"You know something," Lanny said.
I sighed and prepared to be sad for this was Lanny's way of introducing something sad.
We were drinking at Lanny's kitchen table and had been there for a goodly long time. The drugs were long gone but we still had plenty to drink.
"No. What," I replied. With Lanny it was best to get right into it. He would not forget or become distracted or allow himself to be redirected. He was nothing if not tenacious when it came to ideas.
"Sometimes," he said, "I feel like I'm just something that God has stuck in his teeth and that as soon as he can work me free with his tongue he's going to spit me out."
My sense of the passage of time was not at its best. I searched for a longish while for some sort of reply. I settled.
"Is that right," I said?
Lanny did not consider this to be worthy of a response. He busied himself with pouring another tumbler of vodka. The dingy brown cast on his wrist made him clumsy and slow. He slopped a bit on the table.
"I didn't go to the funeral. He was a teacher."
I searched for some connection between the two statements and came up empty. I busied myself with another helping from the bottle. We were well into it. It would be gone in a while. I began to worry about how we would get more. We were flat broke and in deep trouble and Lanny had that arrest warrant to be careful about. Lanny didn't do jail well. Neither of us did, but Lanny had an especially hard time.
"What did he teach you," I asked? It was like pulling the pin on a misery grenade but I knew he had to get it out. He was nothing if not tenacious.
"He taught me to tie a tie, where to hide my liquor bottles and how to shut my fucking mouth.
Lanny smiled a terrible smile that made him look insane and made me feel like hurting myself.
"He was always saying that. I'll teach you to shut your fucking mouth he used to say."
His eyes smiled again with a smile that was even more terrible than the one before.
"I hated that cunt," he said.
Outside, there was the crunch of car tires on frozen gravel.
I looked to the window.
"Is it him," Larry asked?
"Must be," I replied. "Keep the gun out of sight until we're sure and for fuck sakes let me do the talking."
posted by michael Saturday, October 17, 2009
Last night, I dreamed of Sylvia.
Sylvia is the face of my higher power.
She works to keep me sane.
In my dream, she ran cool, dead fingers down my arm.
In my dream, she made me shiver.
In my dream, she whispered to me small, quiet, incomprehensible words of comfort.
In my dream, she told me that it was going to be all right.
I have no choice but to believe her.
The alternative is terrible and mean and tragic and sad.
Last night, I dreamed of Sylvia.
Sylvia is the face of my higher power.
She works to keep me sane.
posted by michael Thursday, September 17, 2009
Here is a thing that happened.
In happened long ago and far away.
There were five of us that summer. There was Tony, the quiet one. There was Gerald, who we called Chub after a character in a television program that had been popular when we were boys. There was Mike, who was big and strong. There was Dave, who was the funny one and the organizer. There was me.
We were all in high school. None of us had regular jobs because jobs were hard to come by. We made money here and there. We stole things. We worked casually for Mike's dad when he needed help.
It was July and it was the long weekend. I had told my mother that I was spending the long weekend at a cottage some distance from home. In reality I was spending it at Tony's. Tony lived in an apartment because his father had kicked him out of the house when the police had come the last time. Tony's mother paid for his apartment on the sly. We all used it as a home away from home and base of operations.
It was the Saturday of the long weekend. We had 3 hits each of LSD that was known one the streets as 'eyeball acid'. It came in the form of little sqares of paper that you touched to the liquid of your eye to get stoned. Something about the size of the blood vessels there made for quicker absorption but we didn't really care about that. We had 8 cases of beer and 2 gallon jugs of moonshine from Gerald's uncle.
We took the first of the acid around 10 in the morning and drank beer and played cards until about noon. By then we were good and stoned and the card game was not going at all well. Someone, probably Dave who was the organizer, suggested Frisbee so down the stairs we trekked. Chub said he was going to stay and drink another beer.
We played Frisbee for a while and that activity too broke down because someone was putting small stones under the lip of the Frisbee disk before throwing it - the Frisbee would stop but the rock would continue its forward progress to a painful end. Harsh words were exchanged. We walked down to the sub shop on the corner and bought some sandwiches. We headed back. Things were getting very cloudy and melty by then and there was an unspoken agreement that we would be better off inside.
When we trooped back up the stairs Chub was sitting at the little dinette table with a steak knife in hand carefully peeling skin back from his chest just below his left nipple. There was a pool of blood at his feet and his hand and arm were dripping with it.
"What the fuck are you doing," yelled Dave. He quickly snatched the knife away.
"I think I have a tumour," replied Chub. "It's in here. I can feel it growing."
"You don't have a tumour, you stupid fuck. You're just stoned. Jesus, what a fucking mess." This was Dave agin.
Mike appeared from the little bathroom with a pad of folded toilet paper and pressed it to Chub's wound. I got some hockey tape off the top of the fridge and we taped the makeshift bandage to Chub as best we could. We wiped up the blood with a dish towel and threw it in the sink.
We stayed in the apartment until Monday morning, drinking and taking the acid and listening to music and watching TV. When were sobered up we took Chub to the hospital because his chest was red and oozing with milky puss. On Tuesday we were all back in school.
There were 5 of us that summer. Now we are 2. Tony died when he rolled a car on the highway 2 summers later. Mike died of cancer. Dave OD'ed his firt term at college. Gerald is married to Rachel and has 4 daughters. He works at a garage. I write down things that happened long ago and far away.
posted by michael Saturday, June 06, 2009
Here is another of the unfinished things. It is about my father - but what isn't these days. The previous unfinished had a vague direction. I have no idea where this one was going, if at all. It started with the little poem in opening and took on a life of its own until I tired.
In my midnight dream,
I saw my Hitler father.
I robed him prone,
And with some familiar nun,
Performed his last ablution.
Here is a thing that I remember.
Here is a thing that is true.
I remember it was Sunday night because I was watching The Ed Sullivan Show with my father, he drinking quietly, pensively on the couch behind me under the light and me on the floor closer to the television than usual for my father was not so quick to move me back lest I go blind as was my mother.
I remember that my sister was in bed for she was a baby and I was a big boy.
I remember that my mother was at a meeting of the CWL, the Catholic Whores League as my father called it. I remember thinking myself lucky that I was still up as Ed was kissing Topo Gigo goodnight for my mother never let me stay up to see the end.
I remember her key in the lock of the front door and the click of the door behind as she stepped into the porch.
I remember my father, quick as a cat, up off the couch, over me, punching my mother in the face through one of the little window panes on the door that separated the front porch from the living room.
I remember how he wrenched the door open and grabbed her by the hair and tossed her inside.
I remember how she stumbled past me and ran to the bedroom and closed that door with a bang loud enough to wake my sister and make her cry.
I remember the shouting and the hammering of my father’s fists and my mother’s screams and the crying of the baby and I remember looking down to see a single and very red drop of blood on my forearm that must have splashed from her as she ran past.
I remember the regular swoop of the lights of the police car as it stood in our driveway and the low and even voices of the policemen (who were my friends) and the screams of my father and the sobs of my mother and the baby’s cries.
I remember going to sleep in my closet with the door almost shut and the ceiling light on.
I remember waking up and going to the kitchen and seeing my mother with a line of stitches at her temple and one eye black and closed as she made breakfast and I remember that she was quiet, singing to the baby and I remember that my father was gone.
I remember going to the living room after breakfast and seeing that the glass had been cleaned up and the little window pane had been neatly covered with cardboard from a Kleenex box and some masking tape.
I remember looking down to my arm and seeing the blood drop there still, shiny and hard like a scab.
I moved into Room 11 of the Starlight Motel in the small Canadian university town of Turgottville on April 13, 2000 and have lived there ever since. The room is a standard 24 x 24 foot square with an additional liittle square of an entry. As you push open the only door you look into a small closet with the usual shelf up top and a rod on which to hang clothing. The closet is not crowded with things. I store my outerwear there - a couple of jackets for spring and fall, a raincoat, umbrella and some warmer things for it can get quite cool in Turgottville when the winter wind blows off the lake.
The door opens inward from left to right and if you are not careful it will hit a narrow 6-drawer chest that I have tucked in behind. Here I store the remainder of my clothing; 1 drawer for socks and under things, 1 for shirts with buttons, 1 for t-shirts, 1 for pants. 2 drawers stand empty. When released the door will swing shut behind you and lock with a click.
The wall to the left as you enter the room proper has a window with a large center pane and narrower panes on either side. The window looks out due east onto the end of the parking lot for Room 11 is at the end of the motel furthest from the office. There are 2 parking spots in front with the number 11 stenciled in yellow on the tarmac. These are usually empty as I do not drive. I do have a drivers' license which I have kept current since it was returned to me by the courts early in 2005. To the left of the parking lot is a fence of brown wood and beyond that an area of green space through which runs the occasional freight train. Across the street which is moderately busy with traffic especially early in the day and late in the afternoon there is a Tim Horton's outlet and a used car lot that never appears to have any patrons. Under the window is a large, industrial looking heater/air conditioner unit that regulates my climate. I like to keep the temperature at 69 degrees. The windows do not open. The window covering is an opaque drape of heavy brown fabric. I close it carefully on the sun when I wake and pull it wide open just before I go to bed to let in the darkness of the night.
Directly in front of the window is a small square pine table with 1 straight-backed pine chair. The table is where I keep my room key with its bright green plastic fob. I have never sat in the chair. Sometimes, I will drape a coat over the back of the chair to dry if I have been out in the wet. Beyond the table, in the corner where east meets south, is a V-shaped entertainment unit which holds a television, machines on which to play videotapes and DVD's, and an integrated audio system with an 18 CD changer and 150 watts of equalized power driving 4 small, foreign speakers mounted in the corners on the walls. I can make my music or movies very loud although I never do. On either side and on top of the entertainment unit are shelves that I designed to hold my collection of movies and music and had built for me by an acquaintance named Mel. Mel is a finish carpenter by trade. He says he is retired but I suspect he is simply too nervous to work. He does good work but slow.
The remainder of the south wall is in bookshelves, floor to ceiling. Mel built these too. In front of the wall is a brown fabric easy chair that rocks and beside the chair a small table for the telephone and the remote control and a sharp silver mechanical pencil with an HB lead and behind that a pole lamp. Behind the chair is an exercise bike that I keep pointed toward the television screen.
The center of the west wall is where I have my bed. It is one of the iron folding cots with metal slats and springs that the motel would ordinarily supply for a fee to sleep an extra guest or a child. It is sufficient for my needs although I did buy an expensive pillow some time ago. The book shelves continue all around the bed and are tight to it. I have a lot of books.
The north wall is interrupted by the door to the bathroom and contains a longish trestle table to hold my computer and its related paraphernalia. Between the bathroom door and the entryway are 4 4-drawer file cabinets. They are grey metal. Above the table I have hung 3 poster-sized pictures of men long dead. As I sit here in a grey rolling office chair I can contemplate the faces of Croly and Lippmann and Weyl, the dreamer, the thinker, and the technician and from them I draw, if not inspiration, then at least some small comfort.
The bathroom is what you would expect.
All of the walls are painted an eggshell type of white. The floor is covered with a short-napped dusty brown coloured carpet. There is a light fixture in the center of the ceiling and a switch just by the door. There are no clocks as I do not like to have the time thrust upon me.
The sign outside the motel office says that this room can be rented for $69.99 per night. I pay the owner, an Indonesian man named Muktie Abdullah Abdullah, $1500 per month in cash and do not ask for a receipt. He looks the other way when I make changes. His sister, whose name I never have mastered, vacuums and dusts and gives the bathroom a good scrubbing every Monday morning early and leaves me fresh towels.
This is where I lived when my sister called to tell me of the death of my father.
"We lost him, Michael," she said.
I said nothing.
"The funeral is Monday. Will you come? Home?"
The last an afterthought in case I had forgotten to where one would go upon the death of his father.
I agreed that I would.
She cried for a while and told me of arrangements and things of no consequence and then I think I hung up on her for she was gone and I sat in the easy chair for the rest of the night through watching "Roadhouse" with the sound off and listening to girl groups from the 50's and 60's singing about the joy of love and the misery of the broken heart and pondering the meanings and portents of the words 'lost' and 'home' as she had spoken them but arriving at no real conclusions and wishing with a great wishing for a long cool draught of an intoxicating liquor.
Here are some things that I have not done for most of this latest millennium;
- drunk alcohol
- smoked cigarettes
- taken any drug, prescribed or otherwise
- worn short pants
- had an orgasm
Here is how I spend my days since I moved into the Starlight Motel.
I wake when the sun shines through my window. I get out of bed and immediately close the curtain tight against the sun. I kneel by my bed and ask for help. I use the toilet as required and brush my teeth and shave my face and scalp and shower. I dress in fresh clothing from head to toe according to the season. I make the bed.
I leave my room and cross the street to the Tim Horton's. I buy a copy of each of 3 papers, 2 national and 1 local, from the boxes by the door and scoop a copy of the free university rag and order an extra-large coffee with cream and 2 bran muffins. I sit at the furthest table with my back to the door and read the papers and have my breakfast. This takes about an hour. I go back to my room, taking the papers with me.
On the way back to my room I stop at the motel office to collect my mail and pass the time of day with Muktie Abdullah Abdullah. Like me, he is an early riser, invariably found behind the office desk reading some foreign language magazine printed on cheap and runny paper and watching what appears to be the same episode of some Indonesian soap opera with the sound at a level almost inaudible. The motel is not a busy one except in the spring and fall when the parents are in town to collect or drop off their student children. The mail and couriered packages are from the previous day for the deliveries come during the afternoon when I choose not to be disturbed.
I take all this back to my room and dump it on the computer desk. I carefully clip out any newspaper articles I have marked and add these to existing folders or make new folders for them to be filed alphabetically in the cabinets. The papers then go into a trash receptacle under the desk. I am not much for recycling. I peruse the collected mail; new books and music and movies are unwrapped and shelved. I do not pay any accompanying bills. I boot up the computer and read my e-mail but do not answer it.
I choose the music for the day; 18 different disks in the order in which they were purchased. When I reach the end of my catalogue I start again at the beginning. CD cases are stacked carefully on the floor beside the chair to be perused as required. I keep the volume low to medium high.
I read for about 3 hours or until I feel tired. I make occasional margin notes with the silver pencil.
I nap for an hour on the bed. I sleep on my back in the afternoon and on my stomach at night.
When I rise I ride my exercise bike for an hour according to its digital timer.
I read for another hour or so and when I hear the traffic noise increase on the street outside the motel I walk 7 minutes to the Ponderosa Steakhouse at the corner and avail myself of their salad bar. Salad bar without an entrée is $9.99 plus tax and I leave $20. The waitresses know that I require plenty of tap water and never have dessert. I eat alone and read.
Sometimes, in the evening, I will go to a movie or to see a live production at the university theatre or to hear a lecture from a visiting scholar. I never go to readings sponsored by the Department of English for, although I look much different now, there is always a chance of being recognized. This happened a few times very early on and led to uncomfortable situations and once to a scene that eventually involved the police. The literary I follow only vicariously now from the safety of the shadows.
Without live entertainment in the offing, I go back to my room and read for another 3 hour stint. When it is full dark I might watch a movie.
Each night before bed last thing I write a short poem. It always begins with the same line; 'In my midnight dream…'. Poem complete and saved to memory, I kneel by my bed and give thanks. I use the bathroom as required. I go to sleep.
On Tuesday mornings I go to the bank and shop for my necessities and stop to browse the used book and music stores on Main Street near the university.
On Thursday mornings I go to the university library. I secured a visiting scholar card from a sympathetic chancellor with whom I went to grad school. Here I keep current with the latest journals.
On Saturday mornings, I answer my e-mail and reply to written mail and pay bills. I walk them up to the Korean store on the corner and mail them there.
On Sunday mornings, I go to early mass at St. Paul's, the Catholic church hard by the water of the lake. I am no longer Catholic as such but I find the stained glass and dark wood to be a comfort.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings I go to AA meetings in the basement of Gethsemane United Church.
This is how I lived when my sister called to tell me of the death of my father.
She woke me just as I was about to fall asleep on a Tuesday night in the early summer. By Wednesday mid-morning I had chartered a small plane to take me to her and bring me back to my motel home at a moment's notice. I packed a newly purchased leather suitcase and called a cab to take me to the airport. I stopped only to ask Muktie Abdullah Abdullah to hold my mail as I had to fly out to attend the funeral of my father. He looked suitably crestfallen at the news and told me that it was a terrible and honourable thing for an only son to bury his father and assume the leadership of the family. I told him that he had no idea.
Here are some things that I have not done for most of this latest millennium;
- traveled further afield than a 20 minute walk from my room
- eaten meat
- written prose
- watched a television program
- granted an interview
- spoken to my father
Here is what I packed for my trip home;
- 2 complete changes of clothes
- toiletries
- 3 books; Ellis' American Psycho, Steinbeck's East of Eden, and a somewhat moldy medical textbook by the staff of New York's Grace Dieu Hospital dated 1883 titled simply Insanity
- 3 CD's, Elvis Costello's Get Happy, An American Prayer by the Doors, and The Best of The Shirelles, and a portable player
- my silver pencil with HB lead
- a pad of paper, legal-sized and yellow
- my room key with its bright green fob
- my 24 hour chip
- the Holy Bible
I landed in the late afternoon. The airport's only runway was just able to handle the small jet.
The tarmac sat in the midst of a circle of trees as did the town itself. I entered the small airport administration building and walked up to the only counter. Behind it sat a small and round-ish man. I asked him if I could perhaps rent a car. He arched a thumb toward the car rental kiosk;
"The car rental guy only comes out for scheduled flights," he said. "There's only the one flight a day now. We hardly never get charters." He trailed off. His name tag read Ross Arnott - Manager.
I asked him if he was related to Bob Arnott and he said that Bob was his dad. I told him my name and that I had gone to high school with his dad and lived just down the street from him until I left town for good. He appeared unimpressed.
"You used to be the writer, didn't you," he asked?
I allowed that I had.
"My Dad used to brag that he knew you in school."
I assured him that his father and I had been quite close during our high school years.
"How long since you been back," he asked? This accompanied with a lift of a porcine chin in the general direction of town.
"It's been 25 years or more," I replied.
He nodded as if he understood.
I asked if he could call me a cab and went outside to wait.
The last time I saw Bob Arnott he had been beating on the hood of a Dodge Ram pickup truck with the business end of a round mouthed shovel in the parking lot of the Commercial Travellers' Hotel. It was winter and the incident had something to do with a woman as I recalled. I had left before the police came. I could not remember the name of the woman.
When the cab came I asked the driver to take me to the Inn and we made the ride in silence. I looked out the window at the trees. When we reached the town itself, I gave some serious thought to my hands clasped before me. I fingered the chip in my pants pocket. I asked for help.
Here are some things about the town in which I was born;
- it has a population of 11,000
- there is 1 Catholic and 3 Protestant churches
- there are 2 primary schools and 1 high school
- there is a paper mill at which everyone works save those who supply goods and services to those that do
- it sits in a bowl surrounded by trees
- a river runs through it; the river water is brackish and opaque and grey
The check-in procedure at the Inn was unremarkable. I had maintained a platinum card all during my travails and it functioned well without the bother of credit limits. I paid the bill in full on the first Tuesday of every month.
There are 3 places in which visitors to my hometown could stay; 2 motels side by side on the river side of the highway as you leave town north. Then there is the Inn and it has stood forever. It sits like a 3 story behemoth hard by the river but closer to the business core. While the motels on the highway were for tourists passing through on their way to somewhere more memorable or hospitable and itinerant sales representatives and the like or alternately for sexual trysts between local consenting adults not necessarily married to each other, the Inn was the town's dowager aunt. The Queen had stayed there for a night many years ago while she was a princess still on a cross-country tour. A plaque proudly conveyed these particulars. I took the Queen's erstwhile suite which turned out to be a bedroom and a sitting room with a bath slightly larger than the norm. The furniture seemed to be original stock.
On the first floor of the Inn were 2 bars and when I was a younger man I had been a denizen of them both. The larger, the Jackpine Room, was loud and raucous and featured live music on the weekends to which the women and some of the drunker men might dance. There were fights every night and with the police station just across the street in the basement of city hall a couple or a few patrons invariably spent the night in a cell sobering up. I had had the pleasure a number of times. The smaller of the two, euphemistically known as the Little Pine, was a strip club that employed a rotation of women who made their way through the region spending a week in every little burg. They were not the cream of the stripping crop; indeed they were well down that profession's pecking order, but they served in all their missing teeth and cellulite stretch marked majesty to lay the foundation for my anatomical and sexual education.
I had my first bar drink in the Little Pine when I was 16 years old. Prior to this I had been content to drink at friends' houses or in the bush around the town. The beer and liquor we stole from our fathers or paid someone older to buy. The staff of the establishment at the time consisted of the son of the owner who was a couple of years older than I and had given up hope for further formal education. He worked the bar and watched TV in this, the time before cable, and called the police as required. His help-mate was an alcoholic waitress who had come to town to strip some years ago and never left. Bob, the son of the owner, said she gave great blowjobs but I was never tempted to test this assertion. She was light several teeth, had acne on her face and shoulders. Her tits dangled like hanged men. Neither Bob, nor the waitress whose name I cannot recall, were sticklers for ID; a heartbeat and the necessary cash would more than suffice.
My first drink in that establishment was a CC and 7 for that was what my companion was drinking and it became my usual. Without 7 to be had, I drink the CC straight without ice. I got drunk that first night and blacked out and woke up in the back seat of someone's car about 2 miles from my house.
There were 5 other bars in the town and although I would appear regularly in them all as my teen years progressed it was the Little Pine that I called home and it was there in the heavy wooden captain's chairs of the table next to the stage that I felt most comfortable.
I had asked at the front desk about the disposition of these 2 establishments when I registered and been told that both had been closed for years. I breathed an audible sigh of relief and gave thanks. The clerk told me that if I wanted a cocktail, she pronounced it cock-a-tail in some accent I couldn't place, I would have to head 'downtown'. She asked if I wanted a map but I assured her that I would just wander my way around if necessary. She seemed not aware that I could throw a rock over downtown from where we stood with room to spare.
I called my sister from the Queen's phone and told her I would be there in a while. I was vehement that I did not need a ride. It was Wednesday and my first night away from the Starlight Motel in a little over 7 years. Before I left I knelt by the Queen's bed and asked for help in my usual way; 10 times slowly I repeated what had become my mantra;
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
"I surrender my finite self to thee, Infinite God."
Here are some of the things I could see from the balcony of my room;
- the paper mill belching its smoke
- the spire of the Catholic church
- the river and the park through which it coursed
- City hall and the police station
- the highway running north and south through the trees
- 2 people sitting on a bench on which I had once sat with a lover having a quiet and terminal fight; they appeared to be lovers having a quiet and terminal fight
In my midnight dream,
It is first thing, sunny and blue.
Large birds wax and wheel, dulcet.
In my midnight dream,
The people glower,
The shuffle and shift their load,
Cannon balls of melancholic hate.
posted by michael Sunday, May 24, 2009
I should be studying some incredibly dry printed material for an exam that I am taking at work but instead I have been leafing electronically through some files of the unfinished and, perhaps, unfinishable. I have found 2 items that I started some time back and have decided to post them for someone's posterity. They are the beginnings of what I had hoped would be larger, longer things but, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I have that nasty sticktoitiveness problem. Chronic, painful, incurable.
Regardless, here is the first one.
It had a working title of "Beginnings" and I suppose that will serve us here.
This is the story of how it began.
It is not the story of how they fell in love for who can say with any accuracy how such a thing happens. There is no how when it comes to love — one day it is not there and one day it is. And whether it appears on kitty-cat feet or with the roar of a rhinoceros is purely academic. And whether it crushes the heart with the sudden stomp of the lightning bolt or worms its way in like prairie dust through a closed window is six of one and a half-dozen of the other.
It is not the story of when they fell in love for no one can really ever know that — for him it was simply a fact of his life, this love — it happened by increments, imperceptibly, glacial. For her that love was perhaps born full blown but not until nearer the beginning. Indeed, he asked her at a later date this very question and she could not answer and grew flustered.
It is just the story of how it began for them and nothing more — it will not attempt to follow the course of that love — it will see them off on the journey and bid them adieu for some things are best left unexamined — left to the imagination, as it were, for it is in the imagination that this beginning was born.
There are only two characters in this story of the beginning. There is just her and just him. It will be written from his point of view for it is this point of view with which the writer is familiar. He would never presume to think or to write as a woman for that would presuppose or assume some knowledge of the feminine mind and that creature is elusive — a chimera — it is as the horizon, it retreats as you approach. The writer, which is I, will simply report what it was she said and how she said it — how, that is, it sounded to him. And as they say on flyleaves everywhere — any errors or omissions are that of the writer and his alone. It will be written in the first person because that is easier — things flow from the imagination as “I” statements as a matter of course and from there easily down the arm.
Some other persons enter the story of the beginning but only tangentially — they are exposed only as their lives intersect with that of him and, to a lesser extent, her. Sometimes they are used to illustrate some aspect of the past that made him and her as they are but fundamentally the story is about him and her alone. The other characters might provide contrast or explanation or sometimes comic relief. We are primarily concerned with the aforementioned two characters for this is the story of their beginning and nothing more. Any other characters are prologue at best or mere window dressing at worst.
The story of the beginning takes place over a long weekend and a bit — it begins for all intents and purposes early on a Thursday evening and ends on Monday night. I say for all intents and purposes for it does not, of course, end there — it goes on but the reader is not to be privy to the events of Tuesday or thereafter. Likewise the relationship does not actually begin on the Thursday — rather this version of events begins there. Some of what went on prior to that day is mentioned but only in passing, in historical context if you will. It provides a useful counterpoint to the present — it serves to illustrate how the moments of the beginning came to be.
