psychic powers of the intranet

my computer seems to be keeping track of me
the google bar in firefox knows what i’m about to type
i suspect it also concludes why

the search bar in microsoft
has been alerted to my most recent workings,
citing “monthly news letters”
as the example for what to search for in the
elaborate cyberworld of ms office online templates
it read my brain,
or my type
concluded from just one word,
or perhaps the format of my publisher document
that i was writing the monthly co-op newsletter

i suppose that if i choose to insert a piece of clipart,
the image of a plastic shopping bag would appear,
the binary psychic in my pc tower
having inferred that the article i wrote was about
the toxicity of polyethylene sacks

go away fortune teller,
your powers are undoubtedly but for evil,
you want nothing more than to persuade me to buy something,
i am sure of it.

ode to kai ryssdal

you talk like a game-show host,
you beckon me to take you seriously,
to forget that the whole of your show is merely a vaguely liberal appraisal and applausal of capitalism,
as though America,
its politicians,
its celebrities,
its puppets
weren’t all jizzing all over themselves in celebration of money,
of the products they parrot,
in order to continue the moving of the machine
the march forward,
the growing of pocketbooks under the pressure of
consumption by housewives with amnesia
bratty teenagers with the cash they whined for,
and the hoards of poor
throwing away their lives at wal-mart

you beg me to forgive, turn a blind eye,
you do it with such swagger,
your voice tilted in a smirked grin,
you smarmy whore of a man,
celebrating and selling,
talking about the numbers,
from the frank stanton studios in los angeles
where the cars are always moving,
eating the oil, the fuel of the machine,
smogging the air
and emboldening the chrome dream of all its immigrants,
come to the city of angels
for the hope of a prayer,
searching for salvation in the supermarket,
shopping
as a good citizen should.

you let me down, kai,
your machinations are void of meaning
your ken doll voice asks no substantial questions,
seeks no fundamental truth.
you leave me empty,
feeling the hollowness of my bank account,
forgetting the importance of my heart,
filled,
as it is,
by family calling me to dinner,
asking me
to shut off the radio.

hormonal imbalance

my moods sway with the breeze
vary slightly, strongly, suddenly
and are never silent
i wear my thoughts out loud
curse and abuse,
applaud and, at exceptional moments, gush.
i laugh loudly,
weep openly,
purse my lips around clenched jaws
with great obviousness and intention
those who piss me off
know it.
i am never one for silence.
i am small and have
likely made up for it
my whole life –
trumpeting my voice like a lion’s roar
for no reason
and with little to say.

thirst

hot air burns fossil fuels,
blows across the bed from out the vintage ironwork vent right at head level,
sucks the wet from my open mouth,
turns the corners of my nose at the edges,
curling skin void of moisture into dust.
spinning in the blankets sets off flares in the darkness
the rubbing of sheets against nightclothes
creating static enough to spark starlight against my flesh.

the humidifier sits broken in the corner,
stunk of rose geranium
it may have been the essential oil
that clogged its tubing so no humidity escapes,
the aromatherapy intended to stave off anxiety,
now coating the interior of the tank to a dusty translucence,
so my dream wanderings are in an entirely arid universe,
no burp of steam to transform the desert of the bedroom.

outside the window
nearly waterless snowflakes twirl to the frozen ground,
the wind chills,
leaving the streets bone-dry in their salty glaze.
i wait for spring, for summer,
and long for the moment to declare that
it’s not the heat, but the humidity.

gender variance

you are the universe before the interpretations of science,
static and still
you are unchanging,
as if there were no earthly orbit
and the stars hung suspended
from the black cloak of the sky,
invisible roots in the soil

i miscalculated your silence
assumed your posture was passivity
that there was no progression
no thought marching you forward
in time and in space

i thought my heart broke all on its own
that the responsibility of our mutual endeavors
fell to me
that our existence lay upon my shoulders
to burden us home

the urgency with which i pressed you
eclipsed the truth
that in fact your holy mythologies
carry us in quiet,
though so slowly as to be unseen.

