red edelweiss 1975

i smoked, a little
then i walked across the room, kitchen to bathroom
while in transit
this alien beam, or something
when i sit down i'm humming edelweiss

what is that about
what is edelweiss to me

when my mom used to pick me up for thursday visits
we would go to memorial city mall
we'd eat at the york steak house
we'd shop around
we'd end up at haus edelweiss more often than not
the place had cuckoo clocks
i had kinda a thing for clocks

[i never really realized that before just this moment] 

but the song
that's about the music box

[now this is not the maltese falcon it's just a jewelry box
but it was amazing]

i wanted this thing, so much
it was a regular girls jewelry box
you open it and the ballerina dances

but instead of my little girl one
which was cardboard
pink satin lined
white tulle tutu-ed dancer
lost forever in a pirouette
to the tune swan lake

this one was larger
rounded
red
leather
velvet interior
white satin evening gown
slowly twirling
to edelweiss

i had asked for a sign

at work
everyone was buying wine for weddings
well, not everyone
but
two groups
all the outside vendors showed up early
or on time, which rarely ever happens
the girl who helps me
was actually scheduled to work
and
the one who just got certified
wanted to learn the ropes
so
I had help
and I was feeling pretty good
although
I wasn't quite sure what the message was

when I got home
I was kinda super pissed
by the facillities clusterfuck
but
lots of physical activity
calmed me right down
probably want to remember that

i had this thought today

i'm not sure if it had significance
from like my perspective
but then
meta
or whatever takes a double

you remember the picture of me
dance recital
chest out
arms wide
looking more like a merman [ethel] than waif

well
that dance recital was the day my brother was born
and my father was there
which
i gotta say
probably did not help my relationship with my stepmother

so i though about
what that meant
and, i mean, it was different times
he wasn't going to be at the birth

but he got to skip out on the labour
or had to sacrifice a precious moment with his wife
his beloved
the mother of his child
in order to be there for me

and
i'd never seen it quite that way before

this was the second time she was racing down the street pushing me, office chair mach 5

i couldn't write it down
i'd forget before i got halfway through
i grabbed my phone
and it has a note taking device
i just discovered recently
and have only used to give myself ironic pep talks
so far

i recorded the important points:

there were two couples
sort of
or really
maybe not
maybe there was one
maybe there weren't any

but there were trying to be

and
the characters were:

a not as young as she used to be, slightly diva-esque
new age media icon
well known in circles

a mid-thirties up and coming self-help guru
not especially tall, slightly balding, kinda scruffy bearded charismatic
whose countenance fairly glows genuine

and

the girls
i don't know what the girls do
one is in her later twenties, 26 or 27
the other is maybe 23 or 24

the younger one
is in love with the older one
who is her friend, but doesn't really believe it's mutual

the older one isn't really
that into definitions of things
and
really
is maybe open to anything

the guru has been trying to melt the new age ice queen for a while now
she worked with him on a project
and she is trying to parlay that into a mainstream jump

the kid has been
flirting with her friend for a while
and it seemed like it might have been working

and then
she and the guru

click

it was the strangest thing

it's like i just had the core of a novel
handed to me in my dream
but
i don't know if i know and understand
the characters
well enough
to write their stories
and
i guess that's happened before
but still
kinda weird

hope i didn't upset you somehow

i dreamed about
a really beautiful
and cool
girl
who was telling me
how she
got it
that i didn't have time for her

and
it wasn't that i didn't have time
for quantum entanglement
i just
couldn't enjoy that
simultaneously with being
stressed and pissed off
and
i couldn't stop that, ya know

i love you
and today is gonna be
if anything
worse

but
after 12 or 1 or 2
whenever i can leave
i should be completely free
until 8am friday

either you are all about me today

or i have a serious
neurological problem
because i'm working ungodly hours
and
i'm angry at my corporate overlord
but
i keep thinking:
if this keeps up
i might not be able to function

hit me up after 1:30
and
i'm probably going to bed at 3:00

i love you
my little ghost pepper

oh yeah

so, hotness
you've known me a while now
what do you think
what do you think i should be
when i grow up
i value your opinion