The season is late spring when it is warm enough for lovers to walk but cool enough that they might require a sweater or jacket.
The year is the present but exactly which present does not matter. Let us narrow it down to the period after the popularization of the microwave oven but well before the colonization of the moon and stop there.
This is the story of how it began.
I entered her life — she did not enter mine. We were thrown together by fate or karma some such factor — it was a new job for me and my new boss, having finished with the introductory paperwork and the ‘here’s the water cooler and there's the men’s room’ tour, stopped abruptly and turning slightly to me said;
“And this is your new seat mate, Sonja. Sonja meet Richard.”
And I, having been distracted by the bright fluorescents of the new surroundings and somewhat taken aback by the boss’ abrupt stop caught only some of that.
“Hello Sonja,” I said. “I’m Richard. It’s good to meet you.”
And she replied in a tone I thought snippy;
“It’s Sonna. Nice to meet you.”
She pronounced it like the Finnish steam heat room. She pronounced it with all the world weariness of someone who has spent their life correcting the pronunciation of their name. She pronounced it and flushed slightly as if embarrassed to have had to correct the pronunciation of her name for her whole life and turned back to her work. She had accompanied the above with a smile but it did not appear at all sincere. It was one of those smiles that involved only the lips and cheeks and touched the eyes not at all. It was the smile of a nun or the school principal and I remember thinking that she was a little bit sad. And we spoke not another word for the rest of the day.
She was beautiful, there was no question of that. I remember thinking she was beautiful after the first brief full-frontal glimpse I had of her before she turned away and went about her business. I remember thinking it again and again as I casually watched her walk to the photocopier or off to her lunch. 'Built like a brick shithouse', 'built for fucking’ my father would have said. 'A mere slip of a girl' my mother would have called her — barely five feet tall and whippet slender — chestnut hair and chestnut eyes and features as fine as china. Her cheekbones were pronounced and high, her lips full, the upper slightly more so than its lower mate, her little nose turned up a touch at the end, a generous body but slim. She was in her mid-twenties, say twenty years younger than me — she was of the age when men of my age were rendered invisible and I was of the age when women of her age were very visible indeed. She wore no makeup that I could see yet she sparkled. It would be several days before I discovered her scent — the smell of her, my goodness. It would be some time before I came to think of her as the most beautiful woman in the world.
At day’s end I reported to the boss as instructed and when I returned to my desk Sonna was gone, her chair pushed back and askew and her desk all in glorious disarray in her haste as if she had bolted from a fire. I looked over the detritus of her desk briefly — a picture of an older couple dressed very fancy and posed all formal in front of a fireplace, one of a young man on a tropical looking beach holding a bottle of Corona, one of a baby boy with a strawberry birthmark on his cheek, one of a younger, smiling, obviously drunk her with two friends on the porch of a rustic-looking cabin, and a calendar with funny pictures of dogs. Scattered here and there were some of the usual womanly things — a hairbrush and some pins and elastics, an emery board, what looked like a birthday card the inside inscription of which I could not read —the outside featured a picture of a clown and said ‘Zippy the Clown wants to wish you a Happy Birthday’. I pushed her chair neatly up to her desk which backed neatly toward mine for the first of many times and that was the end of the very beginning of the beginning.
Here is how I came to be at that place in that time.
In brief, I was a burnout. I had in the year prior to that meeting accomplished the following;
·Lost a job
· Lost my car and my driving license
· Lost a wife and home
· Lost my friends
· Lost my family—my parents in a car crash and a sister through cruelty and inattention
· Received treatment for alcoholism and addictions to gambling and drugs at a residential facility
· Embraced the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous
· Contemplated suicide and been assigned to a psychiatric facility for a short time
· Attempted suicide and been assigned to a psychiatric facility for a much longer time
The job I had lost had been as a Team Lead for a software company — I had been responsible for the preparation of technical manuals for a species of medical software designed to run Medical Resonance Imaging machines. Here is an example of my team’s work;
This section describes how to install MRIcro on a computer with the Windows operating system. There is a separate web page that describes the installation of the Linux version of MRIcro.
1. With your computer connected to the web, download the 5.9 Mb installer program, choose a mirror that is close to you:
· US zip file (shift+click here) http://www.sph.sc.edu/comd/rorden/mrizip.zip.
· Double click on the "mrinstall" icon. The installer will give you the option to install the manuals, a sample MRI image and other files. By default, the files will be installed in "C:\Program Files\MRIcro". Note: with Windows 2000/NT, only administrators can copy files into the "Program Files" folder. If you are using 2000 or NT, either log in as an administrator or choose a different folder to install the files (e.g. "C:\username\mricro").
· To run MRIcro, click on the "Start" menu, select "Programs", point to the "MRIcro" folder and click on the "MRIcro" icon.
I had worked with the same company for nearly twenty years since I had given up on graduate school and sought gainful employment and had worked my way up from the bottom. Just like in the movies, I had started off in the mail room. I was not a computer type — I had picked up some knowledge in passing and taken enough company sponsored courses to qualify for promotion and I was adept at faking the rest. I could write and could manage people and knew enough to leave the technical to those members of the team who washed their hair the least. In fact, the best worker on my team had been a person I had never met. I had hired them by e-mail and did not even know where they lived or their gender. Still, their work was splendid and timely and crystal clear. My team was easy to lead. The job was not at all fulfilling but it paid reasonably well and allowed me to work from home for the most part which, in turn, allowed me to indulge my drinking and the occasional and later not-so-occasional drugging and the online gambling which I referred to as a hobby and my erstwhile wife referred to as the activity “which is going to ruin us”. The job was for me the pinnacle of my career — I wanted to rise no higher. I was the poster boy for The Peter Principle. The money was okay given the effort and I had to show up at the office in a presentable fashion only about one day a week and this I was able to do successfully until near the end when I found that I could not show up in a presentable fashion and then at the end when I found I could not show up at all..
That was when the list as above started — the items there are not chronological or even sequential — some things happened concurrent with others — some things were woven through the list from beginning to end — in some cases it is a matter of the chicken and the egg. It is misleading to even draw it as a list — it is more of a genealogical chart. First came Alcoholism and Alcoholism was fruitful and begat the losing of the job and the losing of the job begat the losing of the wife and so on. Or perhaps a three dimensional flow chart would be more appropriate but the beginning was the same — for it all began with the ‘demon rum’.
That was when the list as it pertains to the losing of things started — the process of losing them was well underway and had been for some time. If the actual losing was the explosion when the car hits the ground at the bottom of the cliff, then my life prior to that had been the driving of the car to cliff’s edge, driving faster and faster, sometimes approaching on a tangent, sometimes driving straight for it. When I left terra firma and began the plunge itself is uncertain. But of this there is no doubt — it all began with the demon rum.
The list items concerning friends and family are somewhat misleading, I suppose. When I emerged from the fog of the treatments and recovery I found that I had neither, but sober second thought made me wonder if I ever had had them at all. My parents had disowned me long before and my wife had never even met them. The last communication I had from my mother had stated simply that she and my father loved me and would always love me but could not accept the way I was living my life and would therefore not share theirs with me. By this she meant that they did not approve of my drinking and the drugs and the itinerant nature of my education and the police at the house asking for my assistance in an investigation. That was in the very early years and I had become wiser since — I practiced the same vices but I had become wiser by which I mean more discreet. They were killed in a car accident on an early winter morning coming back from a dance at a rural Legion Hall. I knew my father had been drinking for he was always drinking and never more than at a function such as that and he never let my mother drive. They left me a pile of money which brought me solace in that it came my way just after the divorce from my wife became final and therefore was mine and mine alone. It occurred to me only later that my ex-wife would probably have considered getting rid of me to be a bargain at half the cost. My sister was content that I was alive and clean but not inclined to invite me to Christmas dinner. She had Jesus Christ as her personal lord and saviour and the Catholic church as her bulwark. She had a husband who had a good job and was handy around the house and allowed her to make all of the decisions and two children and a house with a pool and two cars and nice vacations — a week in the winter and two in the summer. She was all I had and not at all inclined to share what she had with me. My parents were dead and had mercifully missed much of the debacle their first-born had made of his life. The friends that I thought I had turned out to be merely professional acquaintances and/or drinking buddies and I had little to offer either of these groups. I had not been in the office enough in the later years to form any real attachments. I had been good at my job but it was a job that was easy to be good at. I had been quickly and efficiently and happily replaced and the corporate current flowed over the small hole that I had left in short order and I assume I soon became a tragic-comic story to tell the new guy in the company cafeteria. Without drinking my drinking buddies and I had nothing in common — indeed, I had for the last couple of years of my career as a practicing alcoholic preferred to drink alone in the solitude of my home office. Not for me the conviviality and fellowship of the bar scene — I drank for oblivion and succeeded more often than not. Not for me the dart league and a pint. Not for me the bringing of a six-pack over to watch the game and leaving two cans behind because I was driving. I went out on occasion but only with those of my alcoholic peers who could keep up and would not raise an eyebrow at the amount or the pace of my consumption. When that failed, I drank alone. I drank until I could not drink anymore and then when I came to, I drank more and again.
Of my wife I will not speak — suffice to say that eventually I came to love my addictions more than I loved her and broke her heart in every way that a heart can be broken. She plays no part in this story save that of a person whose heart was broken by him.
I came to be at that place in that time with her through the good graces of an employment agency and a fat and plain woman named Sharon who specialized in placing persons who suffered from what Sharon always referred to as “Past Mental Health Issues”. The capitals were pronounced in her diction and she placed the emphasis on the “Past”. I wondered oft-times whether my issues were indeed in the past but did not broach the topic with Sharon. She was an enthusiastic woman and an optimist and her positivity knew no bounds. She was the mirror image of most of her clients, myself at the top of the list. For her, the glass was always half-full and for me, there was no longer any glass.
The company in question, a large insurance concern, had certain quotas to fill in that era of quotas — so many blacks, so many aboriginals, so many homosexuals, so many lunatics, so many suffering from “Past Mental Health Issues” —and my job was the result of these quotas. It was well below me to my mind. I was making about half of what I had made before but it offered benefits and permanency and flexible work hours and air conditioning and a comfortable, adjustable chair and overtime if you wanted it, which I did not. My job was to enter insurance claims mailed in by clients not smart enough to use the online service into a computer terminal and let that computer decide whether or not to issue a cheque to the insured. I had an in-box that was filled on a regular basis by my boss or one of her minions and an out-box in which to place the completed claims to be filed forever and all eternity in a warehouse on the other side of town. In no time at all I was able to do this job well but it was a job that was easy to do well. I was able to listen to music on an MP3 player and take breaks and lunch at times of my choosing so long as my productivity and quality numbers were within acceptable norms. I quickly learned what these norms were and sought to meet and exceed them but not by so much that I might draw attention to myself. I wanted a promotion like I wanted a bout with the bubonic plague. The job left me free to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous which I did every day and twice on Sunday. Every third Tuesday night I went to the library. Friday night I shopped. Saturday night I played cards in a league of recovering addicts and alcoholics. I read. I wrote in my journal for a half hour every morning before work —I was getting up a collection of poetry that I hoped to shop around — I was editing a novel I had written while drunk and that I thought could be saved. I was writing up a regular storm and showing it to no one at all. Such was my shallow life, but I was dry and healthy and had good and sane and regular habits. I had a small bachelor apartment with a TV and a stereo system and a computer with internet access. I had my half of what my wife and I had split and one half of what my parents had left and was spending about one quarter of what I had been in my previous lifestyle so I had quite a lot of money in the bank. I spent next to nothing. I had come to appreciate the mundane as much as I had chased the chaos in the past.
Here is how we came to know each other, she and I. Here is the beginning of how the beginning began.
It began with her boyfriend. His name was Dave and he built fences for a living, working in the warm months. When not building fences he grew and sold marijuana. I learned of him and of the tumultuous nature of their relationship through the inadvertent and not so inadvertent eavesdropping and surreptitious monitoring of her phone calls and her conversations with her best office friend, Katherine. I learned that Mondays were bad and busy days because it was on Monday that she had to discuss and deal with the debris of the weekend. And as I learned these things, she and I grew closer by increments but remained apart. We both smoked so we saw each other on occasion in the smoking area at the front of the building and exchanged cautious nods and nervous smiles. We worked side by side each day and our greetings grew from the rudimentary to the banal to the progressively more friendly. We went from ‘good morning’ to ‘how was your weekend’ to ‘any plans for the weekend’.
It began about ten months after I started to work. We were, she and I, on cordial terms by then. We smoked together on occasion. We exchanged witticisms about the latest vagaries of the company planners and policy makers. We were not friends but we were more than civil. She knew nothing of me for I gave none of myself. She had asked if I was married once and I had told her I was divorced and she had said she was sorry and I had said thank you and we had left it at that. I knew nothing of her save what I had gleaned from her conversations and her whispered conversations with her female work confidantes.
It began the day she cried.
It began the day that Annie retired.
It began the day of Annie’s party.
I was at my desk when she came in to work — I always arrived and left before her. My drinking days had taught me to sleep hard and wake early. I was at my desk when she came in — she had her telephone to her ear, holding it there with her shoulder and she struggled out of her coat — it was spring — and threw it into her locker with a slam. I was at my desk when she said;
“I don’t care anymore, Dave. I just don’t care.”
And then a significant pause. And then;
“Whatever”.
And she pressed the goodbye button and tossed the telephone onto her desk and leaned forward on her desk and began to sob into her crossed arms with these quiet sobs that made the shoulders move, not up and down but back and forth, not vertical but horizontal, shoulder blades nodding toward the neck and back toward the waist. I knew she would be hot to the touch and clammy. I was impotent. There is not a man in the world who knows what to do with a sobbing woman, be that woman his mother, his wife, his sister, the complete stranger weeping on the city bus. Not instinctively. Women would move quickly, unerringly to gather up the sorrow and relieve it. And men and me — we sit impotent, contemplating the sobbing shoulders of a beautiful woman who was barely a stranger. We sit impotent for the longest while — we might reach out as if to touch, to stroke, to comfort but we would pull back quickly from that — we might look around for help but find none, the office around that time was at its most productive as everyone dealt with their first thing in the morning e-mail — we might make as if to speak but find no words — we might make as if to speak but find we do not know the language at all, not one word. We might sit impotent for the longest time then we turn back to our desks and write to Katherine an e-mail.
Katherine; (I wrote)
Come quick. There is crying. She needs you.
Richard
And we would watch as Katherine scurried over to gather up the sorrow and relieve it, gather up the afflicted, the damaged, the sobbing face fitting smoothly into the crook of a shoulder, the caring arm effortlessly finding and supporting the heaving shoulders (for the sobbing had become serious and noisy by then and was attracting the attention of the office women) and shepherd her to the ladies room (where they remain sequestered for the longest time) without so much as a glance in my direction. And we would watch as she came back to her desk and sat down and began to work as if this were another day without so much as a glance in my direction. And we would turn back to our terminal and turn up the volume on the MP3 player another notch and think how she had looked remarkably like the most beautiful woman in the world when she had walked in with the colour in her cheeks high and her hair flowing behind and the arch of her lovely throat exposed, all cords and skin, by the way she held the phone pressed to her ear. And we would stare at the terminal for the longest time and wonder exactly why it was that if it was she who had been crying and she who had spoken those harsh telephone words and she who had needed to be shepherded to the ladies room for care and comfort — if all of these things were indeed true, and I had no reason to think they were not, then why I felt exactly as if it had been my heart that had been broken. And we would recite our mantric prayer, the one that was getting us through each endless day. We would say;
“Please God, guide my words and thoughts and actions that I might be an instrument of your will and not mine, because my will didn’t work!
And then, for good measure, we would say it twice more.
That was the day that Annie retired. That was the day of Annie’s party. Annie had been with the company since Jesus wore short pants and had risen ultimately to the lofty position of Team Manager. This meant that she supervised a group of persons like myself — we went to her with esoteric questions about the exact nature of this truss or that or to have her translate the dental-ese of some orthodontist trying to straighten a tooth that appeared to have been extracted some years earlier. She had seen it all and knew it all. She had also risen as high in the corporate structure as she could — she had a high school education and the practicum and did not speak Corporation. She was the integral medium cog that allowed the larger cogs to interact with the smaller without jamming or grinding. She had performed this function for more years than most of her charges or her bosses had been alive. She had never married and lived her family life through the good offices of a sister and her husband and children. I always suspected she might have been a lesbian had she been born about twenty years later. As it stood, women of her generation with no interest in men became just spinsters, those sorry souls who had never found ‘the right man’. I had an innate sense about such things—specifically lesbians and nuns—I could pick them out of a crowd—it was something about their shoes.
Annie’s long years of dedicated service earned her a public celebration of her leaving. The department was to be treated to cake and coffee urns and fruit and vegetables and dip in the conference room on the second floor from one until two. There would be speechifying by our bosses and they had imported a designated hitter from Head Office to present the plaque or whatever there was to be presented and ‘say a few words’. We, the plebian, would go because it was free food and it was a nice paid break from our workaday routines and because we all loved Annie and owed her some gratitude for solving for us some problem simply and quickly and efficiently when to take it up to the next level would have caused untoward delay and perhaps even paper work.
When the time came for us to retreat to the conference room I locked my terminal as per the oft-repeated instructions, lest some nefarious individual attempt to access the confidential and entirely useless information stored therein, and twirled in my chair toward the middle, the neutral zone that I shared with Sonna. And she was there, having twirled in her own chair toward the middle ground, and looking at me. Her face had been repaired and her eyes showed no sign of the previous sobbing. I thought she looked remarkably like the most beautiful woman in the world. She smiled and stood, smoothing her sweater down over breasts too generous for such a small frame toward hips too shapely, too cantilevered for safety;
“Are you going to Annie’s party,” she asked?
She smiled as she asked and the smile worked across her eyes for a moment and I remember thinking she looked remarkably like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Free cake,” I replied. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Can I come with,” she asked? She tilted her head down just a mite and looked back up through chestnut lashes thick and long.
And after a long moment I realized that she was asking to walk with me to the party and had neglected just a single word and I gathered the composure to answer;
“Absolutely.”
And I smiled then or formed what I thought was a smile. I suppose I had smiled at some points in the last long years — I must have smiled in greeting to the store clerk or the lady in the library or to some alcoholic colleague at my AA home group or perhaps even at work. But it was different this time — to make the decision to smile and send the message from brain across nephrons to neuro-transmitters to neurons to nerves and down to the muscles of the face and ask that they do the complicated maneuvers that would cause the corners of my mouth to curve somewhat upward against gravity, to show the teeth, to lighten the hold of the muscles around the eyes, to show some semblance of pleasure.
I smiled and said; “Let’s go”.
I stood as did she and I allowed her to precede me into the aisle between our cubicles into the main corridor like a good gentleman and we moved slowly toward the elevator, she oblivious before me and me making a concerted effort to keep my eyes off her ass in tight navy blue pants and no lower than her shoulders. As we moved toward the elevator we met up with other little groups of twos and threes and by the time we stood by the elevator bank we were a crowd and Sonna and I were pushed closer than we had ever been before. I caught a whiff of her and then the elevator doors slid open with a serpent’s hiss and we were inside with a bunch of others and we were standing shoulder to shoulder except hers were considerably below mine and the elevator was descending toward the conference room on the second floor. Somewhere in there I turned toward her and she turned toward me and I said;
“I’m really going to miss Annie. She’s been great to me.”
Like Noel Coward, I thought to myself, my conversation just sparkles. What is there about this silly woman that makes me feel in her presence like my IQ has been halved?
And she smiled again, smaller this time and said;
“Yea. Annie’s great!”
She continued looking at me for a bit then and held that little smile until the elevator arrived at the second floor and we started to get off in a clumsy jumble. As our turn came to move she stretched the smile a bit. I allowed her to precede me out of the elevator like a good gentleman and followed in her wake toward the conference room, a liner behind the little ice breaker or tug effortlessly cutting through the waves of the crowded port. We ended up leaning our shoulders against a piece of wall not far from the raised dais, she in front of me, the crowd rapidly filling in around us. I leaned there and wondered about the smiles I had received that day. I wondered why I felt that I was not in on the joke, why it seemed to me that she knew something that I did not, or more properly, why she knew everything that I did not. I found myself feeling angry at being bested by this mere slip of a girl, at allowing two or three smiles to discombobulate me to this extent. I felt, for some reason that she had been making fun of me and then ashamed to think such a thing. I closed my eyes as my boss’ boss called for our attention and repeated to myself;
“Please God, guide my words and thoughts and actions that I might be an instrument of your will and not mine, because my will didn’t work!
The crowd shuffled its feet and Sonna and I became closer, as close as we could be without touching. She in front, apparently oblivious to me, and me in the back, chin poised just above and behind the top of her head. As the program started and the platitudes started to flow she gathered her hair with one hand on either side of her throat as women do and flicked it over her shoulder as women do and some splashed against my chest and chin. She half-turned then and smiled and blushed and whispered;
“Sorry.”
And I smiled a silent ‘no harm, no foul’ in return but my mind was full beyond full. The smell of her, my goodness.
After the platitudination and the speechifying we formed a little receiving line that filed slowly past Annie so we could shake her hand and pay our respects and move from there to the little buffet for cake and snacks and coffee. Sonna and I were pushed together through this maze, me driving her from behind like a calf. And when we emerged at the successful end of the food line we stood there briefly with Katherine and some other young woman whose name I did not know and ate and sipped with nothing of consequence to say. We ate and we sipped and I listened to them talk until we had finished and, having nothing to say and nowhere to go, we made the noises of returning to our desks. I noticed Sonna balancing her debris in one hand and trying to reach her mouth with her white Styrofoam coffee cup with the other. I reached out as if by instinct;
“I’ll take that,” I said, and reached to take the used plate and fork from her hand.
“Thanks,” she said and treated me to another one of those glances — chestnut eyes reaching upward through chestnut lashes too long.
I smiled back and made my way slowly across the crowded room toward the trash can by the door. Having deposited our waste, I glanced back toward her, thinking that I would simply make my way back to the elevator as I was better than halfway there. She was looking intently toward me and when our eyes connected she raised a single index finger in the ‘wait’ signal and putting her head down, she began to move toward the door and me. I waited and she soon emerged tiny and shiny like a ferret from the sea of larger cake-eating beasts with a smile.
“My dates always walk me right to the door,” she said.
I was treated to another smile, this one larger and more genuine to my mind.
“You go first,” she said. “Take no prisoners.”
She took a fold of my shirt and I immediately wished I had worn another and better. We got to the elevator and rode the reverse ride up to our floor with a crowd of mostly chattering women in silence. We were in the middle this time, surrounded on all sides. We got to our desks and prepared to take our seats. The way things were arranged we sat back to back but only just barely and when we sat in our chairs and both spun toward the center of our space our knees would almost touch. I found myself face to face with her in this fashion.
“Katherine told me what you did this morning,” she said. “That was nice. Thanks for that.”
“I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t do crying women well,” I replied.
“You did this crying woman just fine,” she said.
And she smiled a perfect smile and spun away toward her terminal. And as she rotated her hair made a lazy arcing centrifugal motion in the air for the briefest of seconds and it was there again. The smell of her, my goodness. I sat in my seat for the longest time, frozen. I sat until I came to my senses and realized I had been sitting and staring at her back for the longest of times and only then returned to my work, embarrassed and ashamed and perhaps in love or lust or just confused, comatose, insane. And when I made my preparations to leave for the day she made a point of turning in her chair and saying a friendly goodbye and that was how things changed on the crying day — the day of Annie’s party. We became friends and began to share things and things were good at work and I went home that night and every night after and began to drink the bottle of vodka I bought at the liquor store every night on the way home. I was happy, you see, and when I was happy I drank to become miserable. As with crying women, I didn’t do feelings well.
That is the beginning of how it began.
posted by michael Monday, April 20, 2009
Here is a thing I remember from a long, long time ago.
I was in university so it was 1981 or so and I and several others were at the Brunswick, a local watering hole of ill repute. We went there a lot because the beer was cheap, the code of behaviour relaxed and there was a karaoke style of entertainment (this in the pre-karaoke era) that involved a drunken midget singing along to the juke box if you bought him beer which we always did.
There were lots of us there, boys and girls both, this gang and that, united by going to the same school and having some friends and/or classes in common. Ostensibly, we were there to celebrate the going away of a young woman who I barely knew. She was from Rochester, New York and, after 2 years of Canadian school, had decided to continue her education in the States rather than return to Toronto. So we had gathered to say goodbye to her, even those of us who had barely said hello.
I cannot for the life of me remember her name but I remember she was pretty in a way that only Irish girls can be - dark hair and long lashes, miniature pixie features, small and firm and upright breasts, a smile that could light the world. I remember sitting across from her on the sticky, beer-sodden benches of the Brunswick and listening to hear speak and watching her as she said her goodbyes to her friends for she was leaving in just a few days. I remember that I imagined that I had fallen in love with her. Suddenly, she had become my dream girl and in my beer-sodden state I imagined that I would make her mine. So I chose an opportune moment that was probably not terribly opportune and asked her if she would like to go out with me the next evening.
To her credit, her look of incredulity lasted for but a second and then she turned on that lightbulb smile and said to me;
"That's very flattering Michael and normally I would say yes but I think this is a time for me to be saying goodbye to old friends and not making new ones. Don't you?"