mad mommy

my fiery breath burns at the eyes of my sons
calls out the tears sprung down their cheeks
sends them huddling at my ankles
stabbing guilt into my soul,
yet never managing to puncture
the supreme sense of irritation
to which i feel so righteously entitled

i declare myself an unfit mother,
call friends to bitterly announce the fact,
then impatiently proclaim that without children
i’d be bored and more miserable
stuck yet again in some corporate workplace
with no one’s face to tape to the walls of my cubicle

i prefer, oddly, to emerge as hydra
when fresh urine has soaked my carpet
or hot soup decorated my walls,
with moments of calm in the storm and the pressure of necessity
severing the fork-tongued head lashing out
only for another to spring in its place
when the winds change
when the preeminently imperfect me
spirals out of control,
revealing my own horrifying humanity.

unbearable cute and giggles
try hard and fail
at the permanent amputation of the evil in me.
my heart breaks at my flaws,
but my brain fosters partial appreciation of the villain,
if only to model the grace of apology and acceptance
and the importance of knowing one’s limits.

random synchronicity

i have seen not my life flash before me, but my death
i have crept my toes into the muddy banks of the river styx so many times now
it astonishes me
the screams have risen in my chest
my heart has pounded, leapt to kiss my throat,
my blood flowed cold,
my brain full of the white noise of terror,
my ears sudden vacuums of sound,
my nose and mouth tasted the metallic burn of fear,
and all for naught –
each time, i survive outright and amazingly
death brushes my cheek with his bony fingers
and lets go
leaves me sobbing hysterical on the side of the road, the car crash behind me,
my belly full still of adrenaline soaked baby boy,
leaves me hyperventilating on my mother’s sofa, arm wrapped, hand numb,
the red gash searing upon my wrist,
my children rushed upstairs and the whole family staring dumbly

i have heard the distant sirens ringing, wailing the heroic call of safety,
suffered strapping to boards,
the prick of intravenous needles
morphine drips,
ultrasound and x-ray,
nausea and itching,
watching and stitching,
and the infinite waiting of hospitals,
their cold floors and invisible super-bugs,
the cruelty of nurses and semi-retarded residents, unhearing doctors,
i have cracked jokes at them, cursed at them, complained and whined and pleaded,

i have faced the cool aftermath of feeling pathetic and depressed,
anxiety ever after
the why me wonderings,
the tendons moving slowly and scarring terribly,
and the inevitable mathematics of figuring
the integration of my changed self back into my life,
that disorienting and alarming reentry into reality
wherein i remember and remember and remember
the moment -
realize it was not the stories of my life, not my loved ones,
not all the most precious happenings of my tenure on earth
that flared like lightening in my brain at the instant of impact,
but rather a version of my expiration,
the secret glimpse of what it feels like to end,
and now knowing, i walk around a marked woman,
scarred permanently, irrevocably with the empty wisdom of the touch of nothingness.

grandmother

you crawled from out the dirt of mississippi,
inbred with perfectly set curls and impoverished but clean and pressed dresses,
gap-toothed and matte-skin, ever smiling,
had all your war babies,
maria in the soft grass and crisp white dressing gown,
maria ever the focus of your prayers,
maria,
the name of the virgin goddess,
maria forever frozen, two years old,
the water sucked out of her by the dust

war planes and war marches,
grandfather perpetually overseas,
crawling again in mud
mud of japan,
mud of europe,
mud of korea,
the blood-splattered flag with bullet holes
plastered in his prayers,
the mind full of holes,
eaten away by the terror of having done what no man should do,

coming back, the mind a mess,
full of smoke
and hatred
the anger broke your china and your finger,
francis in the bathtub,
the others huddled in their nightclothes
and every one of them
leaving leaving leaving you
running away and hating you for staying

then another daughter gone,
her darling d's left behind to have their bodies drilled with holes
there are holes in everyone
holes to fill up and always emptying again like a sieve
you filled your holes with prayer,
saying the rosary and reading your prayerbook all day long
in the easy chair
as you decayed
and his mind's holes leaked faster and faster,
growing bigger gaps between knowledge and memory
he died not knowing anything anymore,
not even the burn of war could singe his sallow skin any longer

you coughed and choked,
holes sinking into your throat
catching your words and skewing them

you died on a sunday, a holy day,
prayer bringing you to peace by drifting you off to sleep
and never waking.
they dug a hole to bury you and filled it up up up with mud,
sprayed it with holy water and singing prayers,
keeping you soft and warm,
moist and no longer dry or draining,
the holes of your heart, at least, finally laid to rest.

