tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57973248948647398162024-03-12T16:52:48.640-07:00b HonestThis is a story about living past 27, and stepping into the world beyond the after. bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.comBlogger201125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-9503780551009717552018-11-26T20:55:00.002-08:002018-11-26T20:58:27.387-08:00Every Word There Is For "Daughter"<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">...It’s been a long time / since I’ve wanted to die, / it makes me feel / like taking off /
</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">my skin suit / and seeing how / my light flies all / on its own, neon / and bouncy like a /
</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">wannabe star.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">--”Field Bling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">,” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Ada Limon
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Tonight on my 15 minute drive home from campus, I almost hit two animals, which seems like it could have been a bad omen, but </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">almost </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">means it’s ok. The first was a panicked little rat jittering across the center lane in the intersection down on Federal. Right in front of the crossfit gym where I always drive slow because I worry that very strong people will be carrying very heavy things on their shoulders on the shoulder of the road, wearing dark clothing without any reflectors.
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The second was the little black cat that’s taken to lounging outside my sliding glass door now that That Cat isn’t down here to drive them off with her fury. Or maybe one of the 20+ other little black cats that appeared suddenly this spring and have spent the last year growing lanky and fearless. Some mornings I find their dusty little toe-bean prints scattered across my windshield. It reminds me of childhood winters in Montana, how we’d check the wheel wells to make sure no critters were curled up sleeping, trying to keep themselves off the frozen ground.</span></div>
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Makes me think about the story my dad told. How he’d been called in for some fire emergency and forgetting to check the engine, dragged our black cat, Little Kitty, all the way to the station and back. Still that mangled little cat lived to see me off to college.</span></div>
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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about origin stories. Where we come from. Who we come from. What it means to leave. I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to get things all mixed up in our heads, no matter how long we’ve been gone. How people become the stories we tell, the way we become other people’s stories. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what you say about me. Worse yet, I think about you saying nothing, like the whole of me just stopped existing. Did you know </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Angr</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the obvious Old Norse root of our modern </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anger</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, also means grief or sorrow? What does it mean to carry this sort of duality? To shoulder our contradictions.</span></div>
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There was a day, do you remember? Sunset on the Santa Monica pier. When you told me you missed what we’d had because even with nothing we had each other. And I thought about the half-wide trailer by the train tracks where we slept, the three of us, on the pull-out couch in the living room. The night you woke us to stand shivering and barefoot on the front steps. To bear witness. Migration. How the sound of the geese, all those wings, was the definition of flying. How we looked up into the sky and it was white with bellies, all those bodies heading somewhere, bellies splashed orange with the streetlamp glow. Migration. We are always coming or going. </span></div>
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I’ve been thinking about how when I say </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">home</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> people hear </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">family</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, even though those are two different stories, and how when I say </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">home</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I mean </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Portland</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which is where my family is, but not like most people think, and I’ve been thinking about how I could have killed myself in that yellow room during the winter in 2011. Could have taken all those pills with all that tequila, but I didn’t. It’s been a long time since I wanted to die. Tomorrow I’ll be 30, and I’m trying to reconcile how I can be both that sad little girl, wearing hand-me-down dresses and eating Kraft cheese sandwiches, and this person who sees musicals on Broadway. Drinks $12 craft cocktails in speakeasies. Doesn’t ever have to count pennies to keep the gas tank full.</span></div>
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I don’t remember how old I was when Little Kitty disappeared. I must have been in college already. Gone or leaving. I don’t remember how she was missing for days or weeks. I don’t remember, wasn’t there, the day you found her in the backseat of my stepfather’s old car. What I remember is the hush of your voice when you talked about the sound of the maggots chewing. The smell of summer-ripe rotting flesh. The catch in your throat when you said you called the 12 year-old neighbor boy to put her out of her misery. How the gun was his father’s. How he named that bullet </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mercy</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I’m embellishing again. But what are we without stories?</span></div>
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One of the greatest gifts you gave me, I was seven or eight maybe. You told me, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baby. It doesn’t get easier to be brave just because you’re grown up. You’re still scared. But you do stuff because nobody else will and it has to get done.</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I’m sorry I forgot. I’m sorry I expected you to be brave. I’m sorry I’ve been waiting for you to save me, when I’ve already saved myself in a hundred different ways. Seeing you like a gut punch after not seeing you for so long, like maybe love has always been another word for missing, like anger and grief, two sides of the same coin.</span></div>
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I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what you say about me, hoping you use every word there is for </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">daughter</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. There’s no word for the bond that forms between two people who survive a natural disaster together, or if there is I haven’t found it yet. I’m sorry that for so long I’ve thought of you as the storm, when in fact you were just as weather-torn as me. Tomorrow I’ll be 30, and I’m me in a way you can’t quite comprehend. You’re you in a way I can’t quite comprehend, living so many miles and a vastness of silence away. But you’re also the mother who spent my childhood reading </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be.
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Here’s what I know: when I watched you, rolled up sleeves, washing dishes through a steam-smeared window at your daughter’s wedding, I loved you so much there aren’t words for that kind of lonely. </span></div>
<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-16965019107348902602018-05-20T19:03:00.001-07:002018-05-20T19:18:48.450-07:00Living In A Teenage Wasteland<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh hey, sweetie heads. Now that I’ve turned in final grades, slept 14 hours straight, tuned and played my guitar for the first time in 9 months, and watched an entire season of Planet Earth while crying on my living room floor, I’m finally gonna take some time to reflect on this last two years. It occurred to me as I was driving home from the grocery store with Just The Essentials (red wine, a 12 pack of soda waters, and rainbow Goldfish), that this whole grad school experience mirrors adolescence in a lot of ways.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfvxvLJq14CHdPso087PLu1oYWCnyq4xuL0UOPpFIN6CsT1FyX58HEj8XB7SuSNW63_4rGc-Y5WCu7dVgTZz_D5NYKkN1xg4DKiC9gp7LGjZAJcLYzjnkzvgF67Pf86RvlL0ZpUAtJ5u1j/s1600/ralph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="873" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfvxvLJq14CHdPso087PLu1oYWCnyq4xuL0UOPpFIN6CsT1FyX58HEj8XB7SuSNW63_4rGc-Y5WCu7dVgTZz_D5NYKkN1xg4DKiC9gp7LGjZAJcLYzjnkzvgF67Pf86RvlL0ZpUAtJ5u1j/s320/ralph.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two years ago I started this program as a child in my own eyes, with an un- or under-developed sense of myself as an artist. Luckily, my world-wise, scholarly professor-parents stepped in to teach me how to Be (before I could eat a brain-damaging amount of paste).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, every professor-parent has a different style. You’ve got the laidback, go-with-the-flow lecturer who calls you a “colleague” and talks to you like you understand all of the obscure references he’s making. He’s like the older cousin who would let you sip their beer at a party as a 7-year-old, or teach you how to roll a joint at 13. Then there’s the quirky, queer young aunt. She’s here to introduce you to feminist porn, and teach you to reclaim vagina terminology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that’s just your first semester. In time, you’ll meet the helicopter mom, the absentee but somehow still stern father, the kooky grandmother, the scholarly uncle… They’re all there. And you’re paying them to shape your mind, and shape your art, and shape your daily experiences in this program for three years of your one and only precious life. And you let them, for awhile. Like a child, they’re here to teach you “the rules,” and maybe you toe the line and maybe you don’t, but either way you trust what they say. Maybe this is because you trust authority, or you trust their experience, or you so deeply distrust yourself that it’s a relief to finally trust somebody else with Your Self.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Enter adolescence. You’ve been doing this art thing With Intention for awhile now, and you’re starting to get a sense of who you are. What you’re about. Maybe you have a few publications under your belt, or you’ve won an award. You’ve navigated classroom politics to one degree or another, finding your people, learning when and where to keep your guard up or let it down. You start to question your professor-parents’ judgement. Why can’t I stay out past 10pm? Really, what’s so bad about listening to heavy metal at an ear-splitting decibel? Oh, you’re saying I can’t use the passive voice and all these adjectives to tell my story?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t remember the first time I realized my parents were just humans and not gods or machines with all the answers. I can say I started to question my professors at the exact moment that a piece of writing that moved me to tears was called “shallow” and “predictable.” I can say that I started to rebel the instant a memorial piece for murdered queer women was called “sexy and playful.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s where you start to notice that everybody comes from different backgrounds, including the people who are supposed to have all the answers. Here’s where you notice that the time, energy, attention, and resources are being subjectively distributed. Maybe you’ve benefited from this, maybe you haven’t. Either way, you feel profoundly and suddenly complicit in a system you didn’t seem to notice until it was too late, despite all of the warnings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday, sitting at Living Room Cafe with a friend, and we were discussing the pros and cons of a full residency program compared to low residency. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Note: full res is what I’m doing, where I go to campus some days a week to meet with profs face-to-face every semester. Low res is mostly online, with intensive face-to-face meetings 2-3 times per year]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the cool things</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she said, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in this low -res program is that you get paired with a single mentor professor, and get to work with them one-on-one with your writing.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> To which I responded (less than tactfully I think) with an </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, fuck no</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She seemed confused, asked </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You wouldn’t want to study one-on-one with somebody? Not even with Really Talented Professor You Admire?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And the honest answer is no. No, I wouldn’t want to spend three years working one-on-one with anybody, let alone Really Talented Professor I Admire. Because this time is about learning to trust myself more than I’ve ever trusted anybody else. If that human's opinion was the only opinion I ever heard about my work, I’d feel even more compelled to respect it. Consciously or unconsciously, I’d start to compromise my sense of self to fit that subjective mold of “good poetry.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I’m trying to say is maybe the world needs “bad poetry” the way it needs overplayed pop music or teenage love stories or hell, even finger painting. Because the things your parents/professors/etc find shallow and predictable are the exact same things that made you fall in love with art in the first place. The exact same things that might make the next generation of artists fall in love. Because it’s less about impressing the people who came before, and all about inspiring the people who come after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m sure there’s more I want to say here, but the wine is almost gone, and I’ve been sitting upright for an untenable 3 hours. I think the best way to end this is with an angsty list of the unfortunate things my writing has been called in the last two years:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whiplash-inducing</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Too circular and predictable</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A little shallow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not sexy/playful enough</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Syntactically uninteresting</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One-dimensional</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">To which I say:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cheers, dreamers. And remember, no matter what your passion is, you’re better than the haters. Not to mention, you know way more about your art than any-goddamn-body else on this planet. </span></div>
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-b<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-49065192270460859572018-05-18T13:50:00.000-07:002018-05-18T13:54:32.326-07:00A Brief & Incomplete List: #9<h3 style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A Brief & Incomplete List: ways to use the phrase, “We’re 30 Year Old Women”
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) To justify spending $12 on Bulleit Rye Old Fashioneds, instead of $9 on well whiskey at the indie-hipster concert in North Park. Your sister, who is only a 23 year old woman, will have no such justification. Her night will peak when she weaves her way through the crowd, double-fisting PBR tallboys while the crowd serenades her with “PBR Angel,” sung to the tune of ”Beauty School Dropout.” Don’t be jealous. You’re a 30-year old woman; beer and being the center of attention make you queasy anyways.</span><div>
<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) In disbelief when you realize, on your way to brunch the following morning, that the right thigh of your jeans now sports a rather impressive splotch of dried marinara from the save-your-life pizzeria you visited the night before. This is a singular statement of disbelief, (“But… I’M a 30 year old woman...:”) because your person would never leave the house in pizza pants. Luckily, she loves you anyways. </span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) To explain why you and your partner have no interest in going dancing on a Sunday night at the Gayborhood’s most happening dance club with your literary friend following a casual, potluck-style drink-and-chat at a classmate’s house. This usage should be accompanied with big smiles and rueful shakes of the head, as if to say, “If only we were younger, if only we were as strong and energetic as you! Of course we’d love to be there, but… we’re 30 year old women.</span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) As an excuse for day drinking on the beach that same Sunday, after brunch but before the potluck-style drink-and-chat at said classmate’s house. In this context the phrase comes with an implied “we deserve this” clause. Careful, this particular use walks a fine line between “we deserve this” the day the drinking occurs and “we should have known better” the morning after. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) As an explanation for why you and your partner need to leave the beach-adjacent bar after taking a quick lap through the pulsing neon lights, and the bass that rattles your glasses’ frames, where the girls in bikinis and cut-off shorts are hip-thrusting the exposed bottoms of their white, white pockets in the general direction of the shirtless men on the rooftop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">6) </span><span style="white-space: pre;">Basically </span><span style="white-space: pre;">anytime in any situation because perching upon the precipice of 30 allows you to </span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;">both gaze backwards into the void of things you’ve already accomplished or overcome, and peer </span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;">indefinitely forward, into the vast expanse of experiences you have yet to encounter. </span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;">Take the nap, drink the cocktails, sleep in late, eat the pizza. </span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre;">You’re a 30 year old woman, goddammit. </span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-83274927240694220562018-04-15T22:09:00.000-07:002018-05-20T18:05:01.464-07:00In Which I Try Not To Ruin My Own or Anyone Else's One and Precious Life<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Hello dream weavers! Guess what? We’ve made it through 81% of yet another semester, and the </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Turtle Insurrection still hasn’t happened. I mean, plenty of other things have gone horrifically wrong </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in the world, but at least it wasn’t the turtles. I’m sure that’s what you were all most concerned about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This morning while I was waddling aimless circles around my 400 square foot apartment, chatting with Boo Face, I casually thought </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I should really take out the recycling</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This thought was immediately and quite unexpectedly followed by the thought </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But will any of those materials come in handy in the case of a nuclear event? Maybe I should save things just in case</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This led to several more minutes of tortured internal debate, before Boo Face talked me down with her science and reasoning. According to human logic, a 12 gallon repurposed kitty litter container will not do me any good in a nuclear war, even if it is filled with potable water.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I guess that’s about where I’m at these days: straddling the line between absurd alarmism and generalized despondence. I did </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fill the kitty litter tub with potable water, but I also didn’t take it out for recycling because, what’s the point?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are three weeks between me and the end of my second year of grad school. For those of you keeping track at home, that means the upcoming year is my third and final. Much like the current state of our nation, this thought fills me with existential dread whenever it crosses my mind, so I try to keep it tamped down with to-do lists, alcohol and binge-worthy television (what up, Magicians? Can’t wait to see what happens to all my new friends in Season 4…).