tight ass

if i said right here...if i said...oh...that i had a tight ass, what would you think? that my ass is tight? that i've got a boyfriend whose ass is tight? that this boyfriend's ass is drunk? or that this boyfriend is a cheapskate? perhaps that a former boyfriend's ass was tight, or that he liked to drink, or that he squeezed pennies hard enough to make copper-colored paint? or maybe that i used to be married or gay, and all the aforementioned angles belong to this other person, this former squeeze? could it mean that i had a one-nighter with someone with one or all of the aformentioned characteristics? or does it mean, simply, that i'm mean?

hm.

it could be that i used to have a tight ass but don't anymore. it could be that i am an anal-retentive type whose ass could or could not be really really tight and/or really really drunk and/or really really cheap and/or really really--well, not soooo really--mean.

but the truth is...well, now that i bring it up, i'm almost embarrassed to admit it. b/c the admission would make me horn-blower, a tattletale, a has-been, a divorcee, a girl who goes around looking for or creating or demolishing or wearing tight asses. and what the hell do you do with that kind of info?

i mean, it could change in a day, with the input of new information. that the ass i think is so tight really isn't b/c my understanding is based on info i currently hold--or info i think you base your decisions on--while new information could refute it, turn it over, spank it. this new information could show that a tight ass is a touch tighter, or that a tight ass was acting like a tight ass to counteract his/her girlfriend's, wife's, lover's (i.e., my) spending habit. maybe this person wasn't a tight ass, but a thinker of the future who secretly and unbeknownced to me spent crazy money on a food-binging habit, drugs, kookoo for-pay sex, a therapist, a secret collection of photographs, flying lessons, the other woman!

so much is based on inflection, on what you already know, what we want each other to know, on how much of a fuck you give or want to find out. so much is based on mood. sometimes...sometimes so much is based on a freudian slip. what is the truth? what is the truth? what is the truth?

what, exactly, is a tight ass, anyway?

if you wanna know, if you really wanna know, i'll tell you...in the new year, of course.

hank the shoe maker guy

i take the advice of strangers. so a couple months ago i brought a coach purse and a pair of dkny boots to this ol shoe maker guy hank. now. i don't seek out monster dollar designer labels but i also don't kick the stuff to the curb on a whim. so believe me when i say i knew better when he cut the strap of the purse and resewed it in a rather cockeyed fashion. i didn't make the guy redo it. further, i didn't take my boots out of his near-senilic (can i say this?) posession. why? b/c he's a rather fucking wonderful story teller. ok, ok, i hear you. i cannot defend myself. i know the practical concern here. it's like watching some wellmeaning dealership employee drive your brand new car off the lot and scrape the damn thing from stem to stern along the brick building before parking in front of you, keys dangling. ta-daaaaaaa!

but. hank also is great comic relief even while it went from bad to worse. bad: purse strap cannot be fixed. it's glued where it's going to stay. he didn't leave enough room to make even a nanometer's change. worse: every time in the last two months i've gone in to pick up my boots, he's had some excuse: the weather isn't cold yet, i figured i had time. (what?!) i called you, you didn't answer. (he's old enough to not trust the technology of answering machines.) finally. finally i have my boots back. but i had to go to his shop twice today. he doesn't take credit. what the--?! ok. ok. no credit. a trip to the bank. another trip to the shoe store. $25 repair. but here's the thing....

hank's sister died on christmas day and is being buried tomorrow. he's got 2 daughters: the first, nancy, was married to an italian-american guy. tony, if i remember correctly. this tony told hank one day 31 years ago, "you got three houses. i think you should give one to us rent-free. that would make it easier on us. and if you don't, we'll get it all when you die anyway." hank said his feelings were really hurt. shortly thereafter hank's wife (she's part native american ["indian" says hank]) wasn't feeling so good. she told hank, "take me to the doctor b/c i can feel something growing in me." turns out, 25 years after their first daughter was born, a second daughter was born. hank's wife was 43 years old, hank 45. as i said, this was 31 years ago. so hank told his son-in-law: "tony, you're going to have a little sister-in-law so i'm going to be around a long long time." a few months later, tony was gone. and nancy? "she was jealous as hell." probably still is, i'd guess.

then there's the story of hank's mother-in-law. maybe i'll tell you about it some time. but you see? you see? i mean, a fucked up purse is a small price to pay when i can carry the hank story around with me just waiting...just waiting for someone to screw their face up at my bad sew job. then i can let em have it: hank.

ya know, vince believes efficiency is king and that might very well be true. but i was never into kings. i've always liked the princes and paupers better.

rock'n'roll sickness

i'm sick. sick wit da blog compulsion. sick wit da cotton head. sick wit sore troat.

