First: Ken Henisey, you are more than welcome to internet stalk me and I may or may do the same to you occasionally.
Second: Last week was the worst week ever. Monday, I tried to watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip only to see Friday Night Lights. Studio 60 was apparently on vacation, and while the other show was interesting, I was less than pleased. Then, on Tuesday, I got a parking ticket when I was parked in a perfectly legal fashion. Weds, I was diagnosed with an ear infection and rather than oral antibiotics, I got ear drops. Can I even begin to express how much I hate ear drops? Yeah, it's partly because of the coldness, the muted sound, the having to lay on my right side while they do their magic, when I am a left-side or stomach sleeper. More than that, though, I'm fairly certain that my fear of ear things stems from watching Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan when I was little. At one point, there's an earwiggish thing in Chekov's ear that allows Khan to order him around, but I still have a visceral reaction to anything in my ear.
Anyway, Weds. night I get another parking ticket from Officer 199, whom I'm fairly certain has a vendetta against me now. I can only say--BRING IT! Then, on Thursday, between class and rehearsal at Moreau Seminary, I arrived home to use the hated eardrops only to hear my tire wheezing. Yup--flat. The good thing was that I am amazing and, having practiced with my father for just such an occasion, was able to change my tire. But now I'm driving on a donut. THEN on Friday I had a completely awkward run in with the best makeout buddy I've had to date. And his girlfriend. Who, unbeknownst to me at the time, was his girlfriend when we were messing around. Suffice it to say she spent the entire time on Friday avoiding my existence, and he wasn't much better. Pretty sporty week from start to finish.
The good part, in all honesty, was an absolutely amazing evening at the Club LaSalle with Greg. We went on Thursday and had martinis and port and a nice cigar...just lovely. And also the Vision mini-reunion after Folk Choir mass this Sunday. Though, since it was Sunday I think it probably counts as this week, rather than last week.
Third: I've been watching Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network all evening, and it's pretty hilarious. ESPECIALLY Futurama and more especially The Family Guy. That is all.
Fourth: Spent the evening working on prose poetry documenting the trip from AK to IN. See samples below.
Fifth: have new website/eshop thing. www.lushgrammar.etsy.com. You should go there.
Song of the moment: "Winter"~Joshua Radin
Driving South,
Day 1
these are not my mountains their scar tissue like stretch marks between crests red from iron or alpine tundra on fall fire 8000 acre burn where fireweed and new willows look like gems among tombstones arching white stakes will we be like this in eight days in four thousand miles after two countries this morning we laughed because the truck drove past our rest stop because the truck drove past a new bathroom smelling of bubblegum because we were two women alone and literally a hundred miles from anyone and the truck drove past while you were looking at grey water runs past this ashed cemetery in the Yukon and I wonder if we will still be there once we get there if we will still laugh or if the teeth in our smiles will be nothing more than grave markers for things unsaid if our pictures will lay us bared teeth and all if I will be sad when you leave when this silver bullet is unpacked and empty and I so want to miss you when you leave
Day 1
these are not my mountains their scar tissue like stretch marks between crests red from iron or alpine tundra on fall fire 8000 acre burn where fireweed and new willows look like gems among tombstones arching white stakes will we be like this in eight days in four thousand miles after two countries this morning we laughed because the truck drove past our rest stop because the truck drove past a new bathroom smelling of bubblegum because we were two women alone and literally a hundred miles from anyone and the truck drove past while you were looking at grey water runs past this ashed cemetery in the Yukon and I wonder if we will still be there once we get there if we will still laugh or if the teeth in our smiles will be nothing more than grave markers for things unsaid if our pictures will lay us bared teeth and all if I will be sad when you leave when this silver bullet is unpacked and empty and I so want to miss you when you leave
Driving South
Day 4
oil makes the world go round and for a day it was our axle the one that almost didn’t turn the wheels when we left Junction 37 to drive this lonesome road between A and the Bend we didn’t have the rules that we had when we hit Fort Nelson
Nugget City was a lump we drove past on the way to better things because isn’t this whole road one way or the other a way away from something to something better and lingering in the middle just causes problems just makeks you think that maybe it won’t end or that you never really began so we skipped as much of the middle as we could all three days of it skipping like stones from small town to small town until Edmonton then Montana
Rancheria too passed but like a kidney stone the worry small at first small but calcifying as the miles passed and the needle dipped and dipped and dipped past half past a quarter and for the first time on this trip we prayed we prayed in tense small voices that sounded like insults like don’t talk to me like I already know what you’re going to say but if you so much as look at me these eyes will become rivers on an empty road grey blue highways down a fat cheek and then we will stop and the car will the car go again will it start as though the world begins and ends when the engine turns and maybe today fuck the sunrise maybe today it does maybe today hinges on that turn not of the world but of this key and how damn many miles to the klick less or more or less and what the hell good is calculus if I forgot the math of miles to klicks of measuring how to get where I want to go without killing us in the process without doing something stupid and killing us in the process how many lives how many lives to the click how many
