nite chat: 4:13

so
no coffee + toast today
and i fucked up the dates for the poem
i guess, technically, it doesn't matter
what the date is on the nite chat

i've been floating around
doing stuff
trying to avoid writing something
about my childhood
i really don't want to
but
that seems to be what's coming up
also
trying to see if i could get soy milk
faster on amazon/whole foods
and i could
but tuesday

ok
so i'm gonna tell you the kid-hood thing
when i was like
second grade
my grandmother gave me money
like for a present
idk if it was birthday
or what
but
it happened a couple a times
so, not just birthday

and
i don't know what my mother's
visiting schedule was
but
at that point we were not going to the mall
every other thursday, yet
so, whatever

i didn't really have access to shopping
i couldn't just go buy something
and, anyway
i was very ration-y with things
when i was a kid
so i probably wouldn't have spent it anyway
but
i put it in my chest of drawers
like in the sock drawer or somethin
for safe keeping
and
like i said this happened more than once

they took it
i don't mean jason
i mean my father and deborah
deborah just took it
i think she admitted to taking it
i didn't need it, she did, that was the end of it

my father
said he was gonna pay me back
but he never did

i've been seeing that apartment in my head a lot
recently, it was a pretty nice one
compared to where we lived after that
but
the place we lived after that
we stayed a long time
like when i left
after fourth grade
they still lived there
previously
i think we had moved about every six months

that was where we lived when i had chicken pox
where i used to make myself the mustard toast
when i came home after school
when i was hungry

i can see it all so clearly
in my head

when i had the chicken pox
my mother had bought rodeo tickets
i must have wanted to go
but i don't remember who we were going to see
but then i got sick and we couldn't go

she returned the tickets
i was shocked
i didn't think you could do that
oh yeah, she said
i just told them that i bought tickets
and my husband bought tickets
for the same night
and, of course, we couldn't use them both

so you lied?!
i said
again shocked
i was, let's see, it would have been
rodeo, so like january or february
second grade it would have been around my birthday
and so i would have just turned 8, like 1975
yeah, that seems right

my mother didn't
at that particular juncture
i don't think
have a husband
and
there was no second set of tickets, regardless

what do you mean, she asked
oh, i see
lying is fine
nothing wrong with lying
if you need to get your money back

later she would addendum this
with the additional axiom
lying is fine if it's none of their business

but
you better not ever lie to me


cussing
i may have told you this story
i had heard somebody call deborah a bitch
and i held that word tightly
until the next time i could sit in my closet
and say
she's a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
that was maybe later that same year
or early the next one
i felt like the word had some power

but
it was a gateway word, i'm afraid
because by the time i was eleven
my favorite string of cuss
was
that sucks big green donkey dicks!
like literally
i said that a lot
and
everyone was a fuckwad

now
by the time i was in ninth grade
i had had to clean up my act a little
because i was in a catholic school
and
the next year i was in pva
so i cussed
but
more sparingly

when i cussed in front of my aunt
she said
don't let your gran gran hear you
it would kill her
i don't care
just don't get pregnant

when my mom heard me cuss
she said
where did you learn to cuss
i said
from you

that seemed to satisfy her
and there was no further conversation about it


i'm sorry
i really didn't want to

also
i've gotten four speeding tickets
the first one
i got the day i started working for starbucks
it was a speed trap (sort of)
you know how signs are usually on the right
well, this one was on the left
in the esplanade
and
i didn't see it
so that would have been 1995
i was 28

the next one
was also a speed trap
i had gone on a road trip
and sarah and her kid were in the back seat
and she was screaming
incessantly
and i was distracted
and i didn't see the sign
coming in to a small town around texarkana

then
the third and fourth ones
were on trips to see you
both were near ozona texas
which is out in the middle of nowhere, nowhere

oh, shit, i forgot
i had a very expensive and dramatic one
that i don't think was any of those four, i don't think
i'm not positive about that though
also on a trip to see you

i was driving on the highway
and there weren't too many people
there was this one person
and we were playing leapfrog
just to stay interested, i think
it wasn't an exciting drive
so
they would speed up
and cut in front of me
and then i would speed up
and cut in front of them

i didn't feel like we were doing anything dangerous
but, i mean, we were not going slow
then somebody came right up behind me
and i sped up
and
it turned out to have been a cop
and he gave me a very expensive ticket
because
he'd been watching all that leapfrog
and that was something like
reckless aggressive driving
as well as speeding

and
when he explained it to me
he was very nice
and he said i could contest it
but
i'm like
no, you're absolutely right
i didn't see it that way
but
we weren't leaving enough space
and it could have been really bad
i couldn't possibly contest it
i'm guilty
he seemed
honestly
really sorry to be giving me the ticket

no i'm quite certain that was a fifth one

he told me i really should use cruise control
and i have resolved to do that
since
but
it really takes the fun out of driving
i really like to go

i can't remember where that was
i always said
i have speeded (sped?)
all across the country
but only gotten tickets in texas
but
i'm not sure where that last one was
i can't remember
i'm about 75% sure that that was texas too

one time i drove through el paso
like on the main freeway through town
like early in the morning
and there were like ten cop cars catching speeders
the whole state is a fucking speed trap

ok
sorry
gonna go dose up
and write a poem