where do you think
my true talents lay

i know it seems like i might not be serious
but
i really am, serious

it was a small town, possibly mexico

we all knew him, somehow

i need a house for my non-conventional wives

later i met them
and they were pretty non-conventional
one had a little girl
i'm almost certain they were lovers
and they did bring some excitement
to our little town
i became friends with them

you understand
non-conventional
he smiled broadly

then i was organizing coffee
and sandwiches
and reading material
for, something
adam was there
giving commentary
not sure why
or how i should take that

then
there were fish tanks
i was feeding the fish
they bad been neglected
i was afraid the fish were not ok
some of them weren't, but most were
but some
seemed to be flying through the air

that's an old theme
i haven't had it in a while
don't know what it means
but
it means something

there was more
my brother was there
only it wasn't my actual brother
and there was a lot more
i can't remember
with the books
that was important
i just can't remember
books
industrial drip coffee machines
and
fish

words cannot express

earth

i think i was young
maybe early twenties
i travelled
with my family to a foreign country
might be mexico

we were either
buying
or selling
an estate, i guess

and there was some sort of magic
involved, i guess
because
there was this ritual
or ritual-like
scene
where we were digging through the dirt
and
a stack of famous rocks and minerals
beautiful hand-sized specimens

we took them away in boxes of soil
symbolically
carrying the land away with us


and then
i was in my grandmother's kitchen

crazy, unrestful dreams

it was some sort of reunion
there were people i knew
from work
from school
from television too, i think
i feel pretty sure i saw sam merlotte

i wanted to talk to fred (this girl who used to work for me)
and i kind of did
but then she ran up to the front of the room
and wrote on the wall

i want to live in a digital world
with analog sex

and drew this picture
that when she walked away
was gone

it was streaming, or something, too
stuff was on my phone
and i went to a screen on the wall
and synced with it

you have been to blah blah blah event
now
are you ready go order you christmas tree
one of the options was
not now i'm tired

fred had a long hyphenated name
i wanted to ask her if she got remarried

i thought to myself
she must have married the daddy
by which i did not mean
like the baby daddy

when she was in high school
she was a foreign exchange student
she went to france
and
she lost her virginity to the french daddy
this kind of horrified me
naive, i am, i guess

i mean, on the one hand
it was probably
good technique
not a horrifying first experience
that you spend the rest of your life trying to forget
but
on the other hand
it seems like
when you send your young daughter
to stay with a family
you should be able go expect
part of the protection to include
not, you know, personally deflowering her

but
whatever

woke up with a headache
yuck

i have to go to sleep now

i wish i could stay up

but
i
am
falling asleep

ok, so this is a little synchronastic

watch this with your mob of wallabies

i dreamed about australia

lake

chef sang yoon

was making soup

there were motorcycles

and
mogul type bigwigs
and
you were very excited
at the connections you were making
with the moguls
i think i was just gathering information
not even intel
just research, i think
but
it seemed like it was important

i haven't been able to remember my dreams, but i feel kinda schizophrenic

does that make any sense
i mean
i thought i kinda felt that way before
but
for some reason
i am stressed out, kinda bitchy
and
late, everywhere

i'm trying to do a detox
and i can't seem to get a good rhythm going

i'm not sleeping enough
and i'm not sleeping well

the one thing that's working for me
is lemon water, i can't get enough of it

but i have less control than i'd like over
what i eat
i want food that tastes good
comfort food
like sushi
and
delivery
chinese tofu homestyle

i don't want to cook

i want to write

but then
i get caught up
in looping interplays of story line

the things i don't understand
the things i think are one way
and then the other

the things i kind of thought i enjoyed
that now i can't stand

i know this isn't making any sense
but
i have to write something
or i'm going to die
and
i can't start
i don't know a metaphor for what i'm feeling

i don't even feel like what i'm feeling is contained within my body

and i'm not sure if that's good
i love you
and everything i start to say
sounds like it means something, different

like i start to say:
meet me in dreamland tonight
let's set free the bears

which i mean in a very extended metaphor-y john irving way
i stop
and think, both
that there are ways you might interpret that, wrongly
and
how wrong it is that i seem to be too a.d.d. to read
for a long dry spell
there is irving that i should have read
which i have failed to read
and
both of those things make me anxious

