Intensity

I'm borrowing the complete Twin Peaks collection from a friend. It's pretty cool, 'cause I can watch it in bed on my laptop, and have been trying to watch an episode every night. I guess there are 29 episodes. I'm generally not much of a TV watcher, never mind "serial" watcher, but I have really enjoyed getting sucked into the little weird world of Twin Peaks. Of course I did see some of it when it aired on real TV back in... whenever that was. When I was surely living somewhere without the luxury of cable TV. I was in college, I know that.

I remember going to see Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me at the theatre with my friend Brian. That was more or less the post-prequel to the series. You learn about Laura Palmer's life, and you learn who killed her. I know I was PMSing when we went to see it, but nonetheless, I was so shocked by the physical and psychological violence at the end of it that I left the theatre crying, and feeling intensely vulnerable. It was a good movie.

The series is also very good. David Lynch deals solidly and profoundly with themes of the unconscious, of dreams and mystery, of deep, hidden threats. I was watching the episode "Lonely Souls" tonight, and it brought me right back to that night at the theatre, that crazy, uncontrollable, nonsensical but driven, violence. Fuck. I almost cried again, came just short.

I'm drinking beer mixed w/ super tasty homemade lemon/limeade tonight. I am in fact feeling vulnerable, but in a good way. I have something good going on in my life right now, but it's too soon to talk about it. Suffice to say that the brittle, protective shell I've had around me for a year or so is shedding, and my skin has relaxed enough to be felt and seen more clearly and truly than I have the sense to remember.

Passage

the door cracked open
and a slim ray of light
landed
connecting my head to my feet
my eyes in between, drawn
a straight line
this sliver of light
can I say
it didn't go unnoticed
could I even say
when the dice rattled and fell
I began counting the days
and the ways
that the door pushed open
a line of light
in my line of sight
quietly, quietly
pushing
over the threshold
suddenly silenced
by a temple's flames
suddenly strangers
to the before-time
as light turns
blood to ash.

Summer's Here

Yesterday was my birthday. It's rare for me to say I had a great birthday, but I had a great birthday. Went to the beach, had cake with my family and blew out all the candles. Had sushi for dinner and planned to watch a movie, but then...

Sigh. I had a great birthday.

You

It's a given
that I'll be driven to drink
and the way it looks now
I'll be driven to smoke, too,
over this decision I've made
at such an unfortunate time
now, when I've lost 5 pounds
and I have a new green dress
that I know you would love
you could fix me a Melonball
and I would swoon
over all the things about you
that I love
all the things that come to mind, now
as I'm driven to drink, and possibly smoke
your face comes
impossibly
in every small thing I see
your hands, your hands
the sum of all that I love in you
my hard working,
sensitive,
well-defined
man.
My man.
Were you.
Was I.
Your woman.
It gushes out of me now,
in hot longing,
these ways I loved you,
and you loved me.
Every small thing brings me back to you.
Every small thing referring to you.
The boy in you.
The soft, hard feel of you.
I wonder now if every scent of summer
will only be a torture,
being the scent of you,
of summer,
of ripening possibility.
The cut grass and the peony,
the vaporous mirage off the tar,
gasoline and grease
and soap
and watermelon.
Chewing tobacco.
On your breath it was a drug.
The breeze across the lawn is a torment,
all I see is the ocean behind your head,
so many summers ago,
up higher than everyone,
hidden behind boulders,
doing it because we could.
The silence of this afternoon
is more than I want to bear,
as I'm driven to drink,
and to miss you,
and miss you,
and miss you.

Purpose

I caught sight of you mending your fences
a rattling can of spray paint
covering up perceived damage.
You were surrounded by the signs
of a happy life
right down to the swing in the tree
and the wooden cut-outs
of a boy
and a girl
enjoying themselves permanently
waiting for a real live child
to take to the empty swing
my head pivoted slowly
and my gait never stalled
as I continued to marvel
at your small paradise,
I'm quite sure
I never entered
your head.