I beat a hasty retreat.
I drank a great deal. I remember that I was angry and surly for the rest of the night but looking back on it now I realize just how sweet and kind and gentle she had been to refuse in that way. I realize now that what she probably meant to say or wanted to say and what I deserved at the time involved some combination of the words 'idiot', 'drunkard', 'fool', or 'stupid'. Yet she held back and treated me like a lady would.
I ended up taking another woman home that night, someone as drunk as myself and what followed is a sordid something of which I am not proud but that is another story.
This one is about whatshername who was sweet to me when I didn't deserve sweetness, gentle with me when I didn't deserve gentleness, and kind to me during a time in which I was never kind.
I wish I could meet her again and say thank you or I'm sorry or make her understand that which I barely do myself.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 04, 2009
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
I must apologize to her in such a way that she does not know she has been apologized to at all.
posted by michael Thursday, February 26, 2009
I feel it now, its weight,
It tires me.
I sleep in the middle of the day.
I feel it still, the pain,
In my limbs,
And the muscles of my face.
There is no greater burden,
Than an apology unproferred,
A sin unforgiven,
A act of insensitivity,
Forgotten,
Trapped in the oyster of time.
posted by michael Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
I am dependent upon a God of my understanding whom I may never understand.
posted by michael Tuesday, November 18, 2008
"You're hairy," she said.
"I like hairy."
She combed persimmon fingers down my chest.
I watched a single hair fall to the carpet.
I felt ashamed.
I knew the meaning of insubstantial.
"I love the smell of you," she said.
"You smell sweaty, like a man."
She kissed my sternum for her lips were there.
I kissed the top of her head.
I breathed of her.
We stood like that for the longest time,
Perhaps a day or a year.
She traced my chest with ice cube fingers,
And kissed me here or there.
My arms at my sides,
I was paraplegic.
Behind her was a mirror,
Full-length on the wall.
Reflected, I saw my own face,
And the back of her,
All skin and curves and bone.
So beautiful,
Lazarus-like, I reached for her there.
posted by michael Tuesday, November 18, 2008
I have been going through some old papers at home and have come across a surprising number of old poems and letters and assorted scribblings, mostly self-indulgent and immature. Some, however, have a nice image at bottom. This is one of those....it was written about a young woman named Nancy with whom I shared love and hate and all the in-between.
Now is my soul in full winter,
Now it is buried in snow.
No birds fly above it,
No creature disturbs the calm,
Hard crust of its surface.
There is just the wind,
Turning snow to ice,
And that to thicker ice,
More blue.
Now does my soul lie fallow,
Not thinking, not feeling,
Rotting a grandiloquent rot.
It looks inward, downward,
For nutrients long lost,
Sucked from the depths,
By thirsty seeds uncaring.
My soul looks not for springtime,
My soul looks not at all.
It lies in ignorant bliss,
Raped, unknowing,
It feels no pain.
Nor does it wonder as to why,
Once lush, it now stands barren,
Or whither has fled the green.
I am thankful for its ignorant bliss,
For I could bear no more soulful pain,
That in my head is pain enough.
My mind still tastes her kisses,
And feels her hand's caress.
It remembers how she filled my arms to overflowing,
And the too soft hairs,
At the nape of her neck,
How they smelt like sunshine,
And burnt my lips.
posted by michael Thursday, October 30, 2008
This time it's not the heroin,
This time it's not vodka hurting,
This time it's not a ward dream,
Aided, abetted by drugs,
Screaming and leather restraints.
This time it's human pain,
Bitter sadness that vodka used to blunt,
Heroin allowed me to ignore.
This time it's the realization,
That, in all likelihood,
I will never see you again.
Not in this lifetime,
Not without the intervention of the angels,
And I do not think they are so disposed.
posted by michael Friday, September 26, 2008
Here is the beginning of a story I am writing. I began it about 6 weeks ago and have let it settle 'til tonight. I have been thinking about it for a year or more. It will be about evil and 'the failing' - you know what they say - write about what you know. It is set in a city in a time like now. I'm not sure how long it will be nor do I have an ending in mind but I would like to see it through to the end. That is something I have been lacking in my life - the seeing through of things to the end. That is something I am currently trying to change - that and virtually every other area of my life. And you know what - it's going okay!
I would like to dedicate it to a friend who sometimes comes to me in my dreams.
Here is how it began. Not how it all began because that would be a much longer story but how this portion of the story began, the portion I want to tell. What came before pales in significnace. What came before was merely prologue and no one reads prologues any more. What's the use? If it were important it would be in Chapter One.
Here is how it began.
I was sitting in a bar.
Drinking.
He sat beside me at the bar and my life went to shit; complete shit, shit as deep and viscous and fragrant as shit can be. The sort of shit that young shit dreams of growing up to be.
That's the short version.
Here's the long.
My name is Bailey. I have a first name but no one ever uses it. I work at a newspaper, editing copy. I used to be an actual reporter writing actual news stories but I lost that job. Got shitcanned, fired. Shame really, for I was pretty good at it and had acquired a bit of a reputation. But 'the failing', as the Irish call it, got me. If you're not Irish, that means that I became a drunk. More properly, I suppose, I was always a drunk but I got to the point at some point when the drink became more important than the work or anything else. My boss, the paper's managing editor, a man named Howard with whom I had gone to college, threw me the bone of copy editor instead of firing me outright which is what he really should have done and would have done if I had not gone to college with him. The chronic absenteeism, the missed deadlines, the piss poor attitude should have done it. If not, the fist fight in the lunchroom should have done it. The very smell of me toward the end days should have done it. Instead, I got a stern talking-to about 'turning my fucking life around and fast' and two weeks 'vacation' and a new job description so that I could kill the time necessary for me to get some sort of a pension. I suppose I should be grateful. I am not. More like bitter with a side of ashamed. I am a pariah but a pariah with a pay cheque. I still have a bit of a reputation although not the one I had before.
This is what I do.
Copy editor - noun - a person who edits a manuscript, text, etc., for publication, esp. to find and correct errors in style, punctuation, and grammar.
I review the writings of reporters who are not drunks presumably and correct their grammar and spelling and syntax. I am not allowed to edit the content or alter the context in which the content is expressed. I am to limit myself to style, punctuation, and grammar alone. There have been many times when I have thought of some delightful turn of phrase or some fetching choice of vocabulary but I must hold these impulses in check. My creative days are done. I babysit the words of others lest they stray - I do not parent. I have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
I am good at my new job - new although I have been at it for some years now - because of my education; first at the hands of a stern and unforgiving mother who was a primary school teacher and had been educated in the classical, Roman Catholic system and was a regular bear for grammar and expression and syntax, then through my own long years of schooling, and finally through my voracious reading, an activity which sustained me through my life until I found the solace of the bottle and abandoned the printed word for the easy pleasure and collapse of television.
I work from two in the afternoon until ten in the evening, Monday to Friday. It is the drunkard's perfect schedule. It allows me at least four good hours of drinking each work evening and allows me to sleep late and still prepare for the work day and allows me two evenings a week when I can really tie one on. The very nature of the job allows me to perform it without much in the way of conscious thought or physical effort. I used to try very hard to not drink during the workday but that lately has changed; I have taken to having an eye opener or two before I leave for work and carrying a flask of rye whiskey on my person for hourly little top-ups followed by a breath mint in the men's room down the hall from my cubicle. I am a little bit drunk most every waking moment and really quite drunk every night when I go to bed and I would have it no other way. I don't know if I could anymore. My die is cast.
The melodramatic among you, the left liberal, the 'that poor man' when you see a street person bouncing his way down an alley types, will ask how I came to this. The simple answer is that it just happened. It was nobody's fault. There was no trauma - no plausible excuse. I was raised in a respectable family with two sober, responsible parents and two quite average siblings, graduated high school and college, got a job, got married, tried unsuccessfully to have children, worked my job, climbed the career ladder, got a divorce, got into a fist fight in the lunch room, and here I am. It was that simple, that inevitable. It was like the tide, except the water of the tide was whiskey, or gin, or vodka, or beer. I drank experimentally in high school. I was a binge drinker in college. I was a social albeit heavy drinker when I was a professional, married man. I was a secret drinker when my wife began to complain about my drinking. I was a bottle hider and a sneak and a thief and a liar and a mint chewer when she forbade it. I was a stumbling drunk when she left me. Now I am what is known as a functioning alcoholic. I drink yet I function. There you have it. It was like the tide, except the water of the tide was whiskey, or gin, or vodka, or beer. It was inevitable, the transformation, inexorable, comforting, natural, welcome.
So I was sitting in a bar.
Rather, I was sitting in my bar, my regular haunt, my local, almost exactly halfway distant between my workplace and my apartment, on my regular stool, just there, second from the corner, near the cash register so I could exchange witty banter with Sissy, the brassy waitress who worked the busy nights, if she were in the mood, near the draft taps so I could pass the time of day with John or Paddy, the owners and bartenders, one or the other on alternate nights, and with a clear line of sight to the television suspended up in the corner and always tuned to the 24 hour news network with the sound down. You could watch the scrolling news across the bottom of the screen and watch the handsome talking heads mouth their words if you were so inclined while you waited for the drink to make you drunk.
There are social bars and drinking bars. Any real drinker can tell you that and any real drinker can differentiate between the two in a flash. Social bars are nicely decorated according to the season and the current holiday and somewhat clean. They smell okay, even good. They are designed for first date, after the movie, cocktails. They are designed for the office gathering thrown to celebrate someone's nuptuals or a promotion or retirement. They are designed for the 'that's enough for me, I'm driving' crowd. A real drinker will avoid them like the plague. They too often ring with laughter. There will be music that is just a touch too current, a tad too loud. They might have live entertainment that one would be expected to watch. God forbid, they might have a karaoke machine. Or plant life. Or a perky, always smiling hostess. Or a kitchen that is there for more than show. A real drinker will avoid them like the plague.
Drinking bars are pretty much the opposite. They smell of beer and sweat and urinal cakes. Women are rare. The music is the same tape that has been playing for years. There are no seasonal decorations for - insert name of holiday here - is just another day in the mind of a serious drinker, an inconvenience because it means they will have to drink alone at home for a day or two because the bars are closed until settling back into their established and comfortable routine. What decor or charm there is came with the place and has never been dusted. The staff is surly and resistant to change. They do not care about tips. They have usually been drummed out of their jobs at social bars, often for drinking themselves. A food order is just a pain in the ass. The air conditioning is set several degrees higher than one would expect; drinkers have not done anything that would require them to be cooled down. The lights are kept low. If there is a jukebox, it is broken. Has been for years. There might be a pool table but no one ever plays. Social type drinkers, the smart ones anyway, soon pick up the vibe and leave. They know they are unwelcome. They know they are unwanted. The very atmosphere of the drinking bar, the taint of the oxygen itself, will drive them away feeling like a black in the fifties who has presumed to sit at a lunch counter in the South and managed to escape just ahead of the mob. They hit the street with relief and they never come back. They tell all their friends. And thus, a drinking bar is born. To the drinker it is home. They push open the doors and their cares are lifted away. Here is a place, they think, here is a place for me. They drop into the place like a gasping fish back into the water and the environment envelopes them and gives them life and strength and comfort like a maternal embrace.
That established, let's get back to it.
I was sitting in a bar.
Drinking.
I was about halfway through my usual ration. It was about midnight. I got there about twenty past ten, same as always. I ordered a double and a beer first thing, then drank a single about every twenty minutes until last call when I would order another double and a beer to quench the thirst that would surely be caused by my arduous two block walk home. That gave me about twelve ounces of booze to work with and I would follow this with another twelve ounces or so sitting in my recliner at home in front of the tube, bottle on a side table at my elbow, trolling through the late night cable channels. Holding myself to twelve ounces or so at the bar meant that I could carry on a reasonably coherent conversation with the staff or any other guests who might want to pass the time of day. I could make the walk home without attracting the unnecessary attention of the police. It was also a financial decision. My demotion at work had reduced my take home pay considerably and I continued to drink the good stuff at my bar to show that I was not an alcoholic, just a regular with a taste for fine liquor. At home I drank rot gut whiskey purchased in sixty ounces bottles that cost less than half of my nightly tab at the bar. At home I drank from the bottle.
I was about halfway through my usual ration. I was as close to straight up sober as I ever was during the day short of the moment when I opened my eyes from sleep. I could have passed a roadside sobriety test. Indeed, I had plenty of experience in such testing, official and unofficial, during the last, sad days of my marriage, my wife's technique and tactile sense more sensitive than any equipment that the police had and not limited nor beholden to my rights according to the constitution. It was slow that night. Sissy had not been in at all so it must have been early in the week, maybe a Tuesday. It was me and Paddy on our respective sides of the bar, two men deep in conversation like lovers or gangsters or newly met long lost strangers at the far end of the bar, and a table of six guys in suits but run to fat slumming at a table near the door, six to ten years out of the frat house and still trying hard, all quite drunk and loud and boisterous, ties askew, still drinking it up at a good clip, bourbon and beer chasers, none willing to be the first to call it a night. In a couple of years, one or two of them might graduate to a stool at the bar with me. The torch would be passed.
So I was sitting in a bar.
Drinking.
He appeared to come from nowhere. By this I mean nothing metaphysical or spooky, simply that I did not notice him come in and sit down. The door was almost directly behind me and opened with a whisper. I looked down from the scrolling news and silent talking heads of the all news television and there he was, two seats to my right and Paddy was putting a double something clear on the rocks in front of him. He asked for peanuts and Paddy just laughed and walked away to his regular perch, one foot up on the shelf at the back of the bar, attention seemingly on the television but I knew he had the whole place in his view. Peanuts were beneath his contempt.
From my position I could look in the newcomer's direction as if I were watching the television above the bar. It was just a matter of lowering my eyes somewhat and I was able to bring him into focus and give him the once over. Just curious. (Drinking bar etiquette forbade anything except a covert glance. I knew first hand that forgetting your drinking bar etiquette could get you in a world of grief and even the hospital. Not all patrons came to bars looking for friends.) I had seen everything the television had to show three times over and Paddy was nowhere near as locquacious as Joe and Joe was never much of a talker. Good looking guy. White. Dark brown, maybe black, hair cut a little long for the fashion of the day. Tweedy jacket over white dress shirt, no tie. His trousers were hidden in the shadow of the bar. One leg was stretched back into and around the bottom rail of the stool on which he sat and I caught a glimpse there of polish or light. No glasses. No brief case. He watched the television for a while, half-turned away from me. Every minute or so he would lift his glass, give it a shake to jingle the ice like music and take the very tiniest of sips. He drank like a scientist. He might not have seen me at all. I looked away.
It was the day of the execution of Saddam Hussein and his mugshot was all over the news. Endless reports of his quiet death by hanging in some sand-choked shit-hole and reports and commentary and opinions from various talking heads and soldiers and political persons and men in the street about what this turn of events might or might not mean for the fate of the world and the country and the larger cosmic consciousness of mankind. I had been editing copy about the execution for two full days and could no longer give a shit one way or the other. My political views were impotent, right of center, uninvolved. I didn't vote. Didn't care.
That is one evil motherfucker - he said. Still. Can't help but love the guy.
Somewhere in there while I had been looking up to the television or down to my drink the new arrival had broken the silence. I was taken aback. Surprised. I thought I might had misheard him or imagined the sound of his voice or the sentiment expressed. I wasn't sure if he was speaking to me at all. From the direction of his gaze, he seemed to be addressing my glass.
Pardon me - I said quietly - hoping to clear up all of these doubts, real and imagined in one pass.
Hussein. He's an evil motherfucker - he repeated. But you gotta respect that. And now he got caught and he's got to take his medicine.
This time he turned toward me somewhat and lifted his head until our eyes almost met. There seemed to be little doubt as to his feelings on the matter. I had not given it much thought. I did now and decided that if he had been executed he must have been pretty bad. I did not have to read the words I corrected but I remembered the themes of repression and genocide and weapons of mass destruction. I didn't think I was capable of respect any longer. Still, one did not enter into a bar room conversation with a stranger lightly. I mulled it over. I thought it safe to agree or disagree both.
You got that right - I agreed and I was done.
We left it at that. When he did not speak for a while I thought we were done and turned back to order a fresh drink from faithful Paddy with a finger and a nod.
You ever know anyone who was evil - he asked? Truly evil? A real motherfucker's motherfucker?
Somewhere in there while I had been looking up to the television or down to my drink he had turned to me to speak. This time he was looking right at me, right at my eyes. His face was largely in shadow and I couldn't see much of an expression. He did not appear insane. He seemed, if anything, genuinely interested in what I would have to say on the matter.
Define evil - I asked.
I thought I would throw it back at him. I needed time to think. I was nowhere near far enough into my night's ration for a conversation of this depth. Evil, for fuck's sake? This was the time for the vagaries of Sissy's love life or the relative merits of the American versus the National League or the price of gas.
I mean truly evil, twisted, Satanic - he said. Like the Devil. You know, from the Bible?
He answered quickly giving me no time to think.
Evil you know, evil. Without any positive or redeeming characteristics whatever. Evil like tearing an infant to pieces with their bare hands evil just to see its mother cry and then beating the mother to death for crying the very tears they had caused and then having a good laugh about the whole thing. Concentration camp evil. Bayoneting pregnant women evil. Amoral. Sociopathic. Unable to feel any positive emotion whatever. Thriving on the infliction of pain and the application of misery. An eater of hate and drinker of dread. That kind of evil.
He was giving me no time to think.
My mother in law was an evil bitch - I joked.
Is that so - he mused? Maybe I should punish her on your behalf, Mr. Bailey?
Paddy interrupted as he came over to ask him about a refill. He refused, downed what he had left in his glass in one large swallow, ice and all, threw a bill on the bar, and took his leave with a nod for the two of us.
Gentlemen - he said.
I had not the time or inclination or the breath to answer. The table by the door stood to leave with much shouting and proferring of plastic and a bunch of 'your money's no good heres' and that took some time and by the time Paddy returned with a large fresh one for me on the house and a short beer for himself the stranger was long gone and out of my mind. And then it was late and I was on my way home to end that day and begin the beginning of another much like it.
When I awoke I had no memory of the stranger at all, something that was happening more often than I wanted to admit. My memory was growing holes and alcohol seemed to make them bigger.
posted by michael Sunday, September 07, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one.... it's an oldie but a goodie paraphrased from Heraclitus....
I am trying to hide from something that is always there.
posted by michael Sunday, September 07, 2008
I thought I saw you this morning, walking your dog,
I was north, you were south,
Just a flash, corner of my eye,
So I drove the block to check again,
Skirted that construction,
Wrong way on a one way street.
It wasn't you.
There were 2 dogs, not one,
Neither the right breed,
These were smaller, less fierce.
It wasn't you.
Too heavy, too much in the thigh,
You are smaller, more fierce.
You wouldn't wear those clothes,
Wouldn't consider those shoes,
Never appear with your hair like that,
Not that colour,
Never disheveled and dry.
My vision wore no makeup,
Was lumpy and unkempt,
I did not catch your scent as I drove past.
It wasn't you.
I laughed at myself,
But what I felt was pathos and fear.
I suspect my heart has brain damage,
Or perhaps it's the other way round.
Coin toss, really.
Could go either way.
posted by michael Tuesday, September 02, 2008
When I feel like this,
When I feel like I do,
I know I am not in your heart,
It's Katy bar the door.
When I feel like this,
When I feel like I do,
I know that, if I could bear,
To pull the curtain back,
It is raining all over the world.
posted by michael Monday, August 11, 2008
Would you like to see the yard - she asked?
We had been for coffee,
Short friends, long separated,
We were just back in touch.
An afternoon coffee at the shop at the end of her street.
We were just back,
I was about to get into my car.
I would like that very much - I said.
Would you like the nickel tour inside too - she asked?
There was much water under our bridge.
She had grown,
I had become and returned.
We had parted and become silent.
We were tentative; new kids at school,
Nervous in the playground.
I would like that very much - I said.
Would you like to see my bedroom - she asked?
I painted.
We were both alone now.
That was new, not like before,
When we both had been burdened.
We were free of that but bruised,
Still tender,
We walked all ginger,
Testing the ground for ice.
I would like that very much - I said.
Would you like to make love to me - she asked?
We stood beside her bed,
In a sunlight pool.
I would like that very much - I said.
Would you like to make love to me - I asked?
She moved to me,
Began to work my buttons.
I would like that very much - she said.
Are you sure - I asked?
Very sure - she said.
Sure as sugar.
Sure as rice.
I'm afraid - I said.
I'm afraid of the hurting.
Me too - she said.
I'm hurting now.
I'm afraid - I said.
Shhh - she said,
Don't talk any more.
She pushed me gently to the bed.
We struggled with our clothes.
You're magnificent - I said.
Shhh - she said,
Don't talk any more.
We'll talk later.
We'll talk when we're done.
What if... - I said.
Shhh - she said,
Don't talk any more.
She pushed her index finger against my lips.
Held it there.
We'll talk later.
We'll talk when we're done.
posted by michael Sunday, July 20, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
When I was a child, I was not allowed to be a child.
Now, as an adult, I am a child.
Now, as an adult, I have children of my own.
I am unable to allow them to be normal children.
I do not understand childhood.
I do not understand normal.
posted by michael Thursday, July 17, 2008
Here are some things that are going on in my life.
My nephew Jake (my wife's brother's middle child) was in town recently to have his left big toe amputated at New Vic. He also had exploratory surgery on the right foot - it will be 4 weeks until they are able to determine if further amputation will be required. This is the result of botched treatment for ingrown toenails performed by his family doctor. To be fair, this small town doctor has performed this same treatment many times with no ill effects. In Jake's case, something went horribly, terribly wrong. Jake just finished his first year in Engineering at Queen's University and is a fine young man. I recently broke a molar and had to had work done there. Toward the end of the month, I will have a crown installed. On July 2, I will have a colonoscopy scheduled to check things out in the nether regions. I have a family history of funny business in those regions and my father has been shitting into a bag for several years now - an indignity I hope to be spared. I am nervous about this - I have been in more hospitals in the last while than I would ever want. I am still off work due to addiction related depression. I will be re-evaluated by my psychiatrist on July 3 and expect that he will clear me for a graduated return to work. I sometimes feel that my friends have deserted me but I am sensitive to the fact that they have lives that have progressed while mine has, largely not. If there is a big difference in me I suppose it is this. I do not jump to the self-centered conclusion. Things are better at home. I am still having difficulty forgiving my mother and father. I am going to publish a novel for sale on the web and then a collection of the new girl poems. I am chairing an important committee for AA in London and am encountering many obstacles. I had to remove a woman from the committee because I knew that we could not continue to work together. I know it was the right decision but I suspect she is slandering my name within AA and that hurts me. I pray for her. I do not think she is well. She is due to give birth to her first child at the end of August. My children are a major source of anxiety for me - my eldest is not a very nice person and I am at a loss as to how to help him. I also think I am largely to blame for this. The middle child is a challenge - he is pushing the limits much, I suppose, like a normal child would. I do not know what normal is. My upbringing taught me to not talk, not trust, not feel. I learned these lessons very well indeed. The youngest, my daughter, is a test. I try to love her. Sometimes I think I have damaged the others beyond repair with my alcoholic behaviour. They, I think, cannot be saved. There is hope still for her. This is not healthy thinking. Tonight I am out of sorts for no apparent reason. I am working on my 4th step again - the first time I did it, it didn't work because I ended up in the psych ward. I am trying to be comprehensive and careful this time. I think it might be my last shot at it. This step involves a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves - not a list of the things that we did wrong (no shortage of those in my life) but rather an examination of what it was in ourselves that caused these things to happen, our character defects. It's complicated, even for me and I have been thinking of little else for over a year. The 5th step involves telling all of the above to God and to another person. In my case, this other person will be a priest that my sponsor Stan knows. Not much on priests usually but I will trust Stan and take my medicine. These are important steps for me because, if successfully completed they will allow me to forgive myself for past transgressions and move forward. This is the cause of many of my recent problems, the inability to forgive oneself and the self-pity and guilt and related repercussions. I am re-reading the works of Le Carre and enjoying him immensely. I have been to the driving range once and played 18 with my brother-in-law, my soon-to-be-brother-in-law and my nephew. I shot 112 with 1 par which is not bad considering how little I have played since I quit drinking. In 2 weeks I will go to my usual June golf outing with 7 friends at Sauble Beach. This will be a test as it is historically a drink-fest. I will not drink but I sometimes crash after such events, in terror or relief or some other unidentified emotion. I do not do emotion well. My youngest sister will be married at the end of July. This is her second time and the second time for the groom to be as well. He has an 18 year old daughter who will be starting at USC in the fall. They appear to be well-matched and I have high hopes for them. This event will likewise be a test - my family is chock-a-block with alcoholism and dysfunction. My recent difficulties have not helped. I have held a mirror up for each of them and, in some cases, they do not like what they see. I planted a garden of cucumbers, dill, tomatoes, and garlic. The cukes are coming along well and the tomatoes seem to be growning. The garlic is terminal, I think. There is no sign as of yet of the dill. I continue with a rigorous schedule of recovery. Westover Aftercare every Wednesday at noon, Food Bank 2 afternoons a week, Intergroup and home group business meetings once a month, a meeting every 2 weeks with Jennifer at Addiction Services of Thames Valley and 7 to 10 AA meetings as well. I will continue at the Food Bank in some different capacity once I am back at work. They are good people there doing good things and I want to be part of that. Sometimes at meetings I think I am not making any sense but I try to say what is in my heart or what I think I need to say to help me. Tonight a newcomer approached me after the meeting and said I had helped him and this made me feel good. I have spoken twice to larger AA groups and think I did okay - I would like another crack or two at it because I think I can do better. I am nervous about returning to work, mostly about seeing the people. Only a very few know why I have been off and there will be questions. Some of my friends have left the department or the company itself while I have been away so I will be without them. I am concerned about my friend K who is having a difficult pregnancy. I am trying to work the AA program to the best of my ability. I ask for help in the morning and give thanks at night and pray regularly during the day. I go to meetings and try to help other alcoholics. I work the steps. I try to keep what I have been freely given by giving it away. I have met many truly great people in the program - I will never be able to repay them. My non-AA friend Dave likewise has been a rock for me. I am still too selfish by several orders of magnitude. My weight is back to 183 or so which is where it should be. I had been down to 160 not long ago. I am the same height as always.
posted by michael Thursday, June 05, 2008
We were lying in her bed in the afternoon, happy, after love. She was on her back halfway up on pillows against the headboard somewhat. Her right arm was around me, toying with the curve of a shoulder, tracing lazy loops at the back of my neck. Her left was nowhere to be seen. I was lower down, on my side, with my head in the crook of her armpit. My left cheek was resting on the substantial mass of her right breast - the nipple right before me - big as a tower. I could see the little pimply things that ringed it and when she breathed and her chest came up I would lash at it with my tongue but it was just out of reach. My left arm was crushed beneath her, insensate. My right was across her belly, my fingers dallying in the forest of her pubic hair with occasional forays down the junctures of her thighs. Her legs were tight together.
