What's new, Pussycat? Whoooa, whoooa whooooa....

[In which That Cat has a very different memory of the last month...]

It has been nary a full moon cycle since I was cajoled, with promises of affection, from the tranquility of the neighbor’s sun-drenched porch into the plastic confines of a most egregious hell. I am still haunted by the olfactory specter of urine and my own terror; these scents that lingered in my memory and downy undercoat. A mere month, and yet it seems as if lifetimes have passed! Imagine if you can the slow revolution of the earth beneath us. Somewhere the rain furrows temporary canyons into the flinty terra firma. Somewhere pods burgeon with life into tender green shoots, even as leaves grow heavy with color and drift listlessly to the ground.

I bear witness to none of these common miracles, imprisoned as I am within 400 square feet.

Mother appears to have departed from all her senses. I can only assume her fragile mind was permanently fractured by the traumas we endured, rumbling along in the sweltering belly of the mechanical beast. I have long suspected she lacked mental fortitude. Recently my worst suspicions have been confirmed. She frequently shambles about in various stages of undress, swilling down an acidic dirt water that offends the nose. She becomes quite agitated when I do the simplest things, for example sharpening my claws on the furniture.

I do try to help the poor fool, ensuring she doesn’t injure herself in the process of cleaning, feeding, and clothing her pathetic human body every morning. I’ve found, through stringent scientific elimination, that she responds best to loud vocalization and an occasional swat directed at the Achilles tendon. Eventually, nearly every day, she becomes confused enough to leave the house. I do not know to where she goes, or to what she gets up to! I while away my time, momentarily fretting for her safety before slipping into the restful slumber of the proverbial housecat. Recently, she barged into the house reeking of spicy meats, sweat, and the devil’s brew. God knows what depraved situations she finds herself in. I do not trust this cult of “Taco Tuesday”.

I am sorry to report I do not fare much better. Our domicile is beset on all sides by the most brutish scoundrels. One particular menace enjoys leering through the windows, taunting me with the freedom I am denied. Once whilst I lay in a peaceful reverie, pensively reflecting on the wondrous night sky, he materialized like a nightmare from the cover of his only true mother, The Darkness. The cry that tore itself from my throat was laden with rage and despair! I’m afraid the sound quite rattled poor mother, who sprang from her bed in a cumbersome flurry of confusion. Luckily, the demonic interloper was startled by the sight of her pale, bare breasts swinging pendulous in the darkness. He melted back into the oily night from whence he came.

I have not seen him since, and can only pray the image remains branded in his memory, serving as a permanent deterrent.

Speaking of the night, I must mention that I quite fear for mother’s well-being. Perhaps these past long years I have been selfish, free as I was to wander the dark streets. Even then, no matter how sweet the gloaming dew felt beneath my paws, or how gently the wind rifled my majestic mane, I made sure to call on mother several times to ensure she was well. Now I see she has cleverly lulled me into a gross overestimation of her health. The horrifying truth is that every night, for as many as eight hours, mother becomes so despondent as to be non-responsive. She lies quite still in her bed, face pressed to a pillow, mechanically breathing.

In an attempt to rouse her spirits, I’ve taken to boisterously singing the traditional nightsongs, which run through my veins like blood itself. I encourage her participation with vigorous head kneading. It is often to no avail. She quite determinedly clings to her debilitating apathy. We are as two ships, drifting unmoored upon the tumultuous sea of each day.

Fortunately, I have found respite in my cat tower (the only thing I ever have or ever will love). For some mysterious reason, mother also derives an almost maniacal glee from my sanctuary. Every time she finds me curled restfully in its gentle cradle, she will either shake her head, smiling and muttering You’re the worst. Or crow joyous obscenities such as Goddammit, I KNEW you would like it eventually. I know not of what she speaks. As previously stated, the cat tree was, and always will be, the only thing I love.

I know not where we go from here! I rise in the morning (and the early afternoon, and midday, and in the evening, and several times throughout the night) to fuel my body with ever-plentiful sustenance. I sleep, rousing occasionally only to seek out more direct sunlight. Infrequently, I muster the energy to vomit on the kitchen rug. But at present I feel as though I am merely going through the motions of a half life. I am certain the memories of my former freedom will wither and blow away, as all things must in time. I will know naught but the carefree pleasures of the housecat. I will want for nothing, and yet.

In my dreams, morning dew quivers on the trembling whiskers of my helpless prey. The vermin freezes, pointing a beady eye in the direction of where I crouch, tense and still. I am silent death. I am the reaper. I am stalking closer, and closer, and…

Dammit, mother! How dare you wake me from my dreaming! Yes, I know I am your cutest, most precious little angel. Truly, now is not the time to... Yes, I am also the flurfiest little kitteh. Yes. Of course, yes. I know.

