Well, I don't know. Been a lot of turmoil lately. I'm hoping instead of hitting the floor and getting the wind knocked out of me this time that I can just bounce back up, stronger and with more momentum. Spent a few hours puking yesterday. It wasn't from a cold either. It was from stress. That would be a new one on me. That's about what I need these days. Get an ulcer from dealing with more crap than I should have to. Definitely have to toggle my mindset onto a different setting here. Maybe just start forgetting about the house and put more energy into working out and other activities that allow release before I end up a total mess.
Isn't life just a great adventure? I know most of these last few entries don't make much sense, but sometimes it helps to chuck it all down on "paper" so to speak.
I'll be all right.
That sounded confident didn't it? lol
Right now I just want to work out. That's a good sign. Let's see if I still feel that way after adding another 7 hours to the hour and a half I've already worked.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
More mental drippings.
Just how fucked am I still from all that has gone on? Will I ever know the release of being in an absolutely good place ever again? Will I ever be able to relax and say, “This is as it should be.” Will I ever be able to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, luxuriating in the good thoughts, effortlessly relaxing in a cloud of fulfillment?
Or is all that I have been through just waiting around the corner. Waiting to end me. Waiting to take from me everything I have held dear since I was old enough to know what I wanted out of life? Is the monster under the bed of the unknown just sleeping, waiting for me to relax and smile so he can jump on me. Claw me. Rend me flesh from bone. Tear my insides. Laugh at me as the drips of my shattered reality fall from it’s wet lips and jagged teeth.
I don’t know. Never will know until it is too late. And this time, too late may be fatal.
It’s hard for me to accept that no one has paid for what was done to me. What I have gone through…am going through…someone should have been made to pay. Someone should have to hurt for it. But I have better things to do. And someone will pay…in this life or the next. Not by my hand. I am above it. Because I am above it. I win.
Or is all that I have been through just waiting around the corner. Waiting to end me. Waiting to take from me everything I have held dear since I was old enough to know what I wanted out of life? Is the monster under the bed of the unknown just sleeping, waiting for me to relax and smile so he can jump on me. Claw me. Rend me flesh from bone. Tear my insides. Laugh at me as the drips of my shattered reality fall from it’s wet lips and jagged teeth.
I don’t know. Never will know until it is too late. And this time, too late may be fatal.
It’s hard for me to accept that no one has paid for what was done to me. What I have gone through…am going through…someone should have been made to pay. Someone should have to hurt for it. But I have better things to do. And someone will pay…in this life or the next. Not by my hand. I am above it. Because I am above it. I win.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Seminar writing.
I've been writing four days a week with my seminar students this year. Not much of anything has come out of it yet though. After absolutely slogging through writing anything at all last week, this fell out today. I'd want to hack at it a little more and I'm not sure it "works" but it's the first thing I've written in weeks that felt even a little worthwhile so I thought I would post it.
*******
Filling jars of emotion and putting them on the shelf.
Why do I save them?
Am I going to use them later like canned tomatoes?
Am I being cruel to them?
Caging them like goldfish in a tiny bowl where they swirl round and round never going anywhere or accomplishing anything.
What should I do with these many mixed emotions.
Should I let them have their run?
If I let them free would they hurt anyone?
If I let them free would they stay with me?
Can I choose which emotions to jar and shelve, or does the very fact of doing so
deaden all my emotions a little at a time.
Caging sorrow, caging remorse, caging self-pity, caging grief, caging distrust, caging rage…can I get rid of those and still enjoy the full pith and height of joy, happiness, and love?
Little neatly labeled jars of emotion. Sealed. Dated. Sit on my shelf.
Waiting
*******
Filling jars of emotion and putting them on the shelf.
Why do I save them?
Am I going to use them later like canned tomatoes?
Am I being cruel to them?
Caging them like goldfish in a tiny bowl where they swirl round and round never going anywhere or accomplishing anything.
What should I do with these many mixed emotions.
Should I let them have their run?
If I let them free would they hurt anyone?
If I let them free would they stay with me?
Can I choose which emotions to jar and shelve, or does the very fact of doing so
deaden all my emotions a little at a time.
