BOSS LADY IS MAKING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SO CRAZY I NEED TO WRITE IN ALL CAPS!!!!
BIG ALL CAPS!!!!!
BIG BOLD ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!
BIG BOLD BLUE ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I feel better...
That is all...
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
invisible
This morning I woke up in a crumpled ball in my bed...but couldn't remember why...I burrowed my tongue into my dreams to see if the taste of their scrim could remind me...bitterness, an acidic tang...an old nemesis who has lost his face...dark, the back of his palm, ash...it reached for me...
When I was 25, Jeremiah decided that he wanted me. I had the audacity to think that I had some choice in this and demurred. When he continued to follow me through my days, asking literally without pause would I go out with him, no, would I go out with him, no, would I go out with him, no, please, no...I finally reported him to our supervisors. God knows how he found out who made the report - he asked all the women in the office out, despite his having a wife at home - but he followed me from work that day, followed me to a near-empty parking lot, stood outside my window begging, Please, tell them it wasn't true, pleeease, I'm asking you, his voice a low steady hiss - I should have known - I can't, I said, I can't, It was true, and his arm swung out then, tried to squeeze his fat fingers through the tiny crack of window I had opened...
A few days later, I left work. I remember I walked to my car feeling free. I slid my key into the lock, settled in my seat, spent several minutes going through my purse and fiddling with the items in the passenger seat - a book, a map, a single flip-flop - how could I not have noticed? - then looked up. My windshield was gone.
Another day it was my tires. Not all of them...only 3...why just the 3? Why did the fourth escape him? To show that he had some mercy, maybe, that he could be tender...
One day I walked out of my own house to find a tiny bone garden arranged delicately on the back of my car's trunk. Originally some sort of pentagram, I think, or a sunburst, but the cats had been at it. I called the police, of course, but what could they do? Had we seen him? No. Had anyone ever seen him? No. Then there's nothing...I held up my hand. Nothing, I said, I know. Nothing you can do.
We dubbed him The Invisible Man. I began to feel eyes everywhere. But I couldn't allow myself to be a prisoner. I laughed. I worked. And then, one day, a break...of sorts. I was walking down the street near my house, approaching a stoplight. I glanced at the car waiting...and found The Invisible Man staring back. I froze. He froze. And then...I felt my spine begin to straighten. I glared at him. My hands balled into fists and crept up onto my hips. My chin lifted. I stared so hard that my eyes began to water. And a funny thing happened...as everything in my body grew straight, he began to droop into his seat. He slid down further and further until he was half bent over. He crouched behind the wheel like a little old man. And when the light changed, a miracle. He made a U-turn. He drove away.
My sighting made absolutely no difference legally. There was still no proof that he was in any way connected to my bad fortune. But...after that, it stopped. And I had been alone that day. Who knows what pleasures he had plotted, planned out meticulously beforehand, relished the thought of?
Anyway, last night I dreamed of him. A simple chasing dream. Terror. But this time...there was something else, a new presence. A wholeness, coemergence, we will call it youmedragon. An inviolate sanctity, a circle of protection. Love. It shrouded me in its folds. Those lovely thick velvet folds. And I was safe.
When I was 25, Jeremiah decided that he wanted me. I had the audacity to think that I had some choice in this and demurred. When he continued to follow me through my days, asking literally without pause would I go out with him, no, would I go out with him, no, would I go out with him, no, please, no...I finally reported him to our supervisors. God knows how he found out who made the report - he asked all the women in the office out, despite his having a wife at home - but he followed me from work that day, followed me to a near-empty parking lot, stood outside my window begging, Please, tell them it wasn't true, pleeease, I'm asking you, his voice a low steady hiss - I should have known - I can't, I said, I can't, It was true, and his arm swung out then, tried to squeeze his fat fingers through the tiny crack of window I had opened...
A few days later, I left work. I remember I walked to my car feeling free. I slid my key into the lock, settled in my seat, spent several minutes going through my purse and fiddling with the items in the passenger seat - a book, a map, a single flip-flop - how could I not have noticed? - then looked up. My windshield was gone.
Another day it was my tires. Not all of them...only 3...why just the 3? Why did the fourth escape him? To show that he had some mercy, maybe, that he could be tender...