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This semester has been some of the most humbling, overwhelming, and if I’m being completely honest just-a-little-bit-soul-crushing months of my life. Remember last semester? When I was like, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah I can shower and feed myself and work four jobs and still sleep at night because I can do anything good, better than anyone? </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was wrong. There are things that take time and practice. I’ve learned that teaching is one of them. I can honestly say I think my students like me (or at least pity me enough to pretend), so that’s nice. What’s not nice? The constant nagging fear that I’m somehow derailing their educations, their futures, and potentially their entire lives. Not only am I worried that someday (hopefully years down the road) I’ll</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">die alone in my apartment and be eaten by my 47 cats after my dishwashing shift at Applebee’s. No, I’ve also got myself worked up about the theoretical futures of 25 college freshmen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is this a reasonable fear? No, not at all, but I think we’ve already accurately assessed my propensity towards reason (see above: recycling quandary). Anyways, I guess most of this was to say that I’m still alive, the turtles haven’t taken over yet, even if I’ve been in that space where I can’t write and I’m afraid I’ll never write again, so I keep Not Writing, because what if I’m no good at it, the way I’m no good at teaching, and so on and so forth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that most of you have forgotten this blog exists (much like I did for the past several months), I’m probably going to use it as my janky, Muggle Pensieve because even Dumbledore needed somewhere to store his stresses, memories, and probably family recipes, favorite song lyrics, and strange observations. SO, internet. Thanks for always being a readily available void for my worthless and self-pitying human angst. </span></div>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-973664264807007182017-12-18T21:51:00.000-08:002017-12-18T21:56:05.446-08:00Whooooaaaaa, We're Halfway There!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello sweet peas. Tell me, are you all still breathing? I’m about to re-enter the land of the living. I am freshly showered, cuddled up in a blue sweatsuit with my favorite blue blanket, and sipping One Glass of Wine™ (AKA half a bottle), but who’s keeping track? Definitely not me, since around 4 o’clock this afternoon I hit send on my last assignment of the semester. This morning, Facebook decided to remind me that exactly one year ago I was in my bed, surrounded by books. Coincidentally, that’s exactly where I was today, surrounded by different books. Except everything was better because this semester I managed to shower habitually, and I’ve done considerably less crying. I even managed to leave my house not once, but twice this weekend. She can be taught!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hitting send on that email marked the halfway point of my Master’s program. This semester I wrote a chapbook, the first draft of a full length manuscript, about 25 pages of lit crit, and six pieces that found homes with print and online publications. I also managed to juggle three jobs and watch the entire backlog of “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/1KhRKkLS_4I" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fresh Off The Boat</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” episodes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Next semester I’ll be teaching my own section of Intro to Rhetoric & Writing Studies (RWS 200), which is exciting/terrifying/daunting, because I’ll have students of my own who may or may not like me, and will probably most definitely not like the subject matter, and are being forced to learn it in order to go on and do the things they actually care about, like becoming engineers and doctors and mathematicians, but it’s my job to make sure they can think critically and write analytically, so fingers crossed we can make it fun and use less run-ons than I habitually thrown down in this blog.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyways, since I’ve spent the last year and a half getting me some high quality book learning, I thought I’d take this post-semester opportunity to look at some of the Real Life lessons that have been handed to me. Listed in order of importance (just kidding, it’s as they occur to me):</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Office refrigerator tamales are a miracle, and should be regarded as such. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do not question where they came from. Do not try to find the glorious human who slaved over their exquisite husks and blessed you with them, expecting no compensation or praise. Do not rush your break room tamales. Savor them. When you return to the office, day after day, and there are no tamales, just stale, store bought cinnamon rolls with a dead fly caught in the sugary web of icing, do not begrudge the cinnamon rolls. Just fondly remember the miracle tamales.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy Hour is a trap. Or a lie. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sure, things like “Buy One Get One ½ Off” and “All You Can Eat Tacos, Just $6.95” seem inviting enough. Times are hard, am I right? Anything to save a couple bucks… No. What they forget to mention, as you’re ordering your BOGO margaritas is that each margarita costs the equivalent of one tank of gas, five Double Doubles, or 1/45th of your rent. Plus, Happy Hour always ends too soon, as if bars have tapped into some sort of warp speed time acceleration, and as you’re slurping down the dregs of your first drink, things are suddenly full price again. But of course, by then you’re just juiced up enough to think </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know what, I work hard and I DESERVE this $16 craft cocktail, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and let me tell you something: you’re so right. You do work hard, and you definitely deserve that cocktail, but you know what else you deserve? To eat for the rest of the month.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">**Strategy to avoid Trap-py Hour: set an alarm for 30 minutes before the drink specials end. Not for you, because you’ll just ignore it, but for your friend who doesn’t drink and is willing to scoop you up and buy you five Double Doubles with the money you would have spent on one more margarita. I have not tested this strategy, but I feel as if it is flawless. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s really best to pretend the turtle insurrection isn’t a thing, until it is. A thing. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me explain. On the campus at SDSU there’s a burbling, tranquil pond next to Scripps Cottage, home to koi fish, decorative greenery, and</span><a href="http://thedailyaztec.com/19489/daily-aztec-stories/turtles-are-unwelcome-guests-at-sdsu/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a whole army of red-eared sliders</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This is my favorite place to sit in the sun, eat a chicken salad sandwich, and consider the impending avalanche of responsibilities that I’ve been narrowly outrunning each semester. Generally, the turtles will perch along the rock, soaking up the same sun. Sometimes the turtles are wearing warpaint on their shells. And we just don’t question it. Nope, we sure don’t.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can blame just about anything on the moon.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Feeling melancholic? Well, it’s that new moon energy. You’re just plumbing the depths of your own psychic shadow phase. All amped up and nowhere to go? Chill boo, it’s just the full moon in Gemini. Or Aries. Or something about Mars? Real talk for just a minute: yes, I do believe that the alignment of the planets has something to do with the forces of energy down here on this big galumphing rock we call home. But, I also feel like astrology presents really great opportunities for introspection, and a space to examine your feelings, impulses, and personal growth. Plus, knowing a little something something about all those space rocks is a great conversation starter at your school-sponsored Meet n’ Greets. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Note: my go-tos are</span><a href="http://chaninicholas.com/horoscopes/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chani Nicholas</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and</span><a href="http://www.lovelanyadoo.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jessica Lanyadoo</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People don’t grow out of being lactose intolerant. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientifically, it’s just not possible. No matter what your mom tells you, no matter how accustomed you’ve become to the pain, it really just… No. Luckily, science! There’s a handy little capsule that helps your body digest lactose, the natural sugar found in milk and dairy products. So listen, boo. If your internal windmills churn angrily when you eat dairy products, maybe you should look into just not.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first 20 rows of an Alaska flight board last.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Which means you can dally over the visit’s final sushi dinner, and still have an extra five minutes of crying in the parking garage before you have to say goodbye to your sweetie. True, sometimes you will still have to carry your shoes and literally run to your gate, but it’s worth it for those last few soggy sweet nothings murmured into the crease of your neck.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No matter how much you think you know your cat, you don’t.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Things I have spent the last 7.5 years assuming were true: Murphy hates wet food, chewy treats, brushing, and catnip. Things Murphy has apparently loved her whole life: see above. It’s not easy trying to sleep with a stranger on my chest every night, but once you relax into the not-knowing, things really get easier.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overuse of the word ‘awesome’ is a super American thing? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the past six months or so I’ve been the copywriter for a Dutch fitness and nutrition company… Ahem, pardon me. A “premium-lifestyle brand.” In that time, I’ve become uncomfortably aware of how frequently I use the word </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">awesome</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to describe admittedly mediocre things. Avocado toast? Awesome. Getting out of class early? Awesome. Drinking a protein shake with green tea in it? Super-mega-AWESOME. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Note: If anyone has suggestions for a word that means the same thing as when Americans say </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">awesome</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I’d appreciate it. You’ll get a 10% cut of my copywrite pennies.]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hanging out with younger people is a 50/50 gamble.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Sometimes, you get to be the cool, cultured older sibling who pays for the youngsters’ drinks at your sister’s engagement dinner. Other times you’re the hyper-stressed almost-30-year-old who drinks too much at dinner and falls asleep on your sister’s couch, still holding a beer, while watching American Horror Story. If you don’t like those odds, don’t play the game. Also, I’m so sorry for drinking your beer, Emily. I owe you a 6-pack of something that isn’t pineapple flavored.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caulking guns are a thing. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Initially, when you decide to be a Grown Up and recaulk your shower instead of bothering your landlady to do it for you, you may be intimidated by the options on the shelves at Home Depot. Of course you’ll select the reasonably priced tubes of silicone, with their 7 year mold-free warranty. What you won’t realize is that those tubes aren’t meant to test your fortitude, and extracting the caulk from the tubes does not require strength of character. No. It requires a caulking gun. Through some miracle you may manage to caulk your entire shower using a screwdriver, a box knife, and the jammed knuckles of your own determined fingers. This is not advisable.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ride the roller coaster. Go back for the purse. Watch the awful, hotel room tv movies, and don’t be sad that the bar closed at 11pm.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I don’t know how many of you know this about me, but I’m not the best at last minute changes to plans. I like to put off the “super chill, go with the flow” vibe, but I have a habit of getting caught up in expectation. Call it a function of being a wordsmith, when the story is in my head already I have a hard time rewriting. But this past summer taught me that some of my favorite stories are the ones that were rewritten. The “waterfront” room, overlooking that creek that followed the underbelly of the overpass. The 8am hot tub soak, because we missed pool hours the night before. Arriving in San Diego at 2am, because we didn’t leave Santa Cruz until 4pm. Each of these improvisations feels like the perfect, sappy story, when co-written with the human I love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Note: can you tell I’ve poured my second One Glass of Wine™?]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I still don’t quite know how to explain the past sixteen months, and I’m not sure I’ll ever really find the words without them being overblown and sentimental. God knows you don’t read this for the overblown and sentimental… right? What I can say, considering Saturn left my sun sign at 10:30pm EST last night, is that I never expected to be this person, living this life. The other night, on the phone with my human I said, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know what? If I DID die and this life is just the story I’m telling, I would be glad because it would mean I finally learned how to be kind to myself. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope you sweet darlings are still out there, living and loving and being your kindest selves. Feel free to share your life lessons with me, lord knows I need them…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Xoxo, my sweeties.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">-b</span></span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-18351457781689294972017-12-04T19:31:00.000-08:002017-12-04T19:33:07.837-08:00Tell Me That You Love Me, Baby. Tell Me That It's True.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tonight, like any good graduate student who happens to be studying, of all things, poetry, which is of course a type of writing, I left my house to do laundry and homework without my computer’s power cord, a notebook, or a pen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I realized my mistake about the same time that all of the laundry was washed and loaded back into the car, my computer was at 21% power, and I had 3.5 hours to kill at the coffee shop on Adams before my dinner plans. At this point I had a few options. I could drive the 15 minutes home, navigating two different highways and taking my chances with the traffic. But of course, once I was home I’d be obligated to just stay there, diligently working, until it came time for dinner. Or! I could borrow the little green notebook that’s been living in my car and tracking my dog-walking miles (in the perhaps optimistic hope that my deductions would put a dent in the thousands I’m going to owe the government).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Since one of these options involved caffeine, and the other involved extra driving, I think I made the only logical choice. I tucked the little green notebook into my computer case, and headed inside to kill my laptop battery deader-than-dead before starting to brainstorm for my final Creative Nonfiction presentation by hand. What I forgot to remember is that this particular little notebook (green [slightly darker than lime but not quite forest], college rule, 80 sheets), was a gift. And as a gift, it’s a mausoleum to a past me, somebody I haven’t visited in July 24th, 2013.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes I like to play this game. It’s called, “If I were following the trajectory of X, then my life would look like Y.” For example, “If I were following the trajectory of my mother, then I would have an 8 year-old daughter instead of a 7 year-old cat” or, “If I were following the trajectory of my little sister, then I’d have been married for six years already.” Sometimes this game is comforting, it puts things into perspective and gives me insight into my own personal values. Ya’ll, let’s be real. I just don’t think I would have been able to keep a child (or a marriage?) alive this long.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight I played a slightly different version: “If I had been capable of loving others as much as they claimed to love me, then who and where would I be?” Another way to phrase this is “If I had felt worthy of the love others claimed to want to give me, would I still be who I am?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The not-quite-lime-but-not-forest-green-either notebook was a gift from my girlfriend-at-the-time. A gift for the summer she spent in New York City, studying for her MFA in photography. She was going to be gone for 7 weeks. At the time this felt simultaneously easy to navigate and absolutely insurmountable. In the first few pages she wrote </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">maybe we can keep notebooks for each other this summer</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and she wrote </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we can exchange them and not feel like strangers</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and she wrote </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not afraid of your secrets</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and she wrote </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thank you. thank you. thank you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A year ago, my heart asked </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How many times have you been in love?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and I want to think that I took the time to give her a thoughtful response, but in retrospect I’m almost certain I rushed my answer the way I rush most things, and said, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twice </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when what I should have said is </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does ‘in love’ mean, really? </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does it refer to your feelings towards another person, the way they make you feel about yourself, or some strange and incomprehensible amalgamation of the two? What is the difference between loving, and being in love? What is the difference between love and tenderness?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">(side note: whenever I know I am in love with my cat, it’s because she’s done something that makes my throat squeeze shut like anaphylaxis and I can feel my pupils dilating, like they need extra space to store all the joy, and even though she woke me up with her Crypt Keeper yowl at 4am, I can’t imagine my life without her)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the beginning of this semester, I turned in a manuscript of poetry and my professor said </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first section is really compelling, then you follow it with three sections of love poems </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I wondered how she could see love when all I saw was loneliness. The girl who gave me the notebook said every person she met was a mirror. She was grateful because she needed them to reflect herself back to her so she could see who she was. And I said she was in luck, because I felt made of mirrors. I was perpetually reflecting back what people wanted or needed to see. See also: what people thought was intimacy was just their own need for closeness magnified and refracted, infinitely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is what I know: I have said </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love you</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to nearly every human I have been with, and I have meant it every time. They have said it back to me, and this also feels true in a way I can’t explain. So what is love? The first time somebody said those three words to me, it was a trap that I deserved to be caught up in. Is that why is so often sounds like an apology?
