cold season- bus ride May 30, 2008

Even his nose was a gaping mouth whining that its suffering.

I -hate- winter

I have crystal toothed worms of viral mucous, possibly deadly, in all colors. -(mouth inhaling as deep he can. he coughs)

he turns to her and implores,

empty my head

Rolling her sleeves, she gets into working position in the seat behind him. placing one hand on his forehead and the other over his chest– as if this is usually done. Without direction to breathe out or relax she pulls the top hand toward her. the head of the boisterous whining sniffle of a man snaps off at the neck and out tumbles a ochre gurgling moan of relief.

I shut my eyes and turn away. My stomach belches salty vinegar. The poison fizzes as it leaves the gash. I imagine the array of colors to be thick neutrals. It bubbles over the dress shirt a sibling gave him for his job. He has sprayed forth in the violent exit and this snakes down the back of the seat in front of them, across from me. I can tell this by peeking at the floor that is now reflecting light of a drop ready to fall.

She rubs his shoulders, ‘that’s right, let it out.’

stop May 30, 2008

The sound of her arrives first. A conversation train wearing steel shoes forces through the doorway. First sighting is an outstretched palm. from its center sprouted a veined neck topped by an aggressive mouth wide round trumpeting, “HALT!”. The hole it sprung from lowered with the hand as rapid as it rose and this woman carried on her rumbling gait and rant uninterrupted. We froze to her thrust forced stunned notice. The Madame of the loud-mouthed hand continued her entrance and laughed with the hardiness due only at the delivery of your own joke.

  

 

 

 

clutch May 30, 2008

I drank plenty last night, intentionally.

from the rocking chair on the porch the hue of that particular sunset was sipped. people passed the house on foot, by bike and in cars, the movers and shakers. Ice in the glass sounds pretty.  As Is felt fine, unless you checked in with my thoughts. Disappointment in my usual evening and it’s drudging sense of delay has brought the drink back to mind.  a glass of bourbon might be The Perfect, considering my options. Crutch as it is, cliché as it may be, a sipping drink does the trick even in lower doses. it’s a respectable crutch.

things happen.

I’ve told you already about my guests and our park-capades. we had to go to the Hutch for more. Man, riding on the motorcycle is challenging when you’ve been drinking. Injury seems likely.  no matter the leather, the blur of lights, lines and noises penetrate your skin. Uncovered, my eyes wept dryness. Closing them made me queasy and weightless when, in reality, my drunken death grip was administering the Heimlich. the helmet gave me an awful bobble headed feeling and I could visualize my egg headed self bouncing off the street. it would feel like flame and stabs at the same time. I love riding on the back of a bike but last night was the edgiest ride i’ve had in a long time.

 dare i say I tied one on last night?

Waterfalls of words without brain are likely with even a smidge of the spirits. and when you make foolish decisions, you are drunk.

Today, I woke up (came to) late, thirsty, stiff … and chilled.

I fell asleep naked after a bath. A warm drunken soak makes me sleep…. this morning the room was more brisk than usual and no amount of burrowing in made my summer covers enough. i had to get up and out of misery.

First thing was to sit up and drink from the bedside…. Water!

I pulled on pants and hoodie- hood up (word). I wore my lighter shade of sunglasses. looking like a fugitive of light i stumbled toward the bathroom. i start a bath . My head is full of crud. I clear my throat and pick my nose, swab the ears, rinse with cold water and shiver. 

coffee. there wasn’t much left. a morning passed cooled the pot so I opened it to make another round. The smell of coffee makes me hungry. man, I want a brownie right now. For breakfast. Donuts would’ve been fine had they been there. there is brownie mix in the cupboard. In hazy wake up I made a pan of fresh brownies and a pot of aromatic coffee, even set the oven timer (smart!).  I was enjoying brownies and coffee within the hour. 

 Its Sunday, ahh.

I read some of last week’s Times and watched videos online, call a few people, one very special people, and the day is golden.

