Mush Mind

Believe it or not, this will be my third attempt at writing a post tonight. I've been interrupted several times by the phone and even a brief visitor. I mean, I actually started two completely separate posts before this one.

The jist of what I wrote in them:

Didn't sleep last night.
Instead, wrote letters in my head all night.
Also, thought about sex, and how it's usually a bad idea.
For me, personally.
Why that is. Well, there are many reasons.
Also that I have been reading anew about my Myers-Briggs type, INFP.

If you don't know your type, there are some very reliable free tests out there on the internet. I took a "real" paper copy version of the test years ago, but every version I've ever taken more recently online gives me the same type result. This is why I think they are reliable, even though some of them seem a little shorter.

I strongly suggest to anyone finding one (or several) and taking it (or them) - you can really gain lots of insight about what makes you tick. Once you know your type, you can just Google it, "INFP" and lots of different analyses will come up. For the most part, mine are dead-on in describing the key aspects of my personality. If you have ever felt like a freak, taking this test will make you feel like less of a freak. I'm serious.

It's also commonly referred to as the Jungian type test, since Carl Jung was really the first to categorize these "types." There are a total of 16 types, I think, some are rarer than others. It's just interesting, is all I'm saying, and fun, too.

On a totally different subject, today at work I had to transport a client to pick up her new adopted cat at the Humane Society. OMG the kitties. They were in the front. I could hear dogs barking in the back, but I thought I might literally start crying if I went to see them. Hearing them bark was difficult enough. Every single one of the kitties were soooooo friendly and purring, black & white, brown tabby, gray & white, orange(!) tabby. Oh the orange kitties.

My client was bringing home a big ol' black & white that she named "Sarah." She was so excited, so happy. That almost made me cry, too. Shit, it's having the same effect as I write this.

My mind really is turning to mush right now, as I sit trying to accept that I have to be a part of this world. The cruel beauty of keeping on.

The Sound of Nothing

Is it really true
what you do, you do
keep the mantra moving in your mouth
nothing can hold you back
and there is no time like the present,
or perhaps the future,
or perhaps never,
never-ever-ever-everland
like the childish starting point
a soft, stupid dream
gilded in a pleasant decor
a make-pretend game
a truth-or-dare
you ring the doorbell
and pretend you'll be there
you ring the doorbell
and run over here
oh, the look on her face,
as she closes the door
curtained with lace
will you ever forget it
could you ever remember it
the way she looked twice
believing
she heard a bell.

Hot Chocolate

Tonight after work I made a pitstop at Sally's Beauty Supply. If you don't know what Sally's is, it's basically this place where cosmetologists and/or grooming/beauty freaks do their shopping. If you are a cosmetologist, you're entitled to a Sally's Discount Card. There was a time when, even if you weren't a cosmetologist, you could get one of these cards. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that was eight years ago. That's when I got mine. It entitles you to something like 20% off shelf price. Mine is obviously an antique, looking like a piece from a child's board game, the newer ones are fancier and more official looking. Still, they are required to honor the old ones.

It must be glaringly obvious, not only from my consistent lack of a decent manicure, fancy hairstyle, or considered makeup, but from my purchases, that I am anything but a cosmetologist, hairstylist, manicurist etc. I always feel a bit sheepish when presenting my green and white phony-looking discount card. The clerk always has these ridiculously perfect looking nails. As I stand at the counter scribbling out my check, I am all too aware of my "worker's hands" - hangnails, dry skin etc. It's always this little moment of truth, always a little weird, but not weird enough to stop me from shopping there.

In any case, I went in there to get some wax. The kind you heat up in a little thingie and then smear all over your legs, bikini line etc., press a cloth strip against, and tear all your little hairs out with. I have been an avid waxer for years. Legs and bikini. Yes, I do my own bikini line. It's not quite a Brazilian. Most of my female friends who learn this seem to be amazed. I am conversely amazed that they are so willing to go to a salon and let someone else do it, to say nothing of the cost involved in doing so.

I love waxing, seriously. No, it really doesn't hurt. For some reason it just totally doesn't register as pain. Making hair disappear makes me happy. If that makes me anti-feminist (whatever) or a trichotillomaniac (look it up) then oh well! I like the way I look and feel with smooth legs and nether regions, plain and simple.

So I'm looking at the wax at Sally's. I figured I'd get the same as usual, this "Green Tea" shit, which I like the smell of. Looking and looking. "Brazilian Hard Wax" (been there, too temperamental), "Sensitive Skin Formula Honee Wax" (I like honey, not so much the smell), then my gaze comes to rest upon a tin of "Milk Chocolate Creme Wax." It makes the further claim of being an "aromatic blend." I pick it up. It looks like chocolate. I grab some cloth strips, make my way to the front, and cash that junk out.

