to be named later

i'm having this fantasy
a weird conglomeration of cravings

scent
a light persistent matcha incense

sensuality
i found today a mask
ghassoul and camel's milk

camel's milk's strange as snail mucin
but i think that's how i roll, sweetness

doing this mask ritual
dripping the mineral water
beautiful bowl
mixing
smearing
face
neck
chest

temple gate reflects in vanity mirror

mask still slightly damp
i feel you finger painting
changing sheets later

i hope that worked as a story for you

i had all these little elements
and
i think
that's how i think
but it's weird
and it usually doesn't seem like it quite works

i thought it worked this time

i got basically no sleep last night
and i'm going to sleep, soon

i'm not asking you to tell me you liked it
let me make that clear

i mostly just want to make sure
you don't take umbrage with anything

gray sky at dsw parking lot

the other day i had stopped in a dsw down the street from me.  it's a little sketchy down there--  i mean, it's fine just a little sketchy.  the very first one i ever went to was a little further down the street, then it moved, i found one in uptown and i never went back west.

truthfully i haven't been doing a lot of shoe shopping.

but my feet always hurt anymore.  and i stopped at the thai place and the petco and this was just next door.

i just went straight to clearance.  i found so many shoes, i had to edit.  i came away with three pair for right at a hundred dollars.

without going to much into it, the big winner was a pair of white dr. scholl's, which at seventy percent off came to about twelve bucks.

i had worn them today.  to work.  without breaking them in.  that's why i was in the dsw parking lot on a cold gray day, uptown this time, stopping between work and home to see if i could score another pair of these shoes.  maybe another color.

when i was younger i thought i needed arch supports.  the last couple years i've decided, the more the shoe is like not wearing a shoe, except that, ya know, my toes are protected and stuff, the better i like it.  and these are all swirled and rounded on the foot pad--  like a topographical map of the foot, in 3D.

i'd been a little leary of dr. scholl's.  would probably never have tried them if they hadn't been seventy percent off.  i'm not sure why not.  i used to wear dr. scholl's exercise sandals.  in fact, when i was a teenager i really only liked shoes that were wood soled.  clogs.  clogs were my biggest love.

actually, clogs were maybe my first love.

there were ked's and buster browns and little patent leather mary janes and they were all fine as far as that went but nothing ever really turned my head until the shiny red patent leather clogs.  i was wearing them, in fact that day, the day that kid tried to tease me.

i had just moved to a new school for the second half of first grade.  the school i had been in was what i think might have been a little progressive.  we changed rooms. had different classes.  and my reading teacher had long long blonde hair that she would play with, wrapping it absentmindedly around her fingers--  twist, spool, release;  twist, spool, release--  in a way that i found, mesmerizing.  i couldn't take my eyes off her.  when asked my favorite subject:  math.  we were learning number lines and greater than and less than.  alligators.  they want to eat more people rather than less people, see.  so their big open mouths point to the more.  it was a new school though, and the grounds were flat and treeless as the plains.  sitting on our metal lunchboxes on the loose soil of the play field, strangely like a prison yard.

this new school was disappointing as a school.  the teacher was old and fat and she taught us her recommended ethical policy: me three.  as she explained it:  god should be our main focus, the priority;  then we were to see to our family's needs;  only seeing ourselves and our needs as number three.  the books we read were about dick and jane.  i didn't really read that well.  i didn't pay attention in class.  i just paid attention to what the place had going for it:  landscaping.  it was the most beautiful school i ever attended.  the day of the attempted teasing i was on the playground.  the area was fenced off with a split rail stacked western fencing that made me think of giant lincoln logs.  the ground was a mulch of fallen needles that was clean and fragrant as the piney woods. the greenery framing a view like a huge front window looking out at a pretty row of shops, the seasonal window displays of the candy shop the crowning jewel.

i stood in this little heaven;  red patent leather clogs, reversible hooded cape, probably twirling, actually.  someone interrupted me.  tried to be insulting about my hair.  but my hair was clearly the best thing about me.  my daddy told me how beautiful my hair was, like, almost daily.

whatever jealous nobody, let me get back to twirling.


the world isn't now as continuously animate as it was then.  still, there are moments.  when the sky reflected in the glass buildings and the stark denuded trees lure fat black grackles to leaf.

shoes.

