19 June 2012

Merging


I’m all bent out of shape over
some b---- who
couldn’t take no for an answer.

I’d merged way back when
where I was supposed to, and
she rode the line until
the last minute
and tried to cut in front of me.

I kept close distance
Between my car and the car
in front so she f---ing honked
at me, angry gestures ahead, like
I’m the one to blame.

Do you think that just because
you ask for something
I have to give it to you?

I gestured too and yelled
at her through my closed window, “Why
the f--- didn’t
you merge back there?!”
She shook her head, disgusted
with me, and inched forward
anyway.

I wasn't willing to hit
her car, so she won the battle.
I called her a f---ing
b---- while waving wildly
At her back.
She didn’t seem to see me.

I want to explain
To her I want to say,
“Look.
I’m coming out of
A long, dark time in my life
When I didn’t know what I wanted, or
I knew and couldn’t ask, or
I asked and didn’t get.
When others’ desires seemed
more important than mine
always, and I
didn’t feel I had the right
To insist.”

Maybe that is her story too.

18 June 2012

The Eleventh Commandment

Truths claw at my guts,
struggling to get out,
making me
first ravenous
then nauseous.
Nervousness,
jitters, and
a sour stomach.

When we say a thing
gone long unsaid,
the truth is released
from its prison in our cells
into our bloodstream:
a toxic rush.
Only then can it find
a way out of our bodies,
through sweat, blood,
urine, shit,
tears.

Our tears are laced
with poison.
When I speak a long-buried truth aloud,
I shed poison.

In romance novels
it is not uncommon
for the heroine to cry,
and the hero to kiss away her tears.
He would erase her pain
by taking it into his own body.
How romantic.

But know this:
My tears are sacred.
Thou shalt not kiss them away.
Thou shalt not dismiss my pain with your lips.
"Kiss it better" does not apply here.

15 June 2012

An experiment

A couple of weeks ago, when I was setting up my latest blog, I noticed a feature called "Reactions" that I could add to my blog posts. Have decided to experiment with.

At the bottom of each post on this blog, there are now two check boxes: Like and Dislike. I'm thinking this will start to give me some feedback about my posts so that I can see, in a way that tracking page views cannot tell me, what's resonating with you, dear readers, and what's not.

So please--give it a try! Pick a couple posts and let me know what you thought of them by clicking either "like" or "dislike." Answers are anonymous.

And if the "like" and "dislike" options don't cut it, let me know. The default options were "funny," "interesting," and "cool." I want to give people the opportunity to give negative feedback too, though. If you have ideas for reaction options, please comment.

10 June 2012

Threaded memory

I'm in Ashland this weekend with my soul sister Carly. This morning we ate at Brothers, a restaurant my parents used to take us to for breakfast from time to time when we lived in Medford.
 

My freshman year of high school I made National Honors Society, and as a treat they brought us down to Ashland from Bend for the Shakespeare Festival. Then too we ate at Brothers. There was a vintage clothing store across the street from the restaurant where I bought a yellow silk brocade men's shirt that was too big for me.

Later, in art class, a classmate accidentally marked the back of that shirt with a fine-point Sharpie. He felt horrible about it, and I shrugged it off. It was this same art class in which, for the first time in my life, someone publicly expressed interest in me. My classmates burst out laughing, so I did too.

From the time of the marking I only wore the shirt under my dad's corduroy vest that had been part of his suit for playing shows, the same suit I imagine (but do not know) he wore the night he met my mother at a coffee shop in Ashland. The vest was also too big for me.

Once I went into my place of work wearing the yellow brocade shirt and asked my supervisor where the store manager was. He told me, and then said, "Pretty sure." I repeated back to him, "Pretty sure?" He said, "Pretty sure" again, slowly, as if correcting me, and he looked sincere. I was confused, so I said again, "You're pretty sure he's up at the registers?" and my manager said, more slowly and loudly, "That's a pretty shirt." I blushed and looked and the floor. "Oh. Thanks," I murmured, and my manager was blushing too, and I walked away.