Open your legs a bit - I said.
Why - she asked?
So I can play - I said.
It's sort of messy down there - she said.
I know - I said. But it's a sexy kind of mess that we made together and that makes it wonderful.
She complied and my hand slipped lower to cup her there.
We're going to mess up the bed - she said.
We'll buy more sheets - I said. We'll buy sheets by the job lot.
I slipped a finger in an inch or so and she wiggled and said - hmmm.
It's just splooge - I said.
What's that my love - she asked?
She had increased the pressure of her arm around me and her hips had taken on new life.
The stuff that spills out of you when we're done - I said. It's called splooge.
I thought it was sperm - she said.
It's sperm when it goes in - I said. When it mixes with you and spills out, it becomes splooge.
Where did you learn that word - she asked? I think you might have made it up.
I don't know - I said. A porn flick maybe.
What are you doing watching pornography - she asked?
I had to do something before I met you - I said.
She dismissed that with a laugh and that laugh brought the rose of her nipple close enough for me to give it a swipe with my tongue.
If you keep doing the things you're doing - she said - we'll have a little pornography happening right here.
The spirit is more than willing, my sweet - I said - but, alas, the flesh is weak.
I motioned with my chin toward my groin - my penis lay there curled, quiescent, shiny.
I could help with that - she said. That's my job now, to help your flesh become strong.
You're very good at your job - I said.
I love my work - she said.
posted by michael Thursday, June 05, 2008
We walked along in companionable silence,
We were friends but it was our first time,
Our first time alone together in the evening.
We were walking home from dinner,
Scallops and beef for me,
Salad and fish for her,
Ice cream parlour cones for dessert,
It was the first time I had seen her tongue,
Pink and lithe.
I had taken her hand when we crossed at the light,
She had not thought to reclaim it.
Her hand in mine was dry and sweet like sugar,
I tried to do justice to her grasp.
The air brought me whisps of her scent,
We bumped occasionally, walking close,
She was quite small, barely to my shoulder.
I have a problem, she said.
(Let's assume she used my name,
And, further, that I cannot use it here.)
What's that, I asked?
(Let's assume I used her name,
And, further, that I cannot use it here.)
Is this a date, she asked?
I pondered this minefield for a long while.
We walked the sidewalk from circle to circle of light,
The evening was warm and middling moist.
Why do you ask, I bailed?
If it's a date, she said, won't you expect to kiss me good night?
I pondered this minefield for a long while.
We walked the sidewalk from circle to circle of light,
We allowed a dog-walker to pass us by,
Carrying a plastic bag lumpy with shit.
I wouldn't expect a kiss good night, I said,
But I would like one very much.
I'd like to think however, that when it comes to good night,
We would kiss each other so,
The way you phrased it made it sound quite one-sided.
Fair enough, she said.
We walked along in companionable silence.
So, if this is a date, she said, or something quite like it,
And we are expecting to kiss each other good night,
Well, I have a problem with that.
I pondered this minefield for a long while.
We walked the sidewalk from circle to circle of light,
We stopped at a corner and waited for a turning car.
What problem is that, I bailed?
What if we kiss just awful, she asked?
What if we knock teeth or get sloppy?
What if you go left and I go right,
And we can't find the center?
I pondered this minefield for a long while.
The street had run out of light,
We were in near full darkness, houses to our left,
A sudden ghost of a children's park to our right.
I have an idea, I said.
I knew you would, she said.
I felt the strength of her smile without looking.
She gave my hand a clench.
What if we had a trial kiss, I asked?
Just up there where the light rebegins,
We'll stop under the light so that we can see,
And try a short kiss to see if it's awful,
To see if we find the center.
Okay, she said.
We walked along in companionable silence.
There where the light rebegan,
We turned toward each other and met in the middle.
She looked up at me through long and auburn lashes,
Her lips were glisteny moist as if she had just licked them,
I wondered briefly at the state of mine.
I grasped her at the points of her shoulders,
Cupping her there in my palms.
(I thought briefly of my parent holding me there.
Heard, I'll shake some sense into you,
Pushed it from my mind.)
She raised her hands to my waist,
And held me there bird wing gentle.
We came together,
Just a touch at first, for the feel,
Pulled back,
Reseated for comfort and breadth.
Turning together we found our center,
Pulled away, back for a bit and finally away,
Her lower lip sucked slightly between mine,
My upper lip sucked slightly between hers.
We leaned apart.
She looked up at me through long and auburn lashes,
Raised one hand from my waist to my neck,
Just there toward the back,
Pulled me in again, nails digging in slightly,
Pushing up goose flesh,
Her thumb hard on some artery under my ear,
I felt somewhat faint, dizzy,
The center found us right off,
Deeper, more profound,
It was the first time I had tasted her tongue,
Moist and lithe.
She looked up at me through long and auburn lashes,
I think we'll do just fine, I said.
Yah, we're good, she said.
We turned and started away,
We walked the sidewalk from circle to circle of light,
We neared her little cottage house.
I apologize, I said.
What for, she asked?
I kissed a little roughly there, the second time, I said,
It was like I was suddenly hungry for your mouth.
She gave my hand a clench.
I understand, she said.
We walked along in companionable silence.
The air brought me whisps of her scent,
We bumped occasionally, walking close,
She was quite small, barely to my shoulder.
posted by michael Monday, April 21, 2008
Celina is pig-faced ugly,
Bulging eyes,
Prognathic jaw,
Sharp pointy nose,
Turkey wattles,
Eye brows and lashes,
Pale to invisible,
Fat body, small tits,
Thick ass and thighs,
Dank, stringy, horrid hair.
Celina is stupid,
Dumb as a post but unaware.
She talks too much,
Subjects of interest,
To her alone,
She likes to show off knowledge,
She simply doesn't have.
Celina lives with her mother,
Her father is long dead.
They complain about things together,
And watch a lot of reality TV.
They snipe at each other,
For they are much alike.
When Celina is angry with Mother,
Which happens quite a lot,
She tries to kill herself,
And goes to the hospital.
Mother drinks,
Pretty much all of the time.
Celina dropped out of high school,
Because the children were so mean,
Celina was a sensitive child,
Her Mother said it was so.
She finished by correspondence,
Scraping by but just.
Celina dropped out of college,
Because the adults were so mean,
Celina was a sensitive adult,
Her Mother said it was so.
Celina has had two jobs,
Both ended badly.
Celina is a health nut,
Vegetarian except for some meats,
Vegan except for eggs.
Celina studies yoga,
Wants to be an instructor,
But she is too fat and slow and vacant.
The yoga school is stealing her money,
Five days a week.
Celina does not drive a car,
She has no passport,
She takes thirteen pills each day.
What she knows of the world,
Comes from prime time television,
And her Mother.
Celina will die a virgin.
posted by michael Saturday, April 05, 2008
In my midnight dream,
She is seventeen,
She smells of milk and metal.
In my midnight dream,
She is as beautiful as an apple,
Yet her eyes hold a humour,
That is never quite right.
posted by michael Saturday, April 05, 2008
In my midnight dream,
I am smoking pot with Satan.
The smoke is heavy, potent,
Viscous like oil.
In my midnight dream,
Witches wheel above us,
Satan appears unconcerned.
posted by michael Saturday, April 05, 2008
In my midnight dream,
It is first thing, sunny and blue.
Large birds wax and wheel, dulcet.
In my midnight dream,
The people glower,
They shuffle and shift their loads,
Cannon balls of melancholy and hate.
posted by michael Saturday, April 05, 2008
If kissing had a colour, I think it would be green; a deep smooth green like the bough of a coniferous tree.
If kissing had a smell, I think it would be pungent like gasoline and sweet like nutmeg.
posted by michael Thursday, April 03, 2008
Vidi et scio.
posted by michael Tuesday, April 01, 2008
She works part-time in a jewelry store,
But they're cutting her hours.
He has worked three weeks in his life,
Making pizza,
He could not handle the stress.
They have a new car with a sunroof,
Her Dad bought it.
He buys them one every second year.
They have been together for 5 cars,
She is 24, he is 26.
They have a bed and a bedroom,
But sleep on the sectional in the living room,
In front of a 52 inch TV.
They have three cats.
They order food in most nights.
He was diagnosed at sixteen,
She has a horse,
Rides Western every Sunday morning,
He is afraid of the horses,
He takes pictures on his phone.
He does not drive,
He waits for her to pick him up from group,
After her shift at the jewelry store.
On off days she takes him to work,
He walks the mall,
Or sits on a bench and surfs the Internet,
Until she is done.
He cannot bear to be alone,
Alone he tries to take his own life.
He cannot bear to be with others,
He cannot ride the bus.
They are engaged to be married,
Trying to have a child.
He has 300 ring tones on his phone,
Changes his tone every day without fail.
They went to the maple syrup festival,
They did not pour the syrup on the snow,
He went to jail.
She works part-time in a jewelry store,
But they're cutting her hours.
posted by michael Friday, March 28, 2008
Katie turned a corner today,
A scarf of colour around her neck,
She smiles more.
She has washed her hair,
Tied it back to show her face.
There is a glint of stainless,
Between her lips.
Wearing a touch of some soft shade,
Her eyes shine,
Her skin has lost its pallor.
posted by michael Friday, March 28, 2008
This is for Anne D. with whom I had two chances...
One time, the first time, in the front seat of a car,
In the driveway of Kim's parents' house in Woodstock,
On the long August weekend; the last summer of the 70's.
We spent the latest of the night party there,
While the others slept in disarray.
We watched the moon over the top of the garage,
Talking about the stars, drinking sparkly blueberry wine.
I should have kissed you then.
You had been smoking,
I was drunk, of course,
And had taken some happy chemical.
In the morning I felt like 3 kinds of shit.
The second in your apartment on St. George,
On the floor in front of your ratty brown couch,
We were listening to Joe Jackson Steppin' Out.
I had walked you home from the 'Wick,
Although I had no right,
You belonged to another in the titular sense.
Drunk again, drunk as a lord,
I kissed you then.
(Lips skinny as rakes, soft as kittens and strong.)
I got an attack of self-righteous,
And fled.
I remembered you today,
While I was trying to fill the hole.
I am afraid to Google you,
I am afraid you have Googled me.
posted by michael Thursday, March 27, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
There is one terrible thing I have never told a soul.
If I do not tell, I cannot be saved.
If I do tell, I will be damned.
posted by michael Thursday, March 27, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
Suicide is a psychological constant.
posted by michael Thursday, March 27, 2008
"I've been there too", she said.
"It was the worst week of my life."
"I've been there too", she said.
"I snapped out of it."
And in her eyes I saw,
Inherent criticism.
Pity.
"I think I am in a different place", I said.
"I don't think you've been exactly here."
"I am in a place,
Where monsters stalk the hall,
Outside my bedroom door,
Occasionally, in the morning.
And they linger, silent, in the attic,
For the rest of the day."
"I think that's quite a difference," I said.
"You were in a bad mood,
While I have monsters,
And really no mood at all."
posted by michael Thursday, March 27, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
I am breathing in.
I am breathing out.
posted by michael Thursday, March 20, 2008
If I were in charge of the writing of fiction I would outlaw the following three conventions;
1. Having a character's partner or parents or child or whatever killed by a "drunk driver. This is meant to engender sympathy but has become pitifully cliche.
2. Having a woman scrub herself in the shower after she is raped or violated or assaulted or whatever. I understand what the author is trying to do but, seriously, it's been done to death. See above re. pitifully cliche.
3. A woman examining her body in front of a full-length mirror searching for desirability or flaws or yawwwn.........There's got to be a better way.
posted by michael Thursday, March 20, 2008
Paula was in for 8,
Out for 4,
Then asked to come back.
It is likely she won't get out again.
From here you go provincial.
From here it becomes long term.
Sometimes long term is behaviour,
Sometimes long term is conversation.
Sometimes long term is in the eyes.
Paula's got long term written all over.
posted by michael Thursday, March 20, 2008
Leo just wants to play the harmonica,
Like he did before.
The harmonica makes him sad now,
Sad enough to slide it into a pocket,
And hang himself in the basement,
With a dog leash of brown leather.
Leo was the youngest of seven,
An infant in a foreign land near the water.
Leo was still in diapers,
When he was first forced,
To suck his brothers' rampant cocks.
Leo went from primal comfort of mother's teat,
Straight to the horror,
From the harmonica to the leash.
posted by michael Thursday, March 20, 2008
Here are the questions my colleagues and I answer every morning at the Out-Patient Mental Health Program at Old Vic Hospital. The process is known as Check-In.
1. How did you eat and sleep?
2. Any problems with meds?
3. Rate your mood between 1 - 10.
4. Name one thing you're grateful for.
5. Name 1 strength or skill.
6. How did you spend your evening?
7. How can the group help you today?
This is often more difficult than it might appear.
Sometimes it can make a participant cry.
Sometimes they bolt from the room.
Sometimes they do not return.
posted by michael Tuesday, March 18, 2008
You have beautiful hands, she said.
I dreamed of them.
She touched me then,
Fingers tangled, the push of a thumb.
I flushed.
Are they touching you, I asked?
In these dreams of yours,
My hands, are they touching you?
We were interrupted.
I did not hear the answer,
But in her eyes,
I saw hope perhaps,
Or sad resignation,
An older child watching,
A balloon slide skyward.
The interruption began to babble,
And the moment slipped away.
posted by michael Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sarah and the floor are intimates.
She and the sky are strangers.
She has not seen other eyes,
Since she was a slip of a girl.
Sarah is beautiful like a birch tree.
She has perfect lips, like Clara Bow.
Her eyes are broken.
They cannot look up.
They filter out the good.
posted by michael Friday, March 07, 2008
Thought I saw you today,
Disappearing round the corner,
7th floor,
With your trademark chestnut flip.
I knew that couldn't be,
Although I wonder these days.
I knew that couldn't be.
Because you are sane as sand,
And wouldn't be caught dead,
On the 7th floor.
posted by michael Thursday, March 06, 2008
Once I kissed a perfect stranger,
Passion, lips, teeth, and tongue.
That kiss, she said, didn't feel to me,
Like it came from the bottom of your heart.
My heart, I said,
Doesn't have a bottom,
And perhaps not even a middle,
Nor, to the best of my knowledge, a top.
That, she said, might explain,
Why you kiss the way you do.
Kissing you, she said, makes me feel,
Like I am the only person in the room,
And I am hungry and angry and lonely and tired.
I feel, she said, like a passing Negro in the fifties.
posted by michael Friday, February 29, 2008
My mind woke up in Bryan's attic apartment,
Kitchen, bedroom, bath,
Cain Street, opposite the Plaza Hotel.
Long, narrow, steep stairs,
The air never moved a muscle.
My body woke up at Bryan's dinette table,
Chipped and burnt and pitted Formica.
An ocean of bottles before me,
I drank without a glass.
Headband so I didn't drip on a drug.
I woke disturbed and fearful,
And could not return to sleep.
Troubled mind,
Matters must be addressed.
I run from sad and fond emotion,
I am impossible to love,
I am incapable of forgiveness,
Human touch makes my skin crawl.
Awake, I sat at the foot of the bed,
And considered the possibility,
That you had become,
A figment of my imagination.
posted by michael Thursday, February 28, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
Interviewer - What do you say when you are praying to God?
Mother Theresa - I don't say anything. I just listen.
Interviewer - In that case, what does God say to you when you are praying?
Mother Theresa - God doesn't say anything. He just listens.
posted by michael Monday, February 25, 2008
This, the following, was written on 2/18/08 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
I know a woman whose name is Louise,
Although she has difficulty in spelling it.
"And that would piss certain people off", she said,
By which she means her Mom and Dad.
Louise has marks on her inside wrists,
White marks from a knife slicing,
And gouges from stabbings,
On the backs of her hands.
Louise is very pretty and fair of skin.
Her hair is thick and chocolate brown,
Blunt cut because she did it herself.
"And that pissed certain people off," she said,
By which she means her Mom and Dad.
Louise wrote my name today,
On a pad of paper she carries in a pocket,
With a small plastic mini-putt pencil.
I helped her spell it.
"You're one of the good ones," she said.
There seem to be only two types of people,
In Louise's mini-putt pencil world.
There are "good ones" and "fucks",
She writes down the names in lists,
On small pads of paper,
She carries in the pocket of her robe.
posted by michael Sunday, February 24, 2008
This, the following, was written on 2/14/08 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
Here are the things I remember about my suicide attempt of Monday, February 4, 2008.
I remember talking to my father briefly concerning the return of his car which I had been borrowing while the deal on my new car was finalized.
I started swallowing pills at 3:15 p.m. exactly.
I took sixty-five 75 mg. capsules of Effexor, 5 at a time. Effexor is an anti-depressant which had been prescribed for me by my family physician.
I remember laying down to rest in my bed.
I was planning to take another bottle of 37.5 mg. capsules of Effexor but I fell asleep.
I remember my wife waking me to ask if I was coming to dinner. I said "no" and laid back down for more sleep.
I remember the telephone ringing some time later. My wife came into the bedroom for the phone but missed the call. She was angry that I had not answered it. When she set the phone down on the dresser she saw the empty pill bottle and asked where the pills were. I said; "In me". She said; "Let's go". I asked; "Where"? She said; "To emergency".
I remember walking down the hall to the front door.
I remember thinking that I was going to stumble. I seemed to be walking very quickly.
My oldest son was sitting on the couch.
I remember thinking about how I was to get my shoes on.
I think I stumbled into the wall near the front door.
I remember some conversation at the hospital as follows....
"What time did you take the pills, Michael"?
"3. 4".
"How many did you take"?
"All of them".
How old are your children, Michael"?
"15. 12. 8. 9".
I remember things moving very slowly. I remember my eyes were closed. I remember feeling giddy. I remember wanting to laugh. That is all I remember of Monday.
I remember nothing at all of Tuesday.
I remember waking up in a hospital bed.
I remember a nurse or a female doctor sitting at a desk of sorts toward the foot of the bed.
I remember curtains.
I remember my wife sitting sometimes beside the bed to my right.
I remember someone pulling an enormous tube from my throat with a terrible sound and a horrible shaky vibration as if my throat was corrugated in some fashion. I remember being put to mind of frog disection in high school biology class.
I remember the medical lady asking if I needed to "pee".
I remember we looked, the two of us, under the bed clothes at my penis, white like a slug and wrinkled; someone else's, not mine at all. Out of the tip extended a small, white and hollow tube. I remember she pulled it out with a zip and some pain and then held me as I pissed into a kidney-shaped plastic container. I remember it was most pleasing although the urine seemed to take hours to work its way out.
I think that was all for Wednesday.
On Thursday I came to in another hospital, the third of the process they tell me although I remember them all as one. It was there that I started to get better.
These are the things I remember about my suicide attempt of Monday, February 4, 2008. I cannot say for absolutely certain that any of these things happened, just that I remember them - some very real, some deep in the imagination, some from the in-between.
And think as I try, I can remember nothing more.
posted by michael Sunday, February 24, 2008
Here is a story about a person I knew.
When I was in elementary school one of my classmates was a boy named Rene Potvin. He was older than the rest of us because he had failed a grade or perhaps two. He was bigger and more muscular than the other boys; he was far and away the best athlete; he could hit the ball further; he was stronger; he was faster; his feats were lengendary. And although the strongest, he was very gentle and I do not remember that he ever got in fights in the schoolyard. His reputation was such that no one dared. I do not remember his academics. In retrospect, I suspect he struggled. I was the smartest boy in the class and was so without effort. I was also the smallest and the least athletic. Rene and I were not close. I think perhaps he was the first in a long series of father figures in my life but that is a whole other story and does not belong here.
Rene was always quiet; he literally didn't say much. He had plenty of friends or hangers-on I suppose but they were beyond me. His friends were older and much more cool. The first time I saw marijuana it was in Rene's hand. The first time I drank it was his liquor. Rene and I were cordial. His sister and my mother taught at our school so we had this small thing in common.
We went to high school together, Rene and I, and there we went our seperate ways. We took no classes together for there was an academic stream and an occupational stream and never the twain did meet. When I was 14 and finishing Grade 9 Rene turned 16, quit school and joined the army. I did not see him again for a couple of years nor did anyone else.
He returned during the summer after my Grade 11 and he was changed. He talked more at first; he was downright frantic sometimes. He told us he was changed because he had been drugged by his superiors in the army and we believed him; there was no denying he was different than before. He drank and I saw him most often in hotels and we would talk about the old days we had never shared. He drank a lot and drank for effect as did I so we had this small thing in common.
Rene also walked when he returned home from the army. He walked all of the time, mile after mile, endless loops around the town. We would pull up beside him in our fathers' cars and offer him a ride but he always smiled and demurred and we would drive off and tell tales for a while of the hero that Rene had been and of his feats of strength and coordination in the schoolyard of our youth. He was such when I left town for university and he was such but worse when I returned home for lucrative summer employment in the paper mill. He walked but we no longer offered him rides; he never showed up in the hotels. I think he quit drinking altogether. He got a job as a dishwasher in a local restaurant. He stopped talking altogether and fell from sight.
When I finished university I did not return home. I kept up with Rene primarily through my mother who had it from his sister, the teacher. Thus, I learned in hushed tones of his violence and his depression and his medications and the ruined family occasions and his new apartment above the restaurant where he worked and his withdrawal from all things human. He worked and he walked; he did naught else. He saw his family for an hour or two at Christmas if he was invited and reminded but this was a strain for both parties. My life took me to other places.
I learned just recently that Rene had died in the summer; died from some infection that could have been cured had he troubled to go the doctor. He hadn't or wouldn't and it had settled in his spine and then in his brain where it killed him. He was 48 years old. He had worked as a dishwasher in the same restaurant for 26 years and always lived in the same little apartment on the second floor. He had over $60,000 in the bank; a life's saving when you are working for minimum wage. He had walked untold miles. He had no friends.
I write of Rene today because he came to mind while I was myself walking. I have, you see, been walking recently, partly to get some exercise at my doctor's suggestion and partly to get away from the thoughts in my head which have become incessant and disturbing. It crossed my mind today while walking that my walking was the most pleasant part of my life. It crossed my mind today that I would walk further, perhaps I would get up in the morning first thing and walk until it was time to return home to bed. And my mind settled upon Rene and how he would smile and demur when we offered him a ride and how our tales of his legendary strength had given way to derision and teenage humour at his expense. I think I understand now why he walked as he did; he walked as he did to escape the thoughts in his head which had become incessant and disturbing. Would that I knew that then. I think I would have parked my father's car and walked with him a while, not talking. Not talking at all.
posted by michael Sunday, February 03, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
You are your father and your father is you.
posted by michael Sunday, February 03, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
I am unlovable yet I am loved.
I love, but not myself. I am unlovable.
posted by michael Friday, February 01, 2008
A conundrum can be defined as '...a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma'.
Here's one....
I cannot live as I am, I cannot change, and I cannot die.
posted by michael Thursday, January 31, 2008
I saw on the local news, just now, last night,
They're starting to take down the old house.
Too much damage from the second fire,
Started by vagrants, they say,
But I doubt it.
I always favour the unscrupulous, the less savoury.
The original home, it was said,
Of some mayor or another,
Muttonchops, long dead.
Most recently a Greek house,
'Til taken by fire.
The pictures showed a toothy crane,
Bullyng down the walls,
Slowly and bit by bit.
Cracking the windows,
Crunching the wood.
The pictures showed glimpses,
A mattress,
A bicycle,
A bath-tub with feet,
Hollyhock wallpaper,
Carpet scorched black.
The voice over was just words I could not hear.
The pictures showed its stately grounds,
Sloping to the river.
Overgrown now with alder and willow.
Black campfire marks,
Wine bottles and beer caps,
Kids I guess, from the neighbourhood.
Could be vagrants, I suppose,
But I doubt it,
It's not much of a town for vagrants,
More of a town for the unscrupulous, the less savoury.
The only time I touched the yellow brick,
It was you and I,
Just after the first fire.
It was wet, just finished raining.
It was autumn and cold and bleak.
You were thinking of buying,
I was moral support.