To make a long story short: Milk Chocolate Creme Wax is sooooooo totally the shit. I came home, stuck it in the little melter thing, waited until it was nice and gooey, shut myself in the bathroom with my little space heater, and proceeded to goop this sticky yummy chocolaty-smellin' gunk all over my legs (of course just a little at a time) and started tearin' hairs. Waxing has never been so pleasurable, I swear. Whoever came up with that stuff deserves the Cosmetology Award of the Year, if one exists.

You thought I was a freak. Now you know.

Disclaimer

Just to be clear, re: my "poetry" - I don't present it here on this blog as if it is a hugely serious effort on my part, because it's not. I start and end all of it usually in the span of twenty minutes or so, right on the "create" page of my blog, and do next to nothing in the way of editing, paying attention to rhyme, meter or whatever else you're supposed to pay attention to when writing poetry. I just don't want anyone getting the wrong idea. I don't fancy myself a true poet. It's just that sometimes I can convey more feeling and intensity using a poetic form of writing. I do think I come up w/ some decent images and metaphors, and if I put more effort into it, I might actually come up w/ something half-way good, even better than good. But I sure as heck don't plan on making a craft or career of it, no. You know why? Most poetry is fucking annoying. So I'm trying to avoid being a pretentious, annoying, windbag. There's enough of them already out there. Bottom line is I mostly do this blog for myself, to exorcise the stuff that's sitting there in a rocking chair in the back of my brain. And sometimes the only way to do that is by pecking away at letters long enough to spell out a bunch of words that resemble, in form, a poem. So, please, don't judge. Actually, no, judge. Judge the hell out of me. I'll keep spilling it, regardless.

Unknown

I wouldn't mind if when I came home
the cup of your hands pressed close
against the hollow at the base of my spine
as if collecting old sorrows
to let them spill like dice
to be bet upon and forgotten.

I wouldn't mind if at night
the pulsing slope of skin
from your jawbone to collarbone
were half a centimeter
from my cheek
not half-way between here and never.

I wouldn't mind my ear
at rest upon your belly button,
starting with the whispering of lint
and following the aqueous aural path
into your belly and bowels,
the proof that you are real.

I wouldn't mind a pair of eyes
blinking slowly
oceans deep, the way I look at everyone
seeing something more in me
than a dream deferred, a sample cone,
an overseas trip.

A Beer at Midnight

Just got home from working a very quiet 2nd shift, and am probably too spaced out to start writing, but now I've started. I'm just not ready for bed, is all.

Today I started to do some heavy duty organizing in the second bedroom upstairs, because I plan on setting up a studio area up there. Right now the room houses my books, clothes, unpacked miscellaneous crap from moving in October, my desktop computer, file cabinet, and a big ol' chair donated to me by my landlady.

The chair, unfortunately, has to go to make room for my art crap. It's one of those really boxy 1930's chairs, was reupholstered in the 1970's with this surprisingly nice pea-green woven stuff. It's super cute but takes up a ton of room. Sorry, cool old chair. I tried.

I decided today that I need to find a way to divest of, say, 1/3 of my stuff. At least. 1/2 would be better. I mean, I have these boxes filled with junk I haven't needed in 3 months. It almost goes without saying that I have too many clothes and books. And shoes. And records. Ya know, vinyl. Heavy-ass shit.

My loose plan is to turn this place over to my sister when I move again. She can keep most of the furniture, including my king-size bed, which I adore, but I'm not moving that fucker down the stairs. I think I've also loosely decided that I will stay here until I find myself wanting to marry or live with someone. That's a very broad time frame.

Yeah, really, the talk of getting rid of shit and giving it away has nothing to do with suicidal urges, something you may have wondered, if only momentarily, after reading the post previous to this. I've stated before I would never intentionally kill myself.

Something I think I've figured out about my current wave of depression - it has a lot to do with not being in a regular work pattern and schedule. I mean, I do work 40+ hours a week, frequently six or more days in a row because of the way the work week is divided - but it's all different hours at all different places. Usually three different places a week. I'm technically "on call".

I have learned with certainty that I do not thrive in the midst of chaos. I love wacky shit - but I function better with a regular work schedule. Part of it is that my mind is usually ready to float off on a tangent to begin with, so having the grounding that comes from a certain number of predictable hours and expectations really helps me. I just feel more relaxed. I'll be applying for numerous positions that have come up recently, so hopefully I'll be where I want to be in that regard sooner rather than later.