Q: where do polaks plant their trees?
A: between 2 and 4.
(that's for all the old school polaks out there. tell your neighbor; he'll love it.)

aaaaaaaaaarh, WHY must something so silly hurt so BAAAAAD?! (talking about the sore throat, not the polishness.) i'm sick with procrastination. just a few days left and i gotta bust out the letter of intent for the grad degree. you know, you play better sport when you're sick. do you think and write better too? my fear is the woozy wall modulations and floor girations that take the edge off and loosen the performance anxiety and the muscles in the one case does not offer the same effect (affect?) in the other case. blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
stumbled upon another writer that makes it look all rock'n'roll easy [gotcha, rick]. debra monroe: the source of trouble.
how do these fuckers do it? and why am i wining about it? i recall bukowski retelling the story about how some kid sidled up to him at a bar and wanted to interview him to find out how to be a writer. bukowski tells him something like "fuck off and write something."
old bastards. we're going to be crusty like that one day. won't have any patience for those who don't get it. presumably, hopefully, possibly, pleeeeeeese, we will get it. at lease some of the time. at least when it matters. at least once in a while.
or, at the very least, we'll get it after we've gone the long way around and are looking back saying "what the hell d'i do that for?" i'm looking forward to laughing about it then.
till then, tho, i gotta try to take myself to sleep so i can try not to take myself, or the rest of it, too seriously for what's left of the night.
rock on, bloggers/readers/writers/rock'n'rollers....

curious.sexual.human.

"Most things are done with no reference to the human/ even if they happen inside us, in our/ body that is far beyond our powers, that we could never invent" (from "A Woman in Heat Wiping Herself," The Gold Cell).

sharon olds wrote this. she has written a lot, apparently, that i need to read. thanks to charkey for turning me on to her. she is EXACLTY what i was refering to without knowing it in my real ladies don't squat like that post. i didn't quite know how to say it. but she does. she did.

and one reader to my post reacted as some readers to olds do: defensiveness. hatred. embarrassment. disgust.
you have to expect that when you push buttons.

seems to me olds does the heavy investigative work on the body to make it easy for us to forgive ourselves for being curious. for being sexual. for being human.

thank god. i'm tired of hiding. but shiiiiit it's hard work breaking out of the shell.

zack

i told you about zina, the wonder kid. well here's one about zack.

my buddy ellen has this nephew. zack. doe eyes and a collicky hair extravaganza, dimples deep enough to drive a car into. he's what? 10 years old? and he's on his way to being a championship swimmer. except he's tired of it and he's quitting after this season. anyway, to get through the actual swimming part of the sport, he's taken to making a game out of it. go figure.

zack: "hey, mom. if i break a record today, will you get me that swimsuit?"
mom: "sure, zack." suits are pretty cheap.
zack: "mom, if i break two records, will you get me that superdelux $200 neoprene full-body suit?"
mom: "sure, zack." a bluff.

cut to after zack's heats: crazy wild cheers and back slapping. zack broke not only his own coach's record but also the state record.

for my part, i asked ellen to get me his autograph before the little punk puts the trunks away for good.

i been hearing that he's breaking all kinds of records lately. ain't that just how it goes...in the end, when his pressure has fallen away, he's finding his groove.

you know, i'm looking for a place to hang my new autographed pic of zack. there he is, center lane, doing the freestyle. face up, toward the camera, mouth open, going for it.

one word

napoleon dynamite

freakygood combo

more dead. christmas is like war this year. two colleagues' fathers have passed away in the time it took us to get from december 21 to december 25. the rest of us, we all just keep pluggin along, recovering from exhaustion.

oh, heard through the family grapevine: pregnancy. wanted. 16 years wanted.

there it is again: death rebirth death rebirth.

sun's out. i love all the love shit in the air. it's relaxing and invogorating. freakygood combo. freakygood.

now and now and now

if i had a christmas tree, i'd want to sleep under it. even tonight. maybe it's the nostalgia. maybe it's how everybody is walking around with their guard down. holy day dis/re/guard. the putting down the guard in preparation for putting it back up again...to have the strength to regain, redouble, renovate in the new year.

it's a bit like charkey says in her recent post: "becoming flesh." putting the holy, the humanity, on the everyday. every minute. every interaction.

recently a friend was talking about her boyfriend's slowness in getting a job done. "it could be a sign of things to come," she says, groan-grimace-laugh.

what?!" clangs ellen. "this is your future."

"things to come done already come," says i. "and are coming and coming and coming."

then it hit me. all those people waaaaaaaiting for the second coming of christ. they are totally missing it. he/salvation comes every second. now. and now. and now.

"like the buddhists believe," says karen.

and now. bed. merry christmas and goodnight.

big day

time for snow angels. it's christmas.

beautiful

so my boss called at 6.30am yesterday to say "christmas holiday begins early!" translation: stay in bed today...too cold. yay! except of course, i had a few jobs to take care of so i ended up at work anyway.

but the dream he woke me out of....
setting: the forested area within spittin distance of gran'sasso, a mountain range and hiking destination in abruzzo. sun jumping through leaves. barely there breezes. horses stomping around out of eye-shot. tall tall beautiful girl, center. latin face, tilted and timelss alone eyes, thicker than thick hair. long short hair. skin the color of coffee, splish of milk.

and she smiles broad. enough to kill a man and devastate fearful women. and she says, "no. i'm fine thank you. i'm not interested in that." she makes no gestures. simply this, the words. the smile just sticking the knife in deeper. her eyes to your eyes. her lips, her face to your eyes. for your eyes. you think you are drunk. no walls, only trees. violet sky somewhere. but there must be something, something, you think.

her black brows knit.