The only time I touched the yellow brick,
We gave it a good going over,
Climbed the stairs all careful,
Tipped over a couch and climbed it,
That we might peer in.
The air was rich with piss,
Redolent of rain and smoke.
The walls scorched by flame.
The only time I touched the ghostly brick,
I climbed the porch all careful.
I skirted the holes and dangerous nails,
Reached back to the ground for you,
A tug, and easy does it,
And a second to hold you steady.
The only time I touched the blackened brick,
Creepy cold, stolid,
My other hand was touching you.
You were soft,
But somehow stronger.
The voice over was just words I could not hear.
posted by michael Friday, January 25, 2008
This, the following, was written on 12/31/07 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
There are many terrible things about spending New Year's Eve in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital.
There is waking early in a single and uncomfortable bed that crinkles with the sound of rubber and listening to the snores and subterranean noises of troubled strangers.
There is the fact that there is nothing in the common fridge on which to snack except a turkey sandwich that tastes of nothing, ginger ale, and red apples gone soft.
There is not being able to smoke your well-earned morning smoke because we are locked in for hours yet until the morning shift comes on.
There are the other early risers and night owls, some frantically friendly and eager to talk and some taciturn, on edge, dangerous.
There is being first in line at the breakfast trolley which is a dubious honour like being a guest at a hanging. The food is bland as if they fear flavour might incite a riot and the packages are often difficult to open with fingers fat from sleep and drugs.
There are the staff who are either eager to get home to bed and sleep and careful lest they slip up in last minute haste or trudging in to take up their duties on a holiday day, big bags rustling and clinking with the makings of a pot luck lunch. The new arrivals smell fresh like snow and in some cases their hair is still slick and wet from the shower.
Yet perhaps the worst thing about spending New Year's Eve in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital is that there is no one to whom you can relate your dreams. This runs counter, I know, to my own adage as expressed in these pages that there is nothing more singularly boring than to listen to someone else recite their dreams. Still, there are those on the outside of here who love me enough to pretend they are interested in mine. Even the latest one, the one from this night, in which I discover that someone, some strangers are holding an unwelcome wedding reception in my palatial home. When one of the guests, a handsome and blond and arrogant surfer type young man makes as if to strike me I go to call 911 but can nowhere in my palatial home, filled with dark wood and chock-a-block with secret passages, find a telephone. As I search I find only additional uninvited guests or intruders from my own past lives who are of no help whatever. I grow increasingly frustrated and the feeling of impotence becomes anxiety and then panic and I awake, hands cramped from squeezing and jaw aching from the clench and more exhausted than the night before but not at all sleepy and I lie still to consider whether the whole episode is not a metaphor for my life or perhaps merely the entrails of the little blue pill they give me at bedtime and therefore of no cosmic significance at all.
posted by michael Saturday, January 19, 2008
This, the following, was written on 12/31/07 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
Michael!
Mmm? - I murmured. We were about to sleep after love and I was sweet drowsy tired.
Michael! There's something under my pillow. - she sounded alarmed.
Perhaps it's a bassett hound, my sweet. I understand they're partial to the underneath of pillows - I was nearing sleep, sweet drowsy tired.
No! - she said. It's small.
A bassett hound puppy is small - I reasoned.
No! - she said. It's square.
It might be a rain cloud, my heart. Sometimes they're small and square but only rarely.
Be serious, you great oaf! I think it's a ring box.
Oh, that! - I said. That's a surprise for tomorrow. Let's go to sleep. I'm sweet drowsy tired.
What sort of surprise? - she asked, her voice up a notch, girlish.
It's nothing really. The box holds a ring and tomorrow I was planning to offer the ring to you and ask you to be my friend and my lover and my helpmate and my partner and my wife until we died and forever. It's late. Let's deal with all that tomorrow when we're fresh and well rested.
She rested briefly and I could feel her thoughts gathering.
You could do it today - she said - and then we could sleep in late like we like to do.
But it really is scheduled for tomorrow - I said. I have it all planned. I was going to wake up and gather you to me all sweet drowsy tired and smell the dust of your neck and the sunshine of your hair and push myself into you until we exploded in great bright light. Then I was going to offer you the ring and go through all the necessary folderol. You know how much I like to stick to my schedule. Unscheduled things can sometimes have me out of sorts.
Hmm - she said.
Besides - I continued - I am sure that you will say yes tomorrow. I'm not entirely sure about today. It's vital to the plan that you say yes, of course.
She rested briefly and slipped deeper into thought.
It's after midnight - she said.
Well, I suppose that does make today tomorrow technically. It is a trifle unorthodox but I suppose it wouldn't do any harm. I do like to sleep late.
So I reached under her pillow and slipped out the box, small and square and blue and velvet or satin, the plush-y one, thumbed it open and, taking out the ring, I slipped it onto her finger and looking into her eyes, I said; Laura, will you be my friend and my lover and my helpmate and my partner and my wife until we die and forever.
She was sitting up on her side of the bed and twisted halfway toward me. The bed sheet had fallen to her waist exposing her breasts. She took the ring hand and placed it palm down and fingers up over her heart cradling the wrist gently like a bird or a baby with her other hand. Her eyes were downward cast and she was wiggling her fingers slightly so they caught the light from the bathroom door and the light from the moon through the window.
Okay - she said.
She leaned in and pushed me down with a kiss.
I watched her pose, hand to chest, from the softitude of my pillow. There was a glimmer of sweat down the breastbone under her hand and under one breast. Her eyes were shining. She curled down into me, my mouth full of her hair, and placed her ring hand across my chest. She wiggled her fingers slightly so they caught the light from the bathroom door and the light from the moon through the window. It tickled me.
She rested.
I don't think I've ever been happier - she said after a while. I don't think it's actually possible to be happier than I am now.
She rested.
Do you think you are happier now than you have ever been? - she asked after a short while.
Hmm - I said. I don't know about that. I reached my maximum happiness on the evening of April 13, 2007. I've been as happy as can be since then, happy as a clam, happy as a lark, happy as happy can be. Red-lined, pedal to the metal happy.
What happened on the evening of April 13, 2007? - she asked.
I knew she knew but humoured her because it pleased me.
That was the first time I kissed you - I said. It was in front of your little house. We had just returned from dinner and a little stroll around the town and we had talked the night away. You stood on the first step of your front stoop and I stood on the walk so we were just the right height. Your lips were soft and rich and I was surprised by their muscle and at the end of the kiss I felt the tip of your tongue run across my upper lip soft as a feather.
And you said - that was a wonderful evening. Will you ask me out again or will I have to push myself on you shamelessly and unabashed?
And I said - how about dinner tomorrow?
And you said - I'm free for lunch and dinner.
And then you hugged me very tightly with your cheek against mine and I tasted the dust of your neck and the sunshine of your hair and I thought my heart would surely break with happiness. I don't think it is possible to be more happy than I was at that moment. I don't think the human body could survive more happiness than that.
We rested.
It was a good kiss - she said. It gave you a hard-on.
That it did- I said.
She giggled and went quiet.
She had moved her ring hand slightly until it was over my heart. I covered it with my palm and felt the bite of the stone. I fell asleep mindful of its prick.
posted by michael Friday, January 18, 2008
This, the following, was written on 12/30/07 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
These are some memories I hold of my father. They are in no particular order.
I remember...
-he used to drink beer while he drove, holding the bottle between his thighs. We had a '67 Valiant with air vents under the dashboard. He would store the full bottles there to keep them cool. Sometimes, he would throw the empties over the top of the car into the ditch with his left hand.
-he told me once about putting pennies on the train tracks to be flattened by the train's wheels. Sometimes, he said, they would put down rocks to try to "derail the son of a bitch".
-once he picked up my purple bike, the one I bought used from Guy Morin, over his head and threw it against the wall of the garage. He had been trying to help my friend, Dave Napier, and I tighten the chain.
-sometimes he would play country music on the record player in the basement rec room and pretend to play the guitar on a broom.
-he tried to stump the children with the spelling of difficult words like 'sauerkraut' and 'restaurant'.
-once, when he alone with the kids, he locked me in the basement because I did not want him to crack my toes. Because the door had no lock, he wedged a dinner knife between the door and the jamb.
-he hit me 2 times. Once when I was 13 or so he hit me a few times with his belt because I had been drinking beer and driving around in a car with my Uncle Ralph and some friend of his. I was drunk and did not feel a thing. The other time I got a hard slap to the side of the head because I slammed my bedroom door in his face. I was 15 or thereabouts.
-he hid pornograpic magazine in the rec room bookshelves. Some of the magazines were in a foreign language I thought to be Polish.
-he almost crushed a gas station attendent between our front bumper and the car in front of us at the pumps. He hit the brakes just in time, turned to me and said, "Sorry 'bout that Chief" which was a catch-phrase from Get Smart, a television show popular at the time.
-him teasing my sister about masturbation and the size of her breasts, telling her that rubbing bear grease on her breasts would make them grow.
-he fought once with his friend Clifford Hyland at my Uncle Leonard's cottage. They were fighting about my Aunt Debbie in some regard. As we drove away in the car he cried and pounded the steering wheel with his fist and yelled that he had never been a fighter.
-when he talked of suicide it was always by hanging.
-he was irrationally jealous of my mother and accused her often of infidelity even with other women.
-he was assistant coach of my lacrosse team for a season when I was 8 or perhaps 9.
-he was a member of the Knights of Columbus but never went to church.
-he would give the children money to go to the corner store while he went into the hotel for a beer. We were not to tell my mother.
-I smashed his lighter and crushed his cigarettes because he had promised to quit smoking one night when he was drunk. He sent me to the store to buy more first thing the next morning. In those days children could buy cigarettes if they had a note from a parent.
-my mother saying that he was okay when he drank beer but that wine made him 'crazy'.
-him fighting with my Uncle Emmett and Emmett and my Aunt Mary and all my cousins driving away in the middle of the night.
-him being taken to the hospital unconscious while drinking one afternoon at my Uncle Raymond's house. When we picked him up the next day he was mad because he did not have his shoes.
-sometimes he would come home from work in a big, orange, 4-door company truck with equipment and mud in the box.
-him yelling at me all out of control because I was not mowing the lawn in the proper direction.
-he drove himself to the hospital one autumn afternoon after one of the storm windows fell on his head. My mother arrived home and saw all the blood and called my Aunt Diane. My mother thought he might have cut his wrists.
-he once carried a much bigger man 2 miles out of the bush on his back. The man had a chainsaw wound to the head and died before they could get help.
-he used to smoke in the car and the smell made me nauseous.
-he had a small, old-fashioned, bank safe from which I regularly stole. The combination was 10-10-24. He blamed the thefts on Scott Seuss, the younger brother of my best friend because Scott had a bad reputation.
-he would sit on the couch and cry and wail after he had beaten my mother.
-he liked to read, especially detective novels.
-when he came home from work he would bring us kids cookies and snacks from the camp cook.
-when he stayed home from work and cooked a school day lunch he would always cook far too much.
-he often snuck quietly around the house as if he were trying to catch people doing things.
-when my parents began to talk about getting a divorce he cut his wedding ring off with bolt cutters. I found the 2 pieces when I was searching his coat pockets for money.
-he discovered where I hid my cigarettes in the rafters of the garage and kept the pack.
-him driving the car into the garage one winter night and passing out in it while it was still running. My mother seemed not to care. I went outside and rapped on the driver's window until he woke up and turned off the ignition.
-him all drunk and belligerent at my wedding dressed in a much too big suit.
-him punching my mother in the face through a small pane of glass in our front door.
-he drank Labbatt's 50 and smoked Export Plains.
-he planted many trees on our property in Whitney.
-he said he knew how to find the beer store in every town in Ontario.
-he started seeing a woman named Helen after my parents divorced and she took him for some money.
-avoiding him while we were both drinking at the Plaza Hotel by drinking on the far side away from the bar.
-hunting moose with him once but not seeing a thing.
posted by michael Thursday, January 17, 2008
This, the following, was written in Westover Treatment Center on or about 12/16/07 and revised in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
I dreamed a Crown Royal dream,
And woke all angry sweaty.
Jaw sore from clenching,
And crunching liquor-y ice.
Throat sore from the acrid bite,
Of marijuana smoke, or screaming.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
We were without Michelle,
The house cook and dogsbody.
She was trapped in Tiverton,
Her lane had not seen the plow.
We made do with sandwiches,
Fried things,
Ice cream and peaches from the can,
Fruits and nuts and crackers.
Someone broke the microwave,
Heating a tin of soup.
The oven was beyond us,
It smelled of gas.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Jimmy pumped his iron,
Tons of stainless iron.
It kept his mind off other things,
Percs and his dead girlfriend, Polly.
He showered 6 or 8 times that day,
But wore the same rank clothes.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Cliff and Maggie played Rummy,
At one end of the dining room table.
Their game was eerie silent,
Just the occasional slap of a card,
A muttered 'cocksucker',
A whispered 'dirty whore'.
While one shuffled and dealt,
The other would stretch and look around.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Fred walked the circuit of the first floor,
Stopping at this window or that.
The snow seemed to confuse Fred,
As if he did not remember,
Weather or the change in seasons.
Things moved more quickly than Fred,
Every step a journey,
Every breath a carnival ride.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Aaron painted pictures,
Long dead prime ministers,
Painted all scary and dread,
Provincial governors of an erstwhile hell.
As he finished,
He pushed the portraits away.
They puddled on the floor.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Sean acted all sullen and dour.
Huffed at the dead television.
Puffed at the floor.
Pretended to sleep with his shoes on,
The remainder of the day,
On the leather sofa in the lounge,
Which was against all the rules.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Julie tried to teach Jeff his manners,
With little success.
Jeff had come from the jungle,
And spat on the floor.
He knew only the civility of the crack house,
The courtesy of the pipe.
He claimed to have murdered,
So no one called him on his shit.
When we were snowed in at rehab,
Brad drank tomato juice,
Mixed half and half,
With Drano crystals.
He didn't die.
He puked a bubbling blue-ish fluid,
And complained of cramps.
We tied him with strong grey tape,
Ankles and scarred wrists,
And left him near the fireplace,
So he would be warm.
posted by michael Saturday, January 05, 2008
These, the following, were written in Westover Treatment Center on or about 12/16/07 and revised in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
Last night, I thought I saw Bill Melchers,
In a crowded hospital room,
But that simply could not be.
He has been dead these many years,
Driven first to dotage,
Slow and cruel,
Then taken.
In the autumn, before winter,
I look to the leaves that refuse to fall,
And cling stubborn to the branch,
They bring to mind,
Suicide and hanged men.
posted by michael Saturday, January 05, 2008
This, the following, was written on 12/29/07 in the psych ward on the 7th floor of the South Campus of Victoria Hospital to which I had been consigned.
In Room 611 - Pod A,
NOTICE
This Room Under Video Surveillance
For Your Safety
There is a copy of Monet's Poplars,
Screwed to the wall.
There are 2 chairs welded roughly to iron stanchions,
And a bed of sorts that does not move.
The air blows cool from a ceiling vent,
And the lights are controlled from elsewhere,
By guards who sit in plastic chairs,
And stare at Video Surveillance for my Safety,
And laugh about golf and vacations and women.
If you lie on your right side,
On the bed of sorts that does not move,
In Room 611 - Pod A,
Under Video Surveillance For Your Safety,
And look to the wall,
There near Monet, almost to the corner,
There is a blotch, a Rorschat splatter,
Where paint has peeled from cinder block.
It is shaped liked a stylized M,
Blockish, rotated to one stylized side.
If you stare at the Rorschat splatter,
On the wall of Room 611 - Pod A,
NOTICE
This Room Under Video Surveillance
For Your Safety
If you stare long enough,
If time is not an issue,
You might begin to see things,
In the blotch's rough edges,
Trimmed perhaps by finger nail,
Or water or time.
You might see a gorilla face,
And count its fangs.
An Easter Island head,
With worried, prominent brow.
2 breasts with upright nipples,
An A cup and one closer to a C.
A bear rampant with thick and dangerous shoulders.
A corner of Africa,
The one near Khartoum,
And there at the bottom right,
In perfect scale and detail,
In three-quarter profile,
Is Archie's sometime girlfriend, Betty,
With her hair ribboned back,
Or Marilyn Monroe,
When she was her most beautiful.
If you stare at the wall of Room 611 - Pod A,
For even longer,longer,
If time is not at all an issue,
If it hardly passes at all,
When you are subject to Video Surveillance
For Your Safety
You might see it there,
Almost to the corner,
Scarcely bigger than the side of your thumb.
If you squint your eyes,
And drown out the screaming of Riva,
Who is Under Video Surveillance For her Safety,
In Room 609 - Pod A,
Pining for her parents,
Or angry or lost.
Concentrate and you will see,
Scarcely bigger than the side of your thumb,
Yogi's best friend Boo Boo,
Kneeling, winged,
An angel in a pork pie hat.
posted by michael Friday, January 04, 2008
What are you listening to? - she asked.
I was lying sidewise on the couch lisening to my player. She had plunked herself down halfway on my hip and pulled out one of the earphones.
Hmmm - I answered for I had not heard the question for the music and not seen her because my eyes had been closed.
What are you listening to? - she asked.
Music - I said.
Sad music? - she asked.
The Smiths - I answered because I knew I could not lie.
I thought so - she said.
She listened a moment to the earphone she had pulled from my ear.
Why do you always listen to such sad music? - she asked.
I like it - I said.
But why? - she asked. It's so sad. Why would you want to be sad? Why do you chase it so?
Sad music makes me sort of happy - I said. It's happy music that makes me sad. I like to think of it as realistic.
I smiled at her because she was so beautiful and smiling at her was pleasing to me. She did not smile back. She turned to the coffee table beside us and picked up the magazine lying there. It was opened to an advertising picture of a happy bride and a beaming groom.
What do you think of when you see this picture? - she asked.
Between us The Smiths blared on tinnily from the earphones. I was getting uncomfortable because I felt she was coming to a point.
I don't even know those people - I said.
That's not the point - she said.
I don't know - I said. What do you think of? I was getting uncomfortable because I felt she was coming to a point.
She looked at me with that look that made me uncomfortable.
I look at this young couple - she said, giving the magazine a small rattily shake - and I think of them when they're in their eighties. I think of him taking a Viagra and locking the door and taking her to the bedroom with a giggle. I think of them making love, all clumsy and wrinkled and maybe impotent, but still having fun just the same because they've spend their whole lives loving each other and making love and mistakes and raising their family and they're still in this great love with each other and they still thrill to the other's touch.
She looked at the magazine picture for a longish while and then turned it toward me.
What do you think of when you see this picture? - she asked. Honestly.
I looked at the picture for a longish while and after a while she tossed it to the table and turned to me with some expectation.
I look at the picture - I said - and I think that she has just legally bound herself to the man who is statistically most likely to murder her.
Her eyes flashed and she was angry for that never took long. Lord, how well I knew that.
Where did you get that shit? - she asked.
I read it in a novel - I said. It just always stuck with me, that bit.
Was it a good novel? - she asked.
I don't remember - I said.
You just remembered that sad bit - she said.
I admitted that was probably so.
That's my point - she said.
She went to the kitchen and started to root in the fridge for a meal.
I turned off the player and swung my feet to the floor.
posted by michael Thursday, January 03, 2008
We lay on our sides in the middle of her double bed; she on her left and me on my right. Our bodies were as close as can be. I had my back to the door. The table lamp was on behind her but turned down real low. She had put on some music that I didn't recognize; two girl singers with harmony and a guitar. We were just kissing, not petting even really. "I can't," she had said. "Not for a couple of days." I was content with the kissing. My right hand was under her neck, palm in the high center of her back. My left hand was at her waist. She was soft there, and warm and firm, like some ripe cheese. Her lips were soft as flowers and she smelled good like a department store.
When she stopped with the kissing, I opened my eyes. She was looking back at me. The light behind her had her face in some sort of shadow but I caught the flicker of her eyes.
"What," I asked?
I was afraid maybe I hadn't been doing it right.
She took her hand from my shoulder and used it to push an unruly lock of hair behind an ear.
"If we fuck like we kiss," she said, "we might never get out of bed."
"That would be fine with me," I said. And it was, for I thought I could live without food or drink if I had her.
We kissed some more until she stopped.
"What," I asked?
She gestured with her hips against mine.
"Do you want me to help with that," she asked? "It feels serious."
"No," I said. "I want to wait for you."
We kissed some more until she stopped.
"What," I asked?
"You're a funny man," she said, "turning down a freebie like that from a dangerously beautiful woman."
"It wouldn't be free," I said. "It would be very dear."
"My grandmother used to say that," she said. "She said 'dear' instead of 'expensive' too."
We kissed some more until she stopped.
"What," I asked?
"Did you mean 'dear' like 'expensive'," she asked?
"I meant 'dear' like 'precious'," I said, "although you have cost me a lot."
She looked at me for the longest time and then smiled like she caught my drift.
posted by michael Thursday, October 25, 2007
This is the first time we've been alone - I said.
I was sitting on a stool at the hardwood island in the center of her apartment kitchen. It was late afternoon. We were early to her house, waiting for some other people to arrive; people I could have done without but good friends of hers. She was bustling for she always bustled, even when sitting still. I think she was planning to make tea.
What do you mean - she asked?
She gave me a quizical look and came around the island to stand beside me on the left. She was wearing that perfume she always wore, just a hint of it; you had to be close to smell it.
I mean it's the first time we've been alone, just the two of us without any others. That's silly - she said. We've been alone lots of times.
No - I said. We've walked down the street together, the two of us. We've talked quietly, just us, in a crowded room. Sometimes I feel like we're alone but that's just in my mnd. There is always someone around, someone watching us, someone who can see us and mind our business.
Hmm - she said.
She turned, crossed her arms across her perfect bosom and looked at me directly.
I looked back but did not cross my arms. I smiled because she was beautiful and I was falling in love a little more with each breath of her.
It's nice - I said. I like it, being alone with you. I like it quite a lot.
Me too - she said. And apropos of nothing, maybe you should kiss me, here, now, allegedly the first time we've been alone.
Hmm - I said.
She took the half-step that brought us together.
I placed my hand carefully on her neck, thumb toward her cheek, fingers curled into the little hairs at the nape and pulled her slowly to my mouth. And we kissed like that until we had had sufficient. She closed her eyes throughout; I kept mine open. I don't remember what she did with her hands.
Holy Crap - I said when we parted!
By that I am thinking that you mean what a truly remarkable kiss Elizabeth. It curled my toes and stopped my heart and changed my life for the very much better and I can't wait to do it again and I'd like to spend the rest of my life doing it again and again 'til my lips fall clear off.
It didn't stop my heart - I said. It started it.
Mine too - she said.
The doorbell rang and rang again.
She placed her palm on my cheek and ran the ball of her thumb across my bottom lip.
The doorbell rang and rang again.
posted by michael Thursday, October 11, 2007
Very early one morning in February of 1977 I was awakened by my father kicking my bed. He was in his work clothes and he was angry. Were you driving my car drunk - he shouted? What! What’s going on - I replied. I had worked the night before at my job at Dante’s Tavern and Pizzeria and then been to a party at Tom Scott’s house; lots of hash oil and rye dogs. My head was pounding, my mouth desert-dry, my eyes gummy and unfocused. Come with me - he ordered and turned to walk back upstairs. I scrambled to comply, pulling on jeans and a shirt from a pile near the bed; my Dad was not someone you kept waiting, especially when he was angry. When I reached the living room he was standing in front of the picture window which looked over the driveway and the front yard. The curtains were torn a bit from where he had jerked them to the side. How do you explain that - he asked? I followed his gaze to the driveway in which sat my Dad’s 1972 Dodge Monaco station wagon, gold with wood trim. It’s running with the doors locked, you fucking idiot - he explained. And I looked again. All round the neighbourhood, the cars were covered with several inches of fresh snow for there had been some weather last night. And my Dad’s was clear as a bell, the exhaust making a happy cloud in the front yard before the wind would occasionally wisp it away. Softly, I could hear the music from the 8-track player behind the locked doors. Would you believe I was warming it up for you - I asked in desperate jest? And he swung his left arm in a tight and compact gesture, giving me what he liked to call a “lifter”. The back of his hand connected smartly with the side of my head just above the ear. I staggered and he walked out the door with a mighty slam. I returned to bed stopping at the fridge to chug some Koolaid from the jug. Down the hall I heard my mother stirring. When I awoke several hours later there was blood on the pillow from where he had cut me with his heavy ring.
posted by michael Sunday, October 07, 2007
So, how did that make you feel?
What! $250 an hour and all I get is page one of The Big Book of Psychiatric Cliches?
Let's not talk about the money, Michael. You told me in our first meeting than you had more money than Billy Be Damned. What you don't have is someone to ask you the tough questions and wade through all the bluster and bullshit until you come up with a honest answer for once in your life.
Wow! I don't think shrinks should accuse their patients of bullshitting. Not too professional. What do you think is going to come of this?
I think maybe if you want to get out of a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging. I think it might be a first step toward explaining the drinking and the drugs and the self-destruction and the suicide attempts and the terrible anger and why it is that you fall in love with every woman who is half-way nice to you and end up hating them. Now how did it make you feel, Michael?
I don't know what to say.
Tell me how it made you feel.
Fuck, I don't know. She had a piece of glass through her cheek and when she opened her mouth to yell at me I could see the sharp end inside her mouth all shiny. And when she yelled at me her words were all slurry like she was drunk and there was so much blood. And I was afraid of her because she was all bloody and I was afraid of him and I was angry because she seemed so angry with me and I wasn't the one who had hit her. Is that what you want to hear? I mean, fuck, I was 4 years old.