they didn't have the ones i was looking for.  i still spent an hour and a half trying on.  well, not only trying on.  wandering up and down the row of ballerina flats.  when i first became aware of the trend i found them tacky.  the platformed heels strike me in much the same way now, except, of course as stripper shoes--  if you are a stripper then these must be the halcyon days, no more no more the goldfish bowls of yore.

these new ballet flats--  some are tacky, of course, with buckles, or minnie mouse bows--  they are mostly kid leather black of clean design.  some have an extended toe which gives them a sexy en pointe look.  some have sculpted rubber heels, some have rubber soles, the apparatus of which is very like a jazz shoe.  i want them.  i want to put them on.  chasse forward.  arch backward.  twisting.  one arm back of hand to forehead.  other hyper extended back. chest open to the sky.

i buy no shoes today.

i walk back to the parking lot.  i get in the car.  i start to back out.

simultaneously, a car pulls into the row boxing me in, and the car beside and perhaps slightly in front (depending on perspective) begins to back out.

i cannot move back away from the car backing out because i am blocked.  i could pull back into my space, maybe, but for some reason this seems like a bad idea.  the other car has room.  if they are paying attention everything will be fine.

the very second i can see that they do not see me, i begin to honk, insistently.

the car just rolls on back into me, thwack.

i lay on the horn.

the car pulls forward, stops, opens it's doors.  music loud and metal pours out; and though it isn't there i see a cloud of smoke billow.  i get out.  he walks toward me.

i honked, i say.  that car blocked me in, i couldn't back away.

i didn't hear you honk til after.  i heard you then.  he spares a look at the front of my car.  there doesn't seem to be any damage, well, my car has a scratch.

i look.  he has a scratch.  my car seems fine.

well, i guess it's ok then, i say.

ok? he says, mild inflection.

yeah, i say.

cool, he says, nodding slightly.

we get back in our cars.

and drive away.

i'm feeling you very strongly right now

i had some ideas
but
i don't really know what to say, right now
my tarot thing says you aren't unhappy
and
that there isn't any particular thing you need right now

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=953374&Date=1%2F29%2F2014&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=sola_busca&Reading=single

http://www.facade.com/tarot/personal/?UID=248126&Date=1%2F29%2F2014&Name=Anonymous&Query=&Deck=&Reading=single

i love you though
maybe you'd like to hear that
even if you know it already

mad as may butter ii

i don't really laugh at inappropriate times, might seem that way

mad as may butter

yesterday, when i tried to log in to my blog, it wasn't there.

i mean, there was actually a blog with my name, my actual name, containing exactly one entry.  i thought i might faint.  i've been writing to you for so long now.  the thought that it was all just washed away back to the beginning.  well, not the beginning, exactly.  i didn't even read it.

it was meant to be some sort of manifesto, i think.  how you awakened something in me.  before i decided it was babies and some sort of boho bali hai.

but the idea, now, that everything i'd said and felt with you here was gone, well, it just sucked.  i don't think of this as, like, hemingway's lost manuscripts and carbons.  from a writing perspective i think there might be two or three poems that are possibly publishable, it's really just practice writing.  but it's us, ya know.  where would it go from here.  

that's just ridiculous, i thought, it would move and flow somewhere else.

i watched some videos about palm reading.  i had forgotten the palm reading i had, wow, must be more than ten years ago now.  i had a star, she said, in the art area of my palm touching my heart line, and a fountain.  you could really write from your heart.  this new video was talking about the fate line.  mine is all choppy.  also it's pretty faint in places.  well, specifically, between my heart line and [which one is this, i think it's] the headline.  this section apparently represents the period of my life i'm living now, fate line/career-wise [but that seems opposite from how time runs on the life line], and the section which starts at the heart line is about the fifty year mark.

so, maybe that means i'm about to start some great artistic venture.

or maybe, they don't any of them use the same system.  maybe it's all hokum.

a little while ago i was talking to a friend of mine and she said something about glasses.  it didn't make sense.  didn't you get teased about your glasses when you were a kid, she asked.  no, i said, no body ever teased me about nothin.  then, today, this other girl i work with said something about red hair and teasing.  i don't understand, i said.  i mean, in first grade, somebody said something about that to me;  i just laughed at em and told em they were just jealous.  it never happened again. and it's not like word woulda got around.  we moved every six months.  i don't get it.

sometimes, somebody says something to me and it bothers me.  but pretty rarely.  mostly i examine the validity of the statement.  