It's part of the reason I'm holding my breath about taking medication. One, I might feel better once things feel more regular and settled. Two, if they don't, I'll have insurance to defray the cost of professional help.

Sorry for offering such a journal-ish entry tonight. Thanks for reading it, anyway.

Results and Recommendations

Your screening results indicate a high likelihood that you are suffering from severe depression.

Your answers also show you might be at risk for harming yourself.

You are advised to see your doctor or a mental health professional immediately for a complete evaluation - or dial "911" - or call 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) - or go immediately to the nearest hospital Emergency Room for an evaluation.

This screening is not a substitute for a complete clinical evaluation.

The good news is clinical depression is a very treatable illness. Almost everyone who receives appropriate treatment can soon feel better.

Etcetera.

See You in My Dreams

It started with the dreams. Before we touched, we dreamt. Before diving into the wreck, we paid an out-of-body visit. That, once there, we would live there awhile was inevitable. It was all over the moment we found ourselves alone in the car, driving south.

Touching my cheekbone with his thumb, as if rubbing off a smudge, my messy apartment blurred around the edges, self-conscious no more of the week's detritus. How we dove, once the decision was made. Breathless, overflowing, the beginning of a giant mess.

Afterwards, and so many times afterwards, I would sit on his lap in the cold, sharing a cigarette. His then-fiance was more of the man in their relationship. He revealed this in many ways. With me, he was the man, as I sat, tiny compared to her, burrowing in his jacket and balanced on his knees.

My gift to him: to let him feel like a man. The way I would talk. The way I would touch. The way we would fuck. How this gift would later serve him, when his zipcode changed. "Are you saying I prey on vulnerable women?" "I didn't say that. You did."

Drunken moments of truth in my tiny kitchen, I still remember how bare we laid ourselves. Professing, with eyes clear and wet, the air around us electric, how nothing ever really ends. Every freckle glowing and exact, the sad, soft dimples below his eyes.

Such a strange shelter we provided each other. How he tolerated, embraced, and later disparaged my dysfunctional family. How this, more than anything, shocked me into accepting that I didn't know him at all. Judging me for something completely beyond my control, in a way that was cruel, uneven, and shallow.

He wasn't ready to make room for me or anyone, really, so he didn't. Vividly I recall the stressed-to-ultra-skinniness me, crouched like an animal in the cramped, dirty foyer of his walk-up, deep, full-body sobs possessing me. When the car came I exited the building, rushing past him as he stood on the stoop smoking. Barely making eye contact, "Goodbye."

After 20 minutes of driving through Brooklyn with me sobbing inconsolably in the back seat, the driver asked if I was ok. I managed to tell him I had just broken up with my boyfriend. He made a good effort. "Things will get better. These things happen." I gave him a ridiculous tip, not just for being nice, but because I needed to get rid of the entire $20, I simply needed to.

I entered my friend's giant, dark, empty loft, and as the door slammed behind me I fell prostrate on the dirty concrete, flat out, letting everything tear through me, and out of me, the dust and debris mingling with my hair, my breath, my wet cheek. I lay upon the cold, filthy hardness with my heart exploding in every direction, screaming out to no-one.

Yes, I am trying to exorcise the pain of this. No, he will never read this. Why, after 7 months, his ghost still haunts me, I am not certain.

Is it only because I felt safe, then found that I was anything but? Is it just this simple betrayal? Acknowledging his weakness, his now obvious insecurity and ego obsession helps only to a point. If I make the suggestion that he's ruined me for the year, then I must also suggest that I have allowed it.

I must accept that I allowed it. As I accept that, for a time, I loved him. For a time, he loved me. For a time, we were very, very good both to and for each other. We filled each other in a way that, for a time, obliterated every other pain.

Love is not a pain-killer. Love allows pain and does not turn its back on it.

Daily I try to own my pain, to learn what's mine to bear. It comes down to being a moral test, I do believe this. Forgiveness amounts to the release of a burden. It amounts to freeing yourself.

Good Drying Day

Lately I've been using the clothesline for drying, since the 60 amp circuit box doesn't like to cooperate with the electric dryer. The wind is cold and wild today. I brought about ten pair of wet jeans out there, and struggled with numb, cramping fingers to get them all attached to the line. As I pick up the last pair, an explosive gust of wind screeched between the houses and across the lawn. Every single pair of jeans I had just hung up was now spread out across the lawn at jutting angles, like tea leaves mocking my best efforts. I wondered if my neighbors witnessed this spectacle. Even in my frustration I could appreciate the humor.