separation

the intense painful passion of first love in ultra youth
was replaced by a failure to resolve conflict
and an equally intense method of argument

never wanting to have been a predictable statistic
fighting hard for every breath was necessary
and chewing at the air came naturally

hanging on determinedly
fists clenched around ideals
and never met expectations

dishes piled amidst failures and letdowns
while children circled underfoot
casualties of infinite rays of hope

now squashed by the barrenness of reality-based thinking:
food in bellies and shoes on feet
how to pay this month’s rent with next month’s money

wanting touch to be enough to speak the language of love
aching for deniable truths
and discussion based on real-life needs, understood and appreciated

instead of tilted heads and uneven laughter,
callous unhearing with eyes stuck to televisions
an inability to care the result of abject fear

how do i pay for the sins i’ve committed?
how do i place one foot before the other or breathe the air from out my lungs?
not see your face in all the mirrors, not sense the fingerprints left all over the entirety of my existence?

there are no holes in the scrapbooks
this is the truth of our endeavor:
though the pathways of our lives move in opposite directions, they remain ever and ever intertwined,

we are bound by the youthfulness of our indiscretions
we are tied at the helm of our mutual experiment
we are the parents of our progeny.

uncertainty

poised at cliff’s edge
no adventure to be got
no comfort to be gained
no promise of fortune
no suitcase in hand
no swell of music
no crashing waves
no laughter
no sweetness and starlight
no warm breath
no whispered love
no catch of breath
no burning jealousy or lust or rage

the turned look over the shoulder
reveals only the green of envy
the icy depths are silvery and silent
the flutter is not affection, not anticipation,
only the nervousness of stomach-churning horror
the heart aches with sobs stuck in the throat
all is dark and frigid.
the unknown
ticking clocks, decaying fruit,
the passage of time does not lessen,
but merely intensifies the wide-eyed wait,
filled with fearful blinks
muscles tight as rope,
clenched against bone,
waiting
waiting
no crescendo
no sudden shift
no end.

sebastian’s scent

munchkin breath,
sugar boot,
my squish,
the smell of you intoxicates me,
i sigh, long for you,
i breathe you in, your hair rising in my nostrils
the plump skin of your cheek
moves forth and back,
ears rising and falling
sucking,
it does not react to my inhale
your brown eyes stare off
as your fingers twiddle
and legs kick lazily.

you are home as i cannot remember feeling,
my embrace your sacred feeding, weeping, sleeping ground,
soon enough you will outgrow me,
yet i will forever remain open to you,
i will hold you in my lap and breathe you in
when you are twice my size and the weight of you crushes me
when you are a man and have given your heart to someone else
still i will cherish the pheromones seeping from your scalp,
and hope to recognize the bit of you that came from me.

switching sides

baby boy expels the other breast from striped knit v-neck with tiny fat fist
tugs it by its nipple to agape mouth, tongue reaching
fresh milk
for continued sleep, for further dreaming
he flops, rest-deadened limbs hot and heavy across my chest and belly

for three nights straight he pins my left arm so the hand falls to aching numbness
on the third day it does not wake
remains a stranger to objects it touches
like a fellow commuter on the subway,
unknown hips pressed intimately, swaying with the train ride, earphones plugged firmly
never speaking or looking,
my fingers grasp and do not know
the whole of the arm twitches,
trying to shake off the irritation,
tries to wake the radial nerve

on the fourth night i move from the right side
of the bed where i have slept the last eight years,
mostly in rooms where this was furthest from the door,
an odd, unintended feng shui of my marital sheets,
a silent quivering mousy voice that wants the husband to protect me from intruders,
or the voice of my genes that says to last longest, to survive

in the home where this baby was born, the family formed,
the bed angles me closest,
summons my transformation into the mother bear,
putting myself between the nighttime killers and my offspring.

my numb limb forces me to switch sides,
to let the nerve plump again,
forcing the fingers to feel
the husband protects once more from the unseen beyond the door
and my arm straightens to relieve itself

baby boy notices not,
goes on with his constant back and forth dance,
preferring the furthest nipple at all times,
regardless of what it gives

switching sides is his envy of the other,
knowing that it too drops what he desires
his sleepiness craves it, craves me
drinks me in left
and drinks me in right.