Caging sorrow, caging remorse, caging self-pity, caging grief, caging distrust, caging rage…can I get rid of those and still enjoy the full pith and height of joy, happiness, and love?
Little neatly labeled jars of emotion. Sealed. Dated. Sit on my shelf.
Waiting
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Iron Industry Museum Field Trip
07/09/08
Iron Industry Museum Field Trip
I'm here to absorb
not record.
I'm here to see
not observe.
I'm here to feel
not memorize.
I glance again at the scavenger hunt the professor gave me and crumple it up into my briefcase. We have a very short time here and I'll be damned if I'll use it trying to take notes on minutiae. Who gives a shit about facts and timelines? I'm more interested in the photos on the walls and the life sized cut outs made from the photos that stand all around me. Look at the faces of those men and women. Different backgrounds and customs, but all their faces show a pioneer determination. Those faces...that's where the stories are. The determination runs through them like it's in their blood...red like the ore dust that collects in the very stitchholes of their clothes and the pores of their skin.
I see a display of actual iron ore. I rub one of the ore chunks with my fingers lightly and marvel at how that little bit of contact results in such a mess. The dust is so impossibly fine and trying to rub it away only spreads it more and more.
I stick my whole hand in and rub it back and forth to cover my whole palm and all my fingers in the silky red dust. It feels cool to the touch even here inside the climate controlled museum. My handkerchief doesn't wipe it away. The action only succeeds in pressing the particles deep into the lines and callouses of my hands. The cloth of the handkerchief actually polished the dust to a metallic shine. My hand looks like it's made of red metal.
If I had a larger pile of ore and a shovel I would scoop and scoop until a huge red dust cloud rose around me like blood fog. I'd feel it in my eyes, breathe it into my nose, and taste it in my mouth. I would feel it clinging to my sweating limbs as my muscles ached and labored.
Then I would learn something.
Iron Industry Museum Field Trip
I'm here to absorb
not record.
I'm here to see
not observe.
I'm here to feel
not memorize.
I glance again at the scavenger hunt the professor gave me and crumple it up into my briefcase. We have a very short time here and I'll be damned if I'll use it trying to take notes on minutiae. Who gives a shit about facts and timelines? I'm more interested in the photos on the walls and the life sized cut outs made from the photos that stand all around me. Look at the faces of those men and women. Different backgrounds and customs, but all their faces show a pioneer determination. Those faces...that's where the stories are. The determination runs through them like it's in their blood...red like the ore dust that collects in the very stitchholes of their clothes and the pores of their skin.
I see a display of actual iron ore. I rub one of the ore chunks with my fingers lightly and marvel at how that little bit of contact results in such a mess. The dust is so impossibly fine and trying to rub it away only spreads it more and more.
I stick my whole hand in and rub it back and forth to cover my whole palm and all my fingers in the silky red dust. It feels cool to the touch even here inside the climate controlled museum. My handkerchief doesn't wipe it away. The action only succeeds in pressing the particles deep into the lines and callouses of my hands. The cloth of the handkerchief actually polished the dust to a metallic shine. My hand looks like it's made of red metal.
If I had a larger pile of ore and a shovel I would scoop and scoop until a huge red dust cloud rose around me like blood fog. I'd feel it in my eyes, breathe it into my nose, and taste it in my mouth. I would feel it clinging to my sweating limbs as my muscles ached and labored.
Then I would learn something.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Why?
--This is another draft of the "Thus Begins the Writing Project" post on June 18th. I like this version much better.
Infiltration
Alone in his room he sits. Feet on the floor. Arm's on the rests. Eyes straight ahead. Breathing shallow. In his room he contemplates. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the blackness that grease-like seeps in through the crevices of his life. Piling up as it oozes from the niches before it tumbles over under the pressure of the increasing dark pushing in behind it.
The piles grow and cascade, grow and cascade as more and more advances inward. Calmly, in his chair the chill warmth of the blackness slowly pools around him then climbs, enveloping his legs and the legs of his chair. Absorbing the pain of wanting to run away. Growing warmer from the anguish.