If I knew what to call this, it wouldn't be the same.

If this were my third attempt at writing this paragraph, it would definitely say what I wanted to say. There would be no cliches. The unravelling sequence of words would strike a perfect balance between wry humor, thoughtful observation, and the quiet sort of nostalgia that makes you close your eyes and inhale very slowly through your nose, while gently shaking your head. As if to say “Oh… oh my.” while saying nothing at all.

If this were my third attempt at writing this blog post, I would definitely say something important, so as not to waste your time. Regale you with humorous anecdotes from my first month in San Diego, maybe. The slow process of convincing That Cat she’s no longer a feral beast. The pure joy of accidentally stumbling into the Coronado Beach dog park. The ways I've perfected my coffee ground:swamp water ratio. The simple magic of creating something caffeinated I can drink every morning (two dashes cinnamon and a teaspoon of vanilla extract).

Or something softer. More sentimental. The days I walk to the big box stores two miles away and cry about the dead pigeons in the underpass. Or the ritualistic quality of my afternoons spent purifying water. Relate that somehow to my life/heart/soul/mind/etc. Somewhere this is poetry. I’d tell you about campus with all its white walls and arches. The way the sunset turns everything pink and orange behind the palm trees. The way something can be so pretty it makes my teeth ache.

If I weren’t afraid of sounding trite, I’d describe the awkward stumble stutter dance of new friendships. Taco Tuesdays and too much tequila, and the taste of 2 a.m. Thai. Reaching out to see who reaches back. And again. And again. And again. Exchanging art and secrets, phone numbers and memories in dark bars and hookah lounges. So in two years someone can say Oh my god, remember when… and some of us will, and some of us won’t but we’ll all laugh anyways. So we hope.  

In my weekly writing workshop, the professor says You’ve written the poem. Now write everything you didn’t want to say. This is how you get to the real. There is an electric box on the road that takes me to school. For the last month, it has said Whatever Happens on one side and it has said I Will Always Love You on the other. Two hands floating in waves of blue, purple, green like a sea of galaxy. I took a picture. I never sent it to you, but I hold onto it because it feels true.

Now that box has been painted over with something I haven’t walked past enough times to memorize. If I knew what it looked like, I would tell you. I promise. I’d lose myself in the simple joy of putting words down, one after the other. I’d remove my head from my shoulders. I’d type with my heart. I would not get distracted by mindless scrolling on a handheld screen.

If I were to draw you a pie chart of my average day, it would look like:
2% - Going to school/doing homework

28% - Worrying that I should be putting more effort into school

12.33% - Lying on my floor, wondering if I will ever stop lying on my floor

17% - Cooking on a hot plate

40.67% - Thinking about tacos. Or, trying to keep the cat from scratching the couch.

**These two things are mutually exclusive.

I would draw you an actual pie chart, but I’m currently lying on my floor, and wondering if I will ever stop lying on my floor.

This is all to convey something very important. Something that gets said too often, but still feels good to hear like I love you or I’m thinking about you or

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear,and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

If this were the end, I would always say Talk to you soon instead of Goodbye, and you’d either be grateful for that or not even notice.

All my love.

-b

A Brief & Incomplete List: #6

Things That Made Me Cry (or at least tear up a little) this Week:

Making oatmeal.

Watching Beyonce’s “Lemonade” for the 47th time.

Driving on the interstate with my window down, and my arm weaving its way through the morning air’s complicated machinery while Regina sings, and I wonder if we ever see our downfalls coming.

The thought of hugging a manatee.

The Ada Limon poem where she writes:

“But love is impossible and it goes on

despite the impossible. You’re the muscle

I cut from the bone and still the bone

remembers, still it wants (so much it wants)

the flesh back, the real thing,

if only to rail against it, if only

to argue and fight, if only to miss

a solve-able absence.”

-Bright Dead Things

Watching this video. And thinking about watching this video for the 2-3 hours that followed watching this video.

Standing in solidarity with Standing Rock, on a corner in downtown San Diego with my sister. Listening to traditional prayer songs, and Water is Life, and how glorious it feels to be alive and basking in the unity of its protectors. The strength of the human spirit, and the fact that there are still people who give a damn in this world.

Vodka. A hammock. The time/space continuum. The sound of a voice and the weight of missing.
The Ada Limon poem where she writes:

“...How good it is to love

live things, even when what they’ve done

is terrible, how much we each want to be

the pure exonerated creature, to be turned loose

into our own wide open without a single

harness of sin to stop us.”