in quiet preparation for that i nearly forgot, i sit and stew with half-formed phrases in my brain, nursing the baby to sleep. tomorrow is february. i promised myself that i would try to become a real writer by writing every day, beginning in the second month of the year with poetry. i chose february because it is short, which is something like cheating, except that i also chose it because it is soon, the better to hurry along this notion of becoming a real writer. will i then print these poems out and send them in manila envelopes, like once i did, off to literary magazines? will i try then to become pedestaled by publishing? to be a really real writer? i don't know. i likely won't have the time with all the other things i squeeze into my life like a mad collector, collecting things to do, places to go, people to see. i squeeze in doing yoga with my husband and folding the diapers, sitting on the couch and drinking tea. i write it down in my planner in my to-do list. i refuse to cross things off until they are completely finished, lest i jinx myself, lest i move the universe to move against me in all my optimism. i love to cross things off. today i crossed off two things: updating the photos of my children in the growth section of my website and cleaning out the silverware drawer. insanely and pathetically, i am quite proud of the silverware drawer. it is bizarre that i take to this life so well, despite my shouting and the moments where i'd prefer to throw the nursling across the room than take both breasts out of my shirt so he can suck on one while twiddling the nipple of the other. it is bizarre that i choose such a life. wasn't i born in the seventies? shouldn't i have gathered from my intensely feminist mother (she who showed the slide show of my homebirth at her radical women united meeting) that the last thing any woman ought to be is in servitude to children and men? i have been over this and over this of late, reading the bitch in the house and discussing it online, as well as engaging, or, perhaps more aptly, cornering my husband in discussions over dinner (vegan dinners that he cooked) about just how feminist are we and what exactly does our setup imply politically? i don't know that i've come up with any good answers. it is as messy as our life, this arrangement. it is what it is and we chose it for the reasons we chose it. so i am trying to buck the system further, to follow my dream, to understand everything and spew it all in word, in twenty-eight poems crafted at the dining room table after breakfast, once my children have run from their half-empty bowls of cereal or flax and blueberry toaster waffles off to their toys, returning briefly to me in form and perhaps also in written word, carrying some thing they wish to show me or dragging me off to see the lego construction or demanding both my breasts from out my shirt yet again, and i relating it all onto paper, loving them as i do, extracting meaning from their cries, pulling metaphor from their urging. or maybe i do not. maybe i merely run off with them to the lego starship with its interstellar weaponry or pull my shirt open and lean over my paper awkwardly, ultimately unable to continue with the poem, forced to participate in the subject of my life and work, against or with my ever-changing will. it is terribly terribly difficult, i know from even blogging, to form a thought with all this life going on about me. kai ryssdal speaks like a ken doll in the radio, my husband cooks an amazing south indian kale dish in the kitchen, and sebastian shouts at me from over his beans and rice beside me. i can't even begin to hold the thought that started this all. this is my life and this is what i write.

