post the ninety-eighth, 2013

don't threaten me.
i have a full tank of gas.
i'll drive away into the
pimento cheese is delicious.
have you tried it?
aunt marge said she made it with
a thousand tiny butterflies
were in the grass
this morning when i woke to
the denim jacket in the closet
might fit you
if you want to try it on
a beach in tijuana
is where i'll be
when i empty this tank of gas.

post the ninety-seventh, 2013

you can put it in a box
a small box
(it's small)
you can put it in a box
and tie it with a ribbon
i don't care

you can tuck it between
the pages of a book
you can tuck it between
the socks in a drawer
you can tuck it between
the bricks
where the crack is
in the chimney
you can
i don't care

it belongs to you now
you can do with it
as you please

i don't care

post the ninety-sixth, 2013

yesterday we bought some outdoor plants and today we planted them. abelias. nandinas. monkey grass. some other kind of ornamental grass that's tall (switchgrass maybe). and one other ground cover that we thought we would like but now not so sure. oh, and 4 tomato plants for the neighbour. so? lots of planting. and while we were planting i thought, at various times:

-- the ground is sure dusty for having rained a good bit not that long ago.
-- if you were dropped in the middle ages with a weedeater, they'd not know what to make of you.
-- i am probably getting sunburnt.
-- does this count as exercise.
-- these new gloves are the bomb.
-- hope these plants will be happy here.
-- how does the weed killer know not to kill this weed-looking ground cover that i am so painstakingly planting.
-- i like the smell of dirt.
-- there are a lot of worms in our yard.
-- we have shovels and we have hoes. haha. hoes.
-- dead bush-branches can really damage your skin.
-- this place had lots of trees and they tore all that out to build these houses and now here we are putting things back in.
-- whistling while you work is difficult if you aren't a good whistler.
-- plants don't know they're ugly.

post the ninety-fifth, 2013

you can find me on 

the strong side of stupid

the smart side of loopy

the sane side of weakness

if you see what

i mean

on the bright side of cruel

on the kind side of cool 

on the warm side of darkness

that's where i'll be

post the ninety-fourth, 2013

the other day i noticed myself getting bread out of the loafbag. why did i notice? who the hell knows. just the sort of quick out-of-body self-noticement that happens to me like four times a minute.

anyway.

i noticed that to get the two-slice allotment of bread from the loafbag, i do this rhythmic reach-flick-pull action. into the loafbag empty-handed and out again with two slices, all in one motion. the motion's not useful for anything else, and it's not learned, taught, or documented. it just IS. over time, i've adapted to the environment and developed an efficient process for a rote task.

um... what's the point, ace?

point is - once i started paying attention, i noticed several of these little adaptations.

at work, i do this thing going into the bathroom stall where i shut the door and simultaneously throw the latch. it's kind of a talent, if you think about it.

at home, my bathroom has a narrow door. i do this thing going in where i end up backing in. i am still not sure how i do this, but apparently it's so i don't have to turn around in the small room. i will let you know if i figure out what i am doing.

when i get in the car, i do this thing where i adjust the seat and activate the garage door opener simultaneously. that one is pretty cool.

anyway.

see what i'm saying? it's like the opposite of where people pull coke machines over on themselves. it's the good darwin awards.

post the ninety-third, 2013

today i was perusing medium.com looking for something interesting to read and ran across this post called "the next facebook". okay. i'll bite.

i was a relatively early fb adopter... well, i mean, i was long out of college when fb was invented, but as soon as they started letting in people with non-college-emails, i signed up. i was quite excited about it - excited, enthusiastic. i was wanting to get everyone i knew on the thing... but then, it didn't take long to see that it could easily get out of hand. i tried to control what was happening, but then it happened - worlds collided. i shut things down the next day and didn't look back.

i saw the potential for good and for bad in fb, and it lived up to my worst expectations. but, still, i was an enthusiastic early adopter. i am willing to give something facebookie a try, so the title "the next facebook" caught my eye. it's here: https://medium.com/musings-about-text-boxes/8157c364d26a. you're welcome to go read it.

what i want to talk about right now is a specific line from the piece. mr miller wrote:

However, interacting with "strangers" online is (resoundingly) not something that "normal" people do often, if ever.

um... okay. well. i am willing to admit i am not normal, sure, but exactly how not-normal am i. hmm... let's see. well. i not only interact with strangers online, i seek out interaction with strangers. oh, shut up. not like THAT. c'mon. it's like this -- there's a limited number of people in the world with whom i agree. agree on what? anything. everything. nothing. something. whatever. all of it. and? i can count on one hand the people who are in that group. and? i met half of them online. i mean, not only do i hang out with them online, i actually met them online, and not only did i meet them online, i sought them out online.

seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

post the ninety-second, 2013

if i knocked on your door
would you answer?
if it was late -
like at two or at four,
would you come to the door in your pjs
to see what my knocking was for?

when the sea is as cold
as an iceberg,
and i jump from
the bridge to the shore,
would you come to the sea in your pjs
to see what my jumping was for?

if i call out your name
in the darkness,
at midnight or
minutes before,
would you come to my side in your pjs
to see what my calling was for?

when my heart is as cold
as an iceberg,
and i need you
like never before,
would you lie by my side in your pjs
and thaw out my heart evermore?

post the ninety-first, 2013

post the ninetieth, 2013

then it goes dark
it goes radio dark
it goes silent
then it goes silent
dark
it goes dark
it goes radio dark
it goes silent
then it goes silent
then
it goes dark
it goes radio dark
it goes silent
then it goes
silent

post the eighty-ninth, 2013

so i ran a few times last week and it went pretty well, and i was thinking maybe i'd cram some training and run a 5k on memorial day, then - boom. foot pain. sheesh. it seems to have plateaued at sort of an "okay" level. like, it's maybe 65% or so, up to like 85. it's never 100% but it's never less than 50... it doesn't enjoy running a lot but it doesn't enjoy resting a lot, either. the main bad feeling is this hot buzzing on the outside under my ankle bone up to the outside of the arch...

this is not my footsie.

