ahhh

there is some relief, i will admit, to getting a packet out of my hands and into my mentor's. there is this, i haven't failed out yet feeling that i guess is just old habits of thought. i feel it less now than before. something about this semester, i thought i would have less control, be at somebody's mercy (that is what i dread), but it's not so. so i'm writing what i want and it feels good. unsafe. wild. risky. but good.

i'm grateful to be able to do this.

i asked a beautiful african goddess how we write about those things we are not supposed to discuss.

you have to enter into the middle of them,

she said,

and own them.

yes. i understand.

she challenged me immensely. we have since lost touch, but being in touch is very limiting at times. it fosters this false sense of familiarity. sometimes people are supposed to be lightning flashes in a life, and they are lovely to behold, but you cannot hold to a flash of lightening.

so i let her go. as i will let everyone else go.

letting go is all i seem to understand. it surprises me still when someone stays. i'm grateful for it. i welcome the comfort of it. as i lay entangled with my lover, our bodies perfectly locked together, listening to her heart beat, i couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

it is so good. all of it.

and today, i'm off work. i have a list as long as my arm to accomplish. but i will let it go for now. and sit here, watching the rain fall, listening to bunny chew. seeing kitties scramble in and out of the rain.

and know it will all get done someday.

but not today.

reach out

i've been writing, it is gaining momentum, which is how it happens with writing i guess. for being a writer, i profess no expertise, the muse is mysterious. distrust anyone who says they understand it. i certainly respect it, but i do not understand it.

so, here we go again, putting myself out there on the page. trying to fashion words in phrases that stand up to critical evaluation. i do love this part. i can be a werd nerd and make a case. but i also love convincing people of my point. not so much that they have to agree, but that they see the merits of my case. my case has many merits.

trying to unveil what exactly i am getting at, circling in on the prey, is where it's at for me at the moment. gratefully, i have one reader who knows me, knows my works, and she helped weed out some selfdepricating diction. which is the kind of critique i welcome. i don't want misplaced humility (or mislabled humility) to diminish the strength of my work.

i'm moving forward. packet due tomorrow. more than halfway done. not that i mean to put it off, but my process is largely subconscious and somehow, all the conversations, all the snippets i read, all the cud i chew come together to say something.

i am grateful for this gift. for the muse who delights and intrigues me. who makes me want to keep writing.

even when i'm tired. and fear i've nothing to say.

she beckons me again,

reach out

and here, with symbol and screen, is my most direct line.

surprised again!

the way my mfa program is designed we submit packets of work. five packets in a typical semester. my first one is due tomorrow. i'm trying to sort through ideas racing through my head, an uncertain hunger in my belly, and just plain boredom with my job.

i keep saying this,

that the only thing that surprises me is that i am still surprised.

i should expect my ex to get me at any cost. he got me again today, and i was surprised by it.

i am amazed at how much i marvel at the way things are, i guess because i've been decent. or tried to be. except for the whole keying the car thing which was when we were still married and living together and i was angry. i'm not angry anymore, just done. over it. at the end of my rope.

and technically, he got all bent, but it was my car i keyed. and i told him,

if you want to key the toyota, feel free.

then, after that every scratch he got on his precious car he blamed me for, when it wasn't me. but how do you prove that?

you don't. so i let it go. he, likely, hasn't. dudes and their cars, i'll never get it.

so, i keyed my own car, so what? move on with your life man.

and now, another semester, the penultimate (i hate that word), as they say. and i can't wait to see what will happen. it's exciting what will be going on now that the internship is out of the picture. seems i am going to have to write about that later. i shouldn't say anything about it now.

i hate shoulds, seems i am doing a lot of those lately, but i'm trying to learn from my mistakes and grow.

even when i don't feel i've made mistakes, i'm trying to keep from compounding confusion by speaking my blunt mind. believe me, i'll speak when i'm free to do so.

but for now, here it is.

i'm going to start picking over my ideas like a primate parting the hairs of a fellow primate looking for bugs to eat. that's a pretty picture, right?

i'm off to see what happens. with my writing it's always interesting. and we'll see if i can bang this out something noteworthy. i think i can.

zombme

so, it's not so much that i worked an open and close in one day, same store. i've done it before. though, it was two different stores and i had a break in between where i sat in my car for a couple hours and thought,

what the hell am i doing?

this time, i had to open the next day. there was no lingering in bed while i found strength of body and mind to drag my ass back into work. no, it was out of store at ten pm, back in store at 5:15, which sucked.