I gathered them up and trudged back into the house. This day isn't working out on many fronts. I had other things I wanted to write about. And I will. But right now I need to sit, be warm, strategize about where I am going to install hooks so that I can rig up an indoor clothesline, and be sad. I'm sad today.

Due to my somber mood, it occurred to me almost immediately that the above incident is a ridiculous, movie-like metaphor for this past year. Think of the image of a woman painstakingly hanging clothes out in the freezing wind, struggling with each clothespin, only out there because her dryer is on the fritz. Almost finishing, with some satisfaction. And then watching as every article is torn off and thrown across the lawn. We see what we see. And I already said I can see how funny the image really is, and that kind of saves me, and allows me to know there is some grace in it. But still.

If you don't know what I mean, then oh well. I think it's obvious. And I let it all go. Again, and again, and again.

You spread before me
meadows of every tough weed
medicine, maybe.

500 Miles

Shuffle behind this curtain with me
towards the collapsible booths
and the artificial tree.
Here, among the warm hollow clanging of pipes
and the scattered patterns of dust,
let us sit and pretend that life never ends.
Let us plan for tomorrow or maybe for Friday,
let us plot the best use of this private space, now.

The secret paths, all of them dark,
crooked, cluttered.
We reveled in the uncertainty,
paying with bruises and blood.
The smell of oil and wax and wood,
old foam rubber, chairs that pinched,
tattered rope and broken hardware.
Once, there was patience with such debris.
It lived freely, it had a home.

Elemental, well, we were
pure elements reacting to each other,
metal and earth,
wildflowers in a field,
and at the base,
just the same,
just the same dirt,
and so of course we were pure
and of course we were free.

I trace a path forward,
our playground now is safe and clean
but I wouldn't trade up
from splinters and rust
from trust in discovery just beyond that wall
from the chance to bruise knees with you
and fall
again and again
with a child's simple grace.

3-Haiku-Combination-Platter

A silken field
growing wild upon your wrist
gathers my breath's wind

DNA to match
the dust under the stairwell
eyes meet in silence

hands grasping a branch
cigarettes are bad for you
but I felt your heart

Watch It

Dead Man's Shoes starring and co-written by Paddy Considine. Really, just watch it.

Owning Up To It

I realized something just now. A couple of things. They're somewhat related. One is that I always seem to find myself in situations in relationships where I don't feel free to speak my mind - either the shape of the relationship or the personality of the other half of the relationship seems to get in the way of my speaking - even thinking - clearly and openly. I hide, I bury, internalize it all. And I end up feeling miserable.

The other thing I realized is that if an antidepressant actually made me less depressed, then I might actually have the wits and energy about me to do something positive in the world, I mean in terms of social justice and politics, two things I actually do care about quite a bit, but end up feeling completely overwhelmed by. I mean, I get depressed about my own internal shit, and then try throwing that other crap on the pile - it can sometimes be truly distressing, and it makes me want to tune out, when I know I would feel better if I was doing something proactive.

I know these observations, particularly the second one, are nothing earth-shattering. But you have to understand my stance on antidepressants (historically I bash the hell out of them) to understand why, for me, this represents a sea change in my thinking. It's a similar logic, really, to why I would never kill myself, even though I've pondered it deeply many times. It just wouldn't contribute to the greater good, and would in reality cause a tremendous amount of grief and pain for others, my family in particular.

My depressive tendencies have recently been wreaking havoc in my life. Maybe being a happier person means being a less selfish, more giving person. Can I actually buy that argument? I'm trying to.

Good Evening

Yawn

I wrote this last night at work and then blogger fucked w/ me when I tried to post, so, for what it's worth...

I am working 3rd shift at a cozy but rather isolated group home. Next door is a furniture warehouse. On the other side is the highway. I’ve got um, about 7 more hours to kill.

I sit typing and making useless appeals to the bunny sitting across the room from me. Tapping the leather sofa cushion, “Come here, bun-bun. Bunny.” I can understand and accept his not coming to see me, but I do not understand why he won’t come out of his cage when he is free to do so. He could sit on a towel, or a smooth wood floor, or for Chrissakes a leather sofa, but he chooses to sit on the wire mesh floor of a cage.

He likes being pet. Closes his eyes, a silent, near motionless mass of fur. It is mildly depressing to stare at him in the cage. I’ve never been a fan of bunnies as pets. I’m not much of a fan of anything other than cats and dogs as pets, actually.

