i didn't tell you that to get a reaction

sometimes
people think
there's some reaction
they're supposed to have
and
maybe
for some people there is
but
not for me
i
just tell you my state of mind
on a regular basis
and
i'm tellin ya now

i feel like
i can't make any sense of it

and
when
i try to make sense of it
there are so many things i can come up with
for somewhat plausible explanations
but
they all kinda nauseate me

and
i know you can't talk
and

it's just such whiplash
to feel so close to you
so much like
it might really all come true
which i know is crazy
i'm not saying it is true
just that i felt it so intensely
then
to this

and
i don't want to lose you
but
i'm not sure i feel the same
my dreams
the cards
all say everything is the same
but
i feel a little cauterized

i don't know if i should talk about this or not

i'm not hurting myself
and i don't think
that i'm going to

but
i'm not so enthusiastic about living

i feel like
i might be better off
if i was crazy

this is gonna be all over the place

this afternoon
i felt you
several times
i'm not sure
what was going on with you
but
it was
very warm

as the day wore on
you were a frisson across my brain stem
so that any time i would stop
you were there

and i began to think
maybe you had something
that you needed me to know


this evening
i watched a show
where people were talking about
the person who taught them to cook
so i tried to figure out
who taught me to cook

and i'm not sure

i think all the women on both sides of my family
hate to cook
and the men
mostly don't know how

my gran gran made grilled cheese
and a mean hamburger steak
my mother made a pretty decent chicken vegetable soup
my father tried to teach me to poach eggs
but he had this tornado method
and mine never came out anything other than free-form
and containing too much water
my aunt taught me how to make thanksgiving dressing
and how to broil lamb chops in the toaster oven

i don't think that any of this constitutes
teaching me to cook

i mostly
think it was pbs
but i don't know where the interest comes from
and i've always been more into special occasion cooking
they got me this international cooking cookbook
they started me out
making side dishes at thanksgiving
and
just sorta graduated up from there
i made this fruited pot roast once
of which i am still proud

but i just sorta read the book and did it
i guess my aunt answered any questions i had
and supervised
because she did the meals
so my gran gran wouldn't have to work

but i have absolutely no
fond memories
of
being taught to cook
by some matriarchal figure

except
maybe
julia child
bon appetit

do most children like cooking shows
i wonder


i have all these things
that i want to say to you

but i can't
because
my thoughts are not coherent

not at all

at all

all

superjammpact dream last night

i was swimming
with my [dream]brother
i was mad at him
i'm not sure what he had done
but i was aware
that somehow
i was focusing my anger
on his penis

he, however
just laughed at me
confident and superior
but then he looked at me:
but see, how lovely is this lagoon
the water so green
and he compared it to something
i can't remember
i want to say:
like a fine gin
only that doesn't make any sense
but it made me think
of blue diamond


i was a street fighter
i was bad ass
and there was a fair amount of
gratuitous fight scenes
until the one that actually
moved the plot along
there was a
[i'd have to call it a]
spear
he threw it at me
there wasn't time to move
yet
it seemed like there must have been
because time slowed down
in that way that it does when something
something really bad is happening that gives
you an immediate animal sense:
i might die


i saw the blade moving through the space
i saw it thwunk into my hip
i knew
if i pulled it out
i would bleed, seriously
so i left it in
ran away

it seemed only to be a flesh wound
so i was cleaning and dressing it
rubbing some red stuff into my thighs
i was thinking of it as rouge
that was making me laugh
i had a tattoo
in the curve
waist to hip
it was
pretty cursive writing
about four inches high
and it said something
i couldn't really read
or i can't remember
and i was distracted
by how amazing
my thighs
omg
thighs of my dreams, ha ha
and my waist
sleek
smooth
man, i was awesome

but then that guy
the one who made me so uncomfortable
with the large woman thing
he walked by
and laughed
and asked me if i had
hearts and flowers tattooed on my actual asshole
and i realized the tattoo said something
about my asshole
and
i realized
it was talking about you
you graduated from
pain in the ass
to asshole

but
the whole hip thing
made me think
of jacob
of israel
of god_wrestling


i was an old man
i guess
it seemed to be an old couple
the doctor came by
are you keeping that wet
he asked about my injured leg
well, i'm keeping it oiled
yes, i see, but you're not using enough oil
you need to really slather it on
it needs to be wet
and then the old woman
was looking for mascara
which she never buys
but always looks for
in her kit
so
i had stuck a sample size in
which i picked up, i don't know where
but it kept skittering away, just out of reach
and my leg hurt, and i just wanted to sit down
but i had to help her
i loved her
and
she seemed so frail to me

