poetic argument, real and imagined

seriously? seriously.

the car we could barely afford two summers ago,
with three years of payments
you've got left to go,
that you insisted upon having,
your sign of sportiness,
of i-have-arrived-and-am-i-still-cool?-
i think-yes-iness,
the damn thing with a payment that's keeping us from having a decent college fund for the kids,
and making you eat even worse than the average newly-single male--
and the blasted custom*1 cargo-box on the roof
that you just had to have,
maybe even more than the car itself,

you put a
SHARE THE ROAD WITH BICYCLES bumper sticker on the cargo-box
flagged on either side with gargantuan*2 iridescent gold mud flap girls.

wow, turning thirty-nine must have been harder for you than it looks.

no. no. no.
you cannot drive around our conservative town
with our seven- and two-year-old sons with that literally hanging over their heads.

NO.
Gnombot. seriously.
That is unacceptable.

[glances over his shoulder
toward what
I have great Faith
is a replica of
or an homage to
a sticker arrangement
he saw
at the races
he competed in*3
last weekend]

You may not pick up B. from school with that.
it is totally inappropriate.

you don't have a sense of humor?

Gnombot,
he'd have to be about twelve or thirteen
to understand the irony of that.
[sure it's fucking clever.
you thrive on approval
from strangers--
the ones who are
thin enough
fast enough
witty enough
just a little bit different
but not too much like
crazy katiri.

and you can't maintain
that desperate display in an attempt at coolness ,
and be a decent dad
role model
whatever
with that junk on your car.
they and their peers are too young
to get it.
and did i mention the choking desperation
that surrounds you?]

ooooooo-kay.

Put D. on the potty when you get home;
he hasn't pooped yet.
he pooped around this time yesterday
on the potty.
Yes, you did!
You sweet little man!
beat.
He needs a bath.

I'll take him swimming*4.

ummm, Do you have light jacket for him?

I think you have about three.
Do some laundry and get some clothes
for them back over here.

[pissy look. ]

[yeah, I'm still in your life,
up your ass,
telling you right from wrong,
when to take the kid to shit on the toilet,
that you shall bathe him today,
and that you have to do laundry,
you foolish, petty, insecure,
no-longer-fucking-this-hot-mother
Motherfucker.]

bye bye baby, see you tomorrow.
i love you!

[I am a
foolish, petty, insecure,
no-longer-fucking-
that-seriously, has she gotten hotter?-
hot-mother-
of-my-two-sons
Motherfucker.]

[yes.
Yes, I am actually hotter.
and I have lost about 15 pounds aching over you.
And, Yes, yes,
yes you are
foolish
petty
insecure.
But we can still be friends.]

[I know.]

[loveyoubye]

[byebeautiful]

[you're such a dumbfuck.]

[I said, I know.
Stop dwelling.]

[right on.]

see you tomorrow then.
[totally gonna keep those stickers on
and just
not
drive the kids around
with the cargo box up there.]

[that's fine.]

[i hardly believe that--

[--which is good
because you take pleasure
in thinking you're
"getting away with it."
shit, you're boring.

thirty-nine, huh?]

[thirty-nine.
thanks for hating my mustache so fervently.]

[no trouble at all!
you looked like
an avid model train hobbyist
/slash/
child abductor*5]

[I know.
look, now that we're divorced
let's do this less often.]

[sure, just lose the
'ironic' i'm sporty-funny-and-open-minded
please suck on me
sticker setup]

[right on.
thanks again.]

[loveyoubye
for real this time,
i have things to do
things that don't involve you]

[so jealous.
byeagainbeautifulgirl.
damn i miss you]

NOTES
*1- extraordinarily expensive accessory for the vehicle we didn't need
*2- 12-14 inches in height.
*3- three triathlons in three days.
*4- in the pool at his desolate apartment complex.
*5- it was so terrible that i miss it.

My Delight

I would be so pleased to have some questions from readers, ala MindfulMama's idea.

My mind-body-spirit are all in excellent form, and I even know why! I think that being open with my close family and friends, and having some anonymice (that's the plural of anonymouse, which is what I call my semi-anonymous online friends who can't help but love the me they think they know, which, actually is the me that I am at my bestest!) has been so very helpful.



My Gentlemanfriend and I had a fun/relaxing weekend together.

Tasty,
meaningful,
inspiring,

food,
conversation,
sex.

randomize and repeat.

and take a walk in the park sometime inbetween.

oh my fleurs!

dreams
are the wings
with which
we soar.

i bought a graduation card for Lenka. that's what is says on the cover. it's really corny, but she loves birds and bird-imagery. there is an eagle flying through a field of clouded paisley.

message inside:

fly high--
a future
of endless
possibilities
awaits.

Congratulations, Graduate.

the message is justified to the right.

why?

just because, okay?

