are you done?

we used to visit every day, but not so anymore. my best friend and i have largely parted ways, and for this, i can only look back in gratitude and appreciate who she is. used to be i'd fall apart and she'd watch me melt into tears then say,

are you done? can we go have fun now?

and we would. she wouldn't hold anything against me and i love her for that.

i got a lot accomplished today, but there are still about a million things on my list. the unwieldy list i try to wrangle into some semblance of order on occasion but mostly, just try not to let the urgent run the show. though it felt a bit like that today. though i have some ideas sometimes and they prove to be so wonderfully right i cannot help but giggle.

much of what happened today was the product of synchronicity and a gleefully conspiring universe. for that i am grateful.

tomorrow is a day off and i've pledged it to my employer, so we'll see if i can get out early and knock off some of the last things on my absolutely must do soon section. not to be confused with, you better not forget to do this asap (hear: you're racking up fines at the library dork).

i just decluttered my livingroom floor, which is a mental load off. now if the legal bits would come together i'd be set. i think they are. synchronicity. there's something to be said for it.

i'm tired, not wanting to push it too far, but not wanting to let up before the burst of creative get it done energy has passed. though my lower back is saying,

it's passed. it's passed.

time to hit the hay.

nighty night.

my lady, my love

spent the most delightful weekend in boston, then came crashing back into my life. as i sat there, crying, from the surprise (yet again, i am surprised by being surprised) of another twist in the suzanne gets a divorce drama, she kept saying,

it's just a small setback, you'll get through it.

and i just had to completely freak out for a while. she let me, i'm grateful.

sometimes i can't see. i am no visionary. i am all trembling mass of quivering doubt.

but today, the fog subsided somewhat. i have found a book she asked me about, the thing is, we talk on the phone every day. we spent the entire day sunday together, just talking. not searching for things to say, but just talking. comfortably. enjoyably. together in the breeze of her yard. enjoying companionship.

it's hard to come home and stammer through my life, and i just got back.

though, i walked into my store, fresh from the return trip from boston and everyone greeted me with a smile. they all knew i was at my wits end and needed a break. so they conspired to give me one. i was, and am, so grateful.

i don't want my boss' job. i don't know how she does it. how she deals with all the bullshit. i don't think i could do that job very effectively for very long. a week seemed too long for me and i only had a fraction of her headaches. a fraction.

but i'm being drawn and quartered emotionally with the ex. trying not to let that happen, but sometimes, i realize there goes an arm, there goes a leg, and it's gone before i realize what has happened.

it's not so much him that is doing it to me. it's me. i get mentally strungout and have a hard time finding the separated limbs and reattaching them.

but i won't be stumped for long. that is one of my feline abilities.

and so i dug out a book that i had long forgotten. she and i talk about everything, and in the process, so many old lines of poems i wrote ages ago come out, and there are still more books, more collections.

every time i see you you give me a new book,

she says. and it's true. i do. it's something to have someone quoting my work to me. i have also realized i have not compiled anything since i started this mfa program, and it's high time i do that.

but now. i need to read. to focus on my

poetry manifesto

as my mentor has dubbed it.

and so it shall be.

wormholes

i'm not sure what makes things happen. how one is freed to move from point a to point b, but i'm ready. i'm so ready to be where my dreams are calling me, i can hardly stand the now. but that's not the point. projecting into a future unknown, to the discontent of the now is not the point. so i must wait. be here. be patient. try to engage again. though i'm over it, so over it all i can hardly breathe.

i can hear it in your voice, how frustrated you are.

and it makes me slightly nervous that i will get reckless as i'm inclined to do. that i will leap before time.

but is there ever a time when it is too soon to leap?

sometimes, i feel the master of my course. completely in control. at the moment, i understand that there is also a timetable at play. i have understood this concept before, but right now, on the cusp of so much good, it is hard to resign myself to patience. to embrace the moment.

but i must.

focus.

engage.

be here.

there is something for me yet to learn or i would have moved on. i understand this.

and so, trying not to pace the cage, as i'm inclined to do, i'm trying just to let time unfold surprises and say yes to good things.

there are many coming my way. i am willing to receive them now.

goodness come to me, you're a long awaited guest.

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.