Sorry to assume you might care about a bunch of my medical crap.

Ahh! Just washed down a giant horse-pill of Glucosamine/Chondroitin with my after work beer. That should fall under one of those "You know you're getting old when..." sort of sayings. I just wish it weren't true. My body is really pissing me off lately.

The other day I went, on referral, to a new chiropractor in an attempt to get some serious tweaking done to my lower back. It's been majorly messed up since maybe last August, and I have tried doing the sorts of things that usually remedy such a situation with little success.

My massage therapist, the one who referred me, seemed to think my vertebrae were fine after poking around back there pretty vigorously. It's the sacral area that's really fucked - to me, it has felt almost locked, for lack of a better way to describe it. I had a lot of hope that this new chiro was going to get some movement going down there.

She worked on me in some unusual ways. It felt good. But in her estimation it should have felt better. If her adjustments had worked as planned, there should have been a major difference, and there wasn't. Other than maybe hurting a little bit more. "Have you ever been tested for Ankylosing Spondylitis?" she asks. Of course I'm like, "Could you spell that?" So anyway, no I haven't been tested, yes I'm going to get tested, no I'm not going to be even a little bit happy if it turns out that I have this wack-ass condition - I mean, your sacrum fusing with your pelvis? FUCK, NO.

But ok, ok, it was only a notion that she had, and I should just STFU 'til I know any better, but, to be perfectly honest with you, that's how it feels down there right now. Stuck. Locked. The prospect of actually having that condition is an uncomfortable one.

The thing is, I'm kind of prone to these sort of wacked-out, fucked up muscular/joint conditions that nobody has ever heard of. There's the Paramyotonia, which is just a forever thing that doesn't really bother me that much at this point - I mean, it interferes - but I'm used to it, mostly.

More significant is a condition I had hoped to be done with, called frozen shoulder. Significant because I already went through the major pain and aggravation of dealing with that last year in my right shoulder - and lately I've been feeling something akin to the first twinges of it in my left shoulder. The shit puts you out, no exaggeration, for a year. It does mostly go away, which is cool, but you pay in fucking spades to get there.

The main point I'm making here is that I'm getting old and I'm deteriorating and it's just annoying me and I needed to rant about it. I really do plan on taking positive steps to address this shit - like for instance getting more info about anti-inflammatory diets - arthritis definitely runs in my family. And stuff like that. I want to work with a Thai masseuse. They work the hell out of your joints and/or connective tissue.

For now a coupla' Advil and a coupla' cats sleeping next to me will have to make me happy. Could be worse.

Preoccupied

Busy at home, busy at work, busy outside of work and home. Tired. Actually, fucking hurting - my back, neck, shoulders are still tight and aching from very physical stuff - not that kind of stuff - but nonetheless, stuff that is making me happy. My apartment is starting to look really good. Just in time for my sister and I to revisit the prospect of buying a house together - a duplex - one that happens to be about 2 or 3 houses down from where I live. It's sort of driving me crazy. I really kind of wanted to dig my heels in here, at this place. But I know I should consider at least looking at the house.

The thing that's honestly driving me a bit mad about it is that I feel like my sister is waiting for someone - me, perhaps - to get her going and motivated to move out of my parent's house - yeah, my parent's house. I'm the little sister, but in this situation, I feel like the big sister, and I don't want the responsibility. I can't really begin to get into the details about it, because I will start obsessing, right before bedtime, about how fucked up my family is.

I feel like burying my head in the sand. Part of me knows I have to be an adult and think about the future, as in real estate and homes that you own and things of that nature - and part of me wants to just hob-nob along one day at a time and see where I end up - with no investment and therefore nothing to lose, sort of.

I want too much and not enough. I want the inside of the kaleidoscope and the still, pale horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. I want the past and the future. I want big things built by small, honest actions.

Potato Vodka