"The opposite of love...is indifference"

Watch out, when you eat the tears
you're a goner.
I've said it a thousand times,
but it just won't stop being true.
***

"What can you do but go on
pretending not to wait?"

Julianne said when she was 92.
***

The bedroom is stale again
without your back to breathe.
***

I'm stealing this style from a man named Ace
who knew me before and beyond.
***

Your face is a crowded station.
***

Your hair was my sanctuary
but you always had a complaint about the way I looked.
My love drowned you and wasn't love.
***

The problem is

(He was afraid of the master's horses.

his owner skinned him
and made an

odd

colored

saddle.)

These are not just ghost stories.

why hello bone-crushing headache. would you like to help me eat some of my cafeteria nacho cheese in a styrafoam ramikin? Perhaps together we can do some exploratory surgery on the sub across the hall to determine whether or not she has a heart. She would rather be at home "training my horses." So, uh, why are you here?

in other news, jealousy is a real pain in the tuckus. Also, manipulation. Feeling manipulated by and manipulating my partner = no no no no no no. And yet it happens.

this is my LJ acct. post but guess who's posting it publicly so that it also goes to facebook where everyone in tarnation as well as this tarnation can read it? who makes it public? Me. It's what I do.

hahah, I wish you could have seen the sub's face just now when she came in complaining and I told her I'd be happy to take both her class and mine if she wanted to go home.

I think reading "The House of Leaves" is beginning to affect my writing style and may be partially responsible for the headaches. damn that Truant and his Thumper.

I can't tell if I'm grateful or angry. if I can let it go or if I need time to be alone. my house, at which you are not, needs attention. things need to be cleaned, washed, laundered. do you hear me?

e.e. cummings says that a lot, "do you hear me?"

working too much. tired today. my father's mother died yesterday. no more living grandparents. bit of a funk, but not too bad. It just feels like my heart is elsewhere, and like this is the last of the blessedly vague pain. Only devastating, up-close-and-personal pain from now on. Craig (dad) is fine, mostly. But I imagine his heart is doing the occasional swan dive.

I'm finding it difficult to use my voice today. I'm as quiet and retiring as I have ever been in the classroom. I suppose at some point I may have to explain the reason, because students are certainly used to me being more *present.* But really, that might just cause sadness, and invite inapropriate conversations. But, I have also learned that it's no good to try to fake a happy face in the classroom. The insincerity clouds up the place. Eh, one good thing about teaching is its extemporaneous nature. One figures it out on the go, and it generally works out ok.

I'm reading the "Three Pillars of Zen." Thoroughly enjoying. Even just reading the thing is a form of meditation.

Anyway, most boring post evAR, and I'm totally going to post it publicly. muah-hah-hah?

word, to the mother,

marged

PS: today is apparently all about having seizures every ten minutes. wtf epilepsy. They seem to be receding now, but there is a nasty ache in my jaw where I clenched it pretty hard during a little one. No-one's noticed them, and I've alerted the v.p. and the principal, all the students and the nearby teachers-- so there IS a plan should anything happen. but, really, i think it may be a good thing that the summer is almost here. I'm not good at working both a day and a night job. But, then, I'm not good when I'm too idle, either. What I need is one job, a daily workout routine, someone to cook with me every night, and a bedtime of 11pm. Looks like summer will be the time to implement and concrete said post-work routines. And maybe autumn will come with a salaried teaching job (oh plz) and a new abode. maybe.

PPS(!): Sarah Kennedy had a great idea yesterday, wherein I start contributing small amounts of each paycheck to the paypal acct. They may take a fee out, but still-- it's a safe way to make certain i keep the pot growing and actually get out to Seattle. Tangible evidence of progress. A good thing.

big props and thanks out to mr. ridethesainted!