"no, thank you, again. did you not hear me the first time i said it? did i not giggle enough....? i'm not interested in that, in what you have for me. i know what i want." her teeth glint against her skin. she stops smiling. nearly shamefully beautiful. she has heard this before. maybe she is the one who believes it the most.

she thinks to apologize for this beauty. for you. for its getting in the way. but she simply shifts her weight and waits. the breezes return. you try to understannd what she says, but to do so you should look away so you can think. it's just that she is so beautiful. so...beautiful.

updownupdown

a few notes in the emailbox today lighten the mood and bring me outta a winter headin for the rocks. man, i hate winter. cold hands, remember.

like leather tuscadero walkin onto the set of happy days, these lil love notes come with eerily perfect timing:

"Met the Warewolf yesterday night.... Great nostalgia of you for both of us."
--marco

and

"Smile alot today, you're gorgeous when you smile."
--pete

i haven't seen or spoken to either "the Warewolf" (formative former) or stinkyfeetpete (sigh) in what, 3, 4 years? both made me laugh and cry and stay up late--for different reasons. and you'll never catch me in a million years callin myself a raging beauty queen--well, except maybe on the day of nick's wedding. but that was outrageous. just too quirky and careless and, well, not made that way. what does make a beauty queen anyway? jean benet ramsey was headin that way now warn't she? but really, that's not the point. the point is... this life... which is just a wild and crazy and beautiful hoot filled to its stratosphere with losses and founds.

speaking of (con)founds--i got another lil love note since i started writing this. "chrismass is lookin...up.

letting em have it

this morning bumper to bumper on i-94 i thought about letting someone have it. a particular someone. no, not a particular someone. anyone. i re-imagined my mom, frustrated, digging her heels in and yelling, sitting on the kitchen floor: "you don't understand!" she yelled at my dad. dad stood by, unhelpful, confusion pasted onto his face. "get off the floor, elaine." a statement a demand a plea, leaning not leaning leaning against the counter next to ma. play fair, do say think something i understand, he didn't say. speak in my language, he didn't say. "please," he finally said.

i park, i walk. i see a woman running full blast. she's about 500 yards away and i catch her voice way before i catch her.

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" she screams and runs.

then the bus cuts her out of my vision. then she's back. not running any more. exhausted. but she's not done till she lets out one last grand phrase.

now she's done.

and i wave at her. like two VWs passing on the street. sympatiche.

ma

i'll do just about anything not to go to sleep. when i was nine it was crying at the end of the hallway until mom loosened the chokehold on my bedtime: i could stay in the living room and watch *M*A*S*H* with everyone. if i was quiet. and no questions. 11pm was it.

(who the hell can sleep though the conversation and laughter of a couple of parents and 4-5 other kids and a tv blaring the best show of the decade?! even caesar, our dog, got to hang out--sprawled on the outskirts of the mess of bodies. so i'd hang back, barely breaking the rules, waiting just waiting for someone to take pity on me, to do the right thing, to take me in, to want me. love me, my whimpering whimpered.)

"c'mon, kid," i waited for. "don't mope. oh stop it. c'mon."

sometimes it happened. the *M*A*S*H* nights. i would lay on the couch, quiet, with my head on mom's lap and the world roared around me. hawkeye, b.j., eric, steve, paula, dad. caesar. ma, her fingers in my hair, along my back, warm and perfect. oil of olay on her face. opaque nightie. scratchy aqua robe. love.

there's nothing like belonging. like sleeping in the afternoon. sun through the window warming the body on the couch, curled just so. drowsy. drowsier. and waking to the same soft sunshine and having an entire evening and night to procrastinate bedtime.

tonight it's blue chips and guac. then a book by couchside lamplight.

i must have looked at the calendar, even called out the date 3 or 4 times today for colleagues, over cube walls, down hallways, and i just realized. today's the anniversary of her--well, actually, her missingness, but a body goes into hypothermia and death very quickly in single digit temperatures and water. 23 years. damn. no wonder i wanted to cry at my desk. couldn't put my finger on it. but it's memory. like muscle memory. then the head catches up. like tonight. like sitting at the end of the hallway, my own arms wrapped around scrawny white legs, indian style, waiting for those other arms. hers. in scratchy aqua robe. warm. just waiting.

frstrtion

work work work work men men men men
12 hours at work today and counting
another four nights before i'll see vin
man
i get to go home to a cold house
a cold bed
dirty dishes, not even nicely stacked
no wonder why people watch so much gddm tv

outta my mind, italy on the brain

simmering hurts and deep deep beauties.

italy is a funny thing. like memory, like life, it draws you in--no, it grabs hands, the back of your head and takes you--and you'll crave more despite the craziness. watch the film i'm not scared (io non ho paura) and you'll understand.

it's been nearly four months since i left the boot's mountains, its strange music, its slowness. i dream in chopped up italian sometimes. i dreamt in its colors and sensuousness last night. sometimes its smell rises out of nowhere.

be careful. beauty and ugliness, like laughter and the strep invade and infect when you least expect it.

got italy on the brain but can't go? see some thoughts and some more thoughts.