That's part of it. Have you ever talked to her about that day?
What! Like, hey Mom, do you remember that time that Dad put your head through the window in the front door and the police came and took him away, boy did that ever make me angry? Like that?
Sort of, although I think you could ease up on the sardonic. I was thinking maybe something like, I was really frightened that day Mom because you seemed so angry with me.
It wasn't because she was angry. I know that she wasn't angry with me. I'm angry because she never apologized or explained. We just didn't talk about it. She came back from the hospital with that big fucking scar and my Dad came back from jail and really started hitting the bottle but no one talked about a fucking thing.
So who exactly are you angry with, Michael?
Right now, you, you shyster, quack fuck. How does that make you feel?
Pretty good, actually. I think maybe somewhere in one of these abusive tirades of yours you might stumble across something important. At the very least, when you're haranguing me, you stop digging.
Failed Bedside Manner did you?
Next week let's talk about the closet.
Are you out of your fucking mind? I came here to forget about the closet.
What would I know? I'm just a $250 an hour shyster, quack fuck, remember? On the other hand, I haven't been to detox twice or the funny farm 3 times and I've never tried suicide and I'm still on my first wife.
Holier than thou motherfucker!
See you on Thursday.
posted by michael Thursday, September 27, 2007
Did it hurt - I asked?
We were sitting, she and I, on a park bench; green wood with the top board missing from its back. It was late summer, pushing fall, but it was still plenty warm in the early evening before the sun sank from sight.
I don't remember - she said. Maybe. I had taken some pills too.
She was wearing the ratty old high school letter man jacket she had been wearing the first time I saw her. On the right sleeve, high up, was a name patch that said "Blacky". She was wearing jeans and Converse with no socks. The jacket was zipped up high and she had turtled into it slightly, chin down. She had brown hair, medium long, and she usually wore it loose.
Why did you do it - I asked?
I was straddling the bench, facing her. In profile she was fiercely beautiful and there were thin wisps of hair at her temples that I longed to touch.
I was mad at my mother, I think - she said. I don't remember now. I might have been in love with someone too.
Somewhere in the distance there was the clanging of some incessant train. Past her, in the distance, I could see a family picture; Dad and Mom standing close together watching a little child, perhaps 2 years old, and a large yellow dog play tug of war with a stick. We were almost under a maple tree. Its fallen keys had crunched beneath our feet on the concrete path as we approached the bench.
I'm glad you didn't succeed - I said. I would have missed you.
I brought the hand I had been holding slowly to my face and traced the thin white lines on the inside of her wrist with my cheek. They were raised somewhat but as soft as she.
I'm glad too - she said. I would have missed you.
She turned to me and smiled at me with her eyes and one corner of her mouth. Her eyes were brown and shining as with tears.
The funny thing is - she said - is that my Mother found me and called the ambulance and saved me. I was bleeding in the bath tub and she found me and saved me. While we waited for the ambulance she held me in the bath tub and stroked my hair and told me she loved me over and over again and again. I was so tired.
The tear had become real now. It rolled slowly down her cheek and puddled at the corner of her lip. I wiped it away with my thumb.
Do you ever think about doing it again? Now, I mean?
I rubbed my wet thumb soft, soft on the thin white lines on the inside of her wrist.
Sometimes - she said.
She was crying full out now, but silent.
If you ever think of doing it again - I said - will you come to me first? You know where to find me.
Past her, in the distance, the little child, maybe 2 years old, had fallen and was crying and the mother was kneeling in comfort and the dog was barking and jumping at all the clamour. The father hovered, impotent in the face of maternal strength.
Where will I find you - she asked?
She was crying full out now, but silent.
I'll be right beside you - I said.
And I got up and pulled her to her feet and to me and I held her for a long while. I could feel her crying in the up and down of her shoulders. Her hair against my cheek smelled like summer attic dust. She was tiny against me and I held her tight, tight while she cried.
Always - she asked?
We were walking out of the park now, slowly, with lots of touching.
Always - I said. All the time. Forever.
We walked into a circle of street light. She was smiling now and hers was a fierce beauty.
Do you want to get some coffee - I asked?
She stopped abrupt and tugged me to her.
Can I kiss you first - she asked?
And we kissed in the circle of street light until I pulled away, vertiginous, short of breath, half-blind.
posted by michael Monday, September 10, 2007
So where do we go from here - he asked?
What do you mean, where do we go from here - she asked?
They were lying in a tangle of sheets in her bed in her bedroom in her house on Oak Street. It was late afternoon and still very sunny.
She was lying on her left side, left arm making a tripod for her head. Her hair was matted at the temples with sweat. Her right nipple was exposed, impertinent. With her right hand she traced lazy patterns in the hair on his chest.
He lay on his back, head propped on a pillow. He was smoking into an ashtray on the floor beside the bed.
I mean, what do we do now - he asked? You know, what is to become of us?
You’re an idiot - she said. We just made love. We had orgasms, so now we lie here for a while resting and enjoying the feeling. In a while we might do it again or perhaps we’ll get out of bed and have something to eat. Or perhaps we’ll just fall asleep for a while.
He considered that for a moment.
I’m not exactly Mr. Fix-It - he said.
What the fuck are you on about - she asked?
He considered that for a moment.
Your last man, you know, what’s his name, was good with his hands. He could build things and fix things. I’m a disaster with a hammer and a calamity with a saw.
His name was Ken as you well know and furthermore, I am now convinced you are a complete idiot - she said. Do you think that your ability to build things or fix things has any small thing to do with my loving you?
Her hand had stopped moving on his chest and he felt there a small pressure.
Doesn’t it - he asked?
What did I do to deserve such an idiot - she asked, as if to herself or perhaps to her God? No, it has nothing to do with love. I love you because when I see you from a distance it sucks a smile from me. I love you because when you brush the hair from my face and tuck it behind my ear, I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
He considered that for a moment.
I worry that I’m not good enough in bed for you - he remarked after a while.
She slapped him now on the soft skin of his belly and it made a hollow, slapping kind of sound.
God preserve me from this idiot of a man that you have cursed me to love - she said.
She was quiet for a while.
Did you not enjoy that sex we just had - she asked? Did you get nothing from it except for the physical release?
He considered that for a moment.
Of course I did - he said. I love making love to you. I love the feel of you and the smell of you and your taste. When you kiss me soft then hard then supple, sometimes think I might cry or go blind.
That’s it then - she said. There’s your answer.
He considered that for a moment.
What if it is not always like this - he asked? What if we get boring or predictable, you know just going through the motions of sex?
Sex is not love, idiot - she said. Love is what happens when we’re not in bed. Love is when you take care of me when I having my period cramps and rub my back. Love is when you make me laugh from your silliness. Love is when you kiss my eyes or hold my hand when we are sitting on a park bench. Love is in your funny love notes and flowers and love is when you wear my favourite shirt although it is not a favourite of yours. Love is when you make me feel beautiful and skinny and funny and wise just with your eyes. Sex is just a fringe benefit of this love.
He considered that for a moment.
She reached for his chin with her hand and turned his face toward her. Her eyes were brown like tree bark and lively.
Would you love me less if my vagina sealed up just out of the blue - she asked?
He reached for her hand and pressed her palm just softly to his lips for a moment. He turned to her and made a tripod of his right arm and pushed a lock of stray hair behind her right ear. He trailed a finger just softly across her bottom lip.
I could never love you any less - he said.
He leaned in to kiss her eyes just softly, one then the other.
Sometimes I don’t think I could love you any more but then I see you from a distance and it sucks a smile from me and I think I might go crazy from my loving of you or perhaps blind.
He leaned in to kiss her eyes just softly, one then the other.
But then I see you in the morning sleeping in this bed and I feel my heart stretch with love until it’s about to burst. I think my heart is as big as the summer sky now just from my love of you.
She considered that for a moment.
That sounds like you’re catching on finally - she said.
She leaned in close and kissed him hard then soft then supple.
I love you - he said.
Of course you do - she said.
They kissed again.
He reached for her with intent.
Not now - she said. Deep talking with idiots makes me hungry as a bear.
She rolled from the bed and danced into the pale blue robe she had had forever.
You’re the most beautiful woman in the world - he said.
Grilled cheeses okay - she asked? I think I have some tomato soup. I love grilled cheeses with tomato soup.
Then she was down the hall and he was alone in the bedroom in her house on Oak Street late in the afternoon.
He rolled up to sitting on the bed and spilled the ashtray.
I spilled the ashtray - he said.
You’re an idiot - she called out - and I couldn’t love you anymore if I tried. Now clean up your mess and wash up for dinner.
Likewise - he said.
She had sucked a smile from him.
From the kitchen came the clatter of a pot and the rush of the sink.
posted by michael Sunday, September 09, 2007
My worst day sober is better than my best day drunk.
posted by michael Tuesday, September 04, 2007
My father is 75 years and 1 day old and does not have any friends.
posted by michael Sunday, September 02, 2007
Fragment 11
"So that's it then," he asked?
"That's it," she said.
"Just like that," he asked?
"Just like that? Are you saying that you never saw this coming? This has been coming since the day I met you."
"Do you remember the time in the orchard," he asked?
"Of course I do," she said! "And I remember the smell of the blossoms that fell on us while we were making love. But that's not enough, not any more."
"Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind," he asked?
"No," she said. "That's it."
"Do you love me," he asked?
"Of course I love you," she said. "Do you think I would have stayed as long as I did if I didn't love you?"
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....," he said.
"Dickens! You're going to quote fucking Dickens at me now?"
She was angry now and her cheeks were flushed suddenly with colour.
"Do you remember the rest of that quote Mr. Writer, Mr. Bon Vivant, Mr. Times Literary Supplement"?
She was angry now and her voice had become shrill.
"If I hadn't been here last night to roll you over and call the ambulance, you would have choked on your own puke, Mr. Writer. You would died in your own puke."
She was angry now and hurtful.
"Do you see the problem here," she asked? "You're talking about fucking in an orchard a million years ago and quoting fucking Dickens of all people and I'm talking about puking and stomach pumps and the vodka and failure stink of you. Do you see the conundrum?"
She was angry now.
"What's the rest of the quote," he asked? "I don't remember."
She looked at him with piteous contempt.
She was angry now and crying.
"....it was the age of wisdom," she said.
"...it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ...."
He sat heavily on the corner of the bed.
"So that's it then," he asked?
"That's it," she said.
She was angry now and made to leave.
She shrugged on her coat.
Her bag was by the door.
He sat heavily on the corner of the bed.
posted by michael Thursday, August 30, 2007
In my midnight dream,
It is raining hard, steady.
Her smile makes her interesting;
One tooth just out of place,
I want to touch it with my tongue.
In my midnight dream,
Her voice is light in the darkness.
Sweet and sombre and carefree,
Music played on a violin by a small boy.
posted by michael Tuesday, August 28, 2007
We were lying abed,
All spent and tender tired.
"Why," I asked her,
"Why does your voice become that,
When we're lying abed,
All spent and tender tired?
Why does your voice become,
Whispery and softy sweet?"
"Because," she replied,
"Because I don't want God to hear.
For he might think me too happy,
When we're lying abed,
All spent and tender tired,
And he might take you away,
So I use the voice of my heart."
I pulled her to me fierce.
"I love your heart voice," I said,
"It is music to me,
But I'd like to think that God,
Is on our side, Him and all the angels."
"Better safe than sorry," she said.
And she seemed to fall asleep.
We were lying abed,
All spent and tender tired.
The outside was cold and windy.
Raining to beat the band.
posted by michael Tuesday, August 21, 2007
If we keep doing what we're doing,
It's going to happen.
If we're not very careful,
It will happen for sure.
If we continue the laughing,
The secrets and the dreams,
The wan, uncertain smiles,
The code.
If we grow any closer,
If we reach any deeper,
Innocent touch will turn to pregnant caress.
We will lose our minds.
If we continue to whisper,
Lip to ear,
Soft kisses of warm breath,
We will fall.
If we keep doing what we're doing,
It's going to happen.
If we're not very careful,
It will happen for sure.
Then, there will be hell to pay.
posted by michael Sunday, July 22, 2007
I have spent my life waiting for that one tumultuous experience which would define me and, in so doing, missed those experiences which have defined me without tumult, one bit at a time.
This I seek to address.
I have used up my life dreaming of the home run, ignoring the fact that a walk, a bloop single, a slow roller, and a Texas-leaguer will score just the same and be more fun.
This I seek to address.
I have squandered my emotional potential in pursuing that one great and grand love which was my self-allotted due, ignoring the love that surrounds me and of which I have not been worthy.
This I seek to address.
I have wandered blindly in the darkness of night and day ignorant of the light in mine own eyes.
This I seek to address.
posted by michael Tuesday, July 17, 2007
He had seen plenty of things in his morphine dreams and some of them had been real and true. So to open his eyes and see her sitting there in the orange and plastic chair beside the bed, arms clasped tightly to her chest and hands cupping sweatered elbows was no surprise really. He smiled with a memory and closed them again, enjoyed the clouds and visions and smells of the narcotic.
"Billy?"
Eyes opened and she remained, clearer now as if the light had improved or his vision. She had little lines of wrinkles around her eyes and they became her. She was as beautiful as an apple.
"Hey!"
She smiled then and the lines around her eyes softened.
"You're still here. That makes me very happy. You're as beautiful as an apple."
She smiled more deeply and reached to grasp his mottled and scabby hand.
"Now is the time for you to say something charming like you love what I've done with the place."
He arched his chin at the IV stand with its stainless steel and cabling and the blinking, beeping thing that beeped to show that he still lived.
"I love what you've done with the place."
They both smiled and the silence ventured slowly toward the uncomfortable."
He dreamed briefly about touching the soft left breast of a girl named Elizabeth when he was in the ninth grade.
"I don't want to do shallow, sweetheart. I can't do shallow. I don't have the time. If you're here for shallow, I would prefer that you leave."
She winced and he realized that his words had come out sharp as knives.
"I'm sorry. That was harsh."
He gave her what felt like a smile but it was getting harder each day to tell just what his face was doing. He feared the mirror.
"I don't want you to go. I never wanted you to go but I know why you did."
"I don't think you do. I didn't leave because you hit me. I want you to know that, now that we're going deep."
"Then why?"
She scooched her chair a little closer. It screeched across the linoleum floor and shimmied the bed. She touched his cheek with a gentle finger touch.
"I left because I didn't hit you back. I couldn't and that me feel weak and loathsome."
"I wish you had hit me back. I wish you had kicked me in the balls and clawed my eyes....."
He dreamed briefly of a green field of lettuce through which he had driven in Califoria in the time before last and how the leaves had rolled with the wind like an ocean.
"I never stopped loving you."
"Why didn't you chase me then and beg for forgiveness and promise me the moon and the stars and pledge to me your life and all that sailed in her?"
He smiled with the memory of that hackneyed phrase.
"I was too guilty. I ran the other way to escape the fact that I had hurt the one I loved with all my life. I ran away and after a while I was lost. Why didn't you come back to me?"
"I thought that you didn't love me."
"I never stopped loving you. I love you now. I couldn't love you any more if I tried."
He felt it then deep in his back and bowels like he needed to shit magnesium fire.
She was familiar with the routine and helped him to the clicker.
"Please be here when I wake up. Can you do that? You're as beautiful as an apple. I love you more than music.
She choked with a sob.
"I'll stay until I've worn out my welcome."
She smiled and reached to caress his forehead, clammy and dank.
His witty reply was stillborn on his lips.
And then he was gone to resurface in that dungeon of a university common room in a far away time and he felt in his hand the glass of undistinguished pale sherry that he suffered on these occasions and heard the droning of his companions as they pronouncd on the strength of his reading and prognosticated on the earthy truth of his prose and he saw her again away across the room with the windows behind her and he saw the late afternoon sun ignite her chestnut hair as she shook with laughter and he remembered his first thought at his first sight of her as she stood in profile as beautiful as an apple in a far away time in a room like a dungeon.
"Would you look at the tits on that one."
posted by michael Sunday, July 15, 2007
I surrender my finite self to you, infinite God.
posted by michael Saturday, July 14, 2007
My name is Michael and I am an alcoholic.
posted by michael Friday, July 13, 2007
Without you, I am a fish out of water.
I find it difficult to breathe.
I flop around.
My spine twists at impossible angles.
My eyes bulge.
I find the world to be unbearably hot.
I feel a panic of yearning.
When I do not hear your voice,
I go off my feed.
posted by michael Sunday, June 17, 2007
That!
No, that's not a twitch!
That's me looking for her out of the corner of my eye.
Constantly, uncontrollably, furiously, looking for her out of the corner of my eye.
posted by michael Wednesday, June 13, 2007
So I asked of God...
"Why me God?"
And God replied...
"Why not you?"
I said...
"God, you are a real son of a bitch!"
And God said...
"You know what Admiral King said?
He said...
'When the shooting starts, they always send for the sons of bitches.'"
So I asked...
"Is Admiral King around here?"
And God replied...
"No, he's a soldier. All soldiers go to hell. They kill people."
And I said...
"God, you really are a son of a bitch!"
And he said...
"You're not; but I can fix that."
And I looked him in the eye but found no humour there.
posted by michael Tuesday, May 29, 2007
When we were small,
My sisters and I,
We would play the organ,
At the end of the hall,
Of our Grandma’s house.
Ill-supervised, we played perhaps rough,
For by mid-morning my grandmother,
Was usually lost in drink.
To us it was a fantasy.
The organ was dark wood, almost black.
Tall as a house it seemed,
Ornately carved with curlicues.
And feathered with dust.
We were abandoned by parents,
Parents lost in drink,
There was a round stool.
It spewed leather and hollyhocks and horsehair.
It had a corkscrew base,
And on it we would spin,
Until we dropped to the floor,
Vertiginous,
As if we were lost in drink.
We played its music of a sort.
Two on the floor,
To pump the squeaking pedals,
Two at the keys,
Of yellow ivory and faded black.
We played its music,
Discordant and raucous and harsh.
Of late, I hear that selfsame music,
Discordant and raucous and harsh.
It seems to come,
From within the walls of my bedroom.
It reverberates,
It shimmies the paint.
It makes me smile to hear it,
But then I cry,
For I am lost in drink.
posted by michael Sunday, May 27, 2007
Is there anything more boring than listening to someone else's dream?
posted by michael Sunday, May 27, 2007
Within me, there is a demon,
Bitter and angry and ancient and cruel.
I have tried to drown the demon,
But could not slake its thirst.
I have tried to smoke it out,
But every poison made it stronger.
I have tried to educate myself against it,
But my book learning,
Became its street smarts,
And the pupil surpassed the teacher.
I have tried to woo it,
Cajole it,
Become its friend,
Trap it in a cage of good intention.
It resisted me,
And gave me vicious bites.
Now it is quiescent.
It bides its time.
Now it is malevolent.
Like jealousy, it lies in wait.
posted by michael Sunday, May 27, 2007
He had seen plenty of things in his morphine dreams and some of them had been real and true.
So to open his eyes and see her there beside the bed, two steps back and arms wrapped tightly round her as if to protect herself from a sudden lunge was no surprise really. He smiled with a memory and closed them again, enjoyed the clouds and visions and smells of the narcotic.
"Oh, Billy."
Eyes opened and she remained, a step closer perhaps for she was bigger but still terribly small.
One hand was worrying her hair and he remembered how it had smelled. The other hand rubbing her hip, palm in, as if drying it for a handshake.
"Hey."
She smiled then and bit her lip. She was crying or just about to. Her eyes shone.
"It's good to see you."
"I thought you were a dream. I have a lot of dreams these days. It's the juice."
He arched his chin at the IV stand with its stainless steel and cabling and the blinking, beeping thing that beeped to show that he still lived.
"How did you find me?"
"Cristy told me. I had to come. You're not mad are you?"
There was a little flicker in her eyes and he knew she saw again his hand as it struck her.
"No. I don't get mad much any more. Can you stay a while?"
"Yes, of course."
She busied herself with coat and purse and chair and it took forever until she settled. He dreamed briefly about a basket of Christmas food he had won as a boy in a raffle in the basement of St. Patrick's Church and a little about his father's hand as it struck him.
"How are you?"
She winced.
"I'm sorry. That was stupid."
He gave her what felt like a smile.
"I don't feel much any more."
"What do the doctors say?"
"It's in my liver now and the liver is the highway interchange. They're keeping me comfortable until it hits the fast lane. They don't know how long."
She was wearing a red and fluffy sweater, taut against her breasts. Window sun flickered on a diamond.
"You're married?"
"I was. It was a mistake."
She turned her hand to look at the ring.
"I kept it. Severance."
"Any kids?"
"No."
She smiled.
"You?"
"No to married and no to kids. I got lost for a while and never really came back until this."
He felt it then deep in his back and bowels like he needed to shit magnesium fire. The morphine clicker was lost in the bedclothes and he fumbled.
"Can I help?"
"I need my clicker."
She fumbled in the bedclothes and held it out to him. Their hands touched.
"This might put me under for a while. Can you stay? Will you?"
"Yes, of course. If you want me to."
"I want that very much. When I opened my eyes before, I thought you were a happy dream. When I wake up will you talk to me some more. I forgot how beautiful your voice was."
She choked with a sob.
"I'm sorry that I hit you."
She choked with a sob and wrapped his near hand with both of hers. He pressed the clicker, once, twice, three times, four.
Machinery whistled and he felt the fog run sweet and dark up his spine.
"I'm so sorry that I hit you."
And then he was gone to resurface in Cancun and they were just back from the ocean in the late afternoon and he felt the skin of her buttock, damp and firm and cold and full of promise, and he felt her test the length of him in his swim trunks and heard her say what she always said when they were playful in love and the sex would be good.
"Oh my! What have we here?"
posted by michael Sunday, May 20, 2007
When in death he cuts me,
That Asian man,
Strong fingered,
Masked with nicotine smell.
Wrinkled and brown.
When in death he cuts me,
Carves me with a Y,
And snip, cracks my ribs,
And, thunk, spreads me wide,
To reveal my secrets.
When in death he cuts me,
My heart will be tiny and gray,
Moist and phlegmy and still,
Like an oyster,
Six days from the deep,
Miles from the brine.
posted by michael Sunday, May 20, 2007
Before,
Before there was this,
It was late innings.
Before,
Before there was this,
There was only you.
Before,
Before there was this,
There were eyes from under lashes.
There was chestnut hair.
There was the skin at the top of your back,
There, just there,
There, where it becomes your neck.
Before,
Before there was this,
There were the teeth of your smile.
There was the touch of your hand.
There was the smell of you,
My goodness.
Now,
Now there is this.
I have tasted of you,
And my food is so much sand.
I have drunk of you,
And my thirst cannot be quenched.
My heart, my cheek, my lips,
They burn.
Now,
Now there is this.
I am desperate,
Unfocused.
I have lost my memory.
Before,
Before there was this,
It was late innings.
Now,
Now that I've kissed you once,
It's game over.
posted by michael Saturday, May 12, 2007
For LF the E
Just then,
I caught my glimpse of heaven,
There, where your shoulder becomes your neck.
And in that capillary web,
Gossamer blue,
I unraveled a mystery,
And I fell.
posted by michael Saturday, May 12, 2007
Between love and hate,
There is no middle ground.
How else to explain,
That four chords of that song,
Can take me so far back,
And make it so real.
Real enough to feel the weight,
Of the phone in my hand,
And the sweat of the hand that holds it.
Real enough to retaste the liquor,
From my mouth,
And smell the stench of my feet,
As I sat all sweaty on the floor,
While you broke my heart.
Real enough,
That I am red-faced with anger,
Even now.
Or perhaps it is shame.
Between love and hate,
There is no middle ground.
posted by michael Thursday, May 10, 2007
Just then,
I caught my glimpse of heaven,
There, where your shoulder joins your neck.
And looking into that capillary web,
Gossamer blue,
I saw the mystery of you,
And I fell
posted by michael Thursday, May 10, 2007
Just then,
I caught my glimpse of heaven,
There, where your shoulder meets your neck.
And in that capillary web,
Gossamer blue,
I unraveled a mystery,
And I fell.
posted by michael Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Fragment 10
"I'm sorry," I said. "That didn't last as long as I had hoped."
I was flat on my back, sideways on my unmade bed, feet flat on the floor.
She lay atop me, leaning slightly forward - her hair made a tent of whispers around our heads. Her scent, which heretofore I had smelled only from a distance was all around me. I was drowning in it.
She smiled.
"Don't get all macho, nacho on me now. It lasted the perfect length of time."
"But we didn't even undress; I still have one sock on."
"We can fix that," she said.
She leaned way back and reached for my sock and pulled it off. I feared for a moment that I would lose my place in her but we were quickly reseated and she began to unfasten the buttons of my shirt.
"But I wanted it to be special - just right - not some teenaged quickie."
"Mmm," she said. "You're hairy. I love hairy."
She ran her little fingers through the hair on my chest.
"It lasted the perfect length of time," she said. "My new man needed to be inside me immediately. And you know what, I needed my new man inside me immediately. I thought I would die if it did not happen as it did."
She ran her little thumbs back and forth across my nipples.
"But you didn't come. Did you?"
"No," she said. "But I don't always anyway."
"But I wanted it to be special - I was thinking candles and the like....and orgasms". I trailed off fearing that I was starting to whine.
"Candles would have been nice but they wouldn't have made it any more special."
"But you didn't come."
She smiled.
"It was the best sex I will ever have, my sweet."
"But how....".
"Do you remember that old Joe Jackson song - Don't You Know It's Different For Girls? Well it's true."