THANK YOU!!!!

ooh! and from tats! these are AWESOME. can't believe i've never seen them before:
( Read more... )
aww!

so, I'm posting the comment I left her (she's donated to me, why I'm not sure but I am not looking no gift horse in its mouf) as well as a donation button. This post is public and is the last time I'll post the donation button.

A birthday trip to seattle in July? I honestly would not have thought it possible without sgtred. Thank you, girl.

"i can't even believe what an awesome gesture this is. I will begin raising money to match what is raised here. I have a silk gown from the 30s that I need to get pressed, and then I think I can sell it for $100.

If each side can raise 350$ I'm set. And, OMFG, Lehanna, What a Sweet Visit it Would be.

i honestly am so stoked about the idea of getting to see the sound again, I get a little squishy. f*ing dick's french fries. pho. bus 79 through U Dist to Ravenna...

SIGHHHH. you have no idea what it means that anyone would be able and willing to help this become reality. Please pass it on? I need the help, but I will keep posted with how much money I'm raising too. Hopefully, if we can get even two hundred bucks into the donation box it should be enough to get me there, if I can raise 400, myself. Anything helps. I think I will post this comment, too. Thank you, Sgt!!"

The Scar
from "i carry your heart with me" by e.e. cummings

As usual,
I'm late.
The car's all right, though.
I've picked up Charles Wright again
and the trees have picked up the sun,
the water;

the water,
I said to Jimmy,
is my favorite place to play.
Together we washed
the blue off the brushes and talked
while the others painted around their stars
("paint *around* your stars," she intoned.)

Paint around the stars.

I'm late in saying, but
(listen,
I know our magic
utopia;

when spring makes it back,
you come to mind--

and summer
the year I turned fifteen.

The summer I turned fifteen I was a jerk [some things never change],
but you covered me with kisses, you covered me,
turned my sad little heart to yours and)

(and the only way to thank you
is ask you to hear
"and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart,"
only way to gratitude
asking another favor.)

I love you.

(cred to sgtred)





So, basically, whenever you feel depressed, stop chomping on your leg for a second and watch the cutest thing to step out of popular culture since, um...ever? I'm positively giddy from the high levels of Adorable.

"But the Monarch Replied-- if you were a Man of Sense..."
(from Flatland, by Edwin Abbott)

Coupling is the answer to nothing.
Better to end in an old tuxedo,
saving frozen dinners to bequeath the nurse.

My lover respected his mother,
but then
his mother was respectable;
my lover forgave his father,
but then,
his father admitted wrongdoing;

last night it struck me
he'll call when he weds.
Who cares, really?

What's happened to the irises,
paper purple neon in the sun,
to tributary-fed birches
peeling against the freeze?

How ashamed I am.

...from wtf_nature:



retractable jaw FTW

oh Bob. sweetest man to ever come in a package of snark. thank you, bob.

ew. that sounded so wrong.

i fucking love this piece. is that strong language for a public post? Well, I'm not student teaching anymore, so...fuck it!

woo! that really feels good. whatever keeps one moving, I reckon...

enjoy:

while writing a letter to Lorna, this truth came out:

"I often look into puddles expecting to see a well."

well, heavens, that came from nowhere, but, uh: good insight.

I dream about a great party in Dirty Jesus's honor last night.

Also, after waking at 2am and thinking about granddad's last moments, dry lips pulled back while he moans, "goddamnyouyousunnofabitch," I dream about being taught the art of re-animation by vodun mages with no skin on their bodies. You dig up the cured body, prop it on a tall wooden stake, and stand well back. When you start to see a spot of blood widening around the stake upon which the corpse is impaled...

two days ago I dream you present me with a demure pear-cut engagement ring, and I'm wearing that white skirt again. You have a backpack on, which is strange.

just watched Wall-E. have we visited the theme of my furiously clanging biological clock,recently?

finished with finals. back to the lit. review.

in lieu of gifts, big homemade christmas cards filled with esoteric quotes. Those of youthat got them a few years back know what I'm talking about. I think "fire" will be the theme for this year.

there is socializing happening outside this door but I want none of it. Anti-social Marged is anti-social.