Unmoving he is increasingly submerged in the ebony. Thinking his thoughts. Being his nothing. He remains seated. The blackness swallows his lap as the magma flow continues. Urges long gone. Extinguished, denied, or unfulfilled.
It laps the armrests. Licks his fingertips. Morasses of regret of things that have slipped through his hands. Regrets of those left untouched. Eyes open. More blackness, less light. It's inexorable. Unblinking, he sits.
It consumes his abdomen and gnaws its way up his chest. The heartaches. The forlornness. The unpatchable cracks. The cavities. It feeds. It caresses. It comforts in its seductive way. It is legion.
It has found its way around him this amniotic dark. How long before it finds its way into
him? Where it will stay. Where it will live until he dies and when they bury him, his carcass will feed it so it can wait, hibernate, and fester until it finds its next host.
He can no longer tell if the ooze is still rising around him or if he is submerging into it. It laps his chin. He wonders briefly if he should stand. It kisses his lips.
Infiltration
Alone in his room he sits. Feet on the floor. Arm's on the rests. Eyes straight ahead. Breathing shallow. In his room he contemplates. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the blackness that grease-like seeps in through the crevices of his life. Piling up as it oozes from the niches before it tumbles over under the pressure of the increasing dark pushing in behind it.
The piles grow and cascade, grow and cascade as more and more advances inward. Calmly, in his chair the chill warmth of the blackness slowly pools around him then climbs, enveloping his legs and the legs of his chair. Absorbing the pain of wanting to run away. Growing warmer from the anguish.
Unmoving he is increasingly submerged in the ebony. Thinking his thoughts. Being his nothing. He remains seated. The blackness swallows his lap as the magma flow continues. Urges long gone. Extinguished, denied, or unfulfilled.
It laps the armrests. Licks his fingertips. Morasses of regret of things that have slipped through his hands. Regrets of those left untouched. Eyes open. More blackness, less light. It's inexorable. Unblinking, he sits.
It consumes his abdomen and gnaws its way up his chest. The heartaches. The forlornness. The unpatchable cracks. The cavities. It feeds. It caresses. It comforts in its seductive way. It is legion.
It has found its way around him this amniotic dark. How long before it finds its way into
him? Where it will stay. Where it will live until he dies and when they bury him, his carcass will feed it so it can wait, hibernate, and fester until it finds its next host.
He can no longer tell if the ooze is still rising around him or if he is submerging into it. It laps his chin. He wonders briefly if he should stand. It kisses his lips.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Mystery pt II
06/22/08
Mystery part II
Okay, so Mystery wasn't here when I got home from the writing institute on Thursday. I figured he either moved on or he went back home. Suddenly on Sunday he was back in the yard. This time he had a collar on him. One of those electric fence collars that are supposed to keep a dog in a yard.
So now what do I do? He obviously doesn't want to be at his real home. He obviously wants to be here. It was one thing to believe this dog had all that matted fur, worms, and was beat up because he had spent an inordinate amount of time wandering in the woods. Now he has a collar. That means he has an owner and probably one nearby.
What owner would let his dog debilitate into the condition this dog was in? Why does this dog choose to be here even if it means fighting his way through an electric fence to get here if he was being treated appropriately at home.
Do I find the owner and ask him if I can have his dog? Do I call the Humane Society?
Questions, questions.
Mystery part II
Okay, so Mystery wasn't here when I got home from the writing institute on Thursday. I figured he either moved on or he went back home. Suddenly on Sunday he was back in the yard. This time he had a collar on him. One of those electric fence collars that are supposed to keep a dog in a yard.
So now what do I do? He obviously doesn't want to be at his real home. He obviously wants to be here. It was one thing to believe this dog had all that matted fur, worms, and was beat up because he had spent an inordinate amount of time wandering in the woods. Now he has a collar. That means he has an owner and probably one nearby.
What owner would let his dog debilitate into the condition this dog was in? Why does this dog choose to be here even if it means fighting his way through an electric fence to get here if he was being treated appropriately at home.
Do I find the owner and ask him if I can have his dog? Do I call the Humane Society?
