Quickie

Do you have the time?


10
Once, in the now-defunct Sanctum, I leafed through a book of birthdays. Seems I shared mine with Alfred Nobel and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. If that wasn't a sign, I don't know what is.

9
Tonight I am sitting two feet away from a man hanging by his fingertips on the wrong side of the railing, cleaning glass. He made my tummy jump and quiver. I don't know which I wanted more: grab and hold on to him, or push him off, then puke on his mangled corpse a few feet down.

8
A secret: One dream job is to be a window cleaner of a skyscraper, scaffolding and all. Or, or!--the coolest thing I've ever seen--hanging from a harness.

7
I prefer this to re-writing an awful poem: getting off on these short bursts of... what? what is it, exactly?

6
That man has now climbed over the rail and into the safe side, once again on solid ground--his hands free to do whatever he wants. Oh, how I detest him now.

5
In science, there is no such thing as cold: only temperatures not in equilibrium, heat moving the direction of least resistance.

4
"I could be having sex back there. And what better way to exorcise rejection demons than to sleep with the person who rejected you?"
aaaaaaaaaaaa-- Rob Gordon in High Fidelity

3
See how my lips wrap around this cigarette, how my eyes close in pleasure, how the tip glows a bright red, like something swollen, ready to burst.

2
The girls in the next table are relishing a loud argument. How, exactly, do you say it? ANdrea, or anDREa? Who gives a fuck? I tell you, I won't remember your name either.

1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm beautiful when I'm angry. Wanna fuck?


It's a yes or no, honey. Not life or death.

New Year Blues

In a U-Haul North of Damascus
David Bottoms

1
Lord, what are the sins
I have tried to leave behind me? The bad checks,
the workless days, the scotch bottles thrown across the fence
and into the woods, the cruelty of silence,
the cruelty of lies, the jealousy,
the indifference?

What are these on the scale of sin
or failure
that they should follow me through the streets of Columbus,
the moon-streaked fields between Benevolence
and Cuthbert where dwarfed cotton sparkles like pearls
on the shoulders of the road. What are these
that they should find me half-lost,
sick and sleepless
behind the wheel of this U-Haul truck parked in a field on Georgia 45
a few miles north of Damascus,
some makeshift rest stop for eighteen wheelers
where the long white arms of oak slap across trailers
and headlights glare all night through a wall of pines?

2
What was I thinking Lord?
That for once I'd be in the driver's seat, a firm grip on direction?

So the jon boat muscled up the ramp,
the Johnson outboard, the bent frame of the wrecked Harley
chained for so long to the back fence,
the scarred desk, the bookcases and books,
the mattress and box springs,
a broken turntable, a Pioneer amp, a pair
of three-way speakers, everything mine
I intended to keep. Everything else abandon.

But on the road from one state
to another, what is left behind nags back through the distance,
a last word rising to a scream, a salad bowl
shattering against a kitchen cabinet, china barbs
spiking my heel, blood trailed across the cream linoleum
like the bedsheet that morning long ago
just before I watched the future miscarried.

Jesus, could the irony be
that suffering forms a stronger bond than love?

3
Now the sun
streaks the windshield with yellow and orange, heavy beads
of light drawing highways in the dew-cover.
I roll down the window and breathe the pine-air,
the after-scent of rain, and the far-off smell
of asphalt and diesel fumes.

But mostly pine and rain
as through the world really could be clean again.

Somewhere behind me,
miles behind me on a two-lane that streaks across
west Georgia, light is falling
through the windows of my half-empty house.
Lord, why am I thinking about all this? And why should I care
so long after everything has fallen
to pain that the woman sleeping there should be sleeping alone?
Could I be just another sinner who needs to be blinded
before he can see? Lord, is it possible to fall
toward grace? Could I be moved
to believe in new beginnings? Could I be moved?

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.

One year forward, two steps back.