One day I walked out of my own house to find a tiny bone garden arranged delicately on the back of my car's trunk. Originally some sort of pentagram, I think, or a sunburst, but the cats had been at it. I called the police, of course, but what could they do? Had we seen him? No. Had anyone ever seen him? No. Then there's nothing...I held up my hand. Nothing, I said, I know. Nothing you can do.
We dubbed him The Invisible Man. I began to feel eyes everywhere. But I couldn't allow myself to be a prisoner. I laughed. I worked. And then, one day, a break...of sorts. I was walking down the street near my house, approaching a stoplight. I glanced at the car waiting...and found The Invisible Man staring back. I froze. He froze. And then...I felt my spine begin to straighten. I glared at him. My hands balled into fists and crept up onto my hips. My chin lifted. I stared so hard that my eyes began to water. And a funny thing happened...as everything in my body grew straight, he began to droop into his seat. He slid down further and further until he was half bent over. He crouched behind the wheel like a little old man. And when the light changed, a miracle. He made a U-turn. He drove away.
My sighting made absolutely no difference legally. There was still no proof that he was in any way connected to my bad fortune. But...after that, it stopped. And I had been alone that day. Who knows what pleasures he had plotted, planned out meticulously beforehand, relished the thought of?
Anyway, last night I dreamed of him. A simple chasing dream. Terror. But this time...there was something else, a new presence. A wholeness, coemergence, we will call it youmedragon. An inviolate sanctity, a circle of protection. Love. It shrouded me in its folds. Those lovely thick velvet folds. And I was safe.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
wherein I attempt to exhibit my commitment to blogging by blogging about my fear of commitment
So . . . because you are scurvy with ramble-deficiency and wondering what is happening in my life . . . or more probably just because I need to write . . . I will see what I can remember and report that may be of interest. Or not.
Yesterday was Labor Day, which I celebrated by walking. A lot. My day kind of went like this: Sleep. Sit. Walk. Sleep. Sit. Walk. Shower. Go to bookstore. Sit. Walk. Waste precious hours I could have spent sleeping nattering about on Facebook. Walk. Sleep. Fascinating, yes?
It was good, though. Just a day.
Not sure what to do about my life. I have a few things rolling around in my head but haven’t really zeroed in on a course I feel drawn to. Well, there is one. But I’m waiting for the pull to grow a little more barbed before I admit to myself that I am hooked and reeled in.
Other than that . . . I realized today that I need to commit to a single piece of literature. A friend asked, So what are you reading? and I rattled off about five books that I am dabbling in. That’s my problem. I’m a dabbler. A dilettante. What happened to the commitment of my youth, when I could read an entire Babysitter’s Club novel in a day? {Pause to allow the awestruck gasps to quell.) But seriously, do you feel me, people? Nowadays I read a sentence or a paragraph and then I stop to think. What happened to that me who was all Absorption? When did Reflection hijack everything?
So . . . enough outposts from my demented psyche . . . back to filtering out all the mung and gunk I like to hold up and call a self, and trying to see if there is any nubbin of basic goodness lost in there somewhere. Life is just easier when we think about other people, isn’t it?
Yesterday was Labor Day, which I celebrated by walking. A lot. My day kind of went like this: Sleep. Sit. Walk. Sleep. Sit. Walk. Shower. Go to bookstore. Sit. Walk. Waste precious hours I could have spent sleeping nattering about on Facebook. Walk. Sleep. Fascinating, yes?
It was good, though. Just a day.
Not sure what to do about my life. I have a few things rolling around in my head but haven’t really zeroed in on a course I feel drawn to. Well, there is one. But I’m waiting for the pull to grow a little more barbed before I admit to myself that I am hooked and reeled in.
Other than that . . . I realized today that I need to commit to a single piece of literature. A friend asked, So what are you reading? and I rattled off about five books that I am dabbling in. That’s my problem. I’m a dabbler. A dilettante. What happened to the commitment of my youth, when I could read an entire Babysitter’s Club novel in a day? {Pause to allow the awestruck gasps to quell.) But seriously, do you feel me, people? Nowadays I read a sentence or a paragraph and then I stop to think. What happened to that me who was all Absorption? When did Reflection hijack everything?
So . . . enough outposts from my demented psyche . . . back to filtering out all the mung and gunk I like to hold up and call a self, and trying to see if there is any nubbin of basic goodness lost in there somewhere. Life is just easier when we think about other people, isn’t it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