then my phone beeped at me

and i think he might be haunting me, a little

because
i keep randomly smelling
that kinda funky
ashtray
smell

and seeing
the upturn of lips
when he was genuinely amused


i love you daddy
i always did
and
i didn't leave you
i left that fucking bitch
the one you told all my secrets
the one you let lead you around by the nose
but, then
you treated me
and i didn't realize this
until
some stuff came together for me
connecting the dots
you were acting the jilted one
and you never really forgave me

so
i could love you in a way that would destroy me
or
nothing else was good enough
cause fuck me, right
i couldn't possibly have needs

but
the others didn't do it for you
and you missed me
so
it couldn't just be a clean break
we had to go round and round for years and years

don't haunt me
you don't need to
i have the scars
i spent thirty years shutting down the girl
wrapping my woman heart
with the merciless care of a foot binder

now look at me
just look at me
seventeen
screaming
covered in pig's blood

i knew he was dead before i got the call

because of the dream i had the night before

i was avoiding him
and he
was sitting
in a barber chair

he said:
i'm waiting for you
i'm at the nail salon

and something in the way he said it
i knew

happy chanukah puppyfish

i know it's confusing
all this christmas
and santa
and such

and
i'm not an expert
but
i'm gonna try to make
some sense of it, anyway

now
some of your friends are christian
and
they will tell you
christmas is about the birth of christ
there's a beautiful story
where the most holy person ever born
is treated like dirt
no room at the inn
and then three wise men
come bearing expensive gifts
because they recognize his worth
and
they give presents
to commemorate that


and
santa
doesn't have anything to do with jesus
santa
is a story which has origins
which pull from the great melting pot
pagan and pagan christian hybrid st. nicholas blah blah
to become something that is very american
santa is at best
a personification of the spirit of giving
so
why
doesn't santa visit you
like he visits your friends

the short answer, puppyfish, is that he doesn't visit them either
but
i love you
and i want you to use your whole brain
so i'm gonna give you the long answer


ok puppyfish
you know how i give you totems
how do you know those aren't graven images, idols
maybe you don't
and that's important
a totem isn't something you worship
it doesn't answer your prayers or demand loyalty
it offers up it's essence as an example a guide
a more powerful template
to stretch into

and
i think
that's kinda what christians want santa to be for kids
someone selfless, impersonal, but generous, caring, happy
it's all about being better to give than to receive
but
america is a consumer culture
and
even though christmas is largely santa and not jesus
it becomes compulsive, excessive, and commercial


i personally don't like that those parents pretend that santa is a person
rather than an ideal
i think that they think they are keeping their children innocent
of the machinations of reality
when they are really
teaching their children
that love equals material possessions

and that i think
as much as anything christians might throw at us
is the zeus in our temple


the history of the jewish people, puppyfish
is chock full of repression
i could theorize about why we seem like such a threat
but i won't
but
in the ancient world
the temple represented judaism
in the way no one place could today
the ancient greeks
for all their culture and civilization
felt so threatened that they desecrated our temple
and put up a statue of zeus
a graven image
worship who we say
we won't let you be who you are

the maccabees said enough
they fought the power
and they took back the temple
we light the lights to commemorate
the victory
and
the rededication of the temple
it was maybe a miracle
that they found an undesecrated container of oil
and it was maybe a miracle
that that oil lasted until they were able to bring in fresh supplies
or maybe that is just a metaphor
for the smaller number of maccabees
overwhelming the great army of greece

the reason we don't have a hanukkah bush
the reason we don't play along with this great american game
because
we are american
is that we honor both the maccabees
and a larger american ideal
freedom of religion

you're not hurting for stuff
we don't need to sell out who we are
just to prance around in some retail pagent tilt-a-whirl
i'm sorry if i'm coming off like a hippie
please don't become an investment banker
now
get your dad to teach you the dreidel thing
i don't know from dreidels
and i'm gonna go make latkes
teaching you that food equals love
which is almost as wrong
but
delicious

the first night

i don't get this time of year
i mean
christmas
is whatever
and, i know i know, chanukah is not that
but it gets all blown up
because
it wants to compete
and
i can make a case about how it's an important statement
about religious freedom
and pride
and whatnot
or
i could
make a big production
about the miracle of the oil