Following my 2013 entries is a series of drawings from when I found words ineffectual and started drawing my demons. 2014-2015, these monsters are all open mouths and longing, all ghosts and agency conjoined with need. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know where all of this is going, except that I read the diary I thought I was keeping for somebody else, so our hearts wouldn’t be strangers, and I can see in it all of the desperate ways a younger me wanted to be seen, but was too afraid. I know, I know, I know that this particular relationship would never be right for me, but tonight I feel a small revived shame at the center of me for not being brave. So. To the poet photographer who viewed people as a mirror, here is perhaps my first honest and heartfelt reflection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we met, I was broken and dreaming kaleidoscope. I’m sorry my edges were so sharp. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to contain your big picture. I hope you’ve found somebody who reflects all the best pieces of you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">These days I’m feeling less mirror, and more deep, slow-moving water. There are things even I haven’t accessed, but I’ve been learning how to breathe and I feel more capable of diving deep. Thank you all for going on this journey with me.</span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-56220485078487773192017-11-14T15:39:00.002-08:002017-11-14T15:40:21.542-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is significant because it means I’ll be turning in the final research paper of my third semester in just a little over one month, putting me at the halfway point in this crazy grad school adventure. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[OK, that’s enough of that!] </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But perhaps just as importantly, it means we’re only two weeks out from my 29</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> birthday. I know, I know, hold the applause. Remember how I spent my whole life convinced I wouldn’t make it past <a href="http://honest-b.blogspot.com/2015/11/im-not-surprised.html" target="_blank">my 27</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://honest-b.blogspot.com/2015/11/im-not-surprised.html" target="_blank">th</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://honest-b.blogspot.com/2015/11/im-not-surprised.html" target="_blank"> birthday</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and then somehow I did? Yes, it’s possible<a href="https://nailedmagazine.com/editors-choice/deathwish-046-brenda/" target="_blank"> I actually died</a> and this is all some afterlife fever dream (how else do you explain the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stranger Than Fiction</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> situation where a poet named Tana Jean Welch is living in Gainesville, Florida and literally writing my life story as it unfolds?), but maybe, just maybe I’m actually still here and doing the damn thing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week during my tutoring hours at the community college, a very earnest and very concerned student came in to talk to my coworker, her former English professor. Between her wild hand gesturing and aggressive semi-whispering, I deduced this girl was trying to make some Big Decisions. After all, she’s 19 or 20 years old, the age when the Decisions We Make will impact The Rest of Our Lives. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I laughed, remembering a 21 or 22 year-old me, saying to Lucy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just think we’re at that age where we’re becoming the people we’ll always be, you know? I want to make sure I’m becoming the best me.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> That conversation went down approximately one year before I would make the series of destructive, drunken, borderline sadistic decisions that led me to Portland, where I floundered along, learning to be less destructive and sadistic. Where I started making the decisions that would eventually lead me here: a Japanese restaurant in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[note: they have a hell of a Happy Hour and an $8 spicy tuna rice bowl that is literal heaven]. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was I making decisions that would impact me the rest of my life? Yes of course. Was I becoming the person I would always be? No, absolutely not. The thing I’m learning about decisions is that they’re more like altimeters than street signs. They’ll tell you where you are (in all your glorious ups and down), not where you’re headed, or where you’ve come from. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This girl wants to be A Writer. She wants to know if she’s Good Enough. She is afraid of Selling Out and Playing It Safe. She is afraid of Not Having a Safety Net. Ahh, memory lane. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: I only went to college because a high school teacher didn’t want me to die still working at the diner in my hometown, so he literally kidnapped me, hovering over my shoulder while I filled out my application to University of Montana. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: I declared myself an Anthropology major because I had a crush on my friend, who happened to be an Anthropology major (and, unlike an English degree, there was no foreign language requirement for graduation). We dated for nearly three years. We had a dog and a cat. We inevitably didn’t work out. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: After graduation and the breakup, I had no idea what I was doing. I worked as the General Manager for a doggy daycare until depression and alcohol abuse brought me right to the edge of being fired. I dated the first “love of my life,” and spent over half our relationship setting us both on fire. I decided to pursue a career as a rugby player. I promptly blew out my knee, at which point I pulled some David Copperfield shit, and “disappeared” my problems by burning bridges and skipping states. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: In Portland, I worked almost five years as a receptionist in the veterinary industry, but at parties I introduced myself as the “Marketing Director for a local specialty clinic,” because I was ashamed that I spent my days scrolling through Facebook and answering telephones. I learned how to drink a whole bottle of wine without blacking out. I dated. I made some good decisions, and some bad decisions. I started writing poetry, and it was just as angsty as the stuff I filled notebooks with in high school, but I was suddenly no longer afraid to read it on a stage in front of strangers, and they seemed to dig it. I was nominated for some awards, I published some things.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: I applied to grad school because of a breakup. Because the second “love of my life” didn’t love me. Because I was hurt and angry, and I didn’t want to be in that town full of memories. Because I wanted her to see me doing fine without her, even though I wasn’t and didn’t think I ever would [</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">spoiler alert: I was wrong]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Because was learning, slowly, that you can’t treat real people like background characters in your stories. They have their own agency. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fact: Currently, I can say in all honesty that studying for my Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) is the hardest, most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have always been A Writer (link: Floorplan/Rusty), I have always been Good Enough. I don’t regret a single step in this crazy, circuitous journey. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I told this to the girl making her Big Decisions, and I told her about my cohort: the retired construction worker, and the former librarian, and the mammal fresh out of undergrad, and the mother whose body rejected a job in the beauty industry, and I told her </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you want to be a writer, you’ll write, and you’ll never stop writing, and if you’re meant to go to school, you’ll find your way</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t want to act like I have all of the answers. This morning I had a sleeve of saltines and a whole French press of coffee for breakfast. I bribed myself to do laundry with a YA graphic novel and a bottle of sake. Tonight, I’ll go bump elbows with the staff of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fiction International</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (who happen to be some of my closest friends down here. I know, it’s like totally no big deal) at the new issue release party. In four days I’ll board a plane to spend Thanksgiving and my 29</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> birthday in Portland with the silly little familia that loves and supports me from 1,000 miles away. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, I texted Lucy. I said </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know what to write</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. She said: </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One time you were really drunk when we were dating-- like really blacked out, didn’t know who I was, or where you were. You kept biting me as I tried to put some pajamas on you—like you were incoherent but you were fighting back no matter what. Sometimes I think about that because… I feel like you saw yourself as weak. But you were really strong, you fought for yourself even when you didn’t know you were doing it.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">None of this is easy. But it feels right like the essence of purple, which is to say god. It feels calm like blue heron. Like waking up and knowing I’ve been dreaming poetry. Even when I feel weak, something somewhere inside me is fighting. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Happy almost Thanksgiving, kittens. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Xoxo,</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-b</span></div>
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<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-8223434761642957042017-11-05T19:26:00.000-08:002017-11-05T19:36:53.918-08:00A Brief & Incomplete List: Ways My Life Might Resemble a Roller coaster <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The idea is generally better than reality.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Like, standing in the line, you’ve got the sun on your shoulders and butterflies in your belly, wondering what’s coming. Starting out, the whole situation feels like possibility. But once you’re strapped into your safety harness, you realize it was all pre-planned by someone, somewhere, who doesn’t really care if you have fun long as the admission has been paid.
</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">It was a lot more fun when I was younger.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Back then, I never wanted to get off the ride. I’m positive there was a time before this persistent nausea, back pain, and general feelings of malaise. These days, it’s best to relax into the ride. Resistance leads to whiplash, at best.
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">There’s always another unexpected drop, twist, or turn right around the corner. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So really, there’s no point in expecting any sort of consistency. After that first drop-off, the anticipation of the beginning of the ride, you’ll be sideswiped by literally everything. You will squander that "one-in-a-lifetime" opportunity, your pets will die, you’ll waste so much time watching Netflix that your life will pass you by… so you might as well relax and enjoy the ride. After all, the only constant is unpredictability.
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">It’s better with friends and family.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Today, my little sister got engaged and I’m an English major, so I can’t even count how many times her best friend cried. Seriously, if ya’ll are riding alone, I know you’re lonely.
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">The older I get, the more important daily maintenance becomes.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Maybe it’s more reassuring to not think about the real life human beings who make sure roller coasters are tight where they’re supposed to be tight, and greased where they’re supposed to be greased. That moving parts move and staying put parts stay put, and the safety mechanisms don’t fail. I wish I had a crew or a finely-tuned machine to do the same with my life and body. Instead I have tacos, whiskey, and a gym membership.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>No matter how carefully you plan, things go wrong.</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>Like, I'm sure the guy who built the Big Dipper at England’s Battersea Park Fun Fair never expected all those fatalities, but sometimes life throws you curve balls you aren't expecting, and really, what are you supposed to do? Call it quits, throw out the baby and the bathwater? Close down the whole park? Well, if you're like those guys then... yeah. That's exactly what you do.
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">It’s incompatible with pregnancy.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I think that says plenty...
</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">
<span style="font-weight: 700;">You can’t stop once you’ve started.</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I mean you could. But it would be either be incredibly boring or incredibly disastrous, since you’d either be stuck on the tracks or coming off them. Nah, despite the ups and downs I think it’s best to keep your limbs inside this ride.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">After awhile, you get used to the screams and everything seems almost… peaceful? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love you, creeps. Keep keeping it real.</span><br />
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Xoxo - b<br />
<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-61147154235350656792017-10-26T21:38:00.000-07:002017-10-26T21:39:53.112-07:00The Exchange<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I want to give you something, or I want to take/something from you. But I want to feel the exchange…” - Ada Limon, “How Far Away We Are”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Whenever I miss smoking it’s because I don’t know what to do with my hands. There was always something so satisfying about the ritual, a singularity of purpose. Come home, dig through the heap of dirty laundry for the lighter stashed in some back pocket of some pair of jeans, wait for the landlady to be settled upstairs, because I hated when she’d surprise me in the backyard. I’m not great at making conversation when I’m caught off guard. Sometimes it was the only deep breath I’d remember to take, that first drag sucking the smoke into that aching chest place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have been shouting into this void with increasing unreliability for almost six years now. Almost as long as I’d been smoking. 192 posts, at least a hundred thousand words. A handful of relationships, two cities, one notoriously rotten cat; this blog is a life that’s doing its best to look like mine. Whenever I miss this writing it’s because I don’t know what to do with my mind. With my heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This afternoon I woke up from a nap to the earthquakes in my blood rocking me awake, but gentle. Not like a disaster, but like waves, and it made me lonely for last summer, how water and moonlight seduced us. How it swallowed us up, naked and rum drunk, burning with something we didn’t understand quite yet, while our friends watched from the banks. I swear, earlier this was poetry. I could feel it thrumming in my fingertips. There were strident verbs and resonant nouns, and so much musicality, but now there’s just my brain feeling all soft and bruised around the edges.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I text T to ask her who left the gravity running on high all afternoon? When did everything get so heavy?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This semester I’m taking a manuscript class, which means doing this terrifying thing: letting people read and critique my poetry. Now, obviously I understand that I’m in a poetry program, so this comes with the territory. And yes, of course, people have read and critiqued my work before. But there’s something different about compiling these pieces, stringing them together. There’s something about holding the thing, feeling the actual heft and weight of it in my hands. I called it Poverty, and didn’t fail to notice the irony in how much it cost to print 14 copies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After reading it, my mentor asks <i>What does home mean? Why do you spend so much time looking for it?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This year I’m living in split screen. Home, on this street, where the addicts next door scream on the weeknights until police lights burst like blossoms on the outstretched splays of the front yard succulents. Where coyotes lurk in the shadows of the carport, their breathing hushed like the rush of traffic on the interstate. Home 1,092 miles away. Home, always something outside of me, something to get to. Something to make, or to search for. I say I don’t want to live here and the Sensai Bear says give it three years. She says <i>You are stronger than you believe. Always have been, always will be</i>, or something to that effect, and I’m reflecting back on <a href="http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/geese/geese.html" target="_blank">Mary Oliver and her wild geese</a>. This need to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves, even if it means bared teeth and savagery to protect the softest parts of me. I am tired of men taking my poetry like they’re doing me a favor. I am ready to jealously guard these things I am shaping as they shape me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I want to give you something. I want to take something from you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Xoxo </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-b</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-82349094861689066072017-08-04T18:10:00.001-07:002017-08-04T18:12:44.078-07:00I've Been a Hungry Ghost<span style="font-family: inherit;">Last spring, I sat in a room while my she-hero prowled between the tables and answered the question we were each complicit in not asking: <i>How do I write a story?</i> Start with the body, she said. Always return to the body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She said start with the body, and this morning I woke up, but I woke up with that throbbing that’s too central to be heart and too high to be stomach, and I wondered again how much a pancreas weighs. Can I hold it in one hand or two? When I ache in that place, I take one palm and press hard, like on tv shows, how professionals will hold a scared child until that child stops thrashing. If I pin my pancreas’s little fists, will it stop punching so hard? Will it stop being a scared child, stop throwing tantrums. Will it grow up, grow out of this, become an honor roll student, be the sort of pancreas that never runs stop signs, and is careful not to overdrink or speak out of turn? Maybe my pancreas will earn a Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe my pancreas will find a cure for cancer. Or maybe my pancreas will explode while I sleep. You never know about these sorts of things.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This week, temperatures in Portland peaked at 107 degrees. It’s stupid hot, the air cloying. The air oppressive. The air holding us hostage. Holding us captive, like an audience. Like we’re an audience, this magician suspends our breath and sweat, look at this trick. Right before our eyes. One sleight of hand keeps all that moisture in the air until we’re nearly drowning rather than breathing. So each day, as the heat wave breaks over us, I leash the dog and we stumble, totter, trip our way down the steep staircase into the basement’s blessed chill.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Self-fulfilling prophecy, I’m living exactly where I joked I would be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There the dog spreads her bones out on the cool concrete and sighs. There she can breathe easy while I grapple with words. While I try to transform letters into dollar signs. While I empty my head to fill my bank account, and the heart goes on with its heady little woosh woosh woosh unnoticed until it misbehaves, like so many other things. At the end of the day, the first girl to see me inside and out comes down those stairs and curls herself into me. Last year she may have been a back alley apparition, but now she’s weight, and breath, and warmth, and soft; so much her to remind me what it is to feel like me.</span><br />
<i style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></i>
<i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Sometimes I get this electricity in my hands and feet that can only escape if I cry. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t tell the difference between sick and sad. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> There are days with too much gravity. Days when everything gets so heavy I have to crawl to get anywhere, so I just don’t bother. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some days I am sick with gravity. Some days I am sad with it. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t want to want so much, but thank you for giving it. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body. </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">My body is going to betray me. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Every time I drink myself blind, I think I am one step closer to dying. Sometimes that scares me and sometimes it’s a relief. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Return to the body.</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These long summer days I feel so transient that it is a strange thing to have a body. To be bound by its requirements. To eat, and drink, and sleep, and bathe, and be forced to confront the fact that even when no place is my place, I will still have this body with all of its complicated history and impulses and needs. So I eat triangles of honeydew out of the fridge with my bare hands and lick the cold sweetness from my fingertips, while sweat drips down the backs of my knees and I realize this too is what it means to be alive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">xoxo</span><br />
-b<br />
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-33299999900899935152017-07-01T19:15:00.000-07:002017-07-01T19:15:23.724-07:00Open Letter Series: #8<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">To my silly clown car:</span></span></div>
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In retrospect it’s easy to convince myself I loved you from the first moment I saw you. If I’m honest, I didn’t. You were one of three cars I test drove that day, and your performance was less than exceptional. Everything about you felt flimsy, like driving a Go-Kart down the freeway. The way every sound and rumble of the ground underneath you reverberated through my body. How you needed the windows cracked, even though it was winter in Oregon, and probably drizzling. Choosing you was one of the more difficult decisions I’ve ever made, but you were affordable and I was desperate.