I am that easy to please sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

league May 26, 2008

the boys have joined a bowling league, the pabst blue ribbon league at the joint on powell, and i went to spectate after the family meal. the southern dinner made us move and think in slow motion, but i was content. the world was a front porch, y’know?

once at the alley it turns out i wasn’t just a spectator to team AMFers, rather there was an active role to sitting at the table, cheerleader. bowling cheerleaders are not flashy or darling, popular or coy. bowling cheerleaders would punch you/each other and swear. they are kinda slutty but in a slutty way. they also chatter on unsavory topics such as, name of a girl league team (the clits?), and cackle laugh tremendous amounts. they do pay some attention and clap yeah from time to time and possibly timely, too. we shared broken down cheers recalled from our distant school days and chanted them once through. we managed a few anemic waves.

the AMFers cheersquad had character too. this cheer charter was in swing with charlene and velma. “we must give you a name!” they squealed in slightly affected english. i thought on it because i love a good renaming for the night. a few came up but nothing stuck until i thought of tammi. she was my halloween character a few years ago. she was the white trash Lady of the shack. that tammi did a bubble-dot over the ‘i’ but this tammi was slightly different. she was a cheerleader. now she dots the ‘i’ with a heart most times, when she was in love she dotted it with a flame and when happy its a smiley face. those are her three speeds. she was always animated. tammi walked with her shoulders paddling from side to side. this time around she was also a little more valley girl but when she was most bawdy she schlunked into her southern drawl giving away her ‘new to 90210′ status.

charlene actually became another character tonite so there were two additions to the squad. her actress is hilarious and in our fits of giggles she was saying some funny offbeat phrases. like screaming “fingle tingle!” out of nowhere. whaaa? that moment we discovered another character, wanda (the socially awkward sexually suggestive wanda). cute but not hot. funny as hell. she stuck around for the night.

i laughed so hard tonite. good stuff.

breathless May 25, 2008

^{my eyes shot open. I was not breathing. It was impossible to draw any invisible gas into myself. I was drowning in air. Had I become a fish in my sleep?}

^{As I fought to regulate my breath I felt the pressure on my chest, not in it, on it. Was it a bowling ball of mud? I clutched where I felt an impasse and came only to my skin, it felt dry and heaving. There was no weight. my mind was shooting stars and I began to panic. I focused on bringing air from my puffing mouth into my belly, the chest must be bypassed somehow, envisioning a dam of sticks made by the dream beaver. I was the river forcing through its nearly finished marvel. I rolled to my side. hands were on my neck, squeezing me. Whimpering was heard, I figured from myself. I didn’t think that asking for peace of mind was too much. The day before was breathtaking already and now I was dying from lack of oxygen. Was it the house? Did it become sealed in a vaccum? Sitting up now I gasp and moan a little. Sound forced air out which could kick start the body’s involuntary mission in life. But the pressure was still on me. I switched on the lamp, a cat opened its eyes only barely looking at me. Rude. Then I saw it, an imp on my chest, hugging me for dear life. yo kil gme, I forced out. The twenty pound, one foot tall imp said, I know, I’m sorry.}

 

pretty pissed May 24, 2008

generally, being angry is not so pretty, but it is still important. there are few things that make me angry, actually people make me angry more than things.

i woke up still angry today. this sort of festering is not the best kind of angry, it can lead to other stronger emotions and before you know it you have a real problem. you are considering arguments, matches of muscles, covert damages on up to clandestine catastrophes. your imagination impresses you and makes you uneasy.  of course all scenarios inside you might run out perfectly, but in real life they can lead to jail time or worse, public humiliation.

everyday it will get easier, i hear what you’re saying. i tell it to myself.  i am doing everything for myself right now and that is a better way to spend my thought powers. still, it would be nice if he/they would not be so careless. i am discovering incredibly hurtful things out of the blue to ruin my day, not from their mouth at all. yesterday i was going  to work… normal.  in traffic i witness the symbolic kindness i have given a love pull into traffic and spastically lane changing by the not so symbolic panther who created a person i no longer know, respect or can love. seriously?  this is why it bothers me,  i paid the thing off and i have it insured for one more week, he lets her take it where she wants? where is the frank consideration for the bigger picture? i feel like shit. it is hard to not wish ill on people who are hurting you. and i mean they are meaning to hurt you.

why didn’t my going out after work to meet girlfriends, having a drink with 151 in it, and having another drink bought by some handsome young boys, not erase the way seeing that looked?  i woke up thinking- douche bag. interchangeable gender douche bags.

good thing i have therapy today. the sun is out right now too.

 

 

May 18, 2008

Music is like a scent you share in the wild kingdom. It becomes a physical bond between us. When you feel the same thing for a song, look at that person and smile that same knowing way, it then becomes a physical bond. The idea we might not belong together doesn’t cross my mind.