102:57

caller i.d. tells secrets. last night stacy talked to eldest sister, it said. 102:57. translated: more than an hour and a half. nine, ten minutes, tops, spent on dad. i figure it's the equivalent of, let's see, spread out over the last 11 years (the last time we really talked), approximately 19 normal human-length conversations per year. that could be the equilavent of, what, one per month and a couple extra for holidays, birthdays, graduations, medical emergencies and the heck of it....

what is up with people and their relationships?

this is cass corridor

yes, this is my milieu. well, it's down the street from where i spend my 9-to-5 or -6 or -7 anyway. shit, iraq new york history sapho's poetry you are down the street from me.

My Dad Kicks Ass

in the parking lot after my dad's appointment with the urologist, daddio may even have given me a double hug. (that's a hug with two whole arms, very unusual for a died-in-the wool one armer.) i was wiping my nose on my cold hand. my dad, so typical. "where's your car?" he asks. i pointed, over there. then, as he was shutting barb's car door he says, "it's just the word 'cancer' that scares you.... i'm not worried."

you believe this guy. he was cheering me up.

the waitress, the monk, and yes zina

yesterday met some friends at a bar/restaurant downtown. the joint's connected to the oldest bowling alley in the united states, which is very cool. the restaurant, however, is not very cool--at least not last night. the majestic. don't go if you don't have to. the waitress will ignore you, lose your food ticket, then an hour and a half later will saunter over after you WAVE her down and she'll say: "i rushed over to tell you it's all my fault." here she throws her shapely arms up up into the air. "i..." (now she whispers conspiratorially) "lost the ticket." she giggles. "but your dinner will be ready in like fiiiiiiiiive minutes. i swear!" then she'll hurry away, ignoring bone dry water and beer glasses and tea cups, and quite frankly, she may never return.

but none of this is the important part.

the important part is this:

my friend vince (not da boyfriend, different one) told the zina story (see my nov 11 04 entry) to his congregation as a life reflection. (i think you can call a gathering of buddhists a congregation. not sure though.) he heard the story through his wife swarupa, who i finally had lunch with last week. they (vince and swa) have a new kid. and so i told swa the zina story. anyway, vince is a teacher. a monk. and i guess the story stuck with him. as it should. and i guess his buddhist talk is somewhat similar to a homily--if you know jack about catholicism.

you know, catholicism looks a lot like alcholism. but still, language is a virus and if the bug that's being passed is zina, throw away the inoculation.

she should infect everybody.

gone with the wind

one thing that leaves a sick feeling shooting through my veins and seated in the pit of my stomach is receiving telephone messages too late to do anything about them. it's not so unlike wishing you had not eaten that last piece slice hunk or two of >insert food item here<. not a fan of social vomiting, i'm left with the shaky ohshit sensation in my bare bulb-lit kitchen, alone, surrounded by a humming refrigerator, crimson walls and...where did all this clutter come from? and it all makes me feel hollow and kind of disgusting and bereft.

it's seeing my dad's number on the caller id of my cell phone i left, in retrospect like a dumbass, on my kitchen table this morning. it's hearing his voice giving me directions to bee line it through the construction and into the damn front door of the nursing home where uncle frankie stays. it's hearing his voice: "see ya if and when ya get here."

and when i reply "nooooooooo noooooooooooo," nobody hears me. no sympathetic ear on the other end. just dad continuing. "hey, give a call if you need to. dad."

so i hit the number 7 key and away dad's directions go. no sense keeping them now. party's over.

it's no use telling you that my aunt cynthia also left a message. i haven't spoken to her in years. haven't seen her in years. but driving home from work or class one night, i was stopped at a red light in my parents' pre-marriage neighborhood and i saw aunt cynthia's ex-husband across the street from the corner liquor store, leaning on the front quarter panel of an old reddish black lincoln or monte carlo. i rolled down the window and turned down the stereo.

"hey, costello. is that you?"
"who's that?"
"stacy. bob's daugher."
"who?" he bends at the waist, leans to see into my car better.
"stacy....you were with, you used to be with my aunt cynthia," i yell over the street noise. people are starting to pay attention.
"who?"
the woman next to costello jabs him hard enough in the ribs that he loses his balance. he looks at her.
"your ex. cynthia!" she raises her voice at him, frowning. she makes a tsk sound.
"oooooooooh, yeah. bobby. on the east side over there. how's your daddy doing?"
"he's good. he moved about 20 minutes north. he's married now."
the light turns green.
"i just wanted to say hi."
"i'm glad you did, sweetheart. you say hi to everybody for me okay."

that was probably two years ago.

before that i missed seeing aunt cynthia b/c i missed her son's wedding. derek. what a cute kid. big fat cheeks with dimples all over the place. i had heard some time ago, more than half a dozen years ago, that derek had gotten shot in the foot b/c he was selling on the wrong corner. some time later i got an invitation to his wedding. i was looking forward to it. but i was running late and it was in the hood and my--jeff--didn't even rough it in a campground let alone rough it in areas of the city where cars didn't have tires.