i guess that has to do with debbie heather.  maybe that's why i'm mentioning that now.

and i guess from there i got to wonder things.  why i lied and told her i liked her shoes.  why i look at her to try to see what you see.  why not, for years, and then suddenly, yes.  i would like to not wonder them.  i would like to not care.  very much, would i like that.

continuing...

tomorrow probably

i'm tired, and i'm not sure where to go from there

i hope this isn't just totally not what you want

well, i didn't write anything

i'm having trouble focusing today

i'm going to bed
i'm imagining you coming with me

i love you baby

i want to write something, and i think i will later, but right now i want to tell you about something that happened yesterday

i stopped by ulta after work, because they had a free gift for me
mascara, which i don't wear
but it was ck one makeup
and they have some cool colors of mascara that i kinda want to try
although the free one is just black
but at least i could know how bad it irritates my eyes

whatever, too much wind up

so
i'm in ulta, after work
which happens
it's happened
i've been in there, in that light, with those mirrors, a lot

but this time
i look in the mirror
and
rather than saying:

wow, i look tired
or
wow, i'm fatter than i think i am
or
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkk

this time
i was like
wow, the light must be really good in here
or this makeup must be better than i thought it was
or maybe that new shampoo is really working
or
something
because i look, great
younger 

so
when i got home
i took off the makeup
and brushed back my hair close to my head
and got under a harsh, unforgiving light

and
i look younger

unfortunately
i'm not just doing one new thing
new year, new you, whatever
there's no way to isolate
what's actually working--  very unscientific

but i was looking at mid-thirties
instead of late thirties
which was already not bad

and, you know, this is completely inappropriate
but, i'm gonna say it anyway
but, until debbie heather pointed it out
i didn't really realize i had bags
i've always had the dark circles
and slight troughs, puffiness
it just didn't register
as an age thing
but
since she pointed it out
i've been working on that too
and the right eye's almost completely flat
it's just the pesky left eye that has any puff

so, here's the inappropriate part:

if you still read this, which i hope to god you don't
but if you do

thank you
for your useful feedback

will reading this make him have negative feelings (re, inappropriateness)

why am i feeling you now

I'm not normally all that
charged up in the morning
but
today
I've already toyed with
butter churning
as a metaphor

just come back to bed

this is experimental, so, whatever happens, don't freak out

so
there's still that view

me:  everything i know about you leads me to believe that you want me to be happy.

you:  well, yeah.

me:  and, i mean, you know how much i want to understand, but you never, when you have the opportunity, do anything to make it make any more sense.

at first, i thought that was because you weren't sure.  then i thought it was because you wanted to purposely keep me in the dark.  like, it's a proof that she loves me.  like the uncertainty got you off.  not as a mean-ness thing, but like, a kink.  Well, or that on a sliding scale to fairytale where the prince couldn't talk.

but that all changed a couple years ago.  no more flirting around with uncertainty.  you knew what you wanted, didn't you?

you:  i'm not sure what you mean.

me:  no, i'm not either, exactly.  i'm still figuring it out.  something had to change.

no more tubs of ice.

and this is where the uncertainty became painful, for me.  why would you risk losing me when you clearly didn't need to?

i don't believe you're tongue tied around me, but i do believe you can't trust me not to show my hand.  i mean, you can now i think, but even i am not certain.  plus, there's paranoia and whatnot to factor in.  i get it.  i never blame you for that.  just like i never blame you if you're just letting me believe a bunch of stuff that isn't real--  if it's even fair to say that you're letting me.

i mean, if i am the perfect audience, you gotta let me be invested in the show, right, figuratively speaking.  if i know i'm the muse then it becomes my performance.  to get what you need, you'd have to do that.

you:  and maybe that's what you need too.

me:  yeah, i've thought about that.  but it feels like this game isn't working any more, regardless.  i need to know more.  i can't suspend the disbelief the way i could.  and so i thought i really needed to know what was going on.

i'm not saying quit playing with you.

i think, i'm trying, to write you some dialog.