Since the debacle, I find myself feeling empty, in a nice way. My energy is all mine again, and I feel like guarding it against scrutiny, and against those who would take it, use it.

it just feels good to be alone.

hey there, everyone.

just did a bit of a trim-- only those people who never or rarely post themselves. It's totally nothing personal. Some fun and interesting writing/happening has been coming out of me lately, and making the f-list feel a bit more secure just feels right. If you have been trimmed, and don't want to be, just let me know and I'll add you back in :)

love
gedged

"G Flat Thirteenth, Augmented Ninth"
in the style of e.e. cummings

Don't worry about the roses. It's inevitable, and
don't worry about the cancer.

Don't sweat the day it was too much
you had to go
we all do
and don't worry about the stains
or the money
I don't care
can you hear me
and your moods can't spoil me do you get it
nothing can spoil any worse
it's already done
old man I carry you

1. OW.

2. OW.

3. & 4. ...

5. ow.

6. Granddad was a good guy. I never gave him enough credit for the attempts he made to be in our lives, despite the tragedy that broke him.

7. In 1971, my mother's mother was hit by a train driving to, or from, Deltron.( Read more... )

Part Six in which we look at a picture from 1983 and try to look at baths

I used to love both showers and baths...well, after I hated baths as a baby. Put this way, there was a blissful time of life between the ages 2 and 4 when I stopped being scared of and started being fascinated by water. I also loved showers during this time. My parents would get in the shower and yell, "Marged! Get in here!" It was a way to cut down on bathing time. This, in the days when the bathroom door was always open, I'd run in and hop in the shower with my parents. No shame of nakedness, no fear. Until the day spider came out of the drain. Maybe it was because I was shorter than them, so it seemed bigger. In any case, the spider caused me to scream, ceaselessly, for...a while. And it caused me to not take a shower again until I was about 11. This stubbornness also meant that, when I didn't WANT to eat the cow tongue, I was happy to sit in the dining room with it until midnight, until my father began weeping and gave in. Maybe showers would have helped me, but I felt I did fine without them. My parents disagreed.
They had my sister "show" me how to shower once when I was eight. By then we'd moved from the farm to the city and we had TWO bathrooms. The one upstairs had a bath tub, but one night, one night they refused to let me go upstairs, pushed me into the downstairs bathroom, and shut the door behind them. I could hear them talking on the other side of the door:

"Well, maybe she doesn't know it's safe."

"She's just being a baby." (This from my father)

"Maybe she needs someone to show her that it's easy to do and doesn't hurt..." (This from my mother. I respected her concern, but had to scoff nonetheless. What she couldn't "get" was that it wasn't about whether the shower was safe at any given time, but whether it *could* be unsafe at any given time. I knew it could, at any time, prove itself full of spiders or who knows what-all, so it wasn't worth doing.) "...Caitlin!"

(I hear my big sister tramping down the stairs]

"Caitlin, do you mind taking a shower to show Marged that showers are ok?"

...After a little negotiation, I am made to stand outside the shower while my sister showers
and loudly declaims how safe it is.
( Read more... )

I Miss the Softness

of cotton against my face,
the softness
of his temple, his finger, his neck
the hollow my skull called "home."
I miss the softness of feeling beautiful
since he believed I was,
the rounding flush of love on my skin.

I miss the restraint, conforming
to his annoyance, miss being a help,
untying the tangle of this or that.

I miss the noises made in sleep, little whisper
as if to say, "touch me here,
a hand on my neck and one on my hip."
I was as a boatswain, guiding him methodically
through inky water I imagine
moving like bells below the earth.

I miss watching the back of his head
as the sun crowned a new day.
His mussed hair or his bald head a cradle
of yet-to-learn.
I have yet to meet a man who doesn't love to be held this way,
and I miss the softness...