we were an hour late and didn't see anyone at the reception hall. i couldn't convince him we should wait. back then i didn't even have a cell phone to forget at home. i missed the wedding, the reception, seeing a bunch of my dad's people. my people. the people who remind me what real can be.

so to hear her voice on my telephone at 11.30pm telling me where to go to get to the party at 6.30pm, everything in me sank a bit. my vision shifted. my back sagged.
amazing how our emotions affect us.

and who can say how my missing the party affected uncle frank. really, he doesn't have anybody. i mean he's got a family. but he doesn't have a family. never really did from what i can tell. he's not a victim, don't get me wrong. it's a life of his own making. but it doesn't make it any less sad. or true.

oh cockeyed day.

i think i understand now why scarlett o'hara used to say all the time: "i'll worry about that tomorrow. after all, tomorrow is another day."

know what i mean?

i'd love to say something about how i'm not allowed to light my aromatherapy candles at work (where i could argue they are most needed) b/c people who don't have an office with a door also don't have any right to share anything smelly. (better hurry to the bathroom. and think twice before bringing that god-awful indian food around these here parts.)

i'd love to complain about a bunch of junk, but instead i turn the corner on that bitch hate to offer you a list of some of the things i love.

i love

.crazy big-ass unruly hair, especially on bums and kids
.unabashed public displays of in-love - gay, old, fraternal, whatever
.soccer - the curl of the ball through space, the sneak of lean muscle
.my brother steve, maybe not more than my other sibs, but softer
.freudian slips. they mean something even if you have to stretch to find it
.being shown up. being pissed off makes me remember what it is to work my ass off
.e - if you're paying attention nothing is ever the same again. heck, nothing is ever the same again anyway, duh
.secrets. what's yours?
.crying. seeing it, doing it. central as orgasm
.meeting people's eyes. love, baby, love
.rotary dial telephones. sometimes modern suuuuuuuuuuuucks
.dirty old men. they were somebody else's problem
.skipping the small talk. let's get to the important stuff

know what i mean?

the futon don

the worst is over, the storm has passed. evidence: today someone called me "a real piece of work" and it made me laugh. eesh. apologies to kerry from the other night whose remark ended up cleaved and strewn about my house in my stress- and hormone-induced craze.

i should wear a pirate outfit during these times of high anxiety. with a little makeup i could give johnny depp's caribbean capn a run for his money. it'd add a little stagger and a lot of pinache to my callousess.

so back to the guy who called me "a real piece of work." tony. anthony if you prefer. he works at or runs a place called...ready?...the futon don. i am not kidding. the futon don. 31851 gratiot, roseville, michigan 48066. their business card has the word "don" wearing a bowler hat or a--sorry, i don't know the name of the elegant black hat old italian men wear. i swear i am not making this up.

he made fun small talk, asked me what i do for a living, wrote up my due bill, talked my ear off, laughed at the appropriate comments, called me "a real comedian."

he had to spell my name on the receipt.

"m-u-s-z...c'mon, c'mon...y-n-ski...ah! a polak."

he looked up, bright eyes.

"the polaks loooove the italians." his head rolled around in a big circle while he said this. he is, you see, a comedian too.

"they DO." i laughed. "and the italians..." i purse my lips... "love everybody."

his turn to laugh.

"how do you know?" he wanted specifics.

"a lover from rome."

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd..." he was cackling now as he answered the phone. "futon don tony."

i am not making this up.

he got off the phone.

"from italy eh. the polaks loooooooooooove the italians.... sometimes i wish i were single." he turns his high-beams on. "there are some women out there who need me."

"i'm sure of it," i reply.

"your guy now. italian?"

"i thought i was safe. i figured he was dutch. he's too damn tall to be italian."

"but he's italian, isn't he."

"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. busted."

"the polaks love the italians," he said again.

yeah. i guess they do. and that guy from rome. he went away. the hurts and the storms, they do go away.

real

1
william shatner of all people has helped me out today.
his album, HAS BEEN...really great.

(nick hornby, henry rollins, aimee mann et al. great.)

the first of two important things i got from him--with the help of his wife and lemon jelly--is in one piece he calls "together":

"
Everyday
With you
Our arms
Are home
We're not alone
Not alone
"

it's just this tiny miraculous thing like a little prayer, a little poem, that folds up the corners on our quiet talk in bed this morning, vince's and mine. we laid, bodies like playing cards flat and warm. we hashed it out, i would have pointed fingers if it weren't so cold out there in the bedroom air. our legs entwined, soft tangents. he knows i harbor things. he knows i withhold. he takes the pressure off, makes me talk by calling himself the bad guy.

"so i'm the asshole," he says.

it works.

i cried that others hurt my feelings and i don't know how to explain, to show them. i tell him he's bombastic and doesn't shrink from confronatation and is therefore problematic, everything i'm not.

vince opens his arms. he gets me, he thinks. the wonderful jerk asshole. it's as easy in bed as anywhere to walk into his understanding. our arms our home. i cried. and better, i laughed. he gets me.