sunday morning is a good time to go to the grocery store

not in a bad way
the talking
and
nonfunctional doesn't mean not doing anything
I worked all day yesterday that way
I just wasn't good at it
these sinus (I think is what they are)
they're almost migraine-y
everything is bright and
loud

i've had a headache, so bad as to render me largely nonfunctional

there's still that view
and
I was gonna write a conversation
I can largely not picture us
sitting around talking
but
we need to
later
headache not better now
I'll try today

when i see it in my head we're sitting at a japanese table low to the floor

i had a little fantasy last night drifting off to sleep

we were in an apartment in paris
like the one in irma la douse
only the bed was against the side wall
i went out shopping
i came back with fragrant saffron rice
preserved lemons
french pharmacie stuff
twirling in circles
from the excitement of it all
and then
we twirled around together
laughing
and fell into the bed
where
any time you looked up
there was that view
it was
relaxed
and fun
and sweet
like there was, forever

i love you, you know

i want to make sure
you understand
that is
in fact what i dreamed
not thinly veiled
bitching
i'm not making judgements
about bow you should behave
and i always feel weird
when i bring up
issues
i wonder...
to be continued

so, i think i feel you now

and
i did have a dream last night i can tell you about

i was back in college
or, really, not in college
but rather at college

the buildings were all very gray
kind of classical-ish, but maybe a frank lloyd wright inspired version
it was four blocks, long long blocks
with building surrounding a mall
like, ya know, the mall in dc or london

i was exploring the campus

i found
the vending machines near the administration building to have an amazing assortment of really good stuff
while all other vending machines
were an almost complete waste of time

i found some place selling skin care, which advised me to base all
of an 18 step regime around egg products

i had encouraged my co-worker karl to get involved with a theater troop on campus
and now i saw him dressed as a baby chicken
or possibly rubber duckie
dancing around

have you heard this music, he asked
yes, i say
and i start to sing for him so he knows i'm legit
haven't seen the new children's play, though
and adam pops up
you should come see us
we're here every week for a while

i'm not sure where this was supposed to be

i spent a good amount of time this morning
working out
symbols

i still have this fantasy
that you send me dream symbols sometimes
like you want to tell me things
and, like, you just think really hard
what you want to say
and my brain picks up the signal, and interprets

not any crazier than anything else, i guess
poetic license
and
whatnot

i have to start talking again

and i miss you
really a lot
but
i don't know what to think
and
maybe it doesn't matter

i had another dream
i think you were in that one too

but
my foot was super damaged
i thought they were amputating my little toe
but
it turned out, no
the toe stayed
the bulk of the inside of my foot went

and
somehow i got home without after care instructions

was i supposed to do this like my aunts bed sore
basically pour in hydrogen peroxide
stir it up
clean that out
and pack with betadine soaked gauze

i didn't know
there wasn't anything in it now

i had been staying at my mom's
and it wasn't like anyplace we ever lived
it was beautiful
and large

and she wanted me to get out
she had a hook up in the works

i really don't think i can drive myself anywhere
can't i just stay in the front bedroom
it has a bath
i'm not getting around well enough to mess up your hook up
even if i wanted to


i can't remember exactly what you said to me
something like
that you loved me
and you had somebody else
so things were complicated
and, oh yeah
you had moved to a different place
but
even though she was across town
she was watching you like a hawk
and
why was any of that a problem for me

it wasn't such a good dream

i can't remember how i hurt my foot
seriously, it was like just the bones and outer shell
all hollow and scary

nobody seemed to care

are you ok

i just dreamed
you came to my apartment
not this one
everything was different
you were very nervous about being caught
i was younger, naked
i pressed against you
kissed you
you seemed older, slightly frail
the kiss was very tender, but deep
then
as you were leaving
somehow
i was hitting myself with a taser
you pulled it away from me
i grabbed you
and the electricity ran through us
a continuous loop

yes, i thought
just like sex

but then you were being pulled away

is he ok, i asked them
no, he didn't make it
but
you have to save him, i said
i love him
but
you were just a magazine
as i tried to perform cpr

i'm not ignoring you

i'm cycling back, sleepwise
or have been rather
got a promo set this week
i've been feeling you pulling on me
but i guess i'm in a weird headspace
not bad, just not talky
and
i guess part of my problem
is that
i don't know
too much
about you
about me
about us
so i don't know what i want to say

i'm not freaked out
or upset
but i am a little exhausted by life
and
i guess i'm just trying to catch my breath

i hope that makes sense   

i love you

hope
you are happy
and healthy
and
having adventures
i'll write something, soon
but
i don't think
i've figured out a way
to ask you the things i really wanna know

and
i have a bunch of
little stuff
i'd love to tell you
but
i think
it might be boring