i am having a lengthy discussion in a yahoo crunchy mama book group about relationships. it has been illuminating and useful to me to examine what it is we do in my relationship with my husband, how we operate, the ways in which we negotiate our life and our responsibilities. i don't often speak of it here. i'm not sure that i ever really have. we are dedicated to ending oppression globally. we seek with our choices and our actions to do so. we want to fight it, we want to educate and discuss and discover. in so doing, we must first always examine ourselves and our relationship. we are in a very traditional arrangement. we married one another with all the hidden-meaning accroutements of western weddings: the white dress, the bouquet, my father walking me down the aisle (though not giving me away), feeding one another cake - all that crap. i'll never know what possessed me, what compelled me to do it. actually, i suppose i do know. it was this world, it was its magazines and its television shows, its martha fucking stewart. i was compelled by being raised here, by bearing witness and by internalizing all those messages to which i was exposed from birth. my mother had a white wedding and i'll never know what compelled her to do it to be certain (unless of course i ask). it makes no sense to me that she would make that choice when so many of her peers did not. she was radicalized in so many ways, and yet they made this entirely traditional choice. she and my step-father were likely pressured by their parents and he probably wanted to, though knowing him i doubt he considered exactly why. and here we find ourselves, years after that initial decision to stay in line with our culture, yet again in total keeping with the arrangements of the patriarchy. i know what compelled these decisions and they are decidedly not in keeping with the patriarchy. i stayed home with my children firstly because i couldn't afford not to (okay, so that's not very radical at all), but secondly because i made choices to do things that had been stripped from women by the patriarchy - the ability to nourish children with my body, the ability to give birth free of chains, the ability to make decisions for my children free of the demands of patriarchy-appointed experts, to teach my children free of patriarchy-established institutions, to self-govern, to have autonomy, to be a (gasp!) self-possessed woman and to pass self-possession on to my children. so how we got here was not what it looks like, exactly. we are trying, hard as we might, to follow our dreams and to support one another in so doing. i have been helping my husband to become a professor of history since first we met eight-and-a-half years ago. in turn, he has been helping me to figure out what it is i want to do with myself, which of course always comes back to this, to writing. in that time, i did many things i didn't necessarily want to do, but would have had to do whether he was in school or not. perhaps he doesn't always acknowledge that. perhaps his ignoring this feature has to do with his indoctrination by the patriarchy, or maybe it's just a feature of being decidedly human, of being caught up in what he is doing. maybe it's both. maybe we could do better to insure that our attitudes towards one another were free from the indoctrinations we received from society since birth. maybe instead of me sitting here, typing furiously as our children destroy things around me, considering this fact of life, this matter of our attitudes towards one another being in keeping with our feminist and leftist philosophies or not, perhaps it should be he thinking these thoughts, wondering and considering and trying to figure what better approaches we might take. and i go over it and over it in my head - when i come home at night from one of my meetings when he has been caring for our children who are decidedly insane and capable of such stunning destruction as to inspire us to change our leftist thoughts on matters like the death penalty, is his grumpiness towards me justified because he is human and the children are so difficult or is it not because he has been inculcated by a lifetime of sexist bigotry and is not at this time acknowledging and confronting it as perhaps i think he should, especially when one considers his profession, how he spends his time ruminating on historical matters from that leftist pedestal, giving weight to the people that formed societies and economies on their backs against those whose biographies are instead credited for shaping that history, those societies, those economies, those "great men" who we consider in those patriarchy-appointed classrooms that i keep our children from so determinedly? is he right or is he wrong? what more could he be doing to fight the dogma with which he was raised? what more could i be doing to encourage re-thinking it all? we are generally very open with one another, certainly me more so than he given my tendency toward talking rapidly and excessively, much like my typing, though he is open and honest. i am sure all it would take is a conversation about the matter in a kind, non-confrontational manner. but then, with children who destroy and all the things that we constantly have to do and deal with - the doctors appointments (four this week alone), the meetings (four this week as well), the work, the dissertation, the boy reunion, the environmental history conference, the co-op newsletter, the blizzard, the twice-daily yoga, aleks' rash, bastian's cold, selling books on amazon, as well as the typical and ongoing cleaning, cooking, laundry, grocerying, diapering, bathing, dressing, wiping, scrubbing insanity - when do we have time for a conversation about whether or not our attitudes are a result of dogmatic upbringing in a bigoted society? it would need to be such a lengthy conversation too in order to give it the proper time and to allow jon the space to contemplate the possibilities. it could go on for months. it could likely go on forever and it would be one of those things, like yoga, where we constantly evaluate and self-correct. it would be a practice, one which we are already involved in, of course, but which requires occasional emotional revelation (the result of constant self-reflection) and dedication to perpetual exploration and archeology of meanings and ritualized compulsions. at this moment, with my living room covered behind me in all the contents of the giant drawers beside me (envelopes, diapers, a keyboard, printer paper, a box of tissues torn asunder, dvds, stationary, a blank book, varied four-year-old scrawlings), the energy required to explore feminist theory with my husband feels a bit overwhelming.