The first few months after I turned 25, I kept forgetting that I had grown a year older. Whenever I was asked my age, I would answer 24 and never correct myself. Twenty-five seemed like a bad age, a scary age. I had just come home from Japan then, supposedly after a specialization in Environmental Chemistry, but instead I came home lost, more unsure of what I really wanted to do, and farther from where I had pictured myself at 24, more so at 25. After a few months I switched from forgetting to avoidance. I was no longer 24, I had decided not to like being 25, and so I skipped a year ahead. I promoted myself to 26 without the benefit of another birthday. Ten years from now, I will probably think the opposite the better idea, then maybe I can take a year off that age and that, too, will seem true.

This year, I am really 26 and not much better off. Although I have a new job that I like, getting into another Master's program that I am in love with, and meeting new people, I feel that 26 was last-year-me. And maybe I'm afraid I'll get stuck again, not move forward. When asked my age now, I am confused, torn between staying 26 and moving on to 27. Besides, I like 27--it is three times nine, three cubed, it is the cube of nine divided by three. (Twenty-six, on the other hand, is simply twice thirteen, which can only mean bad luck twice over.) And I like the idea of threes, it hints at generosity, forgiveness, patience. But at the same time, it is organization, and thoroughness: Ready, set, go. Problem, experimentation, conclusion. Hook, line, sinker. Beginning, middle, end.

*****
I have been obsessed with painting my nails lately--both toes and fingers. It seems like a disguise that I assume, a pretence at an older me, a distraction, a defense, a mimicry: like bird's eyes on butterfly wings. And as much as I relish spending hours cleaning and buffing and painting, I am impatient for the two to three coats of polish to dry. As soon as I think they're set, I like to get on to other things--I arrange my stuff, read a book, set the time on a watch, or smoke a cigarette. And so always, always, I end up ruining at least two fingers. Which means I have to do them all over again and ruin the others, or apply extra coats to cover them up. Even my disguises need disguises.

But maybe there is no need to over-analyze this new hobby. The reason for it could be as simple as liking how they look, or a left-over rebellion from my years and years in the chemistry lab.

*****
Now, a progress report:

Remember my reading list over my two-month-now-over vacation? Here they are, and the crossed out ones are what I've read so far:

1. The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
2. The Longings of Women, Marge Piercy
3. Lord Jim, Conrad
4. Kinkakuji, Mishima
5. Our Father, Bernice Rubins
6. The Shipping News, Proulx
7. Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party, Greene
8. Pere Goriot, Balzac
9. The Art of the Novel, Kundera
10. Love in the Time of Cholera, Garcia Marquez
11. In the Name of The Rose, Umberto Eco
12. In Cold Blood, Capote
13. The Silmarillion, Tolkien
14. The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
15. The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
16. King Lear, Shakespeare
17. In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje
18. Accordion Crimes, Proulx
19. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McCullers
20. Leaves of Grass, Whitman
21. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields

Plus other stuff I read that are not on the list:

1. Thousand Cranes, Yasunari Kawabata
2. The Izu Dancer, Kawabata
3. The Counterfeiter and Other Stories, Yasushi Inoue
4. Running for Women: A Complete Guide, Janet Heinonen

Haha. I feel good. 12 out of 25, not bad. Not bad at all.

*****

A slag is the remains of a rock after metal or other precious minerals have been removed from it. My dictionary actually qualifies these remains as "waste" material, but my environmental science training forces me to put the quotation marks, or to rephrase the definition entirely, as I have done here. Slag actually looks like broken pieces of a cinder block, so maybe waste is an appropriate term. Still, I remember a crumbling, hollowed-out mountain face in Marinduque on a tour of an abandoned copper mine. They considered that waste, too. But I thought at the time it was the closest I could come to the reality of the Grand Canyon. There was a river, too: Or two rivers that joined up. Both were contaminated with metal wastes where iron made one river orange and copper made the other a mint-greenish color, hot and cool. And when they joined the new river was half orange and half mint for miles. There were potholes,too, full of steaming acid of a deep golden green and enormous backhoes left near hills of unwanted slag. They were all beautiful. Sad and lonely and beautiful. Like magnificent sunsets caused by abandoned, unwanted particles in the atmosphere.

Ba, I am danger!