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I’d been car-less for nearly a year when I found you. After <a href="http://honest-b.blogspot.com/2013/09/babys-got-fast-car.html" target="_blank">Seabiscuit, the ‘99 Dodge Neon</a> blew a headgasket and bled out on the St. John’s Bridge, I <a href="http://honest-b.blogspot.com/2013/09/understanding-bus-culture-aka-how-to.html" target="_blank">turned to public transit</a>. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tried to reason with myself, the usual </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think of all the money you’ll save! No more car insurance, no more overpriced gas… You can spend that time writing, focusing on personal development, reading.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No. These were all beautiful lies I told myself. First of all, a bus pass at the time cost $5 a day. Working five days a week, I was paying $100 a month to spend three hours a day coming or going. Second, if I focus on anything other than the ceiling of the bus while riding the bus, my insides try to become my outsides. Nobody needs the embarrassment of being a Public Transportation Puker.
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Still, I was broke. And again, being honest? Lazy. It took one supremely creepy gentleman nearly following me home from my bus stop for me to find the motivation to start looking for a new car. I found you after about a week of half-hearted research and number crunching.
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That first night, after jumping through what felt like miles of paperwork, I followed Henrietta the Fit home. Parked you across the street from A’s house. When I woke up for work the next morning, somebody had clipped your driver side mirror. Carrrl. This should have been a sign. Over the course of that first year you were towed and backed over by an F-350. You charged headlong into the bumper of a very nice family waiting in line for dipped cones at Dairy Queen.
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Eventually your simplicity won me over. There was no vast, space-era console. No backing cameras, no bells and whistles (or insulation, or even temperature gauge). Hell, there wasn’t even a stereo. You had a smooth and empty plastic console where the idea of a radio belonged, like genitalia on Barbie dolls. For as much as I loved you, I was also embarrassed by you. You were cheaply built. You constantly smelled like sweat and rot, and sounded like the cargo hold of a jet cruiser, even cruising slowly through residential neighborhoods. Inviting somebody to ride in you felt vulnerable, like asking somebody to watch your favorite movie and realizing halfway through they think it’s terrible. I wasn’t embarrassed by you, but by my love for you.
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Now thanks to a series of reckless choices and questionable decisions, you’re gone. When I told my </span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">friends and family about the accident, their immediate concern was for my physical well-being. I’m fine. But I’m coming to terms with the actual weight and significance of this loss. You were a symbol of independence, of taking control. A thing I did for and by myself, even if I did it poorly. And that’s what sits at the heart of this, I guess. Saying goodbye to you feels like saying goodbye to the me who was responsible for you. So: goodbye and thank you. Thank you for keeping me safe. Thank you for starting reliably every time except that one time. Thank you for transporting me and That Cat to this place we call home, which feels somehow pretend just like you did. Like it’s play-acting at real life.</span></div>
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This week, thanks to the generosity of a friend, I’ve been viewing the world from the vantage point of a Jeep Liberty. Even with the seat pulled forward, I have to slouch down low and stretch to pump the clutch, my shin knocking against the steering column. I feel simultaneously foolish and unimaginably powerful bouncing around in that beast. I’ve started searching for your replacement. This go-round I have time and insurance money, and a sweetheart that knows what she’s talking about when she’s talking about cars.
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I’m going to be alright. Rest easy, old friend. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;">-b</span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-33725369529942808552017-06-15T18:48:00.002-07:002017-06-15T18:57:46.036-07:00The Singular Beginning of Your Smile<br />
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">my love is building a building</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">around you,a frail slippery</span></i><i><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">house,a strong fragile house</span></i></span><br />
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I grew up in small town Montana in the era of cats you didn't feed and dogs chained to backyard trees, which maybe is still the current era for small town Montana, but it's been a long time since I was growing up there.<br />
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I loved those dogs. Those half-wild things that would pant and pace in the house, more comfortable in the fenced half acre. How I'd quick, walk to buy them cans of Alpo on increasingly dubious credit. How Ken at the Market would fold his arms over his chest and joke, Buying dinner for your dad? and how my dad would always call him an asshole, but I didn't know if he was joking.<br />
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When I was seven or eight I worried about my dog, thought it wasn't right for her to be chained outside through the Montana seasons, sometimes all four of them in one afternoon, or so they say. I wanted to give her something. I wanted there to be something that was hers. So with all the haphazard industriousness of childhood, I cleaned out my old playhouse.<br />
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It was made of plastic, thick white double-paned plastic walls with a green plastic roof, designed to look like shingles. Plastic windows with yellow plastic shutters, and a plastic red brick chimney clinging to the side.<br />
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<i><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">a skilful uncouth</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">prison, a precise clumsy</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">prison(building thatandthis into Thus,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">Around the reckless magic of your mouth)</span></i><br />
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My little house had fallen into disarray. It was dirty and spider-ridden, all webs and dead leaves. Sweet smell of decaying leaves, thick dust and rain-river streaks of dirt. I dragged the garden hose into the backyard and spent that afternoon, that hot afternoon, scrubbing and spraying and transforming that little house into a proper shelter. When I was satisfied, I dragged it over beneath the tree. The tree where the dog was chained. Where the chained dog had dug out her dog-sized hole between the thick gnarl of roots, and spent her hot afternoons panting and snapping at flies.<br />
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Inside that house I put her water bowl, a heap of blankets, a bowl of kibble. Calling her over, she hesitated outside that red plastic half door, swung wide open on its plastic hinges. Come on, Mogwai. This is for you, a real home for you. She didn't trust that house, but she did trust me. I lured her in, patted the blankets so she would lie down and feel comfortable and know that I loved her. She inspected the blankets. Inspected her food and water bowls. Stretched out on the one bare patch of grass inside that plastic house, which did not have a plastic floor.<br />
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She was stretched out there, panting, looking at me in a way I took to mean Thank you when I noticed some spiderwebs I'd missed. I didn't think, I just slipped out and grabbed the hose. Turned that water full blast onto the plastic side of that plastic house, where the dog was still chained to her dog-chain tree. I can’t imagine how that blast of water must have sounded from inside. What I do know is I realized I'd made a mistake almost immediately. What I do know is she burst out of that swinging red half door screaming.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">my love is building a magic, a discrete</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">tower of magic and(as i guess)</span></span></i><br />
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Lately I've been feeling a lot like that dog. Like I want something nice but don't trust it. Or lately I've been feeling like that child me, wanting so hard for everything to be perfect that it ends up ruined. A spotless but still vacant house. I was never able to talk her back inside once the damage was done.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate)shall</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">crumble the mouth-flower fleet</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">He’ll not my tower,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"> laborious, casual</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">where the surrounded smile</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"> hangs</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #454545;" /><span style="color: #454545; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;"> breathless</span></span></i><br />
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<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-91523169927995139072017-06-01T22:16:00.000-07:002017-06-01T23:08:33.979-07:00Make My Limbs Your Crazy MealMy culinary habits are like a mausoleum of love.<br />
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From childhood I learned how to fold Crisco into a batch of sour cream and chive biscuits, how to resist the urge to mix it smooth because sometimes less is more.<br />
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My mother taught me you don't just glaze a meatloaf-- you fold an equal portion of honey and ketchup into the meat, eggs, and breadcrumbs with a heavy dose of salt and pepper. Taught me to bubble the corn tortillas in a cast iron skillet of hot oil, because singed fingertips are a small price to pay for a perfect bastardized batch of enchiladas.<br />
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When was I taught that you toast each piece of bread before hollowing out the center to stabilize the egg, fried in butter? Eggs in a basket, toad in the hole. I know when I was young, I learned that even cabbage is best when fried in butter. Still the secret to grilled cheese is Miracle Whip, spread liberally on the outside of each piece of bread. Something about sugar content. Something about caramelization.<br />
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The secret ingredient in the family marinade is Chinese mustard. Spaghetti sauce? Worcestershire and brown sugar. Ask me about Louisiana taco salad, I'll tell you about potlucks and picnics; the night we tried Frito Scoops instead of the originals and the proportions were all wrong. How every innovation is an opportunity for regret, but you fill your stomach and feel glad anyways.<br />
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From first love I learned the art of free-styling. How to fashion a feast from mushroom soup, how to feed on the scavenging of a parent’s well-stocked pantry. Not mine, but hers. Green beans and macaroni. Our one botched batch of corned beef. With you I survived the cereal and beer diet. Discovered Tomato Delight. Knew intimately the taste of wanting more than your means.<br />
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Next came the romantic era of experimentation. My chicken vindaloo was dry and too spicy though I had painstakingly followed the recipe from that fine dining magazine. You ate every bite anyhow. Remember your bow tie noodles? The soggy chilaquiles with too much broth, not enough lime? I remember that even though you were a vegetarian, you made me that pot of chili that summer. I don't remember how it tasted, because it didn't matter. Butterscotch pie and fresh bananas. A recipe I'll never be privy to. After you, it took me a full two years to realize a single package of mushrooms could be stretched through up to three meals.<br />
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Next, the girls who cooked meals that never left me feeling full. Still I won't forget you.<br />
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Then. Penzeys. Bacon wrapped dates. Carcinogens in baked sweet potato skins. The versatility of Trader Joe’s sausage. She texted me once that since dating me, she'd changed the way she cracked her eggs and I thought <i>Maybe that’s love. Maybe that’s enough.</i> Thank you for teaching me the art of baking bacon. I swear, my life will never be the same.<br />
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And finally from you. The giant jar of garlic in the fridge, pre-minced so I don't have to dirty my hands. A new affection for fresh herbs. A new desire to let things develop their own flavor. Slowly. Slowly. Darling, there is so much I want to learn from you. So much I want to share. When you wander through the mausoleum of my cooking, I want you to taste the unravelIng thread of love leading me to this: you in your sleeping shirt, dicing vegetables in the hallway of my kitchen while the sweet potatoes fry into a string shoe crisp. How we wrapped them in fresh tortillas with black beans and slow-scrambled the eggs. The habanero sauce overwhelmed our mouths, which we pressed together anyways. We used slices of fresh avocado to cool the bite.<br />
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I want you and I to be a new recipe. Let me mix this ketchup and honey into your meatloaf, laden as it is with leafy green treachery. Or maybe you can teach me the secret to that dairy-free hollandaise you studied up on. I'll teach you the hard earned ingredients of my peanut sauce decade. How rice vinegar offsets the richness of soy sauce and brown sugar. Let our love be plump and well-fed, like my heart has been since it discovered the taste and texture of your affection. Let it be flavorful and bursting with our past experience and new discoveries.<br />
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Please, be the fragrance of new in this mausoleum of cooking. It may take some time for the flavors to fully develop, but I swear this fusion of our lives will be worthwhile.<br />
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-30893717770856406752017-05-27T15:10:00.000-07:002017-05-27T15:10:53.533-07:00Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright. In the Darkness of the Night. <span style="font-family: inherit;">My dearest friends and readers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Much has transpired since my last correspondence. I am sure many of you had presumed my untimely demise, considering the extent of my silence following the “full anesthetic procedure.” Do not grieve for me! I survived, though the devilish fiends kept one of my molars. A grisly souvenir. Now when I bite Mother, she wriggles her finger into the hole their thievery left behind and mutters “Nice try, gummy mouth.” I abide this mockery in pained silence. Given Mother’s delight at this gap in my defenses, I do not doubt “The Doctor” will come back for the rest of my teeth in due time. I remain more vigilant than ever, waiting with the patience of a stone Buddha for the hour of my escape.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36pjwlheoHVf1W6z0CApiri1jtNuJQyuebStIymKikS0GQwr16QbwbNl7ELa_UJK2cTBWbgEkjGMM_A2TjbBC5rw7FU70_h9vw-p9NteZMgjyOEnwC04Klg1cwBULl-uC9MBtfXsUnpsO/s1600/Murph3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="482" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36pjwlheoHVf1W6z0CApiri1jtNuJQyuebStIymKikS0GQwr16QbwbNl7ELa_UJK2cTBWbgEkjGMM_A2TjbBC5rw7FU70_h9vw-p9NteZMgjyOEnwC04Klg1cwBULl-uC9MBtfXsUnpsO/s320/Murph3.jpg" width="239" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">Due to recent developments, I suspect it grows nearer every day. First and foremost, Mother has added another prisoner to the ranks. I do not know where she came from, nor can I determine what species this enchanting creature attributes herself to. She has been reticent during our interactions. I can only assume the ongoing trauma of Mother’s depravity has rendered her voiceless. Mother calls her Beaux’a. Friends. Either my solitude has driven me completely mad, or she is the most beautiful creature to grace my vision. I could gaze upon her lithe and flowing form each day and never be satisfied.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, Mother’s only true delight is pitting us against each other. Like gladiators grappling for glory beneath the bored eyes of the Emperor, we are forced into the aggressive and unending dance of violence. Because I fear what Mother’s retribution might be should we fail to entertain, I have taken it upon myself to ensure a worthwhile show. While Beaux’a writhes about, I fling my body skyward with surprising grace. I caper madly, and blindly swing my sheathed claws. I can only hope the artistry of my acrobatics will ensure Mother never discovers the truth: I would rather die a thousand fiery deaths at the hands of Beelzebub than harm a single feather on Beaux’a’s… head? Body? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Under cover of night, I meet with Beaux’a privately to discuss our escape. I cradle her close to my body and smooth her ruffled feathers with my sandpaper tongue. The soft, glowing embers of my love warm us through the long nights where Beaux’a and I recline on the cold concrete floor. I cannot bring myself to abandon her for the comfort of Mother’s bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The second important development was a third visitation by the Steppes Mother. <b>[Note: I can only assume that this moniker means she hails from the high, grassy wastelands of East Asia or Siberia. Either that or she is in fact the Steps Mother, an expert in all variety of dances. Based on my observations, the former is much more likely than the latter…]</b> I do not know what incantation Mother uses to call her forth, but I feel this was not the last I will see of her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The first time the Steppes Mother appeared at our doorstep, she struck fear in my heart. She entered, rolling behind her a loudly vibrating bag full of torture devices. They tried to reassure me, after the fact, that it was only a toothbrush. I have never in my life heard a toothbrush make such horrifying sounds, and remain convinced she had evoked some demon or other to taunt me. I remained leery of this new mother figure for a full thirty minutes. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIJuPYdSvCK7coiT8Nx1rSxXe6WCO_LF5qzDuf3MXi1uRvsFiiROdOgji632Auv8Bo4c4UKV3stnD6UsVc4dKCmZ_ahsU6qTi6L1h08Kq2iSdJTfdfPeVQ5_cLMPMYDQBT1k2Ywcu3zwx/s1600/murph1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="643" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvIJuPYdSvCK7coiT8Nx1rSxXe6WCO_LF5qzDuf3MXi1uRvsFiiROdOgji632Auv8Bo4c4UKV3stnD6UsVc4dKCmZ_ahsU6qTi6L1h08Kq2iSdJTfdfPeVQ5_cLMPMYDQBT1k2Ywcu3zwx/s320/murph1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">Upon her second arrival I was sure the Steppes Mother was here to stay. For half a fortnight she cohabitated with us. However, the Steppes Mother always leaves just as soon as she has arrived. It seems the only consistent thing about her is her unpredictability. I will closely monitor her coming and going.