[and
don't get me wrong
i would totally use it
as religious grounds
for the need
to eat fried foods
if you want em]

but
i'm not feelin it

i like
the metaphor
and meaning
and spiritual development
of passover through shavuot
i feel those

i get how i should
but somehow don't
feel
tisha b'av
rosh hashanah
yom kippur
simchat torah
as a cycle of destruction and renewal

sukkot i don't really get
but maybe that's because
thanksgiving already sort of does
whatever sukkot is supposed to do

but chanukah seems confused about what it is

i'm letting you field this one

i'm tempted to say:
it's all about the maccabees
jews are bad ass
if you buy presents
and pretend like it's christmas
the bad guys win

but i can't really get behind the miracle of the oil
that seems like it was just added on top
to make a military victory
a religious thing
it seems
like it waters it down
but
maybe
it's necessary
for the whole week of
latke bacchanalia

so
whatever you think/want
is fine with me

from russia with love

i looked again
at the tools
and
actually
it does say
and
after the u.s.
the largest number of visitors
are from russia
[or environs]
enough visits, in fact
that i find it hard to believe
that
i do not have an actual reader

and
as a writer
i want to say:

thank you
for enjoying what i write

meta blah blah

am i
in what i am doing here
essentially
some sort of performance artist
i have thought, at various points, that i might be

and i'm not against performance art
i just have feelings about it
like
that the kind of person
who shoves a chain up their vag
pours pig blood over themselves
pulling the chain out
and screaming
about
whatever
that
is a really crappy performance artist
what i like
is someone doing something different
making you think
mostly
things where maybe
you don't immediately think:
ah yes, performance art

the thing about me
with this
is, really
that i'm not doing it publicly
well, i am
but that is a sort of unfortunate reality
not the plan
i would rather only you saw it

i purposely don't tag this stuff
and
i sorta don't want people to read it

but they are
they updated the tools
they don't tell me how many people from each place
and, of course
they might not read it
they may just click on it to see
if it's what they are looking for
and
we're not talking huge numbers
but i have
actually
worldwide clickership

i'm not sure how i feel about that

on the one hand
i don't like it
on the other hand
i find it kinda exciting
on the one foot [no more hands]
i'd rather strangers read it than some of the people
who may, or may not, but i'm pretty sure are
on the other foot
now
a part of me always knows
someone
or some number of people
are probably going to see
and
i really like it better
if it's a maybe
low probability
chance thing


chance




speaking of chance
does it seem to you
in your day to day world
that the amount of synchronicity
is like
on steroids
information
random stuff
stuff that cannot possibly be
anything other than random
seems to be talking to me
that makes me uncomfortable
because i start to worry
that i'm actually crazy

i have
fear
of
the crazy

which interferes
with the beautiful messages from
wherever

i guess it's the holidaze

i am going to try to be low key about this
but
i guess
you might as well know this about me
if you don't already

my mother beeped me on chat
(i didn't even know she knew how)

did you know your brother got married
yeah
i guess i sorta did
what does that mean
are you in contact with your brother or not

he sent me something on myspace
which i didn't get for two months
that said he was getting married, and
if i got this message in the next few days
and could make it
let him know

i sent him back something that said
i guessed it was too late
but
i don't know
he would have called me
or emailed me or something
if it really mattered to him, right
i don't know
i didn't go back to myspace to see if he replied
i just didn't

did you know you had a new nephew
huh
didn't they just get married
the birth was a performance art piece
apparently it's all over the news

yuck


how did you find out that i have a new performance art
e. called me
don't call her that
she made me promise to give you a message
if it's bad news
i don't think i want to hear it
unless somebody's dying

oh, ok, nobody's dead

fine, just tell me
i'm already getting upset

just call me
now please

i call my mother

i'm sure if it were serious
your brother would have contacted you
just tell me what she said
your father just came out of a coma
why was he in a coma
she didn't have any information

didn't she say last year that her kidney's were failing
yes
did she mention that this time
no
so how is she still alive
i don't know

she's just calling because it's the holidays
she has to stir things up
any holiday
gathering
family event
had to have her throwing a fit
i will never forget
on gran gran and paw paw's 40th anniversary
she threw a huge fit about how they'd never loved her
it had to be all about her
do we have any reason to believe her

i'm sure he would have contacted you

well, i'm not sure
check your myspace
i don't want to check my myspace
i can't handle it right now
if there is an archive of
dad's dying where are you
in my inbox

but you've had the same cell phone number for
for fifteen years
yeah
still not sure

and
how is b.b. still alive anyway
he smoked three-and-a-half-packs-of-cigarettes-a-day
for over thirty years
why isn't he dead yet
i don't know

i know i'm going to hell for that
i can't go there
well, i guess i could
and maybe i would if he was asking for me or something
but i don't want to
i haven't had an interaction with him that hasn't made me feel
worse about him
since i can remember
maybe it would make him feel better, or maybe not

now i'm sorry i told you

well, you had to
or you'd have to bear the burden of whether it was right not to
maybe next time
just not right before bed time
i could send you a letter
that's perfect


label it:
missives from the crazy people open at your own risk

only
i guess at christmas time the mail might go too slow
i might not have enough of a window
if it really was critical
but any other time

i never hear from her any other time
right

i'm not coherent

and
i want to touch you
i see myself
running the flat of my palm
across the front of your jeans

and the way i see it
it's not as sexually aggressive
as it is
like
givin props to the heat
maybe it wouldn't be something you'd want me to do
maybe it'd be too much
or not enough
invasive
whatever
but
in my mind
it's both familiar and nurturing
like
a non-verbal
my god i find you so hot right now

when
for whatever reason
maybe it isn't possible
to dance

how is a raven like a writing desk

hey, i love you, slim

i have to get up in about four hours
so no time to write now
but
i'm feeling the urge
so
this is just
a
place
holder

rose firmament

i used to play this game occasionally
the sims
and
mostly
it was never all that successful
i liked to build characters
i liked to build environments
houses and whatnot
but
i could never really get the character's shit together

and, at that point
i felt like it was some sort of
life effigy
like
if i could get it together
that was a sign
or something

so one day
i said:
wtf
i'm just gonna have one character
in a tiny house
i'm not gonna date
i'm not gonna try to have friends
i'm just going to have a lone character
in a small house
who's a writer

so i created
rose firmament

she wrote a book
and it wasn't very successful
but she hadn't really practiced writing or anything
so, she did that, before she wrote another one
and she hit it out of the park
she was pretty happy
years went by

i'm not sure how
or why
but one day she met this guy
and the plan changed
for some reason
she hooked up with him
and they ended up married

my previous sims adventures had not happened that way
and i had planned to keep her single
because the relationships
and babies
had not worked for me before
this game
this game i had planned to keep simple

so they were married
so now
i could see his life goals and such
[cause they show up on your bar when they join your household]
and his lifetime goal was to have six children
now
in a normal sims scenario
not a big problem
but she was already kinda old for the time needed for six
but she loved him i guess
and i wanted them to have a really happy life
so i used up all her saved points
and i got them both fertility treatments
and she had
i forget now
either three sets of twins
or two sets of triplets

it was freakin nuts
and rose hired a lot of babysitters
just to help out
but she did occasionally leave the kids alone with the babysitter
and one of the stole one of her toddlers

she was distraught
i was distraught
i thought that her man's dream could never come true
and i was horrified and grieving the loss of the baby
that was the end of the babysitters
she just kicked it into high gear
and took care of the five remaining kids
like a pro
she couldn't write as much
but she had already got some royalty checks coming in
and her husband was a coach i think
they were doing ok
they didn't have much
and they didn't move into a bigger house
they just added a little as absolutely necessary
in fact
for their whole lives
their bed was in the open room downstairs
that had been her original writer's shack

one day when the kids were six or so
when she had given up hope that she could ever provide
elusive sixth kid
some guy came over
and
low and behold
it was her husband's grown son
he'd had one with somebody else before, hallelujah
but
you've got to get them all through school
and
she had to get crackin
because her life goal was to be like an acclaimed writer
or something
and she had to write a certain number of books
across several categories
and have some number of successful books
and blah blah blah

and
they were happy
and the kids were happy

they both met their life goals
in fact
one of the younger kids went into sports
and the dad started coaching him
and died
of old age
while coaching him, i think
and then his ghost went right on coaching him
rose died within a few months of takaro
[i'm pretty sure his name was takaro]
and then her ghost hung out there too

i was really sad that they died
but they had great lives
and they lived to be older than any of the other sims
at least any i'd ever had before
and i loved the house
i would have kept playing the kids
but it was just too many adults to juggle
and rose was the character i was attached to, really

and it's funny
because that was the successful game

rose firmament

hey, i love you

some of the goofy stuff i do
all the time, actually
to tell me how you are doing
if
i'm not feeling
anything
directly
some of those things
are telling me now
that you are
thinking
bad thoughts, somehow
that you think

i'm not sure what, actually

so
if you are
then don't
don't be sad
or mad or worried

at least not
about
whether or not i love you
because i definitely do, that

i hope
the cards and stuff
just don't know what they're talking about

wiggly

darlin

i think
i'm probably not
going to call you darlin
i still feel strange from before
i'm folksy and all
pumpkin rolls off the tongue smoothly enough
but darlin feels like tryin-too-hard or ironical or such
no
it feels
slightly masculine
as it resonates through the space
and
i'm not comfortable with it
hon
has a concomitantly
situated energy

and baby
only works
sometimes

pumpkin is fine
but somewhat generic

beloved
i like beloved
but it seems, for many reasons, unwieldy
as a daily appellation

and
if you know me
you probably realize
you can expect a slew
of silly monikers
all of which
grew
organically
from
something
continually evolving
into
something else

you'd also know
how much brain power i use
on internal meta-dialog about
how
words i've already used
hang in the air
after the fact

i would guess
that's sort of a writer-y thing
or
maybe
a kind of perfectionist-y thing

whatever

and
boom

this has to be
[and i just realized as much]
a huge wind up for today's brilliant referent
so what is it, huh, what ya got lady
shut up you crusty little urchin of a chorus, i'm thinkin


i love you harp