2
and william shatner explains something else, too. funny how crystal clear this has been has made it all. just "real." he explains:

"
And while there's a part of me
In that guy you've seen
Up there on that screen
I am so much more
And I wish I knew the things you think I do
I would change this world for sure
But I eat and sleep and breathe and bleed and feel
Sorry to disappoint you
But I'm real
"

and vince tries to get me to understand this about myself. "you're so easy--too easy--on everyone else and too hard on yourself," he whispers, his lips just above the folds of the sheet, just above my mangled hair. "why do you have to take on all the suffering?" he hugs harder, tells me i'm not christ.

i sniff before my nose runs. i sink in, breathe. my shoulders relax.

"nothing can stop me from loving you forever," he says. "it's okay," he says.

it's okay. it's okay that i'm real.

stress can make you do crazy things (this one's for _k_)

so last night some work friends got together with a very good friend of mine, not me.
i ended up at another get-together with some quite nice, really quite nice new people
and at the end of the nigh, kerry leaned in, big round mouth,

"really wonderful to meet you--you're a great personality."

and somehow i wrangled it into an insult by the time we hit the parking lot.

vince listened for approximately 40 seconds while i railed against the world, aiming all my frustration instead and squarely at her comment.
then he made fun of me.
"you hate everything, stace." he threw his hands in the air (couldn't hug me, he was driving). "really. do you hear yourself? you hate that someone just said something affectionate. semantics aside, what's the deal?"
i said i didn't like the language. "i AM NOT a p e r s o n a l i t y..." (jim carey is a big ego-driven wind bag personality and i don't like it *plus* he's an overactor) "i haaaaaaaaaaave a personality."

"baby really. c'mon."

but i'm not ready to listen yet. i have been found out as a dancing jim careylike monkey and now i want to cry.

wait.
what's that i hear?

"stace. really. c'mon. YOU have a problem with the words. SHE meant nothing negative by them. she didn't mean to offend you."

okay.
"vince, i'm going to start my period soon yah?"

"uh. yeah."

that was around midnight. fast forward to 6am. couldn't sleep. vince came out to the living room, laying next to me on the couch, on top of my books.
"baby, are you worried about your dad?"
i cried again. just for a sec. there's nothing to cry about except the worry. and why worry till we know something. we wait to know something. thursday. we wait till thursday.

you know, the last (most recent) time i got all emotional for unexplainable reasons i was reading denis johnson's jesus' son. one line of one short story set me off. it was in the morning. i was sitting on my bed talking to marco who was in his omnipresent laboratory--always slaving over something dense and mechanical waiting for programs to stop or tests to start. i read of denis'/character's grief; the aftermath of his girlfriend's abortion, the horrible things he'd done to himself, the horrible things he'd said to her. the line that i remember went something like this: "they don't know. it's not what or when it happens or what it's called. it's what the mommy and daddy did."

and i couldn't even finish reading the line. i started crying w/o words. the yawling near-no-sound balling that made marco on the other end of the phone frantic. "ms. muszynski... stacy... dear... say something... hey! what's going on over there!?..."

and i said, it's about the love. "just the...the...obliteration of love and self-respect and respect and drowning and pity."

how do you explain utter loss?

"i don't understand," he said.

and all of a sudden i was listening and intent. forgot to steep and wallow around in my grief about the lousy rotten world. all of a sudden i realized...what?...the truth of possibility. another option. perspective.

i sat up straight in bed and started laughing at myself. i pulled out my calendar--the one i've been marking since the early '90s with the first day of every period. you'd think i'd ever look at it to count days. nope.

i pulled out the calendar and assessed that my period was due the next day.

and so.
tomorrow i'll probably start my period. i better cuz today i nearly cried again of embarrassment after some sweet-faced nice 20-young-something guy told me i couldn't sleep in the mutherfucking huge gigantic trolly cart at best buy. okay, maybe you think it's not correct for a grownup to try to lounge around in a shopping cart. but i say have you SEEN these things? what ELSE could i do but jump inside the thing while vince was trolling the aisles for stereo speaker stands, axial cables, boom box blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

plus the party last night and my inability to sleep made that cart extraspecial comfortable looking.

really. can you blame me? bah. it doesn't matter. even if the dancing monkey believes in dozing for 10 minutes in a shopping cart, she's still a crazy dancing monkey.

so a worker bee with great skin and hair says, "sorry, but i have to ask you to...not sleep in the cart." he offered his hand to help me out of the cavernous interior. it had only been about 4 minutes. not even enough time to fall sleep.