my existential dread due to the fact that i now have some relief coming. help is on the way. at least the court has ordered it. when it will appear, i do not know. but i'm tired, been tired for some time. and i need a change.

i say that the motto of our company should be,

we love to hate you,

because while i appreciate you're paying an arm and a leg for something, giving shit to the person making or from whom you're ordering your drink does not bode well of your intellect and or foresight. karma's a bitch, that's all i'm saying.

so yesterday, had a grown man, about twelve hours into my shift, when i'm looking like i could rip someone's head off, bemoan the fact that i didn't want to dump an entire pitcher of tea to make him his one refill. he looked like he would cry or have a fit. i said,

if it's an issue, i'll do it.

but i made only an amount sufficient to refill and perhaps one extra. the kid i'm working with comes up behind me and makes a full pitcher, which we proceeded to dump at the end of the evening.

best laid plans. what can i say.

i am beyond caring at this point. if douche wants tea, douche can have tea. what does it matter to me?

then this one guy tells me to put twenty on his card. while his tab was twenty three. i tell him,

there isn't enough.

he says,

put twenty more,

like this is my miscommunication. i wanted to reach across the counter and snap his little chicken neck because i know how to add twenty on after the tab, but he specified twenty. how douche was going to pay the balance was not for me to decide. speak english. communicate clearly. this is why we love to hate you.

a bunch of narcissistic people bitching about foam. this is my day job.

i need a new gig like you can't imagine.

all my life through, when i've needed a change, change has come quickly.

i need a change.


universe, do you hear me, i need a change.

justice

when i wrote, may justice light upon me, i had no idea that it would. i only hoped. nine months i've struggled to keep my child fed, and kept, without help. without any compassion from my ex. i am a parent, i am a woman, i am a single mom. this is my task, caring for my child. i'm so grateful i have only one. i can't imagine trying to meet the needs of more than one person at this moment in my life.

so the judge asked very few questions. numbers do not lie. and she got to work, banging out numbers based on pay stubs and cold hard facts.

when i asked for help he so flippantly responded, that i had no choice. we had to go to court. i had reached the end of my ability to do this entirely alone. i needed help. court mandated help if that is what it took.

so, when she said what she did, my attorney's mouth dropped open, and i cried.

justice lit upon me.

i told him, before we even went,

i would have been so much nicer to you than they will be.

and it proved true. i am not feeling bad about it, because he forced my hand. he dared me to take him to court. he would not help me any other way. now, he has no choice but to help.

the judge ordered it. may it be so.

and i cried.

is this all you earn?

she asked

i've been a stay at home, homeschooling mom for fourteen years,

i replied.

and she asked me no further questions. we left, grateful.

i only wish that he doesn't force me back into court, that he accepts this as the best it will get. and that, now that i have some breathing space. some, don't have to work till i drop time, that i can buy a real bed, and pay off the mounting bills.

it is well my dear ones, it is well.

that which i needed has come to me.

figures

so i have this legal size, doublesided, tinest writing in the whole damn town form i have to fill out in triplicate, no less. a tangle of figures i have to commit to paper, then tuesday back to court. so much fun.

i opened five days, maybe it was six, in a row. which was nice but i aimed to sleep in today, and i guess 5:11 is sleeping in when one is up at 4:15 the entire week before.

just got final approval for my spoken word cd. i'm so excited. it sounds great. now i need to go back to the studio and lay down more tracks. when, is the question? i don't know. i think maybe i need to compile them in a book first. don't know. but i like my new work, and want to get it out there. i realized, not only have the people i love most not heard me read, this is a chance for them to hear me reading my works. not performing it, mind you, but reading it.

it is enough.

and now, i am looking forward to my people coming to my graduation in july. i will give them a private reading if they don't arrive soon enough to hear my reading (there will be a lot of us graduating). so let me go back to sleep then, and finish the paperwork later, it is not difficult, just tedious. and i'm trying to read a few books and get some thoughts on paper. first packet of the new semester due in a couple weeks. i hope to have read at least four books.

i've had no time to write creatively, but i'm collaborating on some poems with another poet and my poetry group from residency. which is exciting in its own right.

so long

i couldn't just throw in the towel, it's not my style. though, on other occasions i have been the first to realize a dead thing, is, in fact, dead. this was ill fated from the beginning and i won't lose time contemplating why. i'm just excited to get going on something new, something i've been wanting to do for ages now.

leave all the other things aside, move forward. forward is all that matters.