 

from Stevens to Richardson May 15, 2008

i stood in the half lit cafeteria of stevens jr high with a few girlfriends. when the song began i was still, freeze frame, my eyes searching.  

 it was afterschool so when people came in and out sunlight blasted in the door of the usually flourescent lit room. my eyes never quite adjusted to reality. i wanted someone to ask me dance. someone in particular. i could barely see any faces but i could see his silouhette toward the wall with the counter, with his friends. i had known where he was all afternoon, all day, all week. i could even hear his deeper voice among the chatter of shrill octaves. time ticking by on the crush of my 8th grade year was rushing through my head every moment. soon cris would be gone, a sophomore at PHS, and i would never see him again. it hurt.

though i thought about his touch being like branding irons on my hips and how much i wanted to smell him as the song’s ache grew into angry disbelief, i would not walk over and ask him to dance. i only stared, willing him to look at me midsentence and pause, walk over and say he was glad to see me here. that i looked good. but the song was coming to it’s fizzling end, piano trailing off into the sunset. cris was still over there. they played deniece williams and the colored lights brightened.  the dance floor cleared and my friends and i walked outside.

  summer was in only a few months, maybe weeks, and it was warm out. it stayed light until 9pm now so even though it was near 7pm it felt like afternoon. it smelled like the desert’s musky armpits, gooey asphalt, fertilized and irrigated mowed grass and our hairspray. my friends and i had a ’spot’ on a bench in a breezeway between buildings. we came to rest and talk about the weekend ahead. we were all staying at Tawny’s house that night which meant no rules. i walked over to the drinking fountain when up comes cris and friends. 

 cris was tall. he had a smattering of a moustache, but he was so fair haired it was almost invisible. i didn’t really know him or his friends, though i knew who they were. i slurped the arch of water despite misgiving my aim in times of stress because i had to stay cool. it worked fine, but when i stood up i had that fountain drool only to be wiped with the back of your hand. he was looking right into (at) me as they walked by to the bench with Marta and Tawny, maybe Tina, and stopped to talk. i walked up, pounding heartbeats in my feet and cheeks most noticeably. during the gang social at our bench a party later that night was brought up. not a house party, we were too young, but a more meet at the park and hang out party. it is what we did. i couldn’t believe i was going to see cris out of school, at night, in the park. i barely could touch the earth those hours between. i may have even had upset stomach.
 
 after the dance, we got ready for the night with some prefunking. Tawny was privvy to her older brothers lifestyle; highschool. van halen, pot and beers. it was maybe my third time ever drinking alcohol and possibly the second time for kicks with friends. by the time the girls and i met up with everyone at the park we were giggling and screaming like the 8th graders we were times 6% alcohol. i was both forgetting and obsessing about cris being there.
 
he was there. i recall music from a boombox playing but not what it might have been. there was plenty of group awkward sperations and whispering. a bunch of us played glow in the dark frisbee. at some point i sat on the curb, feeling fairly buzzed from maybe one beer total. cris had been near me all night, ignoring me i thought, but he was soon on the curb beside me and we talked. i hope it was for at least several minutes before we were kissing. he was passionate, aggressive, maybe even trying to eat my face off. i was amazed and full of rainbows.  he lead me somewhere more private and told me he had been watching me for a long time. he knew i was watching him and asked if i liked him. he wanted to get together but he didn’t want anyone else to know he liked me since he was supposed to be broke up.

backstory; he had a girlfriend, Shannon, for most of the first part of the year. they were serious then they broke up a few months ago. it was big news. Shannon was already seeing Mark but cris didn’t have a girlfriend. i watched for that.

i hoped he wanted me to be his girlfriend, kissing me and wanting me all to himself was enough proof to believe so. before i knew it he had my shirt up and he was licking my tits, his hands forcing through my tight waisted jeans until several fingers found my wet spot. i don’t know what i was doing, if my hands also tore at his shirt, my mouth on his neck, or if i stood stunned. 
 
  i was having a splendid time until he whispered in my ear…

new to me May 14, 2008

i bought a new car today. when i say ‘new’ i mean ‘to me’ as it is a 1990 model. it is also a sedan, 4door, sensible with stock cassette player. its a gas saving toyota corolla. it might be the most sensible car i have ever owned.

