A curse

It's 2 am. In the middle of july, her air conditioner is broken. She's stripped to nothing and the bed cover sticks to her skin. At that moment, when she is alone with her chastity ring, I want her to think of me and thirst....

What I've been up to

Posting on this blog has been sparse, I know, I know, "he's always got an excuse" But in this case I've been trying to establish myself on dailykos, in the hopes of a) making a meaningful contribution to political debate and b)cultivate an audience, one that might be interested in my creative writing as well as my critical output. Dare to dream, I know.

Speaking of daring to dream, that friggin' nerve in my left leg is the in-law from hell. The good news is I can do most of the workouts and train at the dojo, but I can't run on the damn thing without feelin' pain. I will do my best to be patient. After the tournament on July 11, I will go into rehab mode.

Unhappy with general state of things

I feel a seething rage, pre-verbal, sneering. It flails on a straight line.

Light Posting

for the next few days, decided to take care of a few things, like read.

You know what I haven't done in a while...

Read a book. My brain is saying I have to read one right NOW. Seriously

Facing facts

If I don’t get accepted into am MFA program this year, then what? One of my recommenders is retired, out of the teaching game, out of the recommending game. And I begin to bore with this dance. I have to confess, renewed interest in pursuing an MFA has not wiped away old misgivings. The stuffiness of the ivory tower and the strange authoritarian disposition of some workshops makes me leary. My portfolio is essentially superhero poetry, fanboy inspired trauma writing. The academy tolerates biographic writing, autobiography, semi-autobiography, “literary” fiction, and “magical” realism. Those quotations connotate dubious skepticism: magical realism means something can appear to evoke fantasy without being fantasy—that or a fairy tale. In such case it must evoke a fairy tale rhythm, while maintaining a Marquez-ian posture. (I’m not knocking him as a writer, just sayin’) And literary fiction? I still don’t know what that means? Anti-genre? Whatever a selection committee likes so they may maintain a highbrow aesthetic? In the end, whatever it is, literary fiction is just another genre, one that is supposed to place a high emphasis on technical skill as supposed to plot driven story-telling…or something like that. As I said, I’m not 100% certain what it is anymore, but I think it’s become more vice than virtue.

Yup, I wrote about superheroes, and I crammed that thing with all kind of allusions that most committee members are not going to get. So much so that I decided to add footnotes! Shit, I look at the lit mags and e-zines, and I don’t have the faintest clue where I’d send this stuff. Does Patton Oswalt read poetry?? Because when I try to conjure up a receptive audience, one that might like what I’ve written, he’s what comes to mind.

Angst Overload

I am going to die alone, unpublished, insignificant.

Strawberries part 2 (draft 1)

I interjected, “You know what you should do S? Get a shoebox, decorate it, cut out a slit, make it a Valentine’s box, just like in grade school”. If people wanna ask you out, they can do it this way. No anonymous cards obviously."

“Are you gonna make me a box?” Wrong direction, do not want to go that way. My strategy ? Ignore the comment, press forward, like a double leg take down. You shoot, you commit to the move, don’t aim for the legs, aim for the other side of the room, don’t stop for anything. I watched Sean Sherk take big fat thai knee while shooting for a double leg, his head absorbed everything, but he still shot through, he was going to china, so the force went through the body, didn’t stop at the head, and he scored the take-down, granted, he took five years off his life in the process. My variation didn’t require Alzheimer's. Where was I?

“Are you gonna make me a box?” double leg take-down. Shoot for the other side of the room.

“Oh! You know what else we can get you? Cupcakes! They give you a card, and they leave a cupcake. I tell ya, no valentine’s day I spent as an adult tops the ones in grade school. Love and cupcakes, a few pieces of candy, and more cupcakes!

Strawberries part 1 (draft 1)

I'm waiting for her to make my shake. Strawberry shake with strawberries. I need the fruit. I need the glycogen.