-Bright Dead Things

A crippling hangover.

The finales of not one, or two, but three different seasons of television. How it felt like saying goodbye to the only friends I have out here. Watching Murphy sleep. Mission Beach at sunset, and how the light looks on the water, everything glowing rosy pink. The sun through the inversion layer. How it rattles on the horizon like a white pill the ocean swallows every night, but still never sleeps.

Feeling lonely the way that lonely must be.

-b

Well I Guess This is... Growing Up?

Hello friend-os. 

I want to start a new blog, and call it My Real Adult Life, and document all of the strange and wondrous contradictions inherent in adulthood. For example, this morning I was stumbling half-naked around my apartment, assembling a (very sexy) bed frame and eating a delicious lemon poppyseed muffin. But muffin greased fingers made Allen wrenching hard. I suppose one solution would have been to finish assembling the bed, and then enjoy my pastry. Or vice versa, since greasy fingers are washable. My solution was to leave the muffin on the counter and take hands-free, drive-by bites of it after tightening each screw. 

I’m an adult woman who stretches in the morning and takes vitamins. I’m also an adult woman who eats watermelon with a serving spoon while dressed as a koala. I don’t know, guys. I suspect I’ll be fully feral any day now. 

Lurker cat is lurking

Speaking of feral, That Cat has been hard at work making us friends. The last few days a very large, very handsome, very unneutered black cat has come a’knocking at our door. Doors. All the doors. His hobbies appear to be peering in windows, napping outside windows, and turning Murphy into a rage-filled spitting hellbeast. For the last six years, tormenting Murphy has been my full time job. It’s really a relief to finally share the burden. Admittedly, 3am is not usually the time I choose to torment her, because I prefer to be asleep. Apparently our new friend is much more nocturnal. There’s nothing quite so comforting as waking up in the middle of the night in a dark room to the demonic shrieking of a would-be cat fight. 

Besides my rambling, one-sided conversations with That Cat, I’ve talked to probably three new people down here. One was the laundromat attendant, who commented on how hard it must be to focus on reading in a laundromat while I was trying to focus on reading in a laundromat. I also talked to one of my classmates when she needed to borrow a 3x5 note card from me, and chatted briefly with the guy at the Market down the hill who sells me $5.99 (+tax) bottles of wine.

I’ll have friends literally any day now. 

The problem, of course, is that I have friends, they’re just not here, and it’s hard to live in two places, and it’s hard to be apart from your Real Life. My Real Life now is sunshine, and 20 minutes to the ocean, and white walls whitewashed with natural light. 

During Wednesday’s advising meeting, wherein my Graduate Advisor used the words “bleak” and “job market” more times than I’m comfortable with, she encouraged us to consider looking for post-graduation jobs outside of San Diego. We, of course, stared at her in open-mouthed horror, because there was a collective moment of slow remembrance... there is a world outside of this place. 

I haven’t even been here for two weeks, but it feels like I’ve been here forever. I was born here. I’ve never left here. It’s a strange sensation, trying to keep everything in perspective. 

Unexpected side effects of starting a graduate program: 1) An inability to sleep past 6am, though the fact that I’m sleeping on a couch until my mattress arrives next week could also be a contributing factor. 2) The uncontrollable urge to tell everybody I talk to about my graduate program. I know it’s boring. I’m so sorry. Please still love me. 3) A quiet and persistent sense of impending doom. So there’s that. It’s real neat. 

Still, tonight instead of eating dinner on my “kitchen” floor, I ate dinner hunched over my kitchen counter while reading a memoir for my Queer Texts & Contexts class. I don’t know if that can be counted as progress, but it probably would have looked less pathetic if I took a picture. I’m doing fine, I promise. I'm showered, and fed, and making bone broth, and writing so many words, and feeling all the things, and I'm fine. I promise. 

I hope you’re all having mind-bogglingly awesome Friday nights. I’ll just be curled up here on this couch where I live with That Cat, and some tea, and Jeanne Cordova, lesbian activist extraordinaire. Goodnight, kittens.

Xoxo
-b

Time is an Arbitrary Construct We Devised to Organize the Chaos of our Energy Hurtling Through Non-Linear Space (and Other Thoughts I’ve had since Living Alone).

Hello sweet dreamweavers. I know you’ve all been waiting to hear whether or not I still exist. I wish I had a better answer for you, but this is what you get.

