2012: "We Stopped" ... in retrospect

The Year of
(get it how you live)
our Lord
Two Thousand
(edgy fools)
and Twelve
(cavorting and cackling)
We Stopped.

Should auld acquaintence be
(white girl wasted)
forgot
(your turn of phrase)
and never
(wake up alone)
brought to mind

We'll take a cup
(destruction or celebration)
o' kindness yet
(graduation publication)
for auld lang syne
(something about the real world)


2012 was.... an interesting year? Things happened. Things didn't happen. There were portents and omens and auspices all over the place but I never could read them so I'm not sure if any followed through. Never again did I feel the peace and control portended at the beginning of the year; mostly the opposite in fact--a mania, restlessness. Never did figure it all out, still working on it.

This year: I forgot a lot. I ignored quite a bit. I learned a few important things. I forgot a couple of those. It was at least, a different year. The past few tended to blend together, and it was only recently I realized I was breaking the pattern, or starting a new one perhaps.  Disappointingly, I missed out on Improbable Satan's party I've had a standing invitation to for a good four years now...but maybe better for that. Some mysteries should stay that way;  some stories are best fossilized.

But me, I'm still a-changin'. With the times or against them.

Attn 2013: Ready or not, here I come.

Or something along those line.


PS NO RESOLUTIONS

And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / and for a hundred visions and revisions

Today is my day off. Today is the day I put my foot down for. Fought tooth and nail to be relieved from floor duty. And by fought I mean whined. And by whined I mean relied on the kindness of others. And, gods bless them, they the others came through. Working a solid week plus with no reprieve is not unheard of or even out of the question. But my sanity was seeping out through my sinus membrane and I was quickly coming up on the point of no return. After a point that stuff can not be regrown so easily.

So

The day is grey again and I love it sitting and listening to the drizzle. I am washing my comforter. I am offsetting the vague trepidation I always get when washing my comforter by putting Bailey's in my coffee. Because I can. I am fiddling with the syntax of the second to previous syntax while my cat violently shoves a book entitled The Art of Syntax to the floor. I am weighing the logistics of going to AWP 2013 in Boston.

I cannot decide today whether I feel pastoral or confessional or cannibalistic. Maybe all three? Necropastoral, anyone?

There will be time to decide. Well, maybe not that much time. But right this moment, I don't begrudge its passing. And that is the best feeling I never even hoped for.

Old Familiar Carols Play

Whelp, turns out the world didn't end after all (unless this is the advent of a very unassuming and tedious afterlife) and another Christmas is upon us. It's a grey, grey day. The sky is almost white--appropriate, no? Since, y'know, there's less than no chance of snow, what with the 70 degrees outside and all. It's quiet outside. Waking up alone Christmas morning is a new perspective. It's fitting. Still. Quiet. Nice, I think.

No one got/is getting gifts from me this year, barring a batch of white chocolate peppermint bark I have yet to distribute. It all just happened so fast; I still feel a bit dazed like a crash victim. I know the annoyance of constant carols and covers thereof weighed heavily upon me, and I've very much been looking forward to the whole day off Christmas provides, but otherwise I've registered the holidays very little. No desire to shop for gifts, not even any ideas of what to get. My mother says Christmas rushes at you faster every year as you get older. How horrid.

I want to be thoughtful,t o come up with the perfect gift for every individual. I have no knack for that, for holding people close to me and letting them know how much I appreciate their being a part of my life. I'm generally bad at relationship  maintenance. But I do love my friends dearly, as they have this habit of being their for me, even if it's been a while. I appreciate the hell out of them, and I am so lucky.

Recently my mother passed down a piece of advice she received from her mother: Just remember he's somebody's son. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to think it means, but it seems like an appropriateish Christmas meditation.

Peace and love throughout the world, y'all. May your heart weigh less for a while, and embrace the good things in the world, or at least appreciate the world for what it is. (But me, I'm still hoping for a bit of cold cash under the tree.)

The end is nigh

I can't seem to find anything inspiring to say in this the holiday season. I'm in the grips of a depressing cold  and have been spending the morning kicking back ith some soup and watching the snide apocalypse posts on facebook go by.

You'd think I'd have more to say about the end of the world/

It's beautiful weather at least.