cars i have owned~

ford million fifty truck- was it a ‘75? fuck, it was huge, loud and took all my  Mcmoney in gas. though it went to the most desolate party spots with ease carrying fifty underage drinkers, it would not start without opening the hood, removing the lid of the carb filter and spraying carb fluid into it. i smelled like metal and lived like metal. for a few months.

chevy vega WAGON. major peice of ($700) hideousness that i was going to blow up for kicks but it beat me to it with its drama queen suicide freeze up on the desert highway, midday summer. bastardo. once towed off highway i left it in a sagebrush lot in west side of my small town where no doubt an outlet mall and chili’s now stands. 

toyota- errrrrr…. what was it? an orange 78 model. pure style no doubt. i inherited this from an ex boyfriend and when i got it it came with no keyhole ignition therefore screwdriver to the neck of the wheel was the key. also had a custom air horn for kicks when passing old people, children, parades or cyclists. heater was always on. for a desert living girl this was torture for several months of the year. i left this one to my younger sister when i moved to california.

for the next few years i merely used my boyfriend’s cars - a nissan mini-truck then fancy honda civic.

in between those i scored my mom’s old mazda hatchback in the ‘will’. yeah, you bet i scored it. it made it back to san francisco from washington then died on me as well.  i left in in the apartment lot where it rested in eternal peace. it was growing plants last i saw. in highschool i had driven that car to many many many clearbeer soaked events. i would stop at the car wash each time before home to empty it of butts, bottles, gather loose clothing or air out the cigarette smoke. once, i totally broke the driver door so it would not open and blamed a parent hated friend for it. funny how i was to end up with the thing anyway.

78 VW bus. yes, blue, sadie sue was her name-o and i was not a deadhead. fuckoff. i loved to camp and she sported a kick ass sound system with remote speakers for my ‘rave’ ‘industrial’ music and other alternative ‘grunge’ sounds of the day. with her fuel injected engine i would pass cars on the cali highway blasting slayer just to prove this point- not all is as it seems. sure her muffler shot off the back bouncing with sparks into the jam traffic of sacremento once. sure her gas tank was dislodging due to rust and spilled flammable stenches each right turn i made, sure she was a breadbox that wind merely kicked over into other lanes, and the defrost didn’t work so in the northern winters i would stop on highways to scrape my window to drive home, her cluthc cable snapped every seven months, canadian border patrol felt i was a threat to their peaceful republic… but she was with me for many years and provided me with my own room wherever i went. i made a bed entirely of buckwheat hulls in the back and sewed my own curtains from vintage olive fabric.  she stayed in my friends driveway for a few more before i sold her for three hundred bucks or so. i don’t miss her, sad to say, but we had a good run.

vw squareback ‘71. nipsey was stunning. it was a rare automatic and even rarer in that the ignition was also a button on the dash as the electrical was skeevy. but that car was cool. i loved how i could work on the vw engines myself to some degree using the books. i sold it to a classic lover and he is now cherry.

frankenhonda- this was the body of an 87 accord and guts of an 88 a friend put together from two ruined cars. i bought it for more than its worth (over a grand) and drove it for a few years. the sunroof was rusted on the edges so rainy days became waterfalls in my car. i spackled cements on it and it still never kept me dry. i kept using her until the frankentranny was slipping. then i sold it for 700 and a six pack of steinlager. true story. it drove for two more years around hawaii.

suzuki sidekick- same as a geo tracker. sheena the punk rocker was a ‘91 and she had electrical issues in that when you drove at night with lights on the auto locks would randomly lock and unlock at varying speeds as if possessed. i sold her when i moved off island for five hundred.

now i have this one. silver, in fantastic shape and in my preferred price range of under a grand. so far so good, it’s a stick and i am pleased to be riding that bull again. way fun. for a car of legal voting age, it looks not a day over 10. except it has no character and is smooth and clean. no smokey smells or mysterious previous owner hair. this one hails from wyoming originally, then boise and now snuggles in portland with me. i hope we get along well. first impression went smooth and another how long will this car go adventure continues.

  i would rather own my car than make payments.  i also believe you can only expect a month of time for every hundred you spend but have found mine go much longer than that.  

 

 

 

 

 

mistyped May 11, 2008

It wasn’t at all what i was searching for but it arrived to make me stunningly goofy. The Internet is amazing!