A week ago I woke up in the guest bedroom of my Aunt’s house in Hollister, California, which is a real place and not just a store in the mall. I’m still amazed by it, this ability to wake up in one place and fall asleep in another. Something close to magic. Though perhaps a little less profoundly magical when getting to that new place requires driving 12 hours in a silly little clown car with no air conditioner. 100 degree weather, and a finally-unconscious, albeit urine-soaked, cat.

Earlier, barefoot in the morning streets of Portland, compacting my life into manageable chaos. Black coffee, and I’m No Good At Goodbyes, and wait, notyetnotyetnotyet until there was no more time because if she didn’t go then I never would.

The first few hours of driving were a bit shaky, and by "shaky" I mean my actual personal hell. Mostly because I tried to kill the small animal that I’ve heretofore successfully kept alive.

For weeks, my primary concern, the thought that haunted every waking moment and kept me worrying through the night, was making sure Murphy didn’t die of heat stroke while we drove. Also wondering if she would be bitten and killed by a rattlesnake. Or eaten by coyotes. Or recruited to lead a gang of feral cats, which would rampage up and down the streets of our new city leaving disaster and dander in their wake. But that’s neither here nor there.

The solution we came up with was simple: a pressure-activated cooling pad inside her crate. Easy right? Too easy. I didn’t trust it. Unfortunately, I was also too lazy (overwhelmed? Let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt here) to come up with any backup plans.

That Cat was understandably upset when I lured her off the neighbor’s porch chair with promises of affection only to scoop her up, shove her into a plastic travel crate, and set off on the longest car ride of her life. She spent the first forty-five minutes bashing her head into the plastic sides of her carrier, and snaking her little paws through the wire door to grasp at the dashboard. When her yowling escalated beyond a bearable level, I pulled over to swap out the cooling pad for a litter box, because maybe it was her bladder making all of that noise. In the parking lot of that gas station: blessed silence. Back on the highway: holy god, the apocalypse is upon us.

An hour later, she was no longer screaming at me because she was too busy heavily panting. Have you ever seen a cat pant? It’s disturbing and unnatural. Unfortunately, we were now on a sweltering mountain pass with no opportunities to stop and replace the litter box with the cooling pad. Another thirty minutes and the chemical cocktail of stress, Gabapentin, and pure rage had left her semi-catatonic. Every time I glanced over she was slumped against the side of the crate, head thrown back, dramatically open-mouthed breathing. I'd tap on the side of the crate, and she'd swivel one eyeball my direction, trying to set my head on fire.

At the next available exit, we pulled into a gas station where an older gentleman told That Cat how beautiful she was while I poured ice into an empty litter box, snugged a plastic bag over it, threw the whole situation into one of my pillow cases, and wrestled it into the crate along with the cooling pad. Another dose of Gabapentin and we were on our way. Was she soaking wet at our next stop? Yes. There may have been holes in the plastic bag that was supposed to protect her from the rapidly melting ice. Did she survive anyways? Yes, and she only had the kitten sniffles for like, two nights max.

What I’m trying to say is eight days ago we woke up in our home, and a week ago we woke up in the geographic region where I was born, and this morning I woke up in this place I’ve lived for five days, which feels like forever and also no time at all. On the phone I say I live here now, I’ve lived here forever. There’s never been anywhere else. I ask her if she’s real, and she says Yes, at least to you. And that has to be enough in this place where I’m able to Be and Not Be so many things.

It’s hard to wrap a mind around. For example, I’m So Old walking through the main plazas of campus, where the Freshman are learning how to exist as human beings. They carefully arrange their bodies and faces, easing into the angles of themselves in new ways, and I have lived in this body so long now. Pushed it to and beyond so many limits. The face arranges itself these days, and I’m grateful that I never have to be 18 again. I’m also So Young in my cohort, where Mike worked construction 20 years, decided to get his MFA after retirement. Where Keenan survived retail hell, and Renee survived homelessness and worse, and I wonder what ages us faster, time or experience? That question is trite, but I’m leaving it here anyways.

I am also Sad but Not Sad. Waking up to the missing coiled tight and heavy in my chest. Waking up to the humming excitement of the unknown and discovery. Tuesday, walking to class and I’m stopped in my tracks by a tree that has grown upupup through the metal scaffolding to crown a Yield sign with a splay of twiggy branches. Somehow this is poetry. These new eyes in this new city, so hotwhite and dirty. The ability to Be or Not Be whatever I want; to grow up through the scaffolding and refuse to yield on the other side.

There’s more. Of course there’s always more. Like how my apartment is a real place, and the disconnect of seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar places, or the careful process of making coffee on a hot plate. But for now, there’s this. And that has to be enough.

I love you, little sweet peas.

-b