She smiled and leaned in to kiss me with her mouth.
"When you kiss me like that I feel like I'm stoned on some wonderful drug," I said.
"When I kiss you like that I feel like I'm stoned on some wonderful drug," she said.
She smiled.
"Let's kiss a lot, okay," she said. "Let's kiss all the time. Let's kiss like there's no tomorrow."
"That sounds perfect," I said.
I reached for the buttons of her shirt.
She smiled.
Her hair made a tent of whispers around our heads.
I was drowning in the scent of her.
posted by michael Saturday, May 05, 2007
I see him out of the corner of my eye in the strangest places,
And at the oddest times.
There he sits, just briefly, in that rec room chair.
The light banishes him.
He's a boy, of that I'm sure,
With wavy and brownish hair,
Yet his face escapes me,
It is always in motion,
Or wrapped in shadow.
He is handsome, I think,
In a vague and slippery fashion.
He may be mute.
I'm sure his eyes are the laughing kind.
He's a character, you can tell.
What my mother would have called a "purebred rascal".
He scares me.
posted by michael Thursday, May 03, 2007
Somewhere in the middle of our conversation today,
In the corridor of the mall,
I caught a glimpse,
Of the little girl that you were,
(It was something in that pursed-lip smile.)
And I felt for your parents.
Somewhere in the middle of our conversation today,
In the corridor of the mall,
I caught a glimpse,
Of the woman you will become,
(It was something in that pursed-lip smile.)
And I felt for your man.
posted by michael Sunday, April 22, 2007
I remember a time,
The happiest time, perhaps,
It's hard to say.
There have been so many times.
I turned the bedroom corner,
And faced you,
Fresh from the shower,
Fresh from our sex.
Your hair glistened with damp.
Shoulder long,
Chestnut brown,
It glistened with damp.
You were wrapped in a towel,
A short towel,
Startlingly white against the skin of you.
It gathered at the swell of your breasts.
I saw a line there,
The beginning of delight.
You raised your arms,
And there at towel top,
Two rolls of flesh,
Soft and plump and sweet,
The beginning of delight.
A glimpse of dark at the bottom.
I stepped to you and took you to me,
And smelled the smell of you.
The smell of lovely,
The smell of some powder,
Some lotion,
Some unguent.
The shower stall was filled with them,
I paid them no never mind.
Unspoken, I took you to me,
One hand on shoulder,
The other behind you,
Down and under the towel,
My fingers molded to you,
I felt the brush of dark,
The beginning of delight.
You let me hold a while,
You knew my need.
You let me fill my lungs,
Once, twice, again.
The smell of you, my goodness.
Then you twisted away,
And stepped to the closet,
The towel flung to a chair.
You laughed a short and gentle laugh.
Over your shoulder,
You fixed me,
With that pungent, pregnant smile.
Lips pale and full,
Eyes alight,
There was laughter there.
"Get out of here, Mister" you said.
"Let me dress.
But check me later....if you want."
And I smiled back,
Full, bemused.
As if I could not want.
I could not help but want,
No less than I could help,
To breathe my every breath.
I remember that time,
The happiest time, perhaps,
It's hard to say.
But this I know,
I was as happy as all get out.
posted by michael Sunday, April 22, 2007
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)
posted by michael Sunday, April 15, 2007
Fragment 9They sat on hard chairs of formed orange plastic - they leaned forward, hands forward, bisecting the table between them. They were alone in the room for it was well past lunch.They leaned forward on the edges of the chairs - hands forward - his flat to the surface toward the table's sides - hers clasped as if in small child prayer in the middle - hers in tiny, pulsing motion - his stock still."If I ask you a question, will you answer it truthfully - will you be clear and brief and without prevarication," she asked?"Of course," he said."Do you love me," she asked?"Yes," he said. He was clear and brief and without prevarication."Are you in love with me," she asked?"Yes," he said. He was clear and brief and without prevarication.They sat in companionable silence for a while - leaning forward, hands forward between them."If I ask you a question, will you answer it truthfully - will you be clear and brief and give no thought to sparing my feelings," he asked?
"Of course," she said.
"Do you love me," he asked?
"Yes," she said. She was clear and brief and appeared to give no thought to the sparing of his feelings.
"Are you in love with me," he asked?
"Yes," she said. She was clear and brief and appeared to give no thought to the sparing of his feelings.
They sat in companionable silence for a while - leaning forward, hands forward bisecting the table between them."Where will we go from here," she asked? She was the less patient of the two - he had the patience of Job."I would be content to sit like this," he said. "Perhaps until the end of time. I find it quite pleasant to look into your eyes knowing that you love me. I was never sure to this point although I thought I imagined glimmers every now and again and traces of love in your laughter.""And it is pleasant for me as well," she replied. "But I was hoping for something more timely. I have felt your love for some time - it is not foreign to me. I am glad to hear it declared however. Your voice gives it substance and passion."They sat in companionable silence for a while - leaning forward, hands forward, eyes locked. She was smiling. He smiled not so much."I suppose we could hold hands," he allowed. "I have often imagined that holding your hand would give me the purest of pleasure - your hands are the most beautiful hands in the world."And he rotated his hands on the table until they were palm up in a gesture of wanting. She looked slowly down and then up again. She unclasped her hands and slid them until they covered his. She applied no pressure and he did not seem to notice.They sat in companionable silence for a while - the skin of their palms just touching."Where will we go from here," she asked after a while? She was the less patient of the two - he had the patience of Job."I would be content to sit like this with your hands on mine," he said. "Perhaps until the end of time. I find the touch of your skin to be quite pleasant. I was right about your hands - your skin is soft and cool and beautiful. I feel a tingle like I am being slowly cured of some wasting disease I did not suspect I had."They sat in companionable silence for a while - the skin of their palms soft touching."I suppose we could kiss," he allowed. "It will have to come to that I suppose. But to be clear and brief and free of prevarication, the thought of kissing your lips frightens me half to death - I fear that I will not do them justice. I fear that I will disappoint you. Your lips are rare and special. Mine I fear are rather pedestrian."They sat in companionable silence for a while.She looked slowly down and then up again. She slid her hands forward - across the palms - over the forearm - up past the elbow to the shoulder. And there she paused, grasping him there and studying his eyes. She had stopped smiling.Grasping his shoulders firm but cool, she pulled him to her until their lips touched above the mid-point of the table - just touching without motion - soft skin to moist skin. After a brief time she reversed the process until her palms rested soft softly on his.They sat in companionable silence for a while. He delighted in the memory of her sweet coffee breath as it brushed past his cheeks."That wasn't so bad," he allowed. "That seemed to go quite well.""Indeed," she said. "Quite well indeed."They sat on hard chairs of formed orange plastic - they leaned forward, hands forward, bisecting the table between them. They were alone in the room for it was well past lunch.She was smiling. He smiled not so much.
posted by michael Friday, April 06, 2007
Fragment 8
"What the fuck do you mean, why did I break up with him?"
She was angry screaming now, face all red, veins on her neck looking to pop. She paced like a short-legged dog.
"He smelled maybe."
"He was a sociopath maybe."
"He wanted to stick his finger up my ass when we fucked maybe."
"Maybe he wanted me to to stick my finger up his ass when we fucked or up mine. How the fuck should I know?"
"How the fuck should I know? We broke up 5 years ago; I haven't laid eyes on him in 4. But he's all you talk about and I'm getting so fucking sick....."
She trailed off; they both knew where she was going with this. They had been there before on short day trips but never to stay.
"Fucking prick....."
Her voice trailed off as if unsure just who the prick was in this instance.
She retreated to the far end of the room near the shelving and there she stood stone still, subdued but still very dangerous. She studied the shelves as if she were looking for something to throw.
posted by michael Thursday, April 05, 2007
Fragment 7
We were watching her through the windshield, Louie and I - she in her blue jeans and her pink shoes and shirt - 16 maybe, dressed like 20 and acting 30 - Louie and I in our uniforms straight from work, our first six-pack on the seat between us.
We were in Louie's piece of shit Nova - more filler than paint, didn't need the key to start it, hole in the floorboard so you had to be careful, the backseat, forget about it.
We were parked in front of the diner to save on gas - the theatre behind us - the fire house to our left - the feed shop to our left. It was spring but late, almost summer - it was warm as hell and the weeds were long and green in the ditches outside of town.
Louie and I weren't looking for trouble at this point - later maybe, sure - but we'd give it a good look over if it found us now. The night was young as they say and so were we. It was payday. It was shirt sleeve warm, still like July.
We were watching her through the windshield, Louie and I - she was preening and stretching with her sullen friends and ignoring us. She had big breasts and new and she kept looking down at them as if she feared they would disappear.
Louie horked through the driver's window and tossed his can behind him. He drew us each another. I chugged one as I reached for the next - I knew better than to fall behind. The beer was warm and fizzy, a little skunked maybe from being in the trunk.
"Taylor's sister," Louie asked?
"Mmm", I said.
"How old," Louie asked?
"Mmm", I said.
"She's fine," Louie said.
"Mmm," I said.
"I'd fuck her 'til the neighbours complained about the smell," Louie said.
He was deadpan.
I made an appropriate noise and turned away.
I was so fucking sick of Louie. I couldn't remember ever being anything but sick of Louie.
Fucking Louie.
I think even Louie was sick of Louie.
posted by michael Friday, March 30, 2007
Fragment 6"My mother had a saying," he said.
"She used to say - '...well, I guess if heaven doesn't mind' - when she was faced with the prospect of something pleasant."He had remained lolling in the bed. She had retreated to the wing chair and there she sat with her knees to her chest and arms wrapped round - he could see her sex draining patiently on the seat cushion. The cushion was faded chintz to match some long-forgotten curtains."What does that have to do with the price of tea in China," she asked?Her voice had taken on a hard edge like ice or pewter."I was just thinking," he said.He waited for her to ask until the pause became uncomfortable. She had, he knew, the patience of Job."I was just thinking," he said, "that now that I've had you, heaven will be a disappointment."She looked at him like she had seen an animal speak."There's no such thing as heaven, you fucking fool!"She blew a puff of air through her nose and allowed her chin to drop to her chest."Oh, yes there is," he thought but he dared not contradict her. She had quite a nasty temper and had been on edge of late.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Fragment 5
The air in the car was redolent of blood and sex and apple.
Sean cracked his window and gave Lisa a look of shy apology.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Fragment 3Louie came awake in an instant.He was lying in the bed in the back bedroom - the one where Sheila had slept before.He could hear some faint strain of Mrs. Fratelli singing in the apartment downstairs - crooning to her retard infant son.Louie tried to close her throat with his mind but he was far too weak. He hoped that he would recover his strength before the sun went down.He could not see the position of the sun through the bedroom window but at least it was still plenty bright.Louie rolled to his right toward the center of the bed. There was a considerable amount of blood. He pushed Sheila's head across the flowered sheet until it plopped onto the floor. It made a sound like half a ripe pineapple sliding off the hood of a tall car.Downstairs, Mrs. Fratelli's voice faltered, then resumed, but softer.Louie sent needles of fire toward her eyes but they floated, impotent and directionless, above the bed until they flamed out with a pop.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Fragment 2"What does your family think about us," he asked?"My family doesn't know there is an us," she said."What do they say when I have candy and flowers delivered to your door," he asked?"Nothing," she said."Your mother and your sisters - they're not curious," he asked?"They're not curious people," she said."You're curious," he said."I'm different," she said.He thought about this for a long while."I don't believe you," he said. "Everyone is a little bit curious.""Whatever," she said.He felt the car's brakes clutch and grab as she made the left turn that would take them to the caves."I hope it's still there," he said."It is," she said.She gave him a sideways half-smile and made as if to touch his leg."It is," she said. "There's no other place it could be.""Right," she asked?He did not answer.He looked out the window and wondered when he had last seen a cloud that did not scare him.
posted by michael Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Fragment 1
"I'll tell you one thing for free, Louie," he said.
"If I ever see anyone eating toast like that again - breaking the dry toast into little bits, slavering them one at a time with butter and honey and popping those little bits into their stupid, stupid mouth - well, there's going to be trouble and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool."
He turned toward the window and stared violently at the train.
"...pound that fucking cunt right through the mattress..."
His voice trailed off into huffing and quietude and exasperation.
The wound on his neck - the bad one that looked like a bite just below the left ear - had started to bleed again and this time it looked like it wasn't going to stop.
posted by michael Monday, March 19, 2007
I dreamed last night,
Of my Hitler father.
I robed him prone,
And with some familiar nun,
Performed his last ablution.
posted by michael Sunday, March 11, 2007
You are the breath I did not realize I had been holding.
posted by michael Saturday, February 24, 2007
If I could carry with me forever,
Just one picture of you,
It would be the picture of your face,
When I put my hand on your knee tonight at the restaurant;
When I gave you your hug.
There was shock, surprise;
There was a stunned half-smile.
I saw a little amazement;
I saw some mad.
You glanced to my wife;
Your eyes were wide, wide, wide;
Your eyes were bright, bright, bright;
Your eyes were sad;
There had been some crying.
Gosh, you were beautiful;
You hurt my eyes.
Even with a broken heart,
Even caught unawares,
You hurt my eyes.
posted by michael Saturday, February 24, 2007
I was at the neurologist today.
The news was not good.
2007 continues to suck.
2007 continues to owe me, even more now.
And as for God, allow me to quote Hedley;
"If you wreck my day,
If you wreck my day,
You son of a bitch,
You're gonna get some!"
posted by michael Wednesday, February 07, 2007
In my Percocet dream,
I am a stamp collector.
In my Percocet dream,
I live in Yemen,
Although Yemen looks like Philadelphia.
In my Percocet dream,
My youngest son,
Brings home his school class picture.
Children posed all formal.
In my Percocet dream,
There lurks,
Near the border of the picture,
A presence, a cloud,
Malevolent,
Small.
In my Percocet dream,
It smiles,
All toothy.
It hunts with its eyes,
Malevolent,
Small.
posted by michael Sunday, February 04, 2007
As reported in previous posts, I have, through a rare combination of circumstances, been given the rare combination of a 20 gig MP3 player and a lot of time on my hands.
I spend a great deal of time these days sitting on my couch with said MP3 player plugged into an ear with a laptop on my lap. This has led to a rediscovery of music and, further, to my most recent quest, to fill said MP3 player with 5,000 of my favourite songs.
This has been fun, of course, but it has also, and more importantly, led to the re-discovery of the old and, even more important than that, the new discovery of the new.
I am able, for instance, to indulge my taste for nostalgia. I can load the player with songs from forgotten or near-forgotten bands of my youth; bands like The Buzzcocks or Richard Hell and the Voidoids or The Heptones or Teenage Head or The Demics.
Each of these bands bring to me memories of days past, mostly foolish and drunken, stoned, but almost always joyous for those bands represent a time in my life when I had much joy. There was the sadness and the pathetic too, of course, but that was mostly ignored in favour of the joyous, which, reflected upon now in sober second thought, was often mundane.
Likewise, I am able to collect, in one fell swoop, those songs that act as punctuation marks for my life. Those songs that were playing or evident at life events of significance or importance, mile markers, as it were, on the highway of life. Songs like Morrissey's Hairdresser on Fire, Jackson Browne's pivotal Somebody's Baby, Tom Petty with his Breakdown, Van Halen's Dance the Night Away, and the horrific With or Without You from U2. Each of these gives me pause and fills my mind with thoughts that are often unpleasant. Here, these markers say; here is where you grew up some. Here is where you learned a lesson. Here is where your heart was broken.
Trolling as I do through all of recorded music, I am able to discover those hidden gems that prompt in me the sadness, the quietude, that Aristotle accredited to music. For I find gems like Jane Says, live from Jane's Addiction from Chicago, gems like a bootleg No Woman, No Cry from a young Bob Marley, gems like Bruce doing Jersey Girl with Tom Waits at The Meadowlands, gems like Tom Petty strumming his guitar while his audience at Dade County Coliseum sings Heartbreaker in its entirety, gems like Lou Reed's wicked guitar intro to Sweet Jane recorded at CBGB's in New York.
I can indulge whims - I can collect 19 different versions of Crimson and Clover originally recorded by Tommy James and The Shondells - versions as diverse as the Pretenders, Simon and Garfunkel, or perhaps The Velvet Underground. I can collect 14 different duet covers of Baby, It's Cold Outside.
Being blessed with a teenage son and cursed with the desire to be a cool Dad, I try to stay current and much to the chagrin of said teenage son I find myself enjoying some, indeed most of that which he enjoys on his own MP3 player. Music is music after all I have found, regardless of its best before date. As such, I am now hot for Green Day, Eminem, and L'il Kim. As such, I am now a huge fan of Fall Out Boy and am absolutely gaga for Hedley.
And being a student of history, I can indulge my taste for history. I can collect Crosby and Stills and Nash and Young in all their various incarnations. I can collect the Irish - Van Morrison and The Pogues and Elvis Costello. I can indulge my taste for the British and the obscure - The Undertones, The Flying Pickets, Billy Bragg, Ian Gomm.
I can collect the seminal - The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, The Byrds, Dylan, Hendrix, The Doors, the ones from which all the others stem whether they acknowledge it or not.
I can make decisions. I can name Porcupine Tree's Feel So Low as the saddest song ever, Elton John's Rocket Man as the best rock ballad, Heroin by The Velvet Underground as the best drug song, and Round Here by the Counting Crows and The Queen is Dead by The Smiths as the best songs of all time - a dead heat.
I can indulge my taste for my "favourite" songs - these I will not reveal. You, dear reader, know most of my secrets - let me hold a few to my chest. Fact is, I am embarrassed to make public some of these. What would you think if I were soft for Cyndi Lauper or a pushover for Prince?
Tomorrow I have a consultation with the orthopedic sadist. He will cut off my cast and send me to x-ray and make me wait for a long, long time before he tells me if he has to cut into me and insert plates and pins to make my leg bones better by the end of the spring where it starts to be hot like summer. If not, he will advise 3 or 6 more weeks on the shelf and physio. I can take that. More time for the music. I have tickets for The Tragically Hip tomorrow night. I have been in discussion with the JLC here in Gotham City but apparently they can do nothing for cripples and feebs such as I. I will give the tickets away. I will hate that. I love the Hip. Have a ton of Hip on my player.
posted by michael Sunday, February 04, 2007
Here's how it will be with you and I,
When you decide to go.
We will call and mail,
Often at first,
Just the same,
Then less often,
And less often than that.
It would become strained,
Perhaps awkward,
As we grew apart,
And our lives diverged.
Eventually,
We would become Christmas card friends,
But the kind who,
When writing the cards,
Would think much more than we wrote,
And smile just so,
As we stared at the ink.
Lost in private thought,
Happy.
Here's how it will be with you and I,
If we were to meet again,
When you were old and grey,
And I was older and more grey.
We would pick up where we left off,
Exactly there.
I would speak too slow,
To suit your frantic pace.
There would be things,
Of which you would not speak,
Until you spoke of them.
We would share,
We would laugh,
Our hearts would be warm.
The reins would drop,
Unnoticed,
From my hands.
Here's how it will be with you and I,
If we were to meet again,
When you were old and grey,
And I was older and more grey.
Looking at you,
Would still hurt my eyes.
And the smell of you;
My goodness.
posted by michael Friday, January 19, 2007
During the night of January 14-15 we had an ice storm here in Gotham City. It made things very slippery. At 5:00 a.m. on the morning of the 15th, I stepped out on to my front steps, went ass over tea kettle and landed on my left ankle, shattering the talus bone. This is a small but important bone connecting leg to ankle. I really stuck the landing, as it were. I am laid up with a cast from knee to toe while things "stabilize". I have a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon on Monday next. The best case scenario is 6 weeks of cast and then some physiotherapy and I'm back to ballroom dancing. The worst case scenario is not so good.
2007 has not been very good to me thus far. I think 2007 owes me.
posted by michael Thursday, January 18, 2007
My wife is in Calgary for the funeral. She is a train wreck. That is bad. I got a 20 gig MP3 player for Christmas that I am filling with my 5,000 favourite songs. That is good. I am home with the children. They are sleeping. Here is yet another. Can't seem to help myself. They pour from me. I hope this finds her happy. I would trade mine for hers. Her broken heart is breaking my fucking heart. She smells like melon.
Do you know what I think, she asked?
We were sitting on a bench in a park.
We were in the near darkness, but just.
When I stretched out my leg,
The ring of electric light,
From a pole nearby,
Would illuminate the toe cap of my shoe,
And nothing else.
It was evening and warm.
We were new friends, right and close.
Tonight had brought us much closer.
It was our first time alone in the darkness.
It could not have been any better.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world,
But she didn't know it.
I had loved her at first sight.
I had been speechless,
And stupid.
She had woven herself around me.
She had covered me.
I was lost.
We were sitting side by each.
I had my left arm around her shoulders.
She was delicate and small.
From somewhere there was music of a sort.
Her head was on my chest lightly.
My chin was on the top of her head softly.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
She held my right arm in both her hands,
Holding me tightly just below the elbow.
Her fingers moved softly there.
They were warm and soft as kittens.
My stray fingers brushed her waist.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
You always ask me that, I said.
And I always say the same thing.
I always say,
How could I know such a thing?
You are a sphinx.
Compared to you,
The tomb is a chatterbox.
Her fingers gripped me at the elbow tighter.
I felt her nails a bit,
But joking.
I thought she would turn,
But she remained fixed,
Looking at the ring of electric light.
She was serious.
I'm thinking, she said,
That this would be a good place to have a first kiss,
Here in this little darkness.
That this would be a good time to have a first kiss.
Right now,
As we are.
She burrowed into me,
Like a squirrel.
It's nice here, she said,
In this little darkness,
Right now.
It's nice for kissing.
Plus, I fell in love with you a while ago.
When you read my mind and said,
Let's not say goodbye just yet.
I'm not ready to say goodbye.
Let's walk in the park,
For a while.
I felt the love before,
Like the pangs of some coming hunger,
But I knew it just then.
I became starving.
I didn't want to say goodbye either,
But I was afraid to say as much.
You scare me with your love sometimes,
You give it so freely.
It pours from you.
I think you're right, I said.
I think this might be the perfect place,
The perfect time.
It had been a night of firsts after all.
First drinks, first dinner,
First footsie under the table,
First holding of hands,
First embrace.
I think you're right, I said.
I think this might be the perfect place,
In this little darkness,
Right now.
And as for love,
Don't talk to me of love.
Kiss or no kiss,
I couldn't love you any more if I tried.
I give nothing.
It doesn't pour out,
You suck the love from me.
She burrowed into me like a squirrel.
She slid her right hand up to my bicep,
And pulled my arm to her,
So that I was wrapped around.
Left hand around her shoulders,
Right hand around her waist,
Warm and soft as a puppy.
My face was in her hair.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
I'm worried though, she said,
About kissing you.
I'm afraid of that.
But what of kissing me could you fear, I asked?
I've been told I'm a pretty good kisser.
I ate the restaurant mint.
I think my breath is fine.
And as for you,
You ate the restaurant mint,
And your lips are those of an angel.
And I know you have the spirit,
To work them like the devil.
It's your fault, she said.
I'm afraid because of that poem you wrote,
The one about the first kiss.
The one with too much wet and too many teeth.
That poem was about me, wasn't it?
And I sighed and agreed,
That all of my poems,
Had been about her,
But just since I laid eyes on her;
That before that I wrote of others,
While I waited for her to appear.
It's your fault, she said.
I'm afraid because of that poem you wrote,
The one about the first kiss.
What if our first kiss is a bad one?
What if we miss?
What if there is too much wet,
Or too many teeth?
We might blow it from the get-go.
I'm scared of that.
I like your poems,
Especially the love ones,
It's just that one that scares me,
It gives me pause.
But I want to kiss you so bad,
I think I might die if I don't.
It is all I dream about these days,
The kissing of you.
And I sighed and agreed,
That might be the case.
I pulled her to me with both arms.
I pulled her to me,
And made a great show of thinking.
My chin was on the top of her head softly.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
I have an idea, I said.
And she said, I knew you would.
I felt her swell with a smile.
She was delicate and small.
You are a man of great ideas,
But slow of action.
Where would we be if I had not invited myself to dinner?
Where would we be if I had not taken your hand,
As we crossed that busy street?
You man of great ideas.
You stupid boy.
You poet.
Granted, I said,
I am slow of action,
But I am quick of thought,
And here's what I'm thinking.
What about if we kissed at first with our fingers.
Just lips and fingers,
Eyes closed.
No wet,
No teeth.
That might show us the way.
And she agreed that might be the ticket,
So we disentangled,
Re-arranged,
Until we sat facing.
Astraddle the bench,
In the next-to-full darkness.
Knees touching,
Face to face.
There was some rogue ray of light,
Bending the rules,
Lighting her hair.
And she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her skin, Jesus Christ, her skin.
Dear, sweet crucified Jesus Christ,
I loved her skin.
Her skin was paper.
Her eyes were ink.
You start, she said.
And she closed her eyes,
And offered her face to me.
And all I could see was lashes,
Chestnut and long.
Lashes and skin.
I could not bear to close mine,
To lose sight of her.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Cheater, she said.
Her eyes closed,
She brought her hands to my face and trailed her fingers,
From forehead down,
Closing my eyes.
Then she dropped her hands to my lap,
To my useless, paralyzed hands,
And brought them to her face.
You start, she said.
And she brought my hands to her face,
Her skin,
And across her cheeks,
Through wisps of hair.
And finally to pillow lips.
I allowed one hand to settle beneath her chin,
Where I held her,
And the other hand I allowed free rein.