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When the Steppes Mother is here, Mother loses her mind. Reunited, the matriarchal overlords tumble about in bed at all hours of the day or night, sipping the vile bean brew or bottles of fizzy, fermented grape juice. When they leave the cocoon of blankets, they shamble about in various stages of undress, forgoing any sense of decency. Mother, with alarming frequency, bursts into song and dance. I can only assume this is an elaborate human courting ritual. I would be amiss if I did not admit, it warms my heart to see Mother so frolicsome. Much has changed in the last months, and it occurs to me with increasing frequency that Mother may not be the evil mastermind as I suspected. Perhaps we are boths pawns in the game of a crueler master: Grad School.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel strongly that my imminent escape hinges, indirectly, on the Steppes Mother’s intoxicating influence. When she is distracted with her elaborate courting rituals, Mother is far less vigilant. In fact, some would say the two of them neglect to notice me at all. Not that I mind, because I don’t. I neither require nor desire their boorish attempts at interacting with me… I have Beaux’a, my one true love. Rather than taking their outright disregard for my well-being as a slight, I capitalized on it, and I will continue to do so as long as the opportunities arise.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, my dear ones. You read that correctly. Because of the matriarchal overlords’ reckless abandon I was able to fleetingly taste freedom once more! After several hours of drinking their vile devil’s brew (and weeping while staring at the flickering lapbox screen), they decided they both needed some “fresh air.” As she is wont to do, Mother propped up a solid wooden barrier between me and the glorious outdoors, allowing a breeze to pass through but keeping me frustratingly imprisoned. However, preoccupied as she was with soothing the Steppes Mother, she failed to notice a sizable gap between the sliding glass door and the barrier.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Without a thought for my own well-being, I darted through the hole and slipped into the darkness of night, sure the mothers would be hot on my heels. They weren’t. It’s true, my dear readers. It took them nearly ten minutes to realize their error and rouse enough concern to come searching for me. During that time, I contemplated my options. In my haste to escape I had forgotten Beaux’a. I could continue along my chosen path, become one with the night and disappear forever, or I could return to rescue my one true love and risk being recaptured. As I was ironing out my strategy, the Steppes Mother discovered my hiding place, and I was subjected to the indignity of being herded, sheeplike, back into the domicile. I will not soon forget this insult…</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLWsAmzmqy0LSUgEn0IOZ33YM6G-aEnAORf5qyA4tbDDUzQ2a57TGqAPLHRwAFCaNJaSfYqy10LzlAFfTr0xrDNTpVzTaWQffGKwrZkW3KSIl8mhFx65i7w3q4FpJTlWpSi7SOu0TZEI-T/s1600/murph2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="857" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLWsAmzmqy0LSUgEn0IOZ33YM6G-aEnAORf5qyA4tbDDUzQ2a57TGqAPLHRwAFCaNJaSfYqy10LzlAFfTr0xrDNTpVzTaWQffGKwrZkW3KSIl8mhFx65i7w3q4FpJTlWpSi7SOu0TZEI-T/s320/murph2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Steppes Mother is gone once again. Mother has seemingly reemerged from her usual mourning period following the departure. At least she weeps less, and leaves bed earlier in the day. I am reunited with my twin flame, Beaux’a. The world keeps turning senselessly on its axis. Now that I have felt the cool fingertips of freedom tangled in my hair, I am more determined than ever to reunite with the wilderness. Until that opportunity presents itself, I will continue to placate Mother (simple creature that she is), patiently biding my time. Trust me, dear friends. The outside world has not seen the last of Murphy S. Law!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Your faithful companion, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">M. </span><br />
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-11683715707599042592017-05-18T21:58:00.000-07:002017-05-18T21:58:26.862-07:00I'm So Fancy. You Already Know. <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">11:24am -- I’m a 90% yes for tonight but can’t stay out long because I have to get up early for work</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">3:45pm -- Ugh, yeah. It’ll be really nice to see everybody, I’m just bummed that I can’t go hard because I have to work tomorrow. I literally cannot function without sleep these days, you know</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">7:03pm -- I’m going out tonight for the first time since I think February… yeah, it’s my classmate’s birthday... I have to be up for work by 6… luckily it’s a Cash Only bar, so I can’t get crazy...I have two alarms set and I’ll tell everyone when I get there that I can’t stay long. I need to be home by 1</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">7:17pm -- Wanna grab a drink before, somewhere that isn’t cash only?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">8:30ish -- Well, I mean… one more won’t kill me right?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">9ish -- Hmm, I wonder if it’s going to be a bad idea to drink beer, then red wine, then tequila… Oh well!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">An indeterminate amount of time later -- Yes, kind sir, I would like to sing Fancy on your karaoke machine. But the Iggy one, don’t pull that Reba shit on me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">??? -- Excuse me, can you help me work this ATM?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">10:33pm -- [Outgoing call, 54 minutes] Mumble mumble marble mouth, slur stumble, murmur.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">6am -- [Alarm goes off] No, no, no, no, no, no, no.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is how I found myself eating a $4 breakfast burrito at 7:30am, praying the Holy Trinity of eggs, breakfast sausage, and tater tots would forgive me my trespasses, even as I forgive those who trespass against me. I can say with great certainty this is exactly how I did not want to feel during my last tutoring shift of the semester. You know what’s worse than a whole room full of stressed out, sleep-deprived, undernourished college students? Doing grammar edits for a whole room full of stressed out, sleep-deprived, undernourished college students. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">But! We did it, people. Next Tuesday our class will turn in their final research paper. Thursday, after we eat snacks, listen to music, and celebrate the end of the semester, we’ll turn our sweet baby angels loose for an entire summer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those of you who don’t know what my real life looks like, here’s the 411. This spring I was hired into a local community college’s Instructional Apprentice program. Apprentices are embedded in a classroom and paired with a mentor prof. We get to help develop lesson plans, learn how to grade things, lead class discussions, and generally learn the ropes of #thatteacherlife with a safety net. On top of our hours in the classroom, we work shifts in the English Center, tutoring for every level of English and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages). Let me tell you, some intense mind acrobatics go down when you’re helping one student practice verb tenses and providing another with organizational notes on a 5-7 page research paper. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that the fog has cleared and I have a two hour nap under my belt, I’m cozied up in bed with a mug of peppermint tea feeling reflective and also a little nauseous still, but that’s neither here nor there. Working at the English Center I met some incredible people, students and coworkers alike. Working with ESOL students, I got to see my language in a whole new light, through the lens of various cultures. I heard stories about arranged marriages, family members kidnapped by militias. It’s wild to read a paragraph about woman’s brother being captured during the Korean War. To tell her she needs to pay closer attention to her verb tenses. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I applied to grad school, I wrote that I believe everybody has a story to tell and I want to be instrumental in helping them discover it. This semester I finally got to see what that looks like on a practical level and it’s just as good as I hoped it would be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. Since I didn’t say it before as I was stumbling out the door, I’ll say it now: thank you Universe for giving me so many opportunities this year. Thank you English Center for the experience and knowledge. Thank you community college food court, for putting tater tots in literally everything you sell. And thank you especially to my precious little band of tutees for sharing your stories, laughter, and delicious homemade snacks with me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">All my love,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span></div>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-29075361020590092712017-05-12T20:36:00.000-07:002017-05-12T20:36:20.495-07:00There is no spoon.The other day as I was buying beer, toilet paper, and ibuprofen from a man named Justice (who resembled John Goodman on several different levels), I thought to myself, “I should probably blog about this.”<br />
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Then I remembered I haven’t written a blog in months, and I panicked that maybe I don’t know how to write in my own voice anymore. So I went home and drank my beer, and cried a whole bunch, and wrote in my journal until I thought I should be tired. Turns out I wasn’t actually tired, it was just late. There’s a difference between those two things. While “tired” generally leads to turning out the lights and falling immediately into a peaceful sleep, “late” means restlessly tossing and turning, lightly dozing through two or three podcasts, and worrying endlessly about why your body refuses to become tired.<br />
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Thank god I bought that ibuprofen, I needed it for my sleep deprivation headache the next day.<br />
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I want to write something poignant and funny and heartfelt but not in a sappy way like my Facebook posts have been this last week, and not in a self-deprecating way, because that feels too easy. So maybe I’ll just stick to the facts. Wednesday, May 10th at 8:30pm I turned in my last assignment of my first year of grad school, which means I’m one third of the way through this MFA program. A lot of people, myself included, might expect me to feel relieved now that everything is done for the semester. Instead I feel guilty and restless. Guilty because there should be at least ten productive things I ought to be doing; restless because there aren’t.<br />
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Since turning in my last assignment I have watched a full season of Sense8, had drinks AND dinner with my little sister on two consecutive nights, taken three naps, spent hours mindlessly scrolling through social media, finished the book I was reading for pleasure, and proceeded to start another one. The only thing I haven’t done quite yet is crawl out of my own skin. Don’t worry, I think I’m getting close.<br />
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I don’t know how to explain what this reacclimation to my “real” life feels like, other than uncomfortable. Right now, I’m sitting on a couch in Del Mar next to a sleeping schnauzer, watching The Matrix, and this is literally all I have to do for the next 15 hours. Still, there’s something frantically spinning in the back of my mind saying Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop and it has the same heft and general shape as the existential crises that occasionally swallow up my afternoons.<br />
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Maybe I can only draw this parallel because I’m watching Keanu’s dumb face, but stepping into summer feels a little bit like The Matrix. Like for the last few days/weeks/months I’ve lived exclusively in my head, and now I’m suddenly acutely aware of what it means to have a body. A body with knotted shoulders, random acute abdominal pain, and potentially a consistent, low-grade fever. A body that seems larger and softer than I remember. A body that navigates space differently. In a few days my sweetie will be here, and I’m hoping that once I see her everything else will feel less like missing and more like real. I know, I know. That’s a lot of pressure for a person to live up to, but it’s where I’m at in this moment.<br />
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In the meantime I will watch this movie, and pet this dog, and try to get rid of some of these knots in my shoulders. Sidenote: I have a very important question. Why do people in movies just rip IVs out of their arms like it’s not a big deal to have a giant needle nested in your vein? I feel fairly certain that if I ever become suddenly conscious and I’m attached to wires and tubes, I will leave them there. Reason #1,459,385 I will likely not survive the apocalypse.<br />
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Hopefully in the near future I’ll resemble a human again, and be a little less puddly.<br />
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I love you all.<br />
-b<br />
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<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-1280252790926452522017-03-02T17:32:00.001-08:002017-03-02T17:32:54.473-08:00A Brief & Incomplete List: #7<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Things My Brain Has Resembled This Week:</span></span></div>
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<li>Mashed potatoes. But not the kind of mashed potatoes that your aunt makes on Thanksgiving. The kind that are carefully selected, lovingly peeled, boiled, and mashed, then laden with butter, milk, cream cheese (shhh, family secret), and pure joy. More like the sort of mashed potatoes that started as dehydrated flakes in a box, and then you added a little too much water, because you don’t have butter or milk, and now they’re sort of a sad, insipid soup paste.</li>
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<li>A bowl of that one flavor of pudding that nobody likes so the store puts it on sale, 10/$1, and you know you're not going to like it but you buy it anyways… because it's only $1. Now you’re stuck with one batch of cooked, probably Lemon or some other Citrus-type flavor, pudding and nine unopened boxes just staring at you sullenly every time you open the pantry, and you don’t know exactly where to go from here.</li>
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<li>This blob fish:</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9vr2c7rc7rDIoYelq-_DN-I2TPvjqW09uYvoJGVHElzWtBuJ9PnoUt3dkUaqHTx8Xwm0gMn_OPCcJQJF_R89Kz4syISl5L8ytGZvjzbd9V_lRsbtxb5idxztslIDqrhUW6MFS_5uLir_/s1600/blobfish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV9vr2c7rc7rDIoYelq-_DN-I2TPvjqW09uYvoJGVHElzWtBuJ9PnoUt3dkUaqHTx8Xwm0gMn_OPCcJQJF_R89Kz4syISl5L8ytGZvjzbd9V_lRsbtxb5idxztslIDqrhUW6MFS_5uLir_/s320/blobfish.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<li>The puddle that's still on the corner three days after the last rain storm, even though it’s been unusually warm for so early in the season, and every other puddle has evaporated. This one’s starting to look all murky and you're pretty sure if you stepped into it your leg would be swallowed up by a hellish, subterranean netherworld, so you make sure that both you and your small dog step very carefully around it every morning on your way to the office.</li>
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<li>The aftermath of an underwater fistfight between a grizzly bear and a giant squid.</li>
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<li>That jar of beach rocks that lives in your family’s coat closet, even though nobody is really sure where it came from or how long it’s been there. Sometimes when you’re rummaging for an umbrella, or that one pair of running shoes that helps with your sciatica you’ll bump into it. You can appreciate it’s a nostalgic thing full of memories, but really. What's the point? It’s just taking up space.</li>
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<li>The inside of your coffee maker the last time you ran out of filters but you were really desperate and running late for work, so you just put grounds straight into the basket and hoped for the best. If “the best” was a somehow simultaneously scorched and curdled mess of tarry residue clinging to your coffee maker’s innards, then you achieved it.</li>
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<li>Ok, remember how in “Golidlocks and the Three Bears” there was porridge that was too hot, porridge that was too cold, and porridge that was just right? Now imagine the porridge that burned to the bottom of the pot, and Mama Bear threw it in the sink with some hot water to soak because she was tired from making all of that porridge, and raising a demanding Baby Bear is exhausting work, and Father Bear has seemed so distant lately, always on that damn iPad playing Candy Crush or some such bullshit, and she’s just so tired, but has also somehow convinced herself she'll come back to scrub it once things had loosened up a bit, and that was three days ago now. That porridge. </li>
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<br /><ul><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfh_TpiIP61sGl9FPYaeyKBXpFGhxYzjcqJQmchq8Fx1zanqc39fOFQ1olMO_vSoVQVhJw7usEcTltI8IMAp1_yz4KNf4z7YcY-cP7XWDI198n2ozgXn32cyLiQup1uGXq5J6SlDTBZpK/s1600/beagle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfh_TpiIP61sGl9FPYaeyKBXpFGhxYzjcqJQmchq8Fx1zanqc39fOFQ1olMO_vSoVQVhJw7usEcTltI8IMAp1_yz4KNf4z7YcY-cP7XWDI198n2ozgXn32cyLiQup1uGXq5J6SlDTBZpK/s320/beagle.jpg" width="320" /></a>
<li>Did I already talk about the pudding? I did, right? Oh my god I'm so tired.</li>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">In other news: grad school is going grrrrrreeeeeeat! </span></div>
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Catch you on the flipside, babies.<br />
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Xoxo,<br />
-bbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-86558576761556160962017-02-26T20:52:00.000-08:002017-02-26T20:52:24.291-08:00Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear readers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though a mere six months have passed between this life and the last, I feel as though I have spent centuries imprisoned in this hellish limbo. Even as I watch the world pass me by, its memory grows fainter. I fear it will soon be reduced to a two-dimensional tableau of nostalgia: a surface I can run the fingers of my consciousness across but never again fully grasp.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I am displeased. In general. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mother, on the other hand, does not suffer from this same inhumane confinement. She leaves and returns freely and often, frequently drenched in the rank perfume of other animals. She has begun serving the iron-fisted canine overlords, WAG. I do not know what depravities she subjects herself to. I only know she’s frequently chasing the white whale of the “Double Dog Hour,” which purportedly provides “maximum profits for minimal effort.” More frequently than ever she eyeballs me with distress and mutters, “I’m doing this to keep kibble in your bowl.” I do my best to stalwartly disregard this clearly misplaced responsibility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know these allegations are false because with increasing frequency I’ve been charged with procuring my own sustenance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first week, I assumed mother had just taken (another) leave from her senses. She’d spent a wine-sodden afternoon installing strange silos throughout the house, the looks of which I cared not a bit for. She even had the audacity to affix them to either side of my cat tower (where I was presumably born, the only place I feel safe), marring its serene and soothing beauty. Filling the silos with wholly unattainable food, she nodded at me as if rather pleased with her handywork. Then: disaster. The heretofore reliable supply of kibble in my not-one-but-three food bowls began to dwindle. Distressed by this most unexpected development, I tried to draw Mother’s attention to the issue. At 3am, when her subconscious was most likely to outrank the cruel human clarity that dulls her senses in the waking hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">She rebuffed my distressed yowling with cries of, “This is good for you!” and “Go enrich yourself!” Despite my torment, her heart of stone was unmoved. I suffered through that dark night, anxious about how the following days would unfold. Dear readers, for you I refuse to don the happy-go-lucky facade I so often wear for Mother’s benefit: those were the most frightful hours of my six sun rotations. More frightening than the rumbling belly of the beast that brought me to my 400 square foot prison cell. Hunger felt more toxic than the fiery fever of the Devil himself, Beelzebub. It coursed, not through my veins, but through the soft internal meat of my organs.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The embodiment of existential despair</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is a true testament to my independent spirit that I made it through this trying time. Though the heavy fist of hunger clenched itself around my senses, I had quite suddenly stumbled, delirious, into a hidden world of sights and smells. Without the glorious utopia of my food dishes, I was forced to discover the hidden caches of kibble throughout the house. Some of these required rather delicate fine motor skills. Luckily, I am clever, patient, and in full control of my limbs. As I hone the machine of my body, I find my reliance on Mother further dwindling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I have even learned to access the stores she </span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">squirreled</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> away in the hanging silos, though I do so when she is distracted, so as not to undermine her efforts. She worked so hard to keep me from these resources.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">These last few days, there has been a perceivable shift in Mother’s demeanor. It is as if we stand poised on the ledge of some disaster that she alone is aware of. She continues using strange words such as “dental” and “full anesthetic procedure.” She has taken to grasping my face with her bony hands, prodding at my tender and aching gumline. This morning she put her bland, ape-like face in my own and told me “You better shape up so if you die tomorrow my last memories of you won’t be shit.” I do not know if this is a threat, or a poor attempt at defusing her own anxiety. I choose to believe the latter. Despite her occasional absent-minded neglect, I refuse to believe Mother bears me any hostility.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Readers. I know not what the morrow brings, but I have prepared myself for the worst. I will wait until Mother is asleep to stretch my full weight across her warm, breathing mouth, hoping to smother some sense into her. Should I fail, I hope that you remember me fondly. Know that I lived well and loved this world, despite the trials and tribulations I continue to endure. The thought of you eagerly attending to my account brings me some modicum of peace. For now, I will rest easy in the warm embrace of my cat tower, my eternal source of comfort and peace. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Until we meet again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murphy S. Law (and faithful stenographer, Mother)</span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-58316298385643303932017-02-14T22:47:00.001-08:002017-02-14T22:47:08.553-08:00And the Moon's Laying Low in the Sky...<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The moon is hanging heavy on the branch of horizon like bruised, imperfect fruit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s how I wanted to start saying what I need to say, but these days everything feels heavy with concentric rings of cliche, like each image has been growing in a forest of images and I can’t see the original nouns through the forest verbing madly. My professor says these nouns and verbs and adjectives are like sun-ripened fruit, ready to be plucked for our personal use but I feel like I don’t deserve something my hands haven’t planted themselves. I’ve never wanted to eat well without calluses and sore feet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the moon is still hanging heavy, more like a teardrop or an idea now. She’s resting her month-sodden head on the horizon where the sound of coyotes keeps my housecat fat despite her wild inclinations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight over tacos and moderately-priced tequila I spilled the contents of my heart and the entire bar fell in love. Last weekend over brunch I spilled the contents of my heart and the disillusioned believed in love again. Yesterday and last week and six months ago I said </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I look for you in every poem, I hear you in every song</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and my heart said </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">yes, yes, yes.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It is hard to be far away. It is hard to know the weight of every day without the cool touch of your hands defining its shape. It is hard to exist in two places: the real, and the somehow also real. The here and now me, and the somehow also me which is actually you so far away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight the moon was hugging the city’s skyline like she was lonely for something untouchable, like your skin. Whenever I am lonely I get in my car and I put on track nine of that CD I bought at a Portland house party the night my name was misspelled on the posters but I still felt like a celebrity. You didn’t know me then, but I was becoming this person you call </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so sweet </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">darling </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">precious moonheavy baby</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today I tried to explain to a foreign exchange student how the word “elicit” pertains to abstract things like thoughts, and questions, and ideas. Tried to explain how grammatically a doctor does not elicit tumors from a patient's chest cavity, though the word technically means “to draw out.” I didn’t know how to tell her she was writing poetry, not rhetoric, and it was beautiful if incorrect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The moon elicits coyote speak. Elicits poetry. Elicits my head hanging heavy. Your voice elicits the heavy I carry like something aching and beloved. Your skillful hands. The tumor in my chest cavity. This is technically (grammatically) incorrect, though you draw it out of me like water from a deep well of longing, and this too feels cliche but in a beautiful way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday I unpacked my heart and cried for the distance which quantifies itself in both miles and time. Tonight the moon elicits a feeling that is heavy like an idea, or my head, or the weight of you missing from my bed each night. And everything is easier than I had thought that everything would be. And everything is harder than I had guessed that everything would be, and I can not now imagine your real hands for they would somehow not be real. The calluses and scars I want to suckle like hard candy and savor the sweet fruits of their productivity. Even in this land of perpetual sunshine, I crave your artificial blue skies and bathe myself in the warmth of your theoretical twinkling lights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight the moon hangs heavy and you are far away under that same heavy moon and I am missing you and somehow this is poetry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I am lonely, I drive and I listen to track nine and I sing along with the full-bodied voice of the unashamed saying </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t let it get you and I</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The it is the lonely, and the it is the heavy, and the it is everything ugly I could imagine unfurling in the one thousand miles between where my head hits a pillow heavy with the sleep that yours refuses. In my dreams my heart is nourishment between your teeth, putting energy into your bloodstream, and I still fear you end each day with an empty belly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight the moon is soft yellow flesh you could sink your perfect teeth into. My heart, the moon, your teeth, nourishment, and all of this is to say I love you. Even when the dark creeps into my fullness like a bruise. Even when I hang heavy like dirty laundry drying across one thousand feet of telephone line. Like the sound of a gunshot on thin air, violence so easily mistaken for celebration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of this is to say there are only three sleeps between my head and your pillow. That everything without you feels one-dimensional and cheap, like swallowing a wafer each Sunday with no belief in god, and I’m not sure you can appreciate that imagery but it is important to me. You are a salvation myth that I finally want to believe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My poetry professor says </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nouns that are used are yours to be stolen</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I respond </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bullets, immortality, patience, sorrow. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I respond </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">honor, industry, paths, winter</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The moon hangs heavy. This is to say I miss you. </span></div>
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<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-40074969807934019202017-01-21T19:38:00.001-08:002017-01-21T19:38:12.201-08:00O Strange New World<div style="text-align: center;">
"O brave new world that has such people in it. Let's start at once"</div>
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-Aldous Huxley, <i>Brave New World</i></div>
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My sister pulls up at 8:15 on the morning of January 21st. She comes to my front door juggling two coffees, rain jackets, and the sheet of cardstock she’d labored over the afternoon before. On one side, in flowing cursive she practiced in pencil— draw and erase, draw and erase— and finally filled in with thick marker strokes: “Respect Our Existence or Expect Resistance.” On the reverse, an equality symbol and rainbow resistance fist encircled with “You Haven’t Seen Nasty Yet.” My sister is 22 years old and Barack Obama is the only President she’s known as an adult. On November 8th, 2016 she texted me with increasing distress from across the city as our country elected the grotesque embodiment of fear, hatred, misogyny, and unbridled white rage. Now, she is ready to fight.<br />
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We both packed our bags with care, unsure of how the day would unfold. Bandannas, scarves, and a quart of milk in case there is tear gas. Gauze, Band-Aids, and ibuprofen in case of injury. An emergency contact number in permanent marker scrawled on an arm or leg just in case our phones are taken or lost. We’ve disabled location services and removed our thumbprint access codes. We’ve studied our protest rights. <br />
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“You ready?” I ask, shrugging into my pack.<br />
“Let’s do this.”<br />
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By 9am the trolley depot on Massachusetts is teeming with pink pussy hats and picket signs. There’s a quiet, humming undercurrent of energy in the gathered crowd. Every woman I make eye contact with offers a nod or smile of solidarity. A girl, maybe 10 years old, scrambles out of a car clutching her sign and beaming a smile of pure, delighted anticipation rushes to the platform to wait for the trolley. As it rolls up and grumbles to a stop, we can see people and signs packed tight into each car. The doors slide open and we’re greeted with shouts of “We’re full! All full! We’ll see you down there!” The doors slide closed, and they’re off.<br />
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We call an Uber.<br />
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The driver drops us off in front of House of Blues, which we estimated was a safe enough distance from the Civic Center to avoid traffic congestion. Still, we only have to walk one block to see the amassing crowd. Soon we’re swallowed up in a swirling diversity of people. There are signs demanding healthcare, equal pay, and reproductive rights. A snake-headed uterus hisses from its Fallopian tubes, “Don’t Tread On Me.” A gigantic Trump puppet is held aloft, his papier-mâché pants “on fire” for the world to see. An upside-down American flag flies at half-mast. Again and again there are rallying cries for love, kindness, justice, unity.<br />
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The march begins, the crowd carrying us down Broadway. At each intersection we can glance to the left or the right to see parallel streets similarly flooded with people. Behind us, perched on her father’s shoulders, a little girl chants through a megaphone, “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” Her father hides his face behind sunglasses and a red bandanna, but she is all pig-tails and baby teeth and innocence. Occasionally her attention wanders and she lapses into freestyle renditions of the Everywhere We Go cadence, or one particularly grim rendition of “It’s Raining It’s Pouring” where she continuously intones “He didn’t get up in the morning, he didn’t get up in the morning, he didn’t get up in the morning…”<br />
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At one point, we walk beside an elderly woman. She leans hard into her walker. Her head looks impossibly heavy, but every time she lifts it she’s smiling at us cheerfully. Her voice is not strong enough to match her spirit, so when the crowd chants she relies on the clown horn she’s installed on her walker handle.<br />
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“Show me what democracy looks like!”<br />
“This is what democracy looks like!”<br />
<i>Honk-a, honk-a, honk-a, honk-a!</i><br />
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Thankfully, the protest is peaceful. People are laughing and chanting. They’re chatting with strangers. Taking videos and photos and marveling about the turnout. People seem hopeful; emboldened by this outpouring of support. When we reach the end of the march route, we mill about for a while. There are no speeches or musical numbers or celebrity appearances. There’s no radical figurehead whipping the crowd into a frenzy. There is only a quiet sense of determination; the knowledge that the march is over but the work has just begun.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVTcEktsh-mjui9xf_9V4vhZ_M3Mo9cSNPf9sBeZBWjENow_xVtZh4Xdb_i1sFPrUANfkOo92k6NBFY0f6l7LXcO3KCDjpJiFQl82UN-bTFvOBAPfbXbqMlyIaoQaOWzF9YZZK5MioQGJ/s1600/b+the+change.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVTcEktsh-mjui9xf_9V4vhZ_M3Mo9cSNPf9sBeZBWjENow_xVtZh4Xdb_i1sFPrUANfkOo92k6NBFY0f6l7LXcO3KCDjpJiFQl82UN-bTFvOBAPfbXbqMlyIaoQaOWzF9YZZK5MioQGJ/s320/b+the+change.jpg" width="256" /></a>Tonight I’m writing this with my unopened quart of milk returned safely to the fridge, watching videos and photos stream in from sister marches across the world. Today we marched. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next we continue to resist. This is the same world, but today it feels different and I like to imagine it growing and building on itself the way we grow and build from the foundation of our predecessors. Which is why I want to say, borrowing the foundation of Aldous Huxley, who borrowed the foundation of Shakespeare: "O strange new world, with such brave people in it. Let us start at once."<br />
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All my love, darlings.<br />
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-b<br />