05 June 2012

A lunchtime conversation

Today at lunch I sat with two male faculty members (F1 & F2) and two other female staff members (S1 & S2). This is my attempt at reconstructing part of our conversation.

F1: I've always dreamed of doing an art exhibit with children's art all hung up on a long row of refrigerators.

Me: Oh! You know what would be really cool? If it just looked like children's art but was really stuff like blood and guts and...dinosaurs raping people.

F2: Dinosaurs raping people? It sounds like you have a fantasy there. (F1 & F2 are sniggering.)

Me: That's f'ing disgusting.

F2: Did you say "f'ing"?

Me: Yes.

F2: That's as close as you've ever come to swearing around me.

Me: That's because you're here. (Pause while F1 continues to snigger at dinosaur rape fantasy accusation and F2 laughs at both accusation and almost-swear-incident. I can't bear to be outdone by F2's crack about dinosaur rape fantasy.) But you know, their tails are ribbed for her pleasure.

(S1 almost falls off her stool and covers her mouth with her napkin to keep food from flying out while she shakes with laughter.)

F1 & F2: What?

Me: I said, dinosaur tails are ribbed for pleasure.

(Awkward silence while I grin smugly and bask in the glory of my strange wit.)

F2: You have a very twisted sense of humor.

Me: Oh, come on! The point is the irony! I have a dark sense of humor, not a fantasy of being raped by a reptile.

02 June 2012

Omfg: an update

Here are a few dishes that have been served up on the smorgasbord of my life lately:

A few nights ago I'm in bed with the dogs (my own, Milton, plus one of my mother's dogs, Grindel), Milton next to me at the head of the bed and Grindel lying by my feet. Suddenly I smell Milton's ass, which is never a good thing. I look over and he's licking it and I'm like "ew! stop it!" so he does but then I notice that there's a little brown spot of ass juice on my white comforter. Aaaaggh! Yuck! Of course I leap out of bed and go get a sponge to try to clean it off but it doesn't really work so I try to find my Tide eraser pen thingy and I can't find it so I grab a bottle of lavender deodorizer and spray the spot and then we all get into bed again only now Milton feels like he's in trouble so he's lying at my feet and Grindel is up by my head. So okay, fine, I turn off the light and we go to sleep. And in the morning I look over to see that Grindel has laid a little turd. Aaaaggh! WTF?!? Stupid dogs and their damned ass wars. Obviously got rid of turd and threw the comforter in the washing machine.

Last week I was on vacation from work. It was a stay-cation, which means I didn't go anywhere, but I did spend most of the time writing, which was wonderful. Finished a first draft of the vampire romance novella I've been working on for ages. I'd expected to feel more of a sense of accomplishment about that than I do, but maybe is just because I know I still need to do some editing before it's ready to be published.

Have been taking a creative non-fiction class this term and am really excited about some of the stuff I've been producing. Also have been awed and slightly discouraged by how good some of the other people in that class are. One of my favorites is Jeffrey Gardner, who (I discovered yesterday) writes poetry as well as creative non-fiction and has a blog too: Scribbling Truth with Crayons. Was checking it out last night and reading his stuff inspired me to write a few lines of poetry too, which is very cool.

And finally, here's an image that keeps popping into my head lately: that scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he takes a leap of faith (video below). I know several women, including myself, who seem to be at the edge of a precipice lately. We have realized that what we've been doing isn't working for us and that we need to make some major changes to our lives. In my case I can see across the ravine to where I'd like to be (writing full time), but I have no idea how to get there...there's no visible "bridge," if you will, between the life I have now and the one I imagine. And so I have two choices: a) continue doing what I'm doing, or a slightly different version of it, which is tantamount to staying on this side of the ravine forever and ever, or b) take a leap of faith and trust that the bridge will appear.


So my leap of faith is this: I'm starting up a freelance business for writing, editing, tutoring and assessment consulting.

I'm creating a new life for myself. What could be more creative than that? What could be more thrilling or more terrifying than leaping out into the great abyss of the unknown?