Am I rough enough?

The littlest stuff has been making me pretty happy lately. And why not? It's the season for it. Listening to a lot of The Stones lately, probably why I've been feeling particularly Jumpin'-Jack-Flash-y. For example, the first time I heard this song again:

Well you bit my lip and drew first blood
And warmed my cold, cold heart
And your wrote your name right on my back
Boy your nails were sharp

Don't stop
Honey don't stop

I couldn't stop laughing. And not I-just-swallowed-four-razors-and-I'm-crazy laughing. But really, the nice, I'm-getting-what-I-want-for-Christmas delighted, giddy laughing. Then again, I've been on painkillers these last few days, so what do I know?

Speaking of which, for the second year in a row now, I've found myself sick this Christmas. It was vertigo last year, and this time, I was down with tonsilitis--or whatever infection it was that caused my tonsils to swell, made it painful to swallow or even open my mouth, and therefore caused me to miss the true meaning of the season--food. I know I've been wanting to lose weight, but really? Really?

As to the cause of the throat-infection thing, I have no idea. Everybody else in my family came down with the flu. (Hmmm.... delicious food that's hard to swallow? Or tasteless food that goes down easy? Now I have to ask: Did anybody in my family enjoy Christmas dinner?)

Anyway, to avoid any possibility of a re-run next Christmas, I've decided that some stuff, you just don't put in your mouth.

Speaking of vertigo (Were we? Aherm, now we are, I say), somebody I recently met, upon learning that I suffered from vertigo introduced me to a poem of same name.

*****
Vertigo
iiiiiiJorie Graham

Then they came to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
Below, a real world flowed in its parts, green, green.
The two elements touched—rock, air.
She thought of where the mind opened out
into the sheer drop of its intelligence,
the updrafting pastures of the vertical in which a bird now rose,
blue body the blue wind was knifing upward
faster than it could naturally rise,
up into the downdraft until it was frozen until she could see them
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiat last
the stages of flight, broken down, broken free,
each wingflap folding, each splay of the feather-sets flattening
for entry. . . .Parts she thought, free parts, watching the laws
at work, through which desire must course
seeking an ending, seeking a shape. Until the laws of flight and fall
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiincreased.
Until they made, all of an instant, a bird, a blue
enchantment of properties no longer
knowable. What is it to understand, she let fly,
leaning outward from the edge now that the others had gone down.
How close can the two worlds get, the movement from one to the other
being death? She tried to remember from the other life
the passage of the rising notes off the violin
into the air, thin air, chopping their way in,
wanting to live forever—marrying, marrying—yet still free of the
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiorchestral swelling
which would at any moment pick them up, in-
corporate. How is it one soul wants to be owned
by a single other
in its entirety?—
What is it sucks one down, offering itself, only itself, for
ever? She saw the cattle below
moving in a shape which was exactly their hunger.
She saw—could they be men?—the plot. She leaned.How does one enter
a story? Where the cliff and air pressed the end of each other,
everything else in the world—woods, fields, stream, start of another
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidarker
woods—appeared as kinds of
falling. She listened for the wind again. What was it in there
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiishe could hear
that has nothing to do with telling the truth?
What was it that was not her listening?
She leaned out. What is it pulls at one, she wondered,
what? That it has no shape but point of view?
That it cannot move to hold us?
Oh it has vibrancy, she thought, this emptiness, this intake just
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiprior to
the start of a story, the mind trying to fasten
and fasten, the mind feeling it like a sickness this wanting
to snag, catch hold, begin, the mind crawling out to the edge of the cliff
and feeling the body as if for the first time—how it cannot
follow, cannot love.

*****
Think about it. Would he have mentioned it to me if I had a different kind of allergy? Hey, listen to this:

Him: You're allergic to cheese?!
Me: Yeah, I have this allergy called vertigo...
Him: Vertigo? No Kidding? Vertigo? You know this poet, Jorie Graham? She has a poem with that same title! It's about this woman who looks down a cliff and she sees cows... Nevermind, I'll lend you the book.
Me: Really? Wow! Thanks!

Now imagine this:

Him: You're allergic to pollen?!
Me: Yeah, I have this allergy, a bit like hay fever...
Him: Bummer!
Me: Yeah.

Some things, you just got to be thankful for, sometimes.

*****
What else? Oh, Oh! In a couple of days, it will be a year since I first published in this blog!!! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, haaaap--- My new blog is turning one! Woohoo!

Now, if only I can keep from... Shhh. Nevermind.

Ahem. New year's coming up! I wonder what's in store for me.