I cleaned out seven bags/purses today. Came up with

• 5 tampons
• 4 pantiliners
• 4 hair accessories
• 1 hairbrush
• 1 bottle of lube (been looking all over!)
• 5 toddler toys of high-interest but low-attachment level
• 1 marker
• 1 crayon
• 2 colored pencils
• 4 pencils
• 5 pens
• 2 magazines (from 2009 and 1962)
  

and here's how pathetically broke-ass I am: between 7 purses and bags, i found a whopping

• twenty cents

I wasn't in it for the money, but, really?

really?

I love you, I really love you.

This one's for my dearest of friends.
To You
--Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me.
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,
farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,
suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus
of gold-color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself
all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from
yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully
to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing
the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense
and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent
dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,
passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing
is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are
picks its way.

honey, I am tired.

and Delilah's latest post is incredible. I am so jealous.

I did leave a comment about Chuck (remember that, Ollie?), but I may work on that story in greater detail for y'all. It explains my pre-Matrix, pre-Columbine Murders aversion to loose, dark trenchcoats.

freedom

freedom from or freedom to . . .

"freedom from" is from the negative stuff, like from illegal search and seizure.

"freedom to" is the to participate in, create, engage, be proactive, like to petition the government.

yes, we have been discussing the bill of rights at school.

i had the students rank their favorites, and Lenka's was #9. I had summarized it as "But that's not all!"

we all get the freedom from part at a young age. but what do you relish the freedom to do?

I am free to love, to express myself, to wander Lincoln Square for hours without feeling too guilty since the boys are with the Gnom-bot anyway. Free to let myself go, free FROM harassing myself into a negative space.

prayer

sometimes people to whom I am supposedly close, they don't know what matters most to me. and then, my sister-in-law's grandmother, who reminds me so much of my departed Grammy, tells me she's been thinking about me, and I ask her to pray for me. which is so crazy considering. . . i left the catholic church "officially" in 2004 when I lost babyeike . . . and she is old school with a capital K in the middle of school . ..

but I pray for god, however we can define it, to be my strength.

if you haven't prayed in awhile, and you've been thinking, worrying about me, give something new a shot. say a prayer! as my denomination has posited, "Is God keeping you from going to church?" -- my lack of a comprehensible god has kept me from praying for years now . . . i follow along with a minister's prayer, and i hook into the essence of god now and then, usually when i am worried that i am about to pass out and die (i've come close, you know). . . here's my prayer, you can pray it too, till you hear the words God has been telling you.

Let God be my Strength, I'll take it; I'll use it,
Let God be my Air my Food my Water my Thoughts my Ears my Mind my Motor my Ink
my Mind my Skin my Shelter.
Let God be my Body my Spirit my Companion my ledge to wedge along my Love
my Connection my Care my Joy

God, let God be my Patience, my Compassion my Blanket
my Filter my Paper my Rest my Amusement
Let God be Relief, a comforting touch, a soft kiss, a fifty dollar bill,
a well-earned wrinkle, a kinky gray hair

Let God be my Rock, my Friend, my Destination/my Journey
let God set me forth on my journey back home to god life earth salt light sincerity.

God be my Strength. God be my Weight. God be my Reps and my Rest between Sets.

God be blasphemer, pornographer, whore.
God, teach me beyond this Enough what awaits is, More.
More to feel More to love More to look on and hear; more to take without guilt, more to give without fear.

God accept me.
God keep me, or if ya think, let me go-
God send Me out soon to be
a Lamp in the darkness and guide Our circle home.

on being, and being with, a —

jameson and bacardi . . . not a good combo! I can not hold my liquor. WHY did I take that shot? total peer pressured, already too tipsy to think it through moment. one of the many ways in which I am a pussy. at least i had the mind to puke a portion of it up before the trip home.

now, I don't use this word in a derogatory fashion too often, because I love my pussy. It's fantastic. But, what do I do about someone who is, ya know, kinda being one? A wimp, a not-macho-enough-even-by-my-embarrassingly-low-standards young gentleman? I call this fellow young, when he is in fact older than I. But never married, no kids, never even lived with someone or thought about engagement? As my dearest Jameson&Soda slurping whore said last night, "Every time you say that he's nice I wanna punch him in the face!"

I told him to buy me a dress and he got me a souvenir magnet. Last night I asked for a motorcycle, or a Vespa, but I don't think he'll deliver.

• The plan for Thursday, is that I get divorced and get my real last name back. That's awesome, right? I've been using it since the start of the school year . . . it'll feel good for it to be furreal though.
• Thank you, David, at the Clark/Lake Starbucks, for giving me the worst free coffee of my life. i was a hot mess and you let me in after close. put the $5 tip toward some sexy sunglasses.
• must.sober.up.before.work.
• planting (metaphorical and non-) seeds with students this afternoon.
• I think I'd be awesome at racquetball.