Questions, questions.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
A Children's Story
--This is one of those quickwrites again. Somehow in ten minutes I had to work a hedgehog, a can coolie, and a....well we'll see if you can figure out the third object I had to include by the time you finish the story.
Buddha the Cute Little Hedgehog
Buddha the cute little hedgehog was not deserving of his namesake. He was crabby and violent and not at all a calm and happy sort of hedgehog. Buddha was never happy. Esmerelda the Eagle would say, “Hi Buddha!” every morning and Buddha would just harrumph. Sammy the Shrew, would say, “Good morning, Buddha.” and Buddha harrumphed. Sally the Squirrel would say, “Good day, Buddha.” and Buddha just harrump, hump, humphed.
Eventually the other animals got tired of Buddha's unmannerly manners and surly sassiness. They all met in Esmerelda's tree for a meeting to decide what to do bout Buddha's bad attitude.
“Maybe he's just hungry? I don't feel very nice when I'm too hungry.” said Sammy.
“Maybe he's not sleeping well? I get crabby when I don't sleep.” said Sally.
“Maybe he's too cold. I hate being cold, too.” said Esmerelda
So they all decided to do what they could do to try to make Buddha happy.
Sammy brought Buddha a meal fit for a king and the next day, Buddha harump, hump, humphed all day long.
The next day Sally brought Buddha some wonderful down she found from an old pillow hoping it would help Buddha get some rest. The next day Buddha harump, hump, humphed all day long.
Esmerelda brought Buddha an old can coolie and pecked out armholes and a neckhole for Buddha so he could wear it like a shirt. The next day Buddha still harump, hump, humphed all day long.
But the next day, came and something wonderful happened. A cute little boy was walking through the woods. His eyes lit up when he saw what he thought was just the cutest little hedgehog he had ever seen. Then the little boy raised his 30-30 rifle and blew the living hell out of Buddha. There was nothing left of Buddha except a few tufts of bloody fur.
When the boy walked away whistling, Sammy, Sally, and Esmerelda came out of hiding and danced around the pieces of Buddha's still warm corpse and proceeded to live happily ever after.
The moral of the story: Just because you are cute, doesn't mean you aren't still a bastard.
Buddha the Cute Little Hedgehog
Buddha the cute little hedgehog was not deserving of his namesake. He was crabby and violent and not at all a calm and happy sort of hedgehog. Buddha was never happy. Esmerelda the Eagle would say, “Hi Buddha!” every morning and Buddha would just harrumph. Sammy the Shrew, would say, “Good morning, Buddha.” and Buddha harrumphed. Sally the Squirrel would say, “Good day, Buddha.” and Buddha just harrump, hump, humphed.
Eventually the other animals got tired of Buddha's unmannerly manners and surly sassiness. They all met in Esmerelda's tree for a meeting to decide what to do bout Buddha's bad attitude.
“Maybe he's just hungry? I don't feel very nice when I'm too hungry.” said Sammy.
“Maybe he's not sleeping well? I get crabby when I don't sleep.” said Sally.
“Maybe he's too cold. I hate being cold, too.” said Esmerelda
So they all decided to do what they could do to try to make Buddha happy.
Sammy brought Buddha a meal fit for a king and the next day, Buddha harump, hump, humphed all day long.
The next day Sally brought Buddha some wonderful down she found from an old pillow hoping it would help Buddha get some rest. The next day Buddha harump, hump, humphed all day long.
Esmerelda brought Buddha an old can coolie and pecked out armholes and a neckhole for Buddha so he could wear it like a shirt. The next day Buddha still harump, hump, humphed all day long.
But the next day, came and something wonderful happened. A cute little boy was walking through the woods. His eyes lit up when he saw what he thought was just the cutest little hedgehog he had ever seen. Then the little boy raised his 30-30 rifle and blew the living hell out of Buddha. There was nothing left of Buddha except a few tufts of bloody fur.
When the boy walked away whistling, Sammy, Sally, and Esmerelda came out of hiding and danced around the pieces of Buddha's still warm corpse and proceeded to live happily ever after.
The moral of the story: Just because you are cute, doesn't mean you aren't still a bastard.
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