*****
"I'll never be your beast of burden
My back is broad but it's a-hurting
All I want is for you to make love to me."
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiRolling Stones, Beast of Burden

*****
Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night.

Like a fool, I'm clapping: A Christmas Story

Dear [Put your name here],

When Charles Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness," ad infinitum, he must have just had a day like mine.

It started out Thursday night. I had just finished a new poem, and having been in a drought for a long time, I was quite happy with what I had. Incidentally, that new poem was an apology, and admission-of-envy of sorts--a reply, really--to two previous poems I had written which reeked of feminism. I am quite at a loss how to explain this about-face, except that I must be older than I really am. Who has ever heard of someone "mellowing" at 26, 27 even?

(So in short, you won't be seeing that poem anytime soon, as I am still ambivalent about what it wants to say, and if it says what I wanted it to say, or if, like a traitor, it took me into a totally different direction than when I set out to write it, and now... I am confused. In shorter: I won't be showing it to you, or anyone else, anytime soon.)

Anyway, I felt good, and on my way home from the cafe, I decided to write in my blog. Upon getting home, however, I was pissed to realize that I had left my trusty laptop/sidekick Charlie at the office, my usual laziness getting in the way of any productivity whatsoever. And as if that wasn't enough, I got into an inane argument with my sister regarding my old, not-quite-that-memorable calculus book. Suffice it to say, my skippy-happy mood evaporated like rubbing alcohol.

The next day, I woke up early to a replay of that argument inside my head. I went about my early morning errands irate, not in the least looking forward to going to work in the afternoon. But as I was smoking on the way to the office, guess who I would meet, begging for a cigarette, but the Angel Gabriel disguised as a friend? The angel began his "Behold! I bring good tidings of great joy!" spiel, and I sat dumbfounded for a second, jaws limp with disbelief--as I imagine Joseph, and no, not Mary, might have looked.

Okay, enough with the Christmas metaphor. Here's the "tidings of great joy" as it would have appeared in a mangled telegram:

Two poems published stop How to be Cold & Turnabout stop Next to Krip Yuson's Rejection stop Seriously stop Laughing

And so it was, that I was walking around campus with my feet a few feet above the ground.

Until of course, my floating foot snagged on an uncooperative, unchivalrous step on the stairs on the way to my apartment, and brought me back--quite unglamourously--to earth. Still, some scars I find awfully difficult to mind.


iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKwek-kwek and other mysteries,
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[Put anyone else's name here]

If you're happy and you know it...

Go away.

Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's PMS (Laugh, and you're dead), who knows? And really, who cares? But I'm in one of those moods.

We had Galera plans for the long weekend. She needed to get away, I just wanted to hear the ocean again. The whole two weeks before this super typhoon was perfect beach weather--blue skies, hot sun, zero humidity. Even the stars were surprisingly visible at night, even if I woke up to smog hovering at the distance every morning. I refused to go for a dip in the pool. Seemed like settling for second best.

Now, it's just clouds roiling and winds trying to lock me in the apartment. It's not raining yet, but everywhere the smell of it, the signs, the threat, threat, threat.

Oh, fuck it. I'm in a bad mood and the skies, biology, even the absence of saltwater and surf have nothing to do with it. And I've nothing but time on my hands.

Who needs a drink?

*****

Pat yourself in the back.

Despite all the drama, everything seems to be moving along well. I'm currently enrolled in two very interesting classes, a Poetry writing seminar, and a Medieval Lit class. I've just realized that I would be happy to spend my whole life reading other people's poetry, but then again, that might be the coward me talking.

I've been running, too. In the mornings, for 20 to 40 minutes 3 - 5 times a week. Isn't that great? This is my 5th week at it, I think, and boy does it feel good. Sure there are mishaps: Runner Nearly Run Over By Crazy Woman Driver. Side Stitch and Blisters Almost Cause Death. Dead iPod Cost Teran Race. Et cetera, et cetera.

(I plan to quit smoking by the New Year, too. But, shh. I'm not sure I can do it yet. So, no promises. Yet.)

Oh, and headlines caused by reading The Shipping News. Woman Dies of Envy at 26 (or 27).

*****

Ask again.

Are you sure we're not at the beach? Listen.

Morning Sea

Let me stop here. Let me, too, look at nature awhile.
The brilliant blue of the morning sea, of the cloudless sky,
the shore yellow; all lovely,
all bathed in light

Let me stand here. And let me pretend I see all this
(I actually did see it for a minute when I first stopped)
and not my usual day-dreams here too,
my memories, those sensual images.

Constantine P. Cavafy

*****

Clap your hands, you fool.