I hope if it does make its way over this evening it's a quick worlddeath. Or at least that I get taken out in the first shock. I really don't have the energy to go post-apocalyptic right now

I did just have one thing to mention and that's how unsettled/(unidentified feeling) this sign on a nearby grade school makes me. It reads in its detachable block font:

"WE PREPARE OUR CHILDREN

FOR A FUTURE

WE'LL NEVER SEE"

Um, yes? Cheers? Just don't know.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I stand in a line of people eight deep at my local Walgreens. My position puts me right in front of the gaping maw of the Christmas aisle, with all its garlands and tinsel and boxes promising light displays heretofore only dreamed of spewing from its shelves. Now, don't get me wrong. I like my Walgreens. It is a convenient locale for all the little expenditures that get me though workaday life. I even recently signed up for a rewards card. But the Walgreens Christmas aisle is not fooling anyone. It is not a nexus of holiday spirit and cheer; it's not even a reasonably fruitful outpost. It is a corridor of grimly set seasonal determination, last-minute light strings and guilty impulse inflatable Santas. This is not your first option for holiday shopping, this is a last line of defense. Oh hell I'm already here for cigarettes and I told myself I'd put up lights this year...might as well grab some now. But forget that noise. I'm already in the damn line. Which is not moving.

I eventually realize the reason for the holdup, or at least the party attached to it. Two mom-types laugh gaily at the checkout counter, their children mulling about somewhere behind them. They do not seem to realize here that the driving force here is quiet desperation tinged with exhaustion. Their carts are littered with Christmas funthings; every sentence ends in an exclamation point. They have just come from the gym. The outfits are tight to optimize silouette. Their bodies are impeccable, despite the surrounding living testimonies that they have housed and expelled unspeakable pounds of flesh. The women laugh again. The blonde one looks around to survey at the line, where we hold our places quietly. My blank stare does not intersect whatever she sees.

"Ohmigosh" she giggles. "...responsible for the longest line in Walgreens ever!" as the cashier hauls another candy cane across the scanner. "Sorry!" she sings out towards us. She does not sound the least bit remorseful, or even embarrassed. "It's Christmas!" Her compatriot, a false brunette, laughs. Her children are fat. They grasp for the plush Rudolph in her hands.

"Ma'am." I hear a low voice from the photo counter. A clerk I recognize. He makes a furtive come here gesture, and I quickly shuffle over, head down.

I murmur some kind of think you and without making eye contact silently implore him not to judge me for my purchases. A large container of store brand moose tracks ice cream, two caramel & marshmallow Russell Stover santa candies, a similar santa with raspberry cream, and a four dollar bottle of merlot. I think about informing him that it has been a long night, but he either already knows or doesn't care, so I don't bother.

I check out, fumbling my rewards card, and hustle out the store clutching my supplies. On my way to my car I pass the holly jolly double family loading their holiday loot into the inevitable SUV. Probably one of the many festive runs of the season. One fix is never enough for these kinds of people. There is a barking dog in the front seat. The fat children are smiling under their buzz cuts. The mothers are smiling under their fake tans.  I wonder if their life is better than mine. I have no conclusion to draw.

Happy holidays let the games begin may the gods & bureaucrats bless us every one.

Thriving is just Getting By on Steroids

I've had a pretty good week. I think I've had a good week? Couple of weeks? Time oozes by in weird hunks for me, like slightly past date cottage cheese, so it gets hard to tell. But it inches by in good things-- The Poetry Brothel Rendezvous event went fantastically, bang up good time, etc, and I think I did well for myself--my skirts stayed on the entire time (dang) and did a generous handful (heh) of private readings, almost entirely to "clients" I'd never met before (almost all men, but I do look ravishing in a corset so can't blame them). I also have two pieces in the new Volume 4 of Smoking Glue Gun (GO READ), as well as work forthcoming in plain china. Also, finally got my rejection from Fairy Tale Review, not a bad thing--I wasn't sure if they had gotten my submission at all, and it was very pleasant and encouraging. I knew publication there was a pretty long shot, so it's nice to receive the positive response I did.

Anyway, was thinking on all this and realized--with more than a little relief--that this feels right. I feel really good about getting my work out there, and I'm excited to produce more. Yes, this is indeed what I want to be doing.

I had lost touch with that feeling for quite a while, and it was not only discomforting but actually a bit terrifying. Because I was still doing writing stuff, submitting, reading, but without any real heart behind it--and more importantly, without making any new stuff, better stuff. Basically writing a bunch of literary checks I couldn't cash. So pushing forward and pushing forward blindly, without knowing why or how I was going to keep it up...felt like I might end up pushing myself over a cliff in the dark. But now, for lack of some less trite image, there's a little bit of light, a Tinkerbell of encouragement: Yes, this is going to be hard. No, you are not a prolific prodigy but you have your damn foot in the door and that's better than some. Use it, you can take another step here. And here. Etc.

There are no fresh starts. Keep on keeping on.