"what--nobody else has discovered this?"
he smiled. "i don't care if you sleep in the cart," he said. "but customers are complaining." he shrugged.
"jealous."
he smiled again.
"man, i hate technology."
"me, too," he says. "hey, we have a chair in the back if you'd like to lay down...."
"nah, i'll just drag my wagon around and try to look presentable."
"sorry," he says, then disappears.

why didn't i think before my nap that my lack of respect would show.

innovation, technology and godforsaken CHRISTmas shopping must REEEEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIGN. the drowzy frowzy in the cart--git her outta here!!!!!

the society doesn't like to see the homeless it creates. it doesn't like to admit that silence is permission and it could be their very own sons, husbands, boyfriends and fathers keeping the prostitutes in business and the whole affair in the closet.

remember this: designer labels don't matter when you're snoozing in a shopping cart--even if the fucking thing is the size of a queen-sized bed.

ellen probably had a great time last night at the party.
my dad's test results should come back 5 days.
and i just got out the calendar and counted days. tomorrow i begin again.

transparent thoughts

"
glass is a very sensual material
when you hold it in your hand it has a special feeling
there's something amazing that happens
it eminates a sort of joy
a sort of sophistication
"
--nancy olnick, glass collector (with husband georgio spanu) whose 20th century murano glass collection is on display at the DIA today through february 27

if only the world's beer bottling companies (heck, why not the world?!) paid more attention to sensuality and less to t & a....

death and rebirth and death and rebirth

today's been a reminder of the whole ball of wax. on the way to a holiday work party a colleague and i tramped across campus. i heard her half of the cell converstation:

"it's east of greenfield, there are huge SALE - LIQUIDATION signs all over the place."

she was talking about MY furniture store--remember the one i mentioned a few days ago? the one where i met a dude who has friends in the music business? anyway, seems kim and her husband know the owner of the store and THEY bought the couch vin and i wanted. (we went back TWICE--25 minutes' drive each way--fist with excitement and measuring tape, then with our heads in our hands. didn't purchase. thing wouldn't fit through the romper room doorway.)

"green couch?" i ask.
"yeah. stripes," says kim. "oh, it'll look so good with our turquoise chair!"

so kims tells me she's not sure the thing'll fit into HER house either.

just another case of smallsmall world. sale-couch dream death, sale-couch dream rebirth.

***

sat next to a woman named audrey at the party. audrey works in physics. (remember, i'm at a university.)

"where are you?" she asks.
"the radio station."
"oh yeaaaah, wdet. then you knew eugene."
"yes, i worked with him every day."
"oh, you know laverne? i'm her cousin. nice to meet you."
"and you."
smiles.

then we stopped talking for a minute. eugene was murdered last summer by his estranged wife. she's in prison now, no chance of parole. laverne was eugene's long-ago girlfriend.

death of eugene. conversation. rebirth of eugene.

***

a coworker's brother died recently, unexpected. i sent my cowoker and his wife a card with a poem by the late murray jackson.

"The Scent of Memory"

We walked Traverse Bay, kicking water
at each other, looking at a glass-bottomed sky.
Two people, in sand and water.

On the lake, the smell of dogwood scrubbed
the dew. Laughter rolled over rocks and
sand, searching for holes to push through.

Stacks of Petoskey stones, night blue
embedded in ghostly white.
Wet sand rolled off our damp skin,
brown sugar on cinnamon toast.

When you smiled, orange light flashed
against a dull gray sheet. A wisp
of burned black coffee is strong enough
to resurrect anything.
--Murray Jackson, Detroit (1926-2002)

anyway, who do i see today while i'm investigating undergrad ceramics students' work: murray's wife kathryne.

there we go again with the death and rebirth.

"call me," she says. "i'm on sabatical."
"what are you doing on sabatical?"
"i'm supposed to be writing this thing that's fucking me up."

kathryne is as deep as she is out there. she crosses a great zany spectrum. i think she taught at harvard and...stanford? anyway, she hails from uc berkly and ucla. all this california talk reminds me, i have to call my cousin--haven't thought of san diego since the last time i talked to her. maybe that's where i'll head for the holidays. the sun seems to have passed away from michigan. i'm sure its found new life down there.

passionate sodomy

an anonymous reader commented on a recent post of mine (real ladies don't squat like that). s/he said:

"
yuck. that is fucking gross. no one wants to hear that shit. I would rather listen to someone sodomizing one of their children then reading your stupid ass dribble.
"

unfortunate for me i suppose. but might i suggest...ahem...a grammar book for when it gets boring...and a moment's quiet contemplation on the place where shame resides.....

soft spot for hard guy

once there was a girl (nearly two years ago) who could run 8 miles every morning, evening at dusk, at 10pm, at midnight, whenever, and then go to work, class, a party. no sweat. somehow she's become a woman who has spent the last two days with screaming quadriceps and aching calf muscles for attempting to pull off one hour of no-impact aerobic activity after two full months of absolutely no activity.

uh.

i talked to a friend today who says he doesn't so much as stretch or walk for any purpose except to wake himself up or get himself to and from where he needs to be--usually between home, vehicle, office, printer. looking around me, seems he ain't so unusual.

huh.

there's this old dude on my block. my brother calls him "hard guy."
"oh," says my brother to me when i moved into my house just over 3 years ago. "you live next door to hard guy."
"why do you call him that?" i ask, new to the neighborhood.
"because he always walks on the the street, he always takes off his shirt, and he always wears that bandana."
hard guy, i must tell you, is probably 65 years old. and he walks just like eric says. every day. usually more than once. and it snows here! it's cooooooooold here. it rains here. now don't be a smart-ass--of course he wears a jacket in the winter, but i bet he prefers to show off his magnificent 65-year-old pecks. shhhhhheit, if i looked like him, i would too.