i am determined to be something other than what i am. i am determined to find the something that is me, to write, to be, in fact, a writer and to not feel helpless and emptied next to the colossalness of the phd in my midst. to not project colossalness onto the phd beside me, that which i helped to create and mold and grow with these hands and this heart in constant and unwaivering eight-and-a-half-year dedication. i am determined to determine what it is that becomes me without him, that becomes me without dependency, that becomes me with this brain and heart and eyes and these now half-crippled hands that can again type at least thanks to twice weekly visits to the hand clinic where i am stimulated electronically after being warmed with pulverized corn husks in swirling hot air and before being cooled from the aching with frozen gel packs strapped to the wrist. now my unfeeling fingers can move by memory and with the aid of sight across our ergonomic keyboard and can hit the "h" key far too often for some unknown reason though the words that would make me a writer have not exactly come yet and have not precisely been forced out in such ways to help me not fall into the unknowing and constant doubting of this self, this soul, this body that left-handedly is yet still dedicated to ceaseless housecleaning and wiping running nineteen month old noses and the chasing of the four year old from out the kitchen away from the vegan chocolate muffins. i go to occupational therapy and am confronted with the boldness of boys who utilize their mother's suburban cash flow to pursue an art career, pointlessly painting rubber tires with justifications of texture and explorations of the mundane. i wonder what made me so underestimate my self worth as to never pursue a higher education in art or writing creatively then recall how much i hated school and hate it still, but feel ultimately diminished to "just a mom" status yet again. then i witness the working poor, injured while working and ignorantly postponing filing for workman's compensation and feel flooded with intense and heartbreaking gratitude for my own privilege and sense simultaneous pressure to transcend my skill-less, money-less position in life, to never get old or broken again and never to face the bottomless pit of despair that is that sort of acute poverty. i have witnessed and learned of it and while wishing and working to transform the world, also am compelled to run far far away, to avoid the level of understanding and knowing look in my eye that comes only with firsthand experience. and so i am determined and i point myself in the direction of self-worth via me defined as i am, me the writer, me the written, typing daily and furiously, at times stuck and staring, yet determined with half-assed ideas in hand to whittle and work it until i've got it, until i've got something, whatever it might be or become. in honor of my renewed sense of dedication and thirty to forty percent regained use of the right hand, i propose that i write one poem daily in the month of february, and continue it as long as i can sustain it after. i find that poetry is a mode of writing that can change to suit one's mood, thus moving from abstraction to narration and back again day to day whilst remaining the same author with largely the same intentions and still necessitating skillfulness and mindfulness which will fit my limitations as well as my need for a challenge to keep me focused and forward-moving. i am set. here i go.

my hand bending back due to self-inflicted therapeutic electrocution

i was crippled and bed-ridden and my grandmother died and my children and i had to be cared for by a hired friend and my husband had to re-take his comps and i had to start occupational therapy and go to the pain specialist and the hand surgeon and my sister had her wisdom teeth cut out of her head and my uncles came for the funeral and everybody drank beer and played risk while i rested my swollen hand atop piles of pillows in irritating splints of one kind or another, my scab peeling and itching, my skin crawling and aching, my brain a fog, my stomach churning. then jon passed his comps and we returned home and i began therapeutic exercises and my mother-in-law visited, and i bought and tried to wrap christmas presents with my teeth, my elbow, my feet, and my weakly left hand. then we returned to my mother's house for christmas and my youngest son got sick and for a moment we suspected whooping cough, but then it got better and his tooth popped out. that is where i have been. i am using two hands to type: one knowledgeable and weakly though strong enough for typing and the other clumsy dead weight, numb and not at all nimble; a giant hand trying to thread a needle. i am tired and intermittently pained, sniffling and fumbling about with a head cold. i get the urge to perform tasks i cannot do or which are decidedly difficult with one hand. i am sickly skinny. i am bored yet exhausted by the slightest exertion of energy. blogging has me spent.

annakiss vs. casserole dish: a photo tour

saturday dinner
note green bean casserole dish, smiling family, feasting on poultry carcass (not i - i had eggplant parmesean and turkey seitan (praise seitan!))


in a flurry of dish washing, right wrist becomes slashed, lands me in an ambulance wrapped in gauze with an iv drip in my left arm, preventing almost all forelimb movement. morphine ensues en route (scary needles in moving vehicle!)