giddy the only word was giddy as we coasted into a one building town a single pump so old we had to pay with cash to a person to someone who didn’t ask where we were going because everyone but him was going somewhere else I almost filled the tank with laughter almost fell out of the car and this time the weakness in my knees had nothing to do with four hundred miles driving stick and thank God this person never got on with his own life because we would still be here would still be wanting to be anywhere else but not today thank God not today
Day 4
oil makes the world go round and for a day it was our axle the one that almost didn’t turn the wheels when we left Junction 37 to drive this lonesome road between A and the Bend we didn’t have the rules that we had when we hit Fort Nelson
Nugget City was a lump we drove past on the way to better things because isn’t this whole road one way or the other a way away from something to something better and lingering in the middle just causes problems just makeks you think that maybe it won’t end or that you never really began so we skipped as much of the middle as we could all three days of it skipping like stones from small town to small town until Edmonton then Montana
Rancheria too passed but like a kidney stone the worry small at first small but calcifying as the miles passed and the needle dipped and dipped and dipped past half past a quarter and for the first time on this trip we prayed we prayed in tense small voices that sounded like insults like don’t talk to me like I already know what you’re going to say but if you so much as look at me these eyes will become rivers on an empty road grey blue highways down a fat cheek and then we will stop and the car will the car go again will it start as though the world begins and ends when the engine turns and maybe today fuck the sunrise maybe today it does maybe today hinges on that turn not of the world but of this key and how damn many miles to the klick less or more or less and what the hell good is calculus if I forgot the math of miles to klicks of measuring how to get where I want to go without killing us in the process without doing something stupid and killing us in the process how many lives how many lives to the click how many
giddy the only word was giddy as we coasted into a one building town a single pump so old we had to pay with cash to a person to someone who didn’t ask where we were going because everyone but him was going somewhere else I almost filled the tank with laughter almost fell out of the car and this time the weakness in my knees had nothing to do with four hundred miles driving stick and thank God this person never got on with his own life because we would still be here would still be wanting to be anywhere else but not today thank God not today
Driving South
Day 8
eight days on the road and we are still afraid of trucks still afraid that when they are close they are closing in that they will push or crush or any of a number of horrors only we know about but refuse to say and it takes five minutes before we realize that this trucker is acknowledging our four thousand miles our license plate that starts or ends the game that no one sees in Illinois is nodding at what we know that we know never to stay in east anything that there’s a reason people move west because it is brighter and makes us feel less pale and less corn fed and less and less and even though he has no idea where we are going he has been where we have been has known that fear of sailing off a highway in Alberta wind of days of corn and a lack of mountains that feels more like a lack of drapes in a bedroom like leaving the lights on during a one night stand like meeting God and knowing whether or not he smiles and we actually want to be here we want him to know and after eight days we wave to the truck that honks at us outside of LaSalle ,after a night in East Moline that swelled my eye lids like bodies in a river and I knew that I would miss you I knew that this time I would cry when you left and I knew that finally it was okay to let you leave that I would drive you away and not turn to dust that I still had tears enough to drive me home
Day 8
eight days on the road and we are still afraid of trucks still afraid that when they are close they are closing in that they will push or crush or any of a number of horrors only we know about but refuse to say and it takes five minutes before we realize that this trucker is acknowledging our four thousand miles our license plate that starts or ends the game that no one sees in Illinois is nodding at what we know that we know never to stay in east anything that there’s a reason people move west because it is brighter and makes us feel less pale and less corn fed and less and less and even though he has no idea where we are going he has been where we have been has known that fear of sailing off a highway in Alberta wind of days of corn and a lack of mountains that feels more like a lack of drapes in a bedroom like leaving the lights on during a one night stand like meeting God and knowing whether or not he smiles and we actually want to be here we want him to know and after eight days we wave to the truck that honks at us outside of LaSalle ,after a night in East Moline that swelled my eye lids like bodies in a river and I knew that I would miss you I knew that this time I would cry when you left and I knew that finally it was okay to let you leave that I would drive you away and not turn to dust that I still had tears enough to drive me home
2 comments:
dude, seriously, I know it's poetry, but I can't understand any of it without punctuation...
It is poetry, but think of it as a train of thought--if words feel like they should be repeated, they should. The lack of punctuation is necessary for pacing--I don't want pauses because people (or at least I) don't think with analytical pauses between thoughts...they just fly. Perhaps these need some work, which they do, but that's what I was going for.
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