A girl, a former student, walks up to her from the side of the shake counter.
"My brother wanted to ask you something."
"Ok, what?"
"--but he wants to do it on Valentine's Day"
Squirm! Squirm! My admirer was caught flat-footed. I was not, hiding a very large smirk behind my palm. My delight isn't sadistic. It just isn't everyday I watch a proxy clumsily ask a lady out, publicly, while the real object of her affection is a foot away. How would this play out? Would she deftly pirouette around the question, shifting the topic to something more comfortable like sports or clothes? I find this can work if you create a bridge topic, something transitional like in one of those mostly useless five paragraph essays they teach kids in school.
Go completely physical, fire up the heat vision and blast her with a silent rebuke and clenched teeth? Effective, but not exactly the best tactic where stealth is concerned. People (me, me glorious me) are watching.
She could go kitchen sink, cram the air with verbage, until messenger did...something, most likely leave. It's neurotic, but sometimes you gotta scramble for position, take what you can get.
"--wants to do it on Valentines day?"
Fumble!
Rewind. The playback function. It's a sturdy all around listening skill, and a time tested convention of english majors shaken by an essay question on a final exam, usually said question will be pertain to the one and only fact she didn't cover in her epic 3 hour cram session.
So yeah, good all around.
But not here.
She was ambushed, verbally breached in a no no place. (There's a certain psychological protection granted by a high counter and control over money). There are many ways to squash a bad moment, a situation on the downward spiral.
Repeating the phrase that got you there doesn't finish, it only extends the debacle.....

There's this girl....

She's short. Shorter than me, and that's saying a lot, must be 5'2 tops. Can't be older than 19. Pretty smile, has this "face like a silvery moon" thing going on.

Cruel joke 1: She has a crush on me. The same me that's a teacher, the same me that's 30 years--wait, sorry--31 years old. The me that has a girlfriend, and enough emotional baggage to fill a Boeing 747.

I'm her "favorite person" at the gym. She even tried to ask me out, obliquely. I pretended to miss the invitation, obliquely.

I told my girlfriend about her; we've talked about doing a threesome, but this would be like juggling fine crystal, so nothing has come of it.

And 19? Still has growing up to do. I still have growing up to do. Yikes.

Oh Cruel Joke 2: Same name as my sister.
That's about as close as you can get to incest and stay out of jail. Hell, that's creepier than having someone dress up. In other words, eeeewwwww.

Tuesday

In a few days I'll know if there are any open ten week sessions, but it doesn't look likely. Meanwhile, my parents' practice is hanging by a thread. Heck, even there I'm only needed on a semiregular basis. That Texas twit and his free market yahoos really fucked things up.

So in the meantime, I've been applying to grad programs, working on applications, portfolios, statements, possible extortion targets, etc. and that's pretty much it.

It's a good thing I've got a little money saved up or I'd be up shit creek right now.

Oh yeah, Valentine's Day is coming. Girlfriend should be coming up to visit, although there is a small chance work might prevent her coming. Luckily, V Day is on a Saturday so worst case scenario is I find way down to see her instead.

Have practice in a couple hours and not much energy for writing.

Monday

The next body part to make my life a livin' hel is an oldie but goodie. My left pec has an achey/cramped sensation. As of now it's not impeding mobility but rotating my neck at odd angles seems to aggrivate it.

In order to blog one needs things to happen in life. I am in the midst of my own slowdown economic and otherwise. The job front is bleak, and I continue to apply to grad programs. I remain in that precarious holding pattern with my girlfriend. Radar is still a Scottish terrier. The criminals responsable for our rape and torture remain at large, closer to us in the echoes of a heartbeat than the physical world. My family is still crazy. My family is still crazy. My family is still crazy. And I am a leaky faucet of mucus.

The banality of evil is still alive and well.

Hangovers without the fun

Every once in a while, which is far too often, I wake up with a nasty headache, each it's own little snowflake. This once was shaped like a sledgehammer driving a large nail into the left side of the temple. Considering I don't smoke and rarely drink--and never to get drunk--where do these vicious pseudo-hangovers come from?

Ice cream cake.

Watch out world, Coldstone makes a delicious frosty treat but they don't tell you about the slow burning brain freeze which crawls across the grooves of your brain like a careful tarantula and then it bites

down.

Happy Belated Birthday

Spent my birthday at the dojo (where else??). However, there was an ice cream cake when I got home. I don't like to eat that sort of stuff in the middle of the week, but I didn't have a lot of wiggle room, so I scarfed down two pieces. When I was done I looked at the blur of strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, red velvet cake crumbs, and green icing. I kept looking for a metaphor. Finger painting? Not quite. Psychedelic trip? The colors were too bright. They were vivid, they smiled in that way that all the elements of a birthday cake should. That didn't leave me with a lot of options.