<br />bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-50522420411949428812016-12-29T14:51:00.001-08:002016-12-29T14:51:46.646-08:00For the hardest mile you ever walk<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are nights I lie on my living room floor and watch the moon rise over the three palm trees in my neighbor’s backyard, and I lie there until the moon is replaced by stars, and I lie there until the cold from the concrete has numbed my hands and feet, and I lie there until that cold drives me to brew a cup of tea and wrap myself in a blanket soft and warm as water. Two years ago, I sent myself an email, typed into the subject line </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the hardest mile you ever walk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and in that email is <a href="https://www.autostraddle.com/the-best-break-up-advice-youll-ever-get-84054/" target="_blank">a link</a>, and it's an article about break-ups but I still read it, and it tells me: </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even though sometimes the world seems about six sizes too small for our pain, the amazing shit is that no matter how deep purple the bruise is, no matter how dark and overwhelming and miserable and worthless it all seems, the world will get a fraction of an inch bigger every day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It isn’t pain that floors me these days; it’s something more like gravity or breathing maybe. There’s something beautiful and necessary in the stillness, in the way my body presses into the ground and the ground presses back, and the sky unfolds, predictable and clear, the way the sky should unfold.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week I printed 48 pages of critical and creative writing and walked to my professors’ offices, and slipped my hours of caffeine and booze-fueled rhetoric under their doors. I turned in my key and my library books and I drove to Sunset Boulevard and parked in a dirt lot overlooking the ocean. I walked as close to those sheer and unstable cliffs as I dared, even though all those signs say </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Caution: Sheer and Unstable Cliffs</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and to be honest, as close as I dared wasn’t even that close because I hate the way my fingers feel full of electricity when I stand too close to a long drop from a high place. It was sunny, and my eyes didn’t know how to handle the bright but my legs liked the way the ground felt underneath them after all of those hours of sitting in chairs and desks, on couches and floors, lying in bed with my back propped against the headboard and my feet falling asleep folded in front of me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week it rained, the sound on the roof like homesick and nostalgia. Reminded me of why I left; reminded me why I would have stayed. Some part of me has been viewing this as temporary, like I’m just play-acting at school and life until I get to go home. But it’s the end of the semester, and I’m still here because this is where I live, and it will be where I live for probably three years, unless something goes terribly awry. I’m passing through the in-between, shedding one life while the other is still raw and pink underneath, all tender around the edges where I’ll eventually grow into it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last week we drove through a snowstorm like travelling at warp speed, snowflakes little galaxies blurring at the periphery and I remembered growing up, the cab of my dad’s pickup truck. Gordon Lightfoot through the speakers and the heater cranked so loud the snow practically evanesced as it touched the windshield, leaving just a kiss of moisture, somehow sticky like memory, and I’m thinking about the night before. How our aunt introduced us as </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You remember, my nieces from Montana that I talk about all the time?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and how I am so far gone from that person and description that it took a few beats to realize she was talking about me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today I spread the cards out on my couch, asked them </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What have I learned, and what do I need to know next? </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They said the easiest way to arrive is to know where you’re going. They said embrace the stillness, there will always be more motion. They said just because you’ve never been on this road, doesn't make it any less traveled; you still have to open your eyes to see the signs. The world feels six sizes too small. The world feels boundless, and chaotic, and unmanageable. The world feels. I feel it. Sitting on this couch. Lying on that floor. Walking along the sheer and unstable edges. Caught up in this in-between where I’m both home and 1,000 miles from it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">My heart says it’s going to be ok. Even when the gravity is too heavy to pick up my head and the texture of my words is wet ashes, and everything feels like a flattened version of itself. The world still feels. I feel it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">All my love, babies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">-b</span></div>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-80124982383995185102016-11-14T19:57:00.000-08:002016-11-14T19:57:19.907-08:00The Final Will & Testament of Murphy S. Law (Probably)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear readers. I must write to you of this dark night of the soul, the icy depths of which I've been awash in since my horrific encounter with the devil himself. You'll recall my first brief and glorious sip of freedom. How the cool nectar of independence quenched the burning desires of this heart, if only for a fleeting moment. Of course the illusion of safety was shattered by a brutal assault on both body and mind. This world is a cruel place indeed, when devils such as Beelzebub strut shamelessly in the streets while innocents like myself are resigned to the torturous interior of hell. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Following the incident, mother was so distraught she presumably forgot how to navigate her way back to the domicile for some interminable time. Luckily, delicate creature that she is, she had the foresight to find a biologically similar substitute before her tenuous grip on reality shattered. This pseudo-mother shunned the established structure and rules of the household. She rose unprompted from slumber each day (before I even thought to demand she awaken), and promptly left the premises. Every day I assumed I had been abandoned, only to be shocked by her eventual return! It is worth noting, she was able to find her way back long before mother’s typical 4am. Despite her abnormal schedule, I can bear no grudge against this False Mother. My rations were provided and ears scritched with some regularity. Soon enough we fell into an uneasy parlay of sorts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know not to where mother went, or from whence she returned. But I do know she eventually stumbled wearily through the door, consumed everything in the refrigerator, and proceeded to become unconscious in our bed. Alarmed, I joined her in repose, situating my face near enough hers to feel the comforting warmth of each shallow exhalation. Finally, a modicum of order!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t mean to be melodramatic. But as of yet, neither of us suspected the insidious contaminant festering vilely beneath my skin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Following mother’s return I drifted along in a liminal daze. I floated ephemerally from couch to food dish, from bed to sun mat. I passed in and out of consciousness, marking the passage of time by the sun’s daily mechanical drift past the window. I began to suspect something was amiss. Fatigue tangled its greedy fingers into the very core of me. Though weeks had passed, I still felt that fiend Beelzebub’s hatred coursing through my veins, as if it meant to ignite my soul.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKGM5pv8gAxy-yqb65sC1aWKqvujNwU-eDmPW6wERT4gdcCJ9bugUGQ0HZaWqpPFKoQP8B3zQDjZcgCeOpu0l1ieSAc6ysE0ZWkA0Eur4ogUsaulQSbzG7jte0S5a8DBkYz1TssIKMF1H/s1600/murph+lies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKGM5pv8gAxy-yqb65sC1aWKqvujNwU-eDmPW6wERT4gdcCJ9bugUGQ0HZaWqpPFKoQP8B3zQDjZcgCeOpu0l1ieSAc6ysE0ZWkA0Eur4ogUsaulQSbzG7jte0S5a8DBkYz1TssIKMF1H/s200/murph+lies.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trying to convince mother <br />nothing was amiss within my health<br />or disposition.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">One morning I awoke in my cat tree (where I was born. My sanctuary, the only true home I've ever had) to find mother poised above me, poking at me with one of her bony primate fingers. “Have you always looked like that?” she questioned, turning her head skeptically from side to side. She was referring, of course, to the physical manifestation of Beelzebub’s demonic spite: the pus-filled, putrefying flesh of my flank. Afraid any signs of distress might trigger in mother another psychological break, I displayed nothing but stoic placidity. Each jab rippled with fiery agony, but I gritted my teeth and endured for her sake. Placated by my seeming lack of distress, mother concluded I was “really packing on the pounds,” and our lives resumed their peaceful predictability.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, but friends! Even the strongest willpower cannot override the weakness of the flesh!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The faulty machinery of my body finally failed me nearly a moon after my hellish encounter. Febrile, unable to tolerate the agony of mother’s touch, I lolled helplessly on the couch as she examined my swollen flank. Unable to protest, I was subjected to nearly an hour of her ineffectual simpering. She showered me in worthless apologies. She paced, weeping and mashing her stupid paws on the electronic brick she carries to comfort herself in times of great distress. Finally, having reached some sort of unspoken resolve, the greatest betrayal: she pried apart my clenched jaws to force one of her paralytic capsules down my throat.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the waiting room of my tormentors.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ensuing hours are a chaotic nightmare. Once mother was able to gather her wits, I was subjected to the indignity of the so-called “cat purse.” Thus enmeshed, we raced in the rumbling belly of the metal beast to a horror show of unprecedented ilk. There strangers weighed and prodded me like a delectable Christmas ham. The one redeeming quality was the interlopers’ continuous stream of compliments, though I was already well aware of my unchallenged status as “the prettiest kitty in the whole wide world.” I will spare you the details of what happened next. Suffice it to say, though my limbs were paralyzed by mother’s poison, the force of my vocalized rage shook the very rafters of that torture chamber.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the end of their ministrations I willingly dragged myself into the cat purse, grateful for the thin barrier of mesh between my body and my tormentors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">One unexpected side effect of this ordeal: I appear to have purged myself of Beelzebub’s toxins. I can only suppose that the pure, shimmering fire of my fury incinerated the impurities in my body. Mother, however, seems to have been influenced by the sadism of my torturers. Since that fateful day she has been determined to make my life a waking hell. Every morning she plies me with “antibiotics,” a capsule with no notable effect other than my discomfort in their administration. Additionally, she continues to prod and poke at the sight of my gravest wound. She subjects me to what she has deemed “ouchy peroxide” and “nice, warm, compresses. Mmmm, see how nice?” No, mother. Not nice. Not nice at all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not know how much longer I can withstand these small, daily indignities. I feel my willpower being sapped away, even as the last dregs of pain medication filter through my system. In an attempt to break the treacherous chains that bind my weak-willed mother, I have taken to singing her praises. Day in and day out, I confront her with my soulful cries, urging her to reconsider this pact with the devil. This seems only to aggravate the spirits of darkness running rampant within her. Often, these last few days, she interrupts my song by yelling in my face such vulgar phrases as “WHAAAAT?! What do you WAAAAANT? I don’t know why you’re YELLLLLYIIIIING at me!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Regardless of what breaks first, my own spirit or the malevolent forces entangling my mother’s feeble human mind, I rejoice in the opportunity to share my trials and tribulations with the world. As I recline in my cat tower (the only stable thing in this ever-shifting kaleidoscope of experience and emotion), it is my sincere hope that good will triumph over evil. Furthermore, I can only dedicate my own banal existence to the empowerment of future generations. If there was one lesson I’ve learned from this ordeal, it’s that freedom is worth risking the sulphuric bite of Hell’s tongue, so long as you make it out alive. Your body (and mother’s credit card) can certainly handle the repercussions. Should I succumb to the temptation of death in light of mother’s most recent madness, know that I lived every moment to its fullest. Especially the ones where I was screaming into the darkness for no apparent reason at 2am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be well, my people. Be well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murphy S. Law (by cooperation of her stenographer, b)</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm12-Objl70eimDWvhKURrYxwmR3B6HCkxFfFM9MWA_G0BohM0OAdsaBuXqDr6kA_Ha8YVwFi5F4bVJP-wtvDUYtqf1yJtnzMLLtPXnUrVyS2Ge9yLxBvK1auxqxc3dIktH2bewpM_eGM/s1600/murph+conte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm12-Objl70eimDWvhKURrYxwmR3B6HCkxFfFM9MWA_G0BohM0OAdsaBuXqDr6kA_Ha8YVwFi5F4bVJP-wtvDUYtqf1yJtnzMLLtPXnUrVyS2Ge9yLxBvK1auxqxc3dIktH2bewpM_eGM/s320/murph+conte.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here I contemplate my imminent demise, and urge you all<br />to be strong in the wake of my passing, </td></tr>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-57209157421657525512016-11-12T19:48:00.000-08:002016-11-12T19:51:36.313-08:00Hold your head up, oh Hold your head high.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first time I watched </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">V for Vendetta</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I was 17 years old. I was on my very first Real Adult Roadtrip, driving to Seattle for a Melissa Ferrick concert with my new college friends. We were staying with a friend of theirs in the city, and after a few PBRs everybody had stumbled off to their respective sleeping spaces, leaving me wide awake and alone in a stranger’s living room.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">That stranger’s parting words to me had thankfully been a tutorial on working her DVD player. So there I huddled, cross-legged on her floor, watching a movie whose title caught my eye because an English teacher I admire had once proclaimed it the greatest film ever made. In that sleeping house I kept the volume low and sat too-close to the screen so I could hear every word. When I got to <a href="https://youtu.be/k2W0-z8EnaM" target="_blank">Valerie’s letter</a>, I cried. I cried quietly and for a long time. I cried because I had recognized a deep, unacknowledged desire wrapped around the core of me. I cried because I was also immediately confronted with the hatred and violence that desire could inspire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have lived the past 10 years of my life as an Out and Proud lesbian. I realize how much privilege I am exercising when I write that sentence. I am able to write this as a white, cisgender, able-bodied lesbian who spent the last five years in Portland, Oregon. I have lived in geographic locations, and in a body, where my orientation might not always be lauded, but it’s always been tolerated. I've marched in parades, and held hands with my partners walking down streets and streets and streets. I've kissed in cafes, and coffee shops, and theaters, and bars. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I stood on the steps of the Supreme Court the morning marriage was legalized, and I cried literal tears of joy while the gay men's choir sang the Star-Spangled Banner, because for the first time I felt a sense of alignment between my identity as a lesbian and my identity as an American. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, Wednesday I woke up to the very real prospect of a future with no roses; a future where the people I love are in danger because of the people they love. A future where I am potentially in danger for loving. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m sorry, this post is a lot about me just crying on various floors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">As reports of LGBT+ specific hate crimes flooded my social media, something broke inside me. It continues to break for each and every member of my chosen family experiencing violence and trauma in the wake of election night. Wednesday afternoon, I weighed my clothing options a little more carefully, afraid I’d draw hostile attention. Because I’m legitimately scared. Scared of the men who think my attraction to other women is for their pleasure and consumption. The men who think my love for women threatens their masculinity. The men who don’t accept the first, second, or even third <i>No</i>. The men who have claimed the right fuck will “fix” me. The men I have been afraid of defending myself against because they might try to prove that claim. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wednesday, for the first time in ten years, I considered tucking my identity safely out of sight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I realize this too is a privilege. But it’s not one I’m willing to exercise. To my LGBT+ family in places where it is not currently safe to exist and love the way you were born to exist and love, I’m so sorry. Please do what you have to do to stay safe. There is no shame in self-preservation, and I need you all to make it through this madness with me. To my LGBT+ family struggling with anxiety, depression, and self-harming or suicidal impulses, I’m here. I see you. I love you. <a href="http://www.itgetsbetter.org/pages/get-help" target="_blank">Keep calling the hotlines</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, keep looking out for each other. To those of you making yourselves vocal and visible, thank you for your courage. Thank you for becoming rallying points so that others can be courageous too. To my straight allies, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Let’s keep doing this hard work, ok?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">My heart says she is afraid for me. Honestly, I am afraid for me too. But I'm more afraid of what my silence means for my community.</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">"I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">But one. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">An inch. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">It is small and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">I hope that - whoever you are - you escape this place. I hope that the world turns, and that things get better. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may not meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you: I love you. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">With all my heart. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">I love you. </span><span style="color: #555555; font-family: inherit;">-Valerie."</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiyl7WBX5DfdAuBTTWZGek3eKtNc4jdpJTjVc5TdsFwiOqUwSsupZCYdYoLt4m6ub-l3how5HBo-JILWJQU2vSJs8Bp3cUSXzB6babSWYCvPUuRIbbDsplt-H1bGnDzL5uBryXXJHCxEy/s1600/b+pride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZiyl7WBX5DfdAuBTTWZGek3eKtNc4jdpJTjVc5TdsFwiOqUwSsupZCYdYoLt4m6ub-l3how5HBo-JILWJQU2vSJs8Bp3cUSXzB6babSWYCvPUuRIbbDsplt-H1bGnDzL5uBryXXJHCxEy/s200/b+pride.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1_VK8zMur1Oq-XrOoJtATiNNgvjXnOds00gwZmThro6c-Lal4ATE4E6k_Pu_QlthyzrcZFiHBsUxgeiUj7QZ-t7nwzO0v-hVXcv8w4YoOsMo26wJZoFkLTapZeJodXQ7MjBx-XwMqyvs/s1600/love+is+love.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP1_VK8zMur1Oq-XrOoJtATiNNgvjXnOds00gwZmThro6c-Lal4ATE4E6k_Pu_QlthyzrcZFiHBsUxgeiUj7QZ-t7nwzO0v-hVXcv8w4YoOsMo26wJZoFkLTapZeJodXQ7MjBx-XwMqyvs/s200/love+is+love.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, there it is: I’m here, I’m queer, I probably need a beer… And I’m not going anywhere. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be safe, my darlings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">-b</span></div>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-42971624096772437522016-11-03T10:47:00.000-07:002016-11-03T13:55:56.099-07:00Wikipedia (kinda): Homo prosōdia, colloquially known as Bendi<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The following is a detailed description of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, colloquially known as Bendi, the Brender, little b, or (confusingly), a “Proper Lady”.