For the longest time I just let my thumb's fatness caress them,
Lips, soft and plump,
Elastic.
Then pushing gently, I explored a bit of the wet.
I touched her teeth.
And at some point she sucked me in,
And I felt her tongue.
It was like magic.
For her part, she was more firm.
She pinched lips between fingers,
And pulled and stretched.
She slipped inside and touched the edge of teeth.
At some point I sucked her in,
And she felt my tongue.
I tasted the melon taste of her. I gasped.
I felt the vertigo,
Of Cardarelli,
And I may have swooned.
Then I heard,
That went pretty well, I think.
And I allowed myself to agree.
We were sitting facing,
Knee to knee,
Just out of the circle of light.
It was full darkness now,
Yet there was fire in her hair.
Our hands were back in our laps.
Our eyes were open.
She was giving me the smile,
The one I saw in my dreams.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Perhaps we should touch lips now,
Lips to lips, but softly, she said.
Not kissing, just touching,
And see how that goes.
Her eyes held some playful,
And I knew that I was lost.
She had woven herself around me.
She had covered me.
I was lost.
I agreed that we should,
For I was a man of ideas.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
She leaned forward,
Eyes wide open,
Mine too,
Because I could not bear to lose sight of her.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
We pressed lips softly,
And it was as good as good can be.
Her lips moved, re-positioned,
And we were deeper.
Lips like pillows,
We re-postioned and my bottom slipped between hers.
I felt her suction, light like a moth.
We pulled back,
Like velcro, velvet.
Eyes wide open,
So I would not lose sight of her.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
That went pretty well I think, I heard.
And I allowed myself to agree.
Stupid poem, she said!
She pulled me to her.
And there it was full-blown.
Tongue to tongue,
With wet and teeth both,
With moaning.
Her hands were a vice around my neck.
And we kissed for some minutes,
And pulled apart with a smack.
That went pretty well, I think.
And I allowed myself to agree.
I love kissing, she said,
And I love kissing you.
Now that you're my man will you kiss me often and well?
Will you kiss me like you just did?
Just enough wet,
Just enough teeth.
And I allowed that I would.
My heart was pounding.
Her words "my man",
Had affected me deeply.
She had woven herself around me.
She had covered me.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
I was lost.
I was at the summit.
I had pulled off the mask,
But yet I could breathe,
The air was rich and fragrant.
Every kiss, I said,
Will be like our last.
No, she said.
Stupid boy!
Every kiss should be like our first.
But she was smiling,
And she kissed me again.
Her hands were a vice around my neck.
And at some point I threw my arms around her.
I felt her tongue and sucked it to me.
It was evening, and warm.
We were in full darkness.
I was full of the smell of her and much distracted.
And as we ended that one,
That perfect kiss,
That velcro seal.
She pushed her face to my chest,
And I felt the sobs begin.
Baby, baby, I said,
Although I had never called her baby.
Didn't know if I should.
Don't cry.
I was impotent.
I was dead.
I held her and said,
Baby, don't cry.
And she said, I'll cry a lot if you keep kissing me like that,
Stupid boy.
Those are love kisses,
And these are love tears.
It is evening, and warm.
It is just past darkness.
I am full of the smell of you and much distracted.
You are my man.
You are my stupid boy.
You are my poet.
Now write me fine stanzas of kisses,
Like that Indian guy of which you spoke.
You know, the marigold guy of which you spoke.
She smiled.
The smile I saw in my dreams.
And I knew that I was lost.
She had woven herself around me.
She had covered me.
I was lost.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her skin was paper.
Her eyes were ink.
posted by michael Saturday, January 13, 2007
My neice, Erin, was killed yesterday in a horrific car crash near Lake Louise. She was smart and funny and personable and pretty. She was about to begin her last semester of business school. She had already started her own company selling clothing and accessories for snowboarders. She had just bought her first car, the red Jeep in which she was killed. She was 21.
posted by michael Monday, January 08, 2007
I have this incredible story I want to tell.
It starts like this...
"I'm in love with this woman...
This fair and chestnut-haired woman...."
That's all I've got, so far.
That's my start.
I don't think it will have a happy ending.
It's already very sad as you can tell.
Sad as hell.
Everyone who knows the story thus far,
(Although it is not widely known)
Is sad as hell.
Sadder, maybe.
Sadder than hell.
Everyone who knows the story thus far,
(Although it is not widely known)
Couldn't be any sadder if they tried.
I imagine there will be some crying in my story.
At the beginning,
In the middle,
And, of course, at the end.
There's always got to be crying at the end.
It's about love, you see.
And love couldn't be any sadder if you tried.
Love is sadder than hell,
And we all know how sad hell can be.
Sad as a balloon,
Sad as a child,
Clown sad,
As sad as sad can be.
Hell is not flame nor fire.
Hell is broken heart sad.
Broken heart sad,
Sad that never goes away.
Ever.
posted by michael Wednesday, December 27, 2006
So see how long I can last.
You can pretend that I don't exist for you.
And I can laugh about it now,
But I hated every minute,
I was waiting for your email.
And each day that you forgot to call.
Just made me feel so low,
So low.
Porcupine Tree
posted by michael Wednesday, December 27, 2006
We've tried to wash our hands of all of this,
We never talk of our lacking relationships,
And how we're guilt stricken, sobbing, with our heads on the floor.
We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say;
I can't be held responsible,
Cause she was touching her face.
I won't be held responsible.
She fell in love in the first place.
For the life of me, I cannot remember,
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise.
For the life of me, I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins,
We were merely freshmen.
The Verve
posted by michael Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Did I say the last of the new girl poems?
What I meant was the last one until this one.
Just a silly misunderstanding.
We were kissing.
Wrapped in that blanket,
That ratty, red one we favoured.
We had fallen to the floor somehow,
In the middle of love things.
We lay, joined,
Between the couch and the coffee table.
I held your weight,
Which was no weight at all.
You were licking me and humming,
Some song I did not know,
As you always did.
I was being licked and listening to your humming,
Some song I did not know,
As I always did.
I could not have been more in love with you if I tried.
There was sunshine from the window.
It lit your hair on fire.
I could not have been more in love with you if I tried.
When did it happen for you, you asked.
When did you know that you loved me.
When did you now for sure and absolute.
I pretended to think and think,
As I worried your cheek and neck.
Then I lied,
Flat out,
Said I didn't remember.
Can't say why.
It was a private thing, I thought.
Just for me.
So special, I dared not share it,
Although I had shared everything but.
Truth is, I remember exactly when.
I remember exactly when it happened,
When you went from blue to red.
We were on the second floor,
For Maggie's party.
Maggie, who had been there a million years.
We were there to say goodbye to Maggie.
We came down together from 7,
In the elevator,
You and me and a crowd.
We were friends, shy friends and new.
You were the pretty girl who sat near me.
We pushed into the crush.
You stood in front of me.
I could see over you,
For you are delicate and small.
We were crushed together.
Your hair was in my face.
We exchanged shy apologies,
Blushed.
And the smell of you,
My goodness.
We listened to the speeches.
We watched Maggie cry.
We went through the receiving line,
You in front of me.
We bumped.
We exchanged shy glances,
Blushed.
Small talk.
You pointed people out and whispered.
Your lips touched my ear.
I made you laugh.
And the smell of you,
My goodness.
I took fancy cake and coffee.
You wanted fruit and cheese.
You balanced plates,
You nibbled.
You balanced plates and cheese,
Precarious.
You looked to throw things away,
Until I said;
Let me hold that for you.
You gave me that smile.
Sweet as an apple tree.
My goodness.
And our hands touched just briefly,
That's when it happened.
As we juggled the plates,
And the cake and the coffee and the cheese.
And you gave me that smile,
Sweet as a baby angel,
My goodness.
That's when it happened.
And you walked away to the garbage,
Way across the room.
And I was lost, trembling,
That's when it happened.
Trying to watch you walk across the room,
Afraid I might lose sight of you.
Distracted by the conversations of others,
Inane, forgotten.
I lost you in the panic.
That's when it happened.
Until you appeared,
Way across the room near the garbage.
Framed,
With the sun behind you,
Shining in your hair.
It lit your hair on fire.
And from that distance you gave me that smile,
Sweet as cherry pie,
My goodness.
And held my eyes until we touched again.
That's when it happened.
The crowd parted for you like Moses.
And your eyes never left mine.
That's when it happened.
Your eyes touched my heart.
And you turned from blue to red.
That's when it happened.
My goodness.
I can take that now, you said,
And reached for your cup.
But I thought of my heart,
And I thought to myself,
It's already been taken.
It was taken when you turned near the garbage,
With the sun burning in your hair,
And gave me that smile,
That angel hair smile,
When the room parted,
And you gave me that smile,
That angel hair smile,
Uninterrupted,
All the way back through the crowd.
And you had changed,
Changed from the pretty girl who sat near me,
Into the most beautiful woman in the world.
That's when it happened.
My goodness.
You touched my hand with both of yours,
For you sensed, I think, that I was not steady.
You eased the coffee from my grasp.
Eyes full of my eyes.
You said;
That was really sweet, thank you.
You said;
Let's go now.
And I was speechless, blinded by the fire of your hair.
Just blinded.
Dumbstruck.
My goodness.
Catatonic, but you had taken charge.
We turned for some reason,
We left in some fashion,
And on the way you grasped my bicep,
With strong little fingers,
Your face was close to mine.
The smell of you,
My goodness.
And I towed you through the crowd,
And when we were clear, you dropped your hand,
Turned to me,
And gave me that smile,
The melting smile.
That's when it happened.
Right then,
Right by the door on the second floor,
At the end of Maggie's party.
My goodness.
That was nice, you said.
But I was speechless,
Smitten, catatonic.
I reached for the elevator button.
I love Maggie, I said.
But what I meant to say was;
If I ever see the sun in your hair like that again,
If I ever see that fire,
I will surely die.
If I ever touch your hand again,
I will surely die.
If I ever stand close enough to smell your hair,
I will surely die.
The smell of you,
My goodness.
We went up together,
In the elevator,
You and me and a crowd.
And I touched 7,
And we left in a crowd.
We were crushed together.
Your hair was in my face.
We exchanged shy apologies,
Blushed.
And the smell of you,
My goodness.
And we went back to our desks.
Went about our business.
But my heart was not in it.
My heart was lost.
I looked over to you,
To the delicate swoop of your neck.
You glanced back,
And gave me that smile,
That understanding smile,
And I was blind.
There was a bit of afternoon sun still in your hair,
Your hair was on fire,
And I was blind.
You were smiling at me,
One blink, two blinks, perhaps three.
You had gone from blue to red.
You had changed,
Changed from the pretty girl who sat near me,
Into the most beautiful woman in the world.
And I was blind.
That's when it happened.
My goodness.
But I lied,
And said that I didn't remember.
Because I wanted to keep that moment to myself.
Because if ever I lost you, I would have that moment still.
Ashamed, I changed the subject.
When did it happen for you, I asked.
When did you know that you loved me?
We paused as I worked a nipple,
Sucking and scraping and biting, but gently,
The way you liked.
I was hard again and wanted you,
I wanted you every second of the day.
When did it happen for you, I asked?
Hoping to distract you while I worked my whiles.
When did you know that you loved me?
And you kissed me full,
Full lips and full tongue,
You kissed me for an hour or a year.
You squeezed me,
And I realized that it was not my whiles,
We were working.
I had imagined that I was in charge.
Stupid boy.
It was at Maggie's party, you said.
I fell in love with you at Maggie's party.
You held my cup,
Your hands were shaking.
You were so sweet and cute and stupid.
That's when I fell in love with you.
Stupid boy.
And we went back to our desks,
And I felt you staring at the back of my neck,
And I wondered,
Why doesn't he just come out and kiss me.
My goodness.
He's so sweet and cute and stupid.
If I would have smiled any more I would have broken my face.
That's when I loved you.
Right then.
That's when you changed from blue to red.
And that's why I kissed you later,
In the parking garage,
Like this, remember?
Or was it like this?
Or this?
Stupid boy.
And we kissed,
And moved on to more lovely things.
And I cried and told you of my lie.
You cradled me to pillow breasts,
Stroked my hair,
Kissed my temple.
That was a good lie, you said.
But don't tell me any more, ever.
You pushed up and gave me your serious, raised eyebrow look.
You and I, we're past lying, you said.
Don't need it, stupid boy.
And you licked me a big lick,
From shoulder to chin.
And we made sweet love in the red blanket.
You slept.
I held your weight,
Which was no weight at all.
There was sunshine from the window.
It lit your hair on fire.
I could not have been more in love with you if I tried.
My goodness.
posted by michael Thursday, December 21, 2006
'The Drugs Don't Work' by The Verve has been named the saddest song in a new scientific study.
An expert in physiology and music analysed physical reactions to a number of rock and pop songs and deemed the 1997 track to be the saddest ahead of 'Angels' by Robbie Williams.
The study, sponsored by Nokia UK, measured heart rate, respiratory response and skin temperature to find the saddest songs on a short list compiled by the Official UK Charts Company.
Dr Harry Witchel, who carried out the survey, said: "Music is undeniably powerful at triggering different emotional states. Changes in tempo and frequencies induce profoundly different emotional states".
"A slow tempo song like The Verve's 'The Drugs Don't Work' slows down the heart compared to most of the other songs and compared to white noise - in other words, it works like the emotional state of sadness".
Here are the top, or bottom ten, as it were.
1. The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work
2. Robbie Williams - Angels
3. Elton John - Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
4. Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
5. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
6. Will Young - Leave Right Now
7. Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight?
8. Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
9. James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover
10. Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Here is a link to see the video. Sorry, I was too fucking lazy to code the HTML. Sue me. It's Ctrl C then Ctrl V.
http://www.attuworld.com/the_verve_saddest_song_ever
Here are the lyrics.
Quite sad....
All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down
And I hope you're thinking of me
As you lay down on your side
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
But I know I'm on a losing streak
'Cause I passed down my old street
And if you wanna show, then just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead
All this talk of getting old
It's getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm comin' down
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
'Cause baby, ooh, if heaven calls, I'm coming, too
Just like you said, you leave my life, I'm better off dead
But if you wanna show, just let me know
And I'll sing in your ear again
Now the drugs don't work
They just make you worse
But I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
Yeah, I know I'll see your face again
I'm never going down, I'm never coming down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more
I'm never coming down, I'm never going down
No more, no more, no more, no more, no more
Now, if someone would have contacted me about the survey, I would have lobbied hard for an Elvis Costello song like 'Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head' or '(It's Been A) Good Year For the Roses' or 'Alison' or 'Anyone Who Ever Had a Heart' or 'Boy With a Problem' or 'Clowntime is Over' or 'God Give Me Strength' or 'He's Got You...' or 'How Much I Lied' or 'I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself' or 'I Still Have That Other Girl...' or 'I Want You' or '(Losing You) Is Just a Memory'...
I could go on and on. Everyone who knows me knows my heart is with Elvis.
Everywhere and all the time.
He is my 'go to' guy.
I'm sure there are happy songs out there as well. They're not on my radar these days; too busy with sad and shit. My bad.
Parenthetically, I thought the other Elvis deserved better than 7th. Now, that's a sad song. And to hear it live in Vegas....see previous Christmas posts. Write if you get work.
posted by michael Monday, December 18, 2006
But you know she doesn't want you,
But you can't seem to get it in your head.
Oh and you can't sleep at night,
And she haunts you when you go to bed.
When you're tired of talking and you can't drink it down,
So you hang around and drown instead.
Home isn't where it used to be,
Home is anywhere you hang your head.
EC
posted by michael Saturday, December 16, 2006
Toughen up, toughen up.
Keep your lip buttoned up.
Strict time.
EC
posted by michael Thursday, December 14, 2006
Poor fractured Atlas,
Threw himself across the mattress,
Waving his withering pencil,
As if it were a pirate's cutlass.
I'm almost certain he's trying to increase his burden.
He said,
"That's how the child in me planned it;
A woman wouldn't understand it."
EC
posted by michael Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I sleep often,
And rise early.
I nap in the afternoon from disinterest.
My sleep is troubled and broken.
My dreams, confused and jagged.
I wake in a sweat,
Hands cramped from grasping,
Beneath the pillow.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I think in secret.
I drink in secret.
Straight vodka, thank you,
Right past the heart, straight to the brain,
That's my drink of choice.
I am short-tempered,
Miserable,
Argumentative at home.
In public I am better.
I make a show of being cheerful,
Human.
I have no appetite for food,
But a thirst that cannot be quenched.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I find solace in books,
Books I have read before.
I read nothing new.
I do nothing constructive.
I cannot abide video.
I cannot sit still.
I write poems,
Read them by myself,
And destroy them.
Abortions of words,
Genocide.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I have not looked my wife in the eye,
For the longest of times.
I kiss her neck,
My lips are miles distant.
We make love eagerly.
She is eager.
She senses something amiss.
She seeks to hold me to her.
I have told so many lies,
They bury the truth,
Miles deep.
I kiss her neck.
I hold her to me,
With arms miles distant.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I contemplate my death,
Plan it.
I consider the deaths of others.
Admire them.
Revile them.
I search for courage,
Research resolve.
My family is a cipher,
My friends, a memory.
I am in danger of going blind.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I see her on the street a million times,
Chestnut hair flowing.
I reach for her.
I reach for the phone.
I reach for my vodka.
Straight, past the heart, to the brain.
I live my life by the rules of another.
I have no life at all.
I broke a rule.
Ergo, I reap the whirlwind,
I plough the sea.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
I live vicarious.
I have no original thought.
I respond to stimuli,
I react but stiffly.
Dog-walkers make me cry.
I hate the colour orange.
I have vague memories of smiles,
My face forgets.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
Here is how it is these days.
Here is how I am.
Guilt is my constant companion.
Guilt is my seeing eye dog.
I have the diamond guilt of the Jew.
I have the charisma of the camp commandant.
I have the swagger of the new oven guard,
Proud and shamed,
Eyes down.
People shy away from me.
They make excuses.
They sense it.
They smell the guilt on me,
Like offal.
They turn their heads,
Press their sleeves to nose.
They hurry from me.
They leave me to myself.
Alone, I feel unsafe,
Weary,
Troubled,
Uncertain.
Nowhere near stable.
I cannot be left alone.
I cannot trust my own devices.
My mind is not my own.
My mind is elsewhere.
I fear it.
I am in love,
But the love brings me no joy.
posted by michael Monday, December 11, 2006
I am missing you.
Tonight,
I am missing you,
More than any other night.
Tonight,
I can feel you missing me.
Tonight,
I am breaking all the rules.
posted by michael Saturday, December 09, 2006
So who is it can say,
Whom I might love?
Who is it can say,
Who can love you?
We have no couch,
No door,
In front of which to push it.
We have neither door nor couch.
There is just your heart and mine.
No couch,
No door.
Just hearts,
Pushing.
posted by michael Monday, December 04, 2006
This was written on July 22, 2006.
It just recently floated to the top of life's detritus, and thus, to you.
My wife rarely reads my stuff and when she does she is usually disturbed.
She is embarrassed by my poems about sex and women because she thinks they are about her and that makes her embarrassed. I tell her that is not necessarily true.
The one about the man and woman living under the willow tree was simply an exercise, I tell her. And what I tell her is true. That poem was a simple exercise I wrote about the sounds.
The important part of that poem was the part about the jewelry hitting the bowl, the sounds of the ring etc.. The rest is just filler; just a story built to contain the exercise of the sounds. And while the part about the sounds pleases me, the rest is just okay although the "sandpaper" sound of the jeans was, I think, a nice touch.
As with most things I write, I like only bits and pieces and endure the parts that link them.
With all that in mind I will give you another little piece. It has since become meaningful to me.
There once was a woman named Margaret in my life and that's as far as I'll go with that. I have not seen her for a million years and if I did see her she would most probably slap my face very hard. I could not fault her if she did for I was cruel to her and broke her heart.
This poem came about because of a dentist of my acquaintance and my sighting on the street here in Gotham City of a 1980 Gran Torino, dark green and sleek and dangerous.
When it had rained,
Margaret would walk,
Down the center of the street.
She was afraid, you see,
Of worms,
Or more specifically,
Of the squishing of worms underfoot.
When the worms came out,
After it rained,
She was very careful.
She told me this secret,
One rainy afternoon,
In my little, single bed.
I teased her, but gently,
For I loved her.
She was my all-consuming love.
The first time I saw her,
She was wearing little, yellow, rubber boots.
It was a rainy day.
Her hair was pulled back in a tail,
Thick and brown,
Lustrous.
Her skin was peach perfect.
We were in my rooms at the university.
She was the friend of a girlfriend of a friend.
I was fucked up on bennies and sparkling, blueberry wine.
I was halfway through a weekend toot.
We came together around the stereo,
Of which I was inordinately proud.
We talked music, but briefly,
And then she moved away.
Her skin was peach perfect.
She smelled clean,
Like the leaf of a tree.
She pursued me and I was flattered.
I allowed myself to be caught.
I was in the middle of a downturn with women.
I had sworn them off.
The first time she kissed me,
Her breath was sweet,
Her tongue, warm,
Lips like velcro, velvet.
We kissed in the rain,
Her back pressed against the driver's door,
Of her Dad's green Gran Torino.
Her dad was a doctor and a teacher,
And a son of the old soil.
My how we kissed.
The last time I saw Margaret,
I had in my hand,
A paper copy of Marcuse's, An Essay on Liberation.
I have it still.
I do not read it.
I cannot bear to touch it.
Fucking, stupid Marcuse.
Had it all wrong about liberation.
He mocks me from the shelf.
The last time I saw Margaret,
It was sunny and September.
I was wearing those baggy black pants,
You remember, my favourites,
The ones from The Gap.
The last time I saw Margaret,
She was wearing penny loafers.
Her skin was peach perfect.
She wore her hair down,
Flowing,
A lock had gathered,
Stuck in the corner of her mouth.
She seemed not to care.
She was collapsed, sort of backwards,
Against the driver's door of her Dad's car.
Her head thrown back,
Skin taut.
Peach perfect.
Fists clenched.
"You cocksucker," she screamed.
"I'm in fucking love with you."
And to that I had no reply.
It was the '80 Gran Torino,
Sleek and dangerous.
It came with the stock 404.
posted by michael Sunday, November 26, 2006
Enough is enough.
Dear, sweet, crucified Jesus Christ,
That's enough.
posted by michael Sunday, November 26, 2006
I am in the arms of a paradox.
I have a secret,
A terrible secret.
It burns in me.
I have a secret, so bitter, so sweet,
So bittersweet that if I tell it,
To another living soul,
I shall surely die.
My life, shattered,
A ruin.
I hang on the lips of a conundrum.
I have a secret,
A terrible secret.
It burns in me.
I have a secret, so joyous, so grand,
So full of wonder that if I do not share it,
With another living soul,
I shall surely die.
My life, hollow,
A ruin.
I am in the grip of an enigma.
I have a secret,
A terrible secret.
It burns in me.
I have a secret, a magnificent secret,
It is my sleep, my dream, my waking,
It threatens to burst from me,
It has become my life and my death.
I must choose.
posted by michael Monday, November 20, 2006
Here is a thing that happened to a good friend of mine and was told to me in a drunken haze. Thus, I know it to be true.
I imagine that he showed me the evidence at some point.
I must have seen it in black and white through an alcoholic glare. Thus, I know it to be true.
I will write it down in free form verse for that is how I think these days.
I think I think in free form verse and I know I lie almost all the time.
Sometimes I lie in free form verse.
Sometimes I think in lies.
Here's what my friend told me...as far as I can remember.
I might have added to the facts, perhaps taken some away.
I might have polished the prose, added punctuation, a literary tilt or two.
Edited for space or content.
I might have made it up.
I might have imagined the whole thing.
I might have imagined the friend or the woman or both.
I might have imagined it all in free form verse.
I might be pulling all of this from my ass.
It was late.
It was dark.
Who can remember?
Good story though, its provenance notwithstanding.
Here it is in his own words,
Or what his words would be,
If he had spoken.
And I'm nearly sure he did.
I know I heard voices.
They speak the truth to me in free form verse.
That I know to be true.
Or nearly so.
Or perhaps they lie, in free form verse.
Or perhaps they speak not at all.
It's your call.
I think I cannot be trusted.
That I know to be true.
Or nearly so.
Here is the best e-mail exchange I ever had.
The best exchange of any kind.
It happened when I was busy,
Falling in love,
With a stubborn and magical woman.
The woman that you wait for,
The woman you doubt will ever appear.
'Til she appears,
And you are caught unprepared.
Best shirt crumpled near the bed.
Two best pants at the cleaners.
Hair two weeks past a cut.
Unshaven.
And her,
Some hidden wind machine,
Softly blowing her hair,
Some scent, cinammon, magnolia.
You can see your face in her bottom lip.
She wrote to me....
Do you remember when we walked to my car in the parking garage?
And I wrote back....
Of course.
You took my hand,
And asked,
Is this all right?
And I answered,
Completely.
Perfect.
(What I did not write was...
Your hand was marble, cool and chill.
It pulsed.
I held it careful,
Like a glass hand grenade,
Pin out.
Careful.)
She wrote to me....
Do you remember our first kiss?
We leaned up against my car.
I got dust on my pants.
And I wrote back....
Of course,
(For I could still taste her lipstick,
It had become my favourite thing.)
She wrote to me....
I think that is the best kiss I ever had in my life.
I still feel you on my lips.
And I wrote back....
Likewise.
She wrote to me....
Do you remember our second kiss,
After we caught our breath?
When we switched