Driving in tonight, I had another of my weird lost highway episodes. I was cruising along when I suddenly started to feel really detached and uncertain of the road - the direction it was headed, the curves and exits and parameters. I didn’t have a near panic attack like the last time, but I was very grateful to be off the road and out of my car.

It’s a little disturbing to me that this happened again. That’s twice in about as many weeks. It’s a bad feeling. I’m going to stop writing for now, and read about vampires in New England, since one of the residents here claims to come from a family of vampires, and to have been born in Transylvania. He also claims that despite this, he himself is not a vampire. Even though he was "shot dead", dug up, and has a tomb.

*************************************************************

As it turns out, a certain town in Rhode Island that shall remain nameless is a hotbed of historical “vampire” activity and lore. It’s also a town that I’ve often thought I wouldn’t mind living in. It feels like the middle of nowhere even though technically it’s not.

It’s 4:30 a.m., and a couple of the residents are up and about, making the usual requests for coffee, cigarettes, and juice. The vampire relative is awake. I gave the orange I brought for myself to S. after he saw me cutting it up. A teen movie is now on the television.

A third resident is up and I have to stop writing.

**************************************************************

The third resident spilled a half pitcher of juice in the kitchen. By juice I mean drink mix, which thankfully was sugar free. Otherwise cleaning it up would’ve taken a million years. I finished out my shift pretty uneventfully, going where no-one seemed to have gone for some time when cleaning the bathrooms, particularly around the base of the toilets, folding some laundry, keeping S. happy, making successive pots of coffee, writing my notes and watching the sunrise.

And then I drove home and slept.

**************************************************************

I worked a 2nd tonight and I have a happy heart, and I can't believe I am saying that I have a happy heart, but I know it's true. Tonight in the van P. said "It's not a holy table, it's a hole in the table" She explained that she was communicating with her dead grandfather. What more can I say but Ponchos Forever!

Frankenstein (just because)

Is something wrong? Something seems to be wrong.

The books, the laundry, the doormat, the armchair, the bar of soap, they weigh too much.

The lack of sleep and thirst for wine, they also weigh too much.

The self alone with the self, alone, alone, alone.

The child you lose track of while shopping for detergent.

The lost dog that smiles at strangers, searching.

The stranger's muffler, mangled on the roadside, breaking its promise.

The faith that crashes down the stairs, breaking its neck.

The weight of the faithless heart.

Hope in the form of a toolbox.

Water in the form of a glacier.

Calm in the form of self-mockery.

Peace in the form of exhaustion.

Nerves

Tonight I med monitored someone who had to take, among other things, five .5mg Klonopin. Five of these pills. All at once. Last spring when I decided to take a stab at dealing with my anxiety about the immediate future, I was given a scrip for this, same dosage of .5mg, one tablet at night. The shit knocks you out. A friend in NYC who begged some of them off me in the late summer referred to them as "forget-me-nots", which makes no logical sense, because not surprisingly, they sorta fog you out.

I hated them. I would wake up spacy, with a dry mouth and headache. I started cutting them in half. Then quarters. So you can see why, when I dumped out five of these fuckers onto a napkin for this woman tonight, I gave serious pause. I mean, of course I didn't hesitate about giving them to her. But I wondered how in the fuck she was able, just a few minutes ago, to teach me a bunch of tricky knitting stitches in a completely lucid and precise manner.

Part of me envies this chick. As are so many of the people I work with, she is totally in the now at all times. She was completely psyched that I had shown up with a bag of knitting, and within five minutes had donned one of the ponchos that she famously makes. Apparently it's the only thing she knits, rejecting suggestions to try scarves, hats, or more marketable items that she might have an opportunity to sell for a little extra spending money. She remains resolute, and the ponchos always win out.

I blabber about work because that's the easy thing to do right now. Because right now I have enough fears gripping me to warrant taking one of those leftover Klonopin. Ponchos forever!

Oh, if only.

Life Prevails

Skipping towards me, a film in staccato clips, the future comes. As I said, it comes in clips, so I cannot explain precisely what I mean, only that I mean it, and the clips are vivid and surprising and gather around me in a colorful jumble.

How is it possible to feel solid amidst this? What is the significance of clipped newspaper articles and reheated coffee? Of sadness and confusion shattered by hilarity, ridiculousness? Of decades long journeys that fill a soul with complicated wisdom, a tapestry woven of a single, undulating thread?

Of peace that comes. The individual divorced from the predicted pattern. The joy of this freedom. The beauty of choice.