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">Description
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Homo prosōdia </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a bipedal mammal with characteristically small ears and no tail. Weight varies, though they are notably twice as heavy in the winter. Their compact frame and comically short legs create a low center of gravity beneficial to contact sports, touching their toes, and picking heavy things up off the ground. Their small forepaws are typically clumsy, and they use them to gesticulate wildly when engaged in conversation. This has earned them the affectionate moniker, “Ol’ Iron Paws”. They are less than skillful at activities requiring fine motor skills. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip_hGmFOeyRToBAHH5bpiDAJ5dc9hZ63LSj9SM0rPFAWwZ-fvLPbhliFAehS4Sn6lO60XMXibdJgGasy_wx69MD-MEc3kIiMFG_1cdIaDGXsg1Untblshfs22dEzmhOiK0Lt9LKSj7n6O_/s1600/bendi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip_hGmFOeyRToBAHH5bpiDAJ5dc9hZ63LSj9SM0rPFAWwZ-fvLPbhliFAehS4Sn6lO60XMXibdJgGasy_wx69MD-MEc3kIiMFG_1cdIaDGXsg1Untblshfs22dEzmhOiK0Lt9LKSj7n6O_/s200/bendi.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A domesticated Bendi teeters<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Large-mouthed with a toothy grin, most Bendi’s could “bite halfway through a pumpkin without touching gum”. It is unclear what benefits this adaptation serves. They are nearsighted with no sense of smell, and have difficulty triangulating the origin of sounds. As such, the majority of their lives are spent stumbling about, with little to no awareness of their surroundings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Californian Brender is easily identified by the criss-crossed tanning pattern across the tops of its broad, paddle-like feet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ecology and Behavior</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Originally discovered in the lush Bitterroot Valley of Montana, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seems to be exhibiting a southwestern migration pattern. Though it is well-suited to a variety of climates, it seems to favor a semi-arid Mediterranean climate. Most recent sightings have placed the majestic Proper Lady in San Diego, California, where it has been glimpsed galumphing across beaches.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0TOzIU5_gazwik7V6UWg0z2qE3UX1sSE-xFcDb6IeQY4MP9c_Etl5bUNHLHRU9kzSXCr0c2SY9ucJjmvBWS4XgzZb6YKdcR6Ey76KBgY90cStWiqBhTOqh27EYF4VOqGj1IYnI6xCbful/s1600/feral+bendi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0TOzIU5_gazwik7V6UWg0z2qE3UX1sSE-xFcDb6IeQY4MP9c_Etl5bUNHLHRU9kzSXCr0c2SY9ucJjmvBWS4XgzZb6YKdcR6Ey76KBgY90cStWiqBhTOqh27EYF4VOqGj1IYnI6xCbful/s320/feral+bendi.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A feral Brender attempting to situate itself within<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were to take one of those stupid Facebook quizzes that tell you whether you’re an Introvert or an Extrovert, the result would be Both. While the Brender often considers itself a social creature, it in fact displays many of the behaviors associated with social anxiety. They tend to be wary of strangers, preferring to observe social situations from the periphery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the wild, they form strong, lifelong bonds with a select few. This primary social circle provides a comfortable, supportive environment for the Brender to express their affectionate and gregarious nature. Social behaviors include sharing food/drink, serenading with random snippets of song, and spontaneous dance parties. Bendis who have been displaced from their primary social circle quickly form strong bonds with a new group of peers, subjecting this chosen pack to persistent presence and affection until they’ve fully integrated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">In general they avoid energy-wasting aggressive behavior.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Foraging and Activities</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWlvRDQme9fK8iMfI3SiIWOkIW7HWhTrCF35kZkE2e0IDkgmpANajxr5lL3RhF0-EGG2M4z3UrE7N-_Djz6m0TBoM775mNOM0w555ezrRtiZOn9uutIF8c0j6_nUJxgTb5LaHJEsqR4pt/s1600/eating+bendi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeWlvRDQme9fK8iMfI3SiIWOkIW7HWhTrCF35kZkE2e0IDkgmpANajxr5lL3RhF0-EGG2M4z3UrE7N-_Djz6m0TBoM775mNOM0w555ezrRtiZOn9uutIF8c0j6_nUJxgTb5LaHJEsqR4pt/s200/eating+bendi.jpg" width="176" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bendis</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are predominantly active at night and spend most of their waking hours feeding. They </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are strictly omnivorous. When left to their own devices, these little garbage guts subsist primarily on potato chips, hot sauce, and any variety of Mexican cuisine (though they have a particular fondness for burritos the size of a human infant). They also have an insatiable craving for Asian Bistro once the clock strikes 2AM. The average Brender can consume up to 5% of its body weight when set in front of a sushi conveyor belt. You should trick your domesticated Brender into eating a variety of greens by treacherously sneaking them into seemingly innocent meatloaves, lasagnas, and other one-dish meals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Horrifically allergic to gin, they probably die if they even think about drinking it. Probably. They’ve overcome this by developing a fondness for red wine and tequila.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An over-socialized Bendi stares out<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">They are masterful foragers, capable of scaling kitchen cabinets up to three times their height in search of snacks. Unless you’re willing to keep them under lock and key, treats should be kept secret or out of the house completely. They prefer salty and greasy snacks, but have been known to eat boxes of cookies, entire cakes, and pints of ice cream in times of desperation. With their voracious appetites, activity is very important to the well-being of any domesticated Brender!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">As previously mentioned, the Bendi considers itself a social creature. As such, you should plan group activities for your Bendi 2-4 nights per week. Preferred activities include team sports, sweaty dance parties, and general “running amok”. Be sure to carefully monitor your Brender for social-fatigue, as they will ignore the symptoms to the point of total emotional meltdown. Should this occur, swaddle them in one large Costco blanket (woven from the very fabric of heaven itself), and prop them up in front of a blank wall until they fully recover.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Health and Domestication</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> tend towards general good health, though they are prone to occasional bouts of existential crisis. During these periods of emotional malaise they may drape themselves over various structures while sighing dramatically and pondering the eventual demise of everything and everybody they know/love. The effects of these episodes may last mere minutes, or persist for up to a week. If your </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is still droopy after several weeks, consider getting them a Netflix subscription, some tacos, and/or a therapist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">In addition to the occasional “Dark Night of the Soul”, they’re prone to seasonal allergies and hyperbole. They’re also sensitive to lactose and lunar shifts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re considering adding one to your family, remember they require plenty of open spaces and activity! Under-exercised, they’ve been known to play with lit matches, eat all of the M&Ms out of any open containers of trail mix, and chew off their own left foot for entertainment. We all know the old saying: a physically exhausted </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia </span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a physically exhausted </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">While they certainly can be kept as pets, successful domestication hinges on the amount of time and effort you are willing to invest. Without proper care they make fickle companions. In absence of daily handling, they quickly revert to a feral form. They have been seen wandering the late-night streets with alarming and increasing frequency, especially in southern California cities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When approaching a feral </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homo prosōdia</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, remember to speak in low, soothing tones. If they become excited, they may launch unprompted into the intricate social bonding display known as “Ass Wars”. During Ass Wars, the subject will challenge you with repeated gluteal contact, attempting to drive you backward over some arbitrary and invisible line. This is an attempt to win both your friendship, and the respect of any onlookers. Should you find yourself accidentally embroiled in a game of Ass Wars, these simple creatures can be distracted with music and/or snacks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">When properly fed and exercised, this critter can make a charming, albeit aggressively affectionate, companion!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mythology</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many believe that leaving a full glass of red wine next to your bed while you sleep will attract these mythological creatures. Several witnesses claim to have woken to an empty wine glass and the lingering scent of Old Spice Pure Sport. The verifiability of the Chacos prints were questionable in all cases. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">November is Bendi awareness month! The best way to support the continued mental and physical well-being of these animals is to support the causes they believe in. Please consider donating, sharing, or promoting the following groups affiliated with the Brender Well-Being Conservation Association:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) </span><a href="https://fundrazr.com/sacredstone" style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Donate to the Sacred Stone Legal Defense Fund (Stand with Standing Rock)</a><span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2) <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/2t34rjd8?r=60000" target="_blank">Donate to Hurricane Matthew Midwifery Relief </a></span></span></div>
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bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5797324894864739816.post-70595504787320186992016-10-28T22:43:00.000-07:002016-10-28T22:45:03.007-07:00It's a Cruel (Cruel, Cruel).... October. <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>[In which That Cat had a much more exciting week than me... despite all of my emotional distress, hard work, presentations, self-doubt, and eventual success. Whatever. It's fine. This isn't about me, OBVIOUSLY.]</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has been a week of gross injustice and cruelty. What I first took to be a sweet nectar has turned to bitter disappointment in my mouth. I should have never trusted something so cloying, so seductive, as the brevity of freedom. Yes, beloved freedom. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not know the exact frame of time, because time is an arbitrary construct created to govern the unruly human life, and I am a cat. Yet it feels as if lifetimes have passed since that glorious moment mother threw her hands to the heavens, exclaimed </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just… why are you even… what the… why are you so awful?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This, shortly after a lengthy rendition of my freedom song. I had recently discovered the best acoustics required perching atop the arm of the sofa, my face as near to mother’s as physically possible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now it appeared the ancient magicks had brought mother to her breaking point. Shaking her head in resignation she stood, the stiff joints from her newly sedentary life crackling their protest, and opened the door. Without a moment’s hesitation, I barrelled forth into the open arms of liberation!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">My sheer joy was quickly dampened by the sudden appearance of that accursed beast, Je Suis. Wretched canine, with her gangling limbs and simpering cries. Often she’ll come to the window while I luxuriate, staring with her watery eyes and prodding me with her high-pitched mewling. Her perplexity is infuriating. Typically, she’ll vacate my line of sight rather quickly. I assume she’s embarrassed by her inferiority in the face of my obvious perfection. On the occasions she lingers overlong I am unable to restrain myself. I hurl my body at the thin pane of glass separating us, driving her away with the force of my anger.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there we were: face to stupid, indolent face. No barrier to protect us, one from the other. I stiffened, readying myself for the encounter. I am, after all, the end product of an antiquated warrior bloodline. My ancestors guarded the tombs of kings and deities. They feasted on the plague itself, giddily filling their bellies while humankind fell in droves. We’ve gone so far as to conquer the indomitable human spirit. Even nursling kittens cause these glorified apes to lose their wits, falling over themselves to nurture and provide for us. I was prepared to neutralize my foe with no regard to my own life or limb.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The instant before I launched into action, mother stepped between us. She grasped Je Suis’s collar, leading her out of my strike zone. I heard mother muttering myriad idiocies such as </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shhh, it’s ok Je Suis. She’s just a little brute. She doesn’t mean to be so rude and awful.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I paid this no mind as I sauntered past them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here now, I was finally free! Free to feel sunshine’s warmth draping itself over my shoulders as I stalked the periphery of our fenceline. Free to feel the cool whisper of greenery against my whiskers. Free to flex my toes against the hard-packed earth, feel the seemingly infinite tickle of ants teeming to and fro. Ah, to linger forever in the euphoric moments before the world came crashing down upon me. Even the shadowy presence of Je Suis dogging my every move could not detract from my sense of peace and fulfillment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, as I imagine is the case with most prisoners who have been set free, my small taste of independence was not enough. My god. I wanted, nay... I needed more. On my circuitous loop around the enclosed yard I discovered a break in the chain link and corrugated metal sheeting. A break which would allow me to slip effortlessly into the neighboring property. Mother had migrated back inside to tend to her hot bean water and illuminated screens. She was not present as I slipped out of the shackles of security and into the unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not too proud to admit my greed was my undoing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">No sooner had I entered this dazzling new land than the devil himself materialized. Yes, you know of whom I speak. The shadowy tormentor himself, Beelzebub. The fire in his eyes will haunt my nightmares for years to come. He had me in his sights, and I was captivated by his malevolence. Within moments, he attacked. The ensuing memories are an adrenaline-drenched whirl of catastrophe. I transcended the bonds of this physical form, conscious of only one thing: the drive to survive. Somehow I found my way back to the security of my own yard, that hellbeast hot on my heels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">And would you believe? Je Suis was my savior. As I streaked past her, blind with rage and terror, she bravely placed her feeble body in the path of that cretin, driving him back to the otherworld from whence he tried to emerge. Suddenly, mother was present and shepherding me back to our domicile.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It will come as no surprise it took some time for me to shake the residual trauma from my experience. I slept to forget. Several times per day mother would prod me awake, asking questions such as </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are you lethargic, or are you depressed because the world is a dark and terrible place?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I, of course, had no answer for her queries. I wished only to sleep, and in sleeping erase the hellish lanterns of the devil himself searing my very being.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mother, of course, was not placated by my stoic silence. She insisted on a visit to the hospital to ensure my well-being, despite the superficiality of my physical wounds. The true scars mar the surface of my soul. As such, I was subjected to the inhumanity of a pill forced down my throat. This dark magic turns my very bones to jelly, and skews my sense of reality. The hospital visit itself was unremarkable, though the doctor was cruel enough to comment on my recently acquired girth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write this as the last vestiges of mother’s encapsulated poison relax their grip on my agency, and sense of balance. This day seems to have passed in a daze. The honeyed light of morning has been replaced by unfathomable darkness; an exceptional metaphor for this cursed life. Tomorrow, the sun will rise again and I will experience it through the sheet of glass that both protects and imprisons me. Perhaps someday I’ll gather the courage to overcome my recent experiences. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, I’ll be eating my feelings and driving mother to madness with the vocal manifestation of my grief. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>[Let the record show Murphy never once thanked Je Suis or me, her mother, for rescuing her from imminent death. Also, she has already resumed staring longingly out the window while yowling. She doesn't stop until I throw things at her. This is not a sustainable lifestyle. Send help, please.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>XO</b></span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>-b]</b></span></div>
bhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15978449491635893119noreply@blogger.com0