You'd think 3 years with this allergy and I'd have this thing down to a science. And I have, I have: I can enumerate the foods I'm supposed to be allergic to: cheese, chocolates, alcohol-- especially beer, strawberries, tropical fruits including mangoes, seafood--the list does go on. And I've done enough experimentation to know which of these I am specifically allergic to, and in what amounts:

1. Cheese - Anything over the tiniest slice gives me a vicious vertigo attack. Attacks occur one to three days after intake, and lasts three days, too. No pizza, no cheeseburgers, no fondue, gratins, grilled cheese sandwiches, Cheezwhiz, cream cheese on bagels... you get the picture.
   
2. Chocolate - I can have a little bit, like one Snickers bar divvied up over three days, or so. (Sad, but true.) So unless I pig out with a whole can of Lindt mini assorteds, I'm fine. Chocolate ice cream seems okay, though.
3. Alcohol - Beer, I can stand one to three bottles in one night, although I rather wouldn't. (Seems I've lost my taste for it.) This one gives me an attack definitely, so I prefer another malt product. Whiskey is fine, fine, fine. Or any other hard liquor for that matter. I try to avoid wines and brandy because I'm supposed to be allergic to grapes, too. But I do like an occasional red now and again. Suddenly, I miss Japan where beer and whiskey prices are almost the same.
4. Fruits - Strawberry is a culprit, but I don't get a lot of chances to enjoy fresh ones anyway. Tropical fruits don't seem to have any adverse effects.
5. Seafood - Having lived 2/3 of my life near the sea, and loving Japanese food as I do, I am so grateful I turned out not to be allergic to seafood.

How do I know all this? I told you: I have this vertigo thing down to a science. And three years of experimentation, well, let's just say I could publish a paper on it. Sure, I miss out on a lot of foods-- just Italian mostly. Oh and mexican, too. And pizza. And most desserts. But, as you've probably heard me say more than once (all together now): as long as I'm not allergic to hard liquor and cigarettes... You could say three years has helped me deal with it, too.

So somebody please, tell me why, why, why I jumped at my mom's idea of lunch at Yellow Cab yesterday, clapping my hands in excitement like an idiot (instead of my usual sarcastic remark). Worse, when they remembered and tried to suggest someplace else, I bulldozed over the protests (They were half-hearted, true, but well-meant.) and even walked--no, marched--right into the pizza parlor first, myself. Ate two and a half slices of their meatlovers pizza and guzzled raspberry ice tea, giddy like I was doing something never attempted before, or something petty, but illegal.

And you know what else? I had the gall to be surprised when I woke up a little woozy, my head like a water-filled balloon--early this morning. When I weaved my way out of my room--holding my head in case it fell off and crashed like an aquarium around my feet-- to get my anti-vertigo drugs, my mom simply glanced at me and hmmmmed. I whimpered like an orphaned puppy.

Good thing, I remembered to up my dose of betahistines. But that's all I can really be proud of.

I believe in the scientific method: question, observe, experiment, conclude. Three years I've watched the food I take in. Three years I've experimented with what I can or cannot eat. Three years I've suffered: There was a year in Japan I had three-day attacks monthly. Oh, and my last attack was Christmas. Yep. December 24, 25, and 26, 2005 I was either asleep or trying to sleep. I've made conclusions, such as on the specifics of kinds and amounts of foods I should avoid. I've concluded, too, that sleep is my only escape (Oh, there's the Van Gogh experiment I have on reserve for unbearable situations.), and that most of the time, I can lessen the effects, enough to keep me functional, anyway, if I "overdose" on my Serc.

I have three years' worth of information. Tried and tested, conclusive information at that, where the scientist happens to be the test subject, too. So again I ask, why, why, why? I'm afraid there might not be any answer but brain damage. All that whiskey I enjoyed to make up for pizza must have finally caught up with me.

And you know what hurts the most? While I was eating that pizza and feeling giddy? I think I was giddy more for breaking my rules than any longing for pizza--it didn't taste as great as it does in my head when I imagined it. So now I'm suffering and I can't even say it was worth it. I told you: Brain damage. How pathetic.

Curiosity has not only killed the cat, it has won some lucky sons-of-bitches the Nobel prize. Seems like I don't belong to that category. That thin line between genius and crackpot isn't so thin after all.