sterile field prepared for cleansing, further inspection and loose, superficial suturing to await surgery two days later


frankensteinian stitches, still detached tendons tucked carefully within


sunday nap, on the phone with ana, pondering the philosophical implications of near death


monday migraine appears sensuous on the table at the hand surgeon's


ana calls it "creepy sexy"


exposed


monday night before surgery, left-handed myspacing, talking to everyone on the phone


jon on way to surgery center


annakiss and clyo the hand-bandage ready for action


awaiting sedation


examining iv: discomfort


i wanna be sedated


post surgery disorientation


my stoned, confused method of telling jon "no more pics"


recovering at home in the electronic chair for geriatrics


sebastian and i discussing important matters


sebastian sucking down the narcotics via boobyjuice

nothing went according to plan. i didn't finish my fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. i got to forty thousand when my journey was abruptly halted by the usual bizarre personal tragedy. i am currently typing left-handed and poorly, i might add, as i sit in a bed at my mother's house recuperating from surgery on my dominant right hand which was made necessary by a freak casserole dish accident. the saturday after thanksgiving, an evil zombie casserole dish tried to kill me while i was kindly scrubbin' it clean. i was washing the dish after a belated birthday celebration for my husband at my mother's house when it slipped from my yellow rubber-gloved hands. i tried to catch it, but instead it broke and slashed through my wrist in a more serious manner than a suicide attempt. five inches long and mighty wide and deep, the cut included four cut tendons and a cut nerve. there was a stem off the cut nerve that controls sensation in the palm side meaty part below the thumb that was too damaged to repair and will likely never work again. i am facing physical therapy and weeks and weeks of healing. it will take years for my nerve to function properly if it ever does. i am sad. gruesome photos.

out to nanowrimo. see you next month.

it gets worse. more and more i battle with trying to figure if all these tragedies, all this struggle, isn't particularly unique to us or if it is simply par for the course. all i can figure is that some of it is and some of it isn't and it could always be worse. this does not really help. i suppose the question is simply am i justified in praying for a break? i try to figure if it isn't just my karma or a wrathful god or whatever, if i am not simply deserving of all my heartache. yet i do not believe in any of that shit. still i ask the questions, trying to determine if i am a fool for complaining. in my logical brain, i believe that your life is your life, your struggle is your struggle, and your emotional reactions to your experiences are valid. i have trouble granting myself that same validation. i am always minimizing the emotional realities resulting from my experiences. for instance, i probably, in all actuality, have some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. a truck fell out of the sky and almost stole the breath right out of me, stopped my heart, ceased the unfolding of sebastian. i am permanently anxious because of this. i am heartbroken for my eldest son and the struggle and laboratory examination he endures as a result of what i feel but logically deny to be my body's total incompetence. i deal. i move on. the holes in my heart remain. then this past summer, my husband suffered his own heartbreak that has left our entire future more uncertain than it was to begin with. i don't even know how to summarize how we've been struggling with everything that spiraled out from that. every day we have less and less money, or rather, more and more no money, which, as standard as that is for most of the planet including us, is nonetheless more and more terrifying and anxiety-inducing. i go over lists in my head of all the ways in which i do not budget appropriately and spend too much and try to move things about and get a feel for what all this might be like if we did The Right Thing and embraced our poverty. it is painful to imagine a life of staying at home literally twenty-four/seven with my children for lack of funds to leave, subsisting on rice and beans (which in large part, thanks to veganism, we already do). there is, of course, no question that this is entirely possible, but with all the major trauma in our lives, how would our marriage and our sanity survive it? i suppose in some ways it seems too much to demand of the universe that we strive for happiness and aspire to ideals. i could put my children in daycare and head off to some cushy, dreadfully boring, and completely-antithetical-to-my-being corporate job answering phones and creating spreadsheets. i could potentially climb a very short little corporate ladder if need be. but then my children would be in daycare, i would be more miserable than i am, and this life would be ten times more complicated than it already is. jon could give all this up and go into the corporate sector himself. we have already reduced our grocery bill. we already do not buy toilet paper, cleaning products, diapers, formula, ridiculous toys. jon does not buy books. our craft projects are from things we already have. i can imagine a life with less and it is bleak. i feel guilt at even thinking it though, because most of the known universe does live with much less. we are clothed and fed and privilegedly up to our eyeballs in debt, all for the promise of a better life than the lower-middle class intellectual's "simple" existence we already enjoy. yet my skin shivers, feels tight around my spine at the fear crept into my heart by so much stacked up in the red. i mentally negotiate the differences and all my inadequacies. i perform this self-examining trapeze act, turning over and over all the possibilities for how i might have avoided all this and seek to realize how i failed, What Went Wrong. i am consumed by guilt and terror and in the end simply accept the truth of this existence and ignore it all, know that something will come through and there is, at present, nothing to be done about it.