UH-HUH.

real ladies don't squat like that

yesterday morning i woke up laughing. i mean it, i woke up laughing. wisps of my dream coalesced themselves into a sort of story. but really, get a load of this:

there's a sort of changling secretarygirl type. she's tall, lanky, mousey one minute, brassy and buxom the next. she was wearing grown-up underoos--the real thick and lumpy-looking 4-year-old-boy kind. no other clothes. i'm not joking. then i turn around or my attention drifts or something and she's got a blond bob and she's changing her clothes at the foot of the stairs of an old, smelly-looking but not smelly-smelling, otherwise harmless empty old buiding telling us she's got a shrink appointment she doesn't want to be late for. the carpet is ground into the floor. the walls are paneled. the lights don't work. i'm climbing the old staircase b/c i have to go to the bathroom sooooooo bad (actually i think this is when i started to actually wake up b/c i really did have to go to the bathroom.)

anyway, in my dream i walked into the ladies room, but it was no place for a lady. it was a dump--like a million rave parties and worse had happened in it. stalls torn down, just a row of outhouse-like openings. i couldn't wait, so i squatted, hoping it would be quick and i wouldn't slip.

i turned to my right: used pads stuck to surfaces--in corners, wadded up, tossed aside here, there, sticky side down, color side up. remember the scene in airplane where the passengers were reenacting a crash and people were scattered updside down and every which way, across seats, in the aisles, etc. like that, but the impression of filth. no smell, no dirt, just what was once inside now old and shed. showing. outside.

so i'm thinking to myself in my dream: these once-here women are my kind? these are not my kind. i am not this kind. and i'm carefully wrapping my own pad (a second ago i didn't have one, didn't need one, but this is dream logic) in white tissue, round and round, nice, sanitary. but looking around there's not toilet paper left to do what one does with it nor a garbage pail to put remnants in--AND IN BARGES MY BOYFRIEND LIKE SOMEBODY'S CHASING HIM--and so as not to be found contaminated with womanhood, our secret womanhood, and scared ridiculous to be charged in on and off my rocker that some stranger is following him and will see me like this, in this place, looking like i...b-e-l-o-n-g to it, or maybe worse, added to it, i throw the carefully wadded up clean and tidy package toward the corner of the room, not unlike a 7-year-old busted with the tweezers in the wall socket. nowhere proper to hide from black wall and melted metal. (funny, after that real life 7-year-old incident i hid out in the basement bathroom, thinking of my story, waiting for the smoke to clear upstairs between mom and dad before i came clean).

and as my white-wrapped package is sailing towards the corner, across the carcasses of other things discarded out-of-their-sight-out-of-their-mind, toward the open window but not out the open window, vince (the dream version) comes loping into the bathroom and i'm still hovering over the toilet with a "what the--" look on and my ass in the air, and he says, "hey babe," and then his shirt gets caught on a nail sticking up from one of the portajohn bench thing along the wall closest to the door, eventually pulling him back to where his shirt got all hung up...and all the while i'm thinking,

o h my god i am this kind. i am somehow exactly this kind.

and i woke up laughing.

cuz, well, vince really is that clumsy. and i, well, i guess i am that kind.

gross. but true. and then my real self got outta my real bed, walked into my real bathroom and took a real pee. sitting down and totally lady-like. back to being one of a kind.

i heard a funny thing on the way to...

yesterday between chocolate-dipping and dinner-eating i head about a 32-year-old mother of two who just had breast augmentation surgery; apparently her husband has a hard time leaving the house now. driving home after running an errand i heard that kinsey, the famous sexologist, circumscribed-- er, rather, circumcised circumcised-- himself in his own bathroom after his second major book on sex (the women's book) started getting a bad rap. sitting in the parking lot of another stripmall before heading into cost plus world market i heard madonna tell terry gross that christ was probably a kabalist. probably i'll be thinking about these things for a long time.

taking things in hand

it's that time again: mfa application season

eesh

i'm 32
never been anybody but myself
so why why WHY don't i think ahead for things like this...things that are going to wig me right out--things that make me CRAZY with stress-preparation?
i know this
i know how i behave
i know how i think
>i think<
i know i will get the job done
but
)sigh(
it takes a toll
on my nerves

and my hands are freeeeeeeeeeeezing
maybe my damn doctor is right
with this reynauds (sp?) disease (syndrome?) talk

well, whatever happens
stemming from that which i have
or have not
quite
prepared for, i hope
one day to be, living, someplace warm
so that i can touch
my own skin with my own
hands
unafraid
and not shrink away

and i can, as murray jackson
once wrote,
"touch the bone of truth"
with my pen, my thoughts, my life

edward scissorhands has nuthin on me.

what about bob

so today i finished interviewing bob. still gotta transcribe the notes--not a job i relish (when are they going to come out with telepathic computer terminals anyway?) but it'd be great if spin or playboy or some cool-ass rag picks up the piece when i cobble it together...

ah the dream...

anyway i notice in his stuff a note of prayer. not religion. don't get wrong. and it's not something he'd admit to. but he he said something that will stay with me for a long time:

"whoever created all this...i don't think it could possibly be any better. the joy, the pain. it's perfect."

amen brother.