It's settled then, my birthday slop was a metaphor for birthday slop. Where's my Pulitzer?

Misery Loves

It's to fall in love with pain. It's an excuse to write about pain, to masturbate in your own shit. I have the awareness that I am writing about my pain, as I snear and crank out haymakers with a baby's skill. Fuck those Ginsbergs, those one note beats snapping like pushed farts. I see those best minds, starving hysterical naked to quote their leader. One howl is enough. I heard you the first time. There is something beyond it, but you settled. Yes, there is a something I can smell it. Help me, join me, or get out of my way. You've failed enough people. Second rate Pinheads in cheap leather.

Batman R.I.P.

Since the big bang I've rediscovered superhero comics; a joy that has been a surrogate life support system, a fantasy escape from the physical pain of my legs/hips, and the spiritual agony of seperation from my practice (the martial arts) One of the stories I've been following is the much ballyhooed Batman R.I.P. It's been billed as the Batman story to end all Batman stories, complete with the most shocking revelation in the 70 years of the character. The basic premise is someone may have spent a good ten years preparing to destroy Batman, a foe that Batman doesn't know, a being who has studied Bruce Wayne with fanboy thuroughness; a foe Batman can't prepare for in any conventional way; and the antagonist is a foe who cannot be prepared for. This villian, goes by the moniker Dr. Simon Hurt, but claims to be Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father.

I loved this story, but it is best appreciated in a larger context; it is the fourth story arc from writer Grant Morrison, who has devoted significant time and energy to setting all the pieces in their propper place. There's just one problem There is no revelation!! WTF gives??? DC Comics has taken some serious marketing liberties in the last few months with Mr. Batman. First, DC Comics made it seem like the Kevin Smith penned Cacophany, would occur in the wake of R.I.P; it did not. THis killed my interest in the story. I am not a huge fan of Kevin Smith, New Jersey Film god, but I've always enjoyed his work in superhero comics (I think as an artist his best work is in the 4 color world). Then this b.s. happens with R.I.P itself. I love Morrison's work as a whole, so I'm a bit puzzled by this decision especially given the marketting involved, a machine he helped fuel. There is still a chance to fix this, either in the Last Rights follow up or in the pages of Final Crisis (both written by G.M.) .

If not, despite the quality of the story, instead of being the most shocking revelation in the last 70 years, this could be the biggest FU in the history of the medium, bigger even than Spiderman's Clone Wars saga (horrible flashbacks involving Spidercide).

The Story so far and abbreviated....

It was The Crow It was James O'Barr. Laughing Clowns from the Blackest ID The Joker's disciples a Dead Man's Hand of gangsta minstrelsy swinging guns like cocks swinging cocks like soft gummi worms It was the Crow It was James O'Barr there was violence rape torture They were the Laughing Clowns I became the sad clown and she became Thomas the Doubter Shock Shock Shock seperation then anxiety then more seperation and anxiety I left with the shame of infection I wanted to hit her wanted to make her stop needing me just enough that I could breath My wounds were psychic She had a name for her pain; it was rape I had no name so it named me I was the object of the object, an appendage of the victim cast off in a bathtub dusted with kitty litter and bath rain He can destroy a thing controls a thing but you can't destroy or control without the name so I wandered into a dojo and I did not leave

I trained for over a year only to be smited by a spiteful body I'm grounded by a birth defect a hip defect and I'm waiting for an MRI and that brings us here, but if I don't start reclaiming the things I CAN name it will be nothing, that's the story so far without nuiance without all the little violent melodramas that come with life

Tigr's definition of privacy (adendum)

definition 2: the ability to pee in the house with the bathroom door open.

Crash Burn Slide

Last week of this 8 am death march. That's what I've been like, a stupid sucker on a death march in a trail of tears that is --well, it's a trail of tears for christ's sake.

Actually, tomorrow is the end of this terrible violent cycle of violent intellectual molestation. They can have thursday to work on their paper. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!


Funny enough I've got a back log of material, I just haven't had the patience and brain power to hammer out some edits. Good lord, you know I have material from over a year ago I haven't revised at all? Yikes! My head is going light n' wacky (don't ask me what that means I'm not entirely sure) Will lay down for a few minutes before going to the dojo.

Bragging

I used the word "stentorian" in the post below. This pleases me greatly. It's one of those words you really like, but rarely have occasion to use (ex: exponentially, gargantuan)