...okay, i found a picture. this is not my foot, but it's well-marked. see the 5th metatarsal base? if i put both hands just above there and around the circumference of my foot and squeeze like i'm juicing my toes... ahhhh.... relief. the only other way to get relief is an ice-water dunk.

but that's just when it's buzzing, and it doesn't buzz all the time. but you know the bottom line here -- training for 5k's is out of the question right now.




GAH!!

post the eighty-eighth, 2013

did you know that when they fit you for prostheses, it's not a one-time thing? for the first six months or so after the original fitting, they tighten and tighten it down until the point where it can be replaced by a more-permanent piece. why? because during those months, your unused muscles shrink bit by bit until you're left with the stub you'll be left with.

hmm? what's that? don't want to talk about it?

well, you can look away, can't you.

i was listening to npr the other day, and they had a story about one of the people injured by the bombing at the boston marathon. she's a woman, about my age, lost both her legs. she talked about letting her anger go, not letting the bombers have that power over her life, and i hope for her sake that's actually possible. her grown daughter was injured, too, lost a foot, i believe. the daughter was having more of a struggle with her anger. it's only natural.

the mom's doctor talked about the injuries and fitting the prostheses, which is where i got that info above. then, he said a major concern is "not to let the patient lose her aerobic fitness". that just struck me like a fucking ton of bricks, like oh my god. was she a runner? one of the marathon runners? oh my god.

i mean, okay, not like there's a difference - one person or another, legs are legs, i completely get that -- that's not what i am talking about. i am talking about a fellow runner, a lady my age. do you have any idea how difficult it is to hold onto aerobic fitness when you get this age? no, you probably don't. well, it's much harder than it was 20 or 10 or even 5 years ago. it just gets harder and harder, and if you care about it at all, you cherish it every day and nurture it every day. it's like a thing, like a concrete thing, like a pet or something. to think about losing it. shit.

but more than anything -- there she was at that place on that day, and that was her last time to stand on those legs. just like that. plans for another marathon? oh, sorry. tae-bo? yeah... no. thinking about that ballet class? think again.

damn.

i don't know... just don't put shit off, is all.

post the eighty-seventh, 2013

this wasn't how it was supposed to work out.

i mean, in addition to the marathon itself having a different result.

part of what i wanted was to gain some group to run with.

i saw some ladies running around town this morning.

two were wearing matching shirts.

one had a dog, on a leash.

that looked pretty fun.

i just wanted a part of that, is all.

post the eighty-sixth, 2013

how do you want to do this?
we'll call it neutral, right here.
this is the line,
don't step over the line.
neutral. right here.

so that's how you want to do this -
call it neutral, right here?
this is the line,
don't step over the line?
neutral? right here?

yeah, that's how i want to do this.
call it neutral, right here.
this is the line,
don't step over the line.
neutral. right here.

post the eighty-fifth, 2013

on the left, there's that double-scar from where i stepped on nails. you remember. we'd had a lot of rain, the drainage ditches were full, all us kids were messing about in the muddy water. it's all fun & games until someone gets hurt, right? a puncture near my toe and a gash in my arch, lots of tears but not so much blood. mama called the doctor because she didn't have anything to clean it with (dirty water and whatnot) and he said, pour mouthwash on it. the left ankle's been broken and it's currently battling tendinitis. the left knee's got this scar from the halloween when the jessons were passing out full-size snicker bars. so excited to have scored a full-size snickers, i charged down the sidewalk -- snickers! snickers! -- to where mama was waiting in the car, when bam! down i went, felled by a gypsy skirt. my knee hit the aggregate (EVERYone had brown river-rock aggregate walks in that neighborhood) -- my knee hit the aggregate with the full force of 9-yr old excitement and my joy turned to tears. no mouthwash was harmed at this juncture, but i did earn a wallop of a scar.

on the right there's no real excitement until the knee, where there's still slight, slight evidence of the "screw bump". oh, c'mon. get your mind out of the gutter. it happened when we still lived up north, so i was less than 5 years old. we were at the playground and i was on the jungle gym. you remember those half-dome erector-set contraptions that were a staple of playgrounds back in the day. yeah, one of those. i was up there climbing around, and came down too hard on my right knee. it didn't hurt too bad, but i was still teary over it. i distinctly remember mama saying it was cool to have a scar because that meant you had a story. she named it "screw bump" (oh, stop it.) because a screw made a bump on my knee.

there are other less "hollywood" scars - soccer injuries mostly - and currently a couple bruises, a patch of severely dry skin, a couple hefty calluses, one plantar wart, and one half-missing toenail. even the minor stuff has stories, but i won't bore you with all that.

the point is -- part of my history is written in my skin, and part of that skin is on my feet and legs. missing feet and legs can be replaced by prosthetic devices, sure, but how do you replace missing history?




(this is dedicated to all those who lost limbs when bombs went off in boston on 15 april of this year.)

post the eighty-fourth, 2013

today you have a sadness in your eyes -
like memory of love that you have lost.
on other days you cover better -
batten down your soul against me,
hiding.
but today you didn't see that i was watching.
today you didn't see the way i saw.
you were merely living, eating,
reading all your morning papers,
unguarded.

it only takes a moment,
when you let down your defenses,
for me to climb inside
and breathe ice
on your heart.