginments worked, but everyone pronounces it wrong, and my co-conspirator Sean says it would be better as vagignments. I've never been one to say no to Sean before, ergo- vagignments. I had been debating between the two spellings anyway. This one looks like it might have a gig pronounced in the middle, but ah well. At least it's not pronounced like vita-meata-vaginments. Stupid English language.

Of course, now I've created a monster. You can google me by searching vaginments, and that's how my very-Christian uncle found my blog. I love you Uncle Mark! Shout out! I didn't mean for him to ever hear me say anything vaginally related, but he did think it was funny, and we had a nurture v. nature discussion seeing as we've only ever met like three times and yet, as he says, we have a similar sense of humor.

I am happy when people think I'm funny. The bad boyfriend I had thought I was terribly unhumorous, that the only funny things I did were stupid things that he could make fun of. But no, if you want me to like you, say I'm funny. I might no believe you, but I'll like you. Not cute. A poet I was talking to on facebook (never met) said "You're cute, but you look young." Thanks? No, actually. Very creepy. In real life you can think I'm cute. On facebook, stay away. Especially if you might be publishing my poem in your anthology. I'd rather be a good poet than a cute young girl. Ugh.

Anyway, I couldn't sleep last night, so I got a lot done. I finished the novel I was reading for my 696 paper, and I did both assignments *cough* sorry, vagignments that are due today. You could say I'm a superhero. You could say it. Of course, I'm tired today.

I hate my neighbors.

I hate my neighbors. I hate them. All of them. One of them is a sex offender who sits outside with his big dogs (not on leashes) and watches people walk by. Another one got his house from his parents and is always getting raided. Sometimes they shut down the whole street because his dumbass house is getting raided. There are always other people living there, and sometimes they're the one's being arrested, but not always. There are sometimes children there, but we don't know what happens to them there, and they are always taken by child protective services if they're there for too long. One girl that was there was fourteen and friends with one of my younger male relatives who was twelve at the time. And he didn't participate, but he watched her have sex with all the boys in the neighborhood (well three or four) at once. And they were eleven to thirteen. I've had my house surrounded by preteen boys on bikes, and I always had to call the cops on them, because I couldn't go outside. My brother at one point was friends with one of those boys, and he pushed me up against the wall. And I was seventeen and couldn't do anything about it. What was I supposed to do, push him? Luckily, those boys are all gone too. But where? I almost feel sad thinking about them. But they are not the point of this blog, nor are the stupid dogs that bark whenever I go into my house or the way my step dad's cat was found mutilated and spread across a neighbor's lawn.

What this is really about is parking. I am not allowed to park in the driveway, because it really pisses off my parents (yes, I live with my parents) to have to park on the street. So I park on the street. There is one spot in front of my house. Lately, it has been taken every time. So I've been parking across the street. When I got home last night, my step dad said I should move it soon because the neighbor came over and said his sons were living with him again, and they need that parking space. These are the same sons that stare at me whenever I get into my car. But anyway, fine. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was get up to move my car. I'm a good neighbor. I have no problem moving my car (even though the street and the curb are public property, and I should be able to park where ever I want, and people have been having no problem parking in my only spot, but whatever). So I go out to move my car, and there's a note on the windshield. That's to be expected. But I open it and it says "Please don't park here ever again!" That part was underlined, not bold, but what pricks. Did they not see that my space was also filled with someone else's car? Would they prefer me to park farther away and walk in the middle of the night to my house? Woudn't the asshole sons be better suited for that? And it's not even about that as much as it is a public street, and whoever gets there first should be able to park there. And whenever his sons' friends are over, they park in my space and then talk really loudly NEXT to the car. Or drink or whatever they do. Assholes.

And now I have written this long-ass blog instead of doing my vaginments, and I have two big ones due tomorrow. Not to mention, I need medical attention, and no one is here. The surgery happened in July, you should be healed by now. But I'm not. And I need help, because I can't do it on my own. Omar is coming. But I'm asking him to miss an event he was looking forward to, and now I feel bad.

Whoa, I might be anthologized!

It turns out that I misunderstood an e-mail from an editor. I was invited to submit a poem for an anthology of poet responses to the election. I wrote up a poem about prop 8 and sent it, and I'm in the running! Both publishers like it, and they're holding on to it for consideration. At this point, it all depends on how many poems the publisher decides on and whether or not mine is chosen within that space. I rock.