do you ever feel that way

my fantasies of you are kind of blossoming tonight

there's pictures

flashing across your stomach

across your back

as you sit

or walk

or lay

shirtless

there's venturing out

across the ice

out from the cabin in the woods

maybe you've gained a little weight through the winter

but there's a smell of warming in the air

so crisp it cleans you

and i want you like the smell of the sun in the laundry

i had a crappy day

i hope yours was better

hello

i've been feeling you all day


come visit in dreamland tonight

i'll be waiting by the campfire

since i can't write coherently

i spent a lot of time today
thinking
about whether i ever stopped having my mid life crisis
and i'm not sure i ever did

in some ways
i feel
like i've grown a lot
but it certainly isn't the way most people measure it

even as far back as
when i was going to go away to college
there was this one thing i kept coming back to
the places i liked
didn't give grades

at start of term
they had a contract
what i want to achieve

i felt instinctively
that that would be so much better for me
i felt like i would modify myself, always, for the grade
the making of the plan
freeing me up
to go beyond somehow

i'm sure i could have told you much more clearly then

but
i think
my sense about myself was right
i have to really fight myself back, sometimes
from going for steps up the ladder
even if what is at the top is not something i want

and don't freak out
i'm still drinking coffee

but i was recounting stories to my mom
and i realized i'd never told her before
and that i'd forgotten them
and then i realized
i may not have told you
a critical facet of my personality

i have this inner union organizer
talking about what i won't do

kind of an extension of how i introduced myself to you
for years
about what not to expect me to be

i'm both very very
whatever it is i am, nice, is that what i am
i don't even think that's right
but
people like me
i work and play well with others
and
stubborn
and, apparently a little more particular

on my last adventure
i found some oaxacan creatures
there was a coyote that i thought i should probably get
the trickster has been a totem
and i never had a proper totem for him

i didn't buy him
i kept getting called by a largish purple camel
which i also didn't buy
because he was too expensive
why i was so drawn to him
what did purple
or camels
have to do with me

sleigh/sled


i just figured that out



pretend
you're me

maybe what i should do is tell you how i have answered the question

i don't remember the first reaction
it just didn't really register at first

then
then i thought maybe
it was a
if we're still together at x time...

then
then i thought maybe
she was pregnant
and either
threatening not to be
or
somehow needing it
in other words
maybe
noble

i liked this answer
though it hurt
it gave you
a reasonably good reason to be giving up
a negotiation point
that you'd held onto
for many years

then
then i thought maybe
maybe she was crushing you
nagging and looking in corners for the absence of dust
and you just thought it would be easier
easier all around
if you gave her security:

i love you baby
so much, in fact, that let's get hitched

or
that she threatened to leave you

that you weren't sure about me
what you thought about us or me or you and me
that you didn't want to be alone
or
you didn't want to be without her specifically
that she was the one you couldn't let get away

that i was, mostly, important for creative juices
flowing, and whatnot
something you didn't want to loose
but not something you needed--
you're plenty creative

fires to be put out

if it's meant to be...

that's consistent with usness
you could still use the loss
honor me


but
through the depression
i found
the only answer that really worked

he did it because he wanted to

he's a grown man

i just don't know why

i have questions

but
not reading questions

thoughts, ideas, questions

in search of a metaphor

i almost forgot

i had a strange dream last night

i can't really remember it

there was a car
we were traveling in it
and there were clothes
and blankets
everywhere
night swimming in a sea of cloth

and there was
cake
a giant ruffly confection
which you shaped
square to round
with some fancy hand gestures
and the wink of an eye
presto

and
there was
sad to say
i stepped in some shit
and
there was a whole comedy of errors
about that

you know what they say about me

i'm not sure i know, though

i can live apart from you, if i have to

that's established, i guess
but
i hope
it is also established
that i can't live without you
and
that thing i said
about being able to
completely manufacture you
unless i'm doing that these days
is completely wrong now
though
i thought i could
since i did ten years ago

as much as it hurt me
when you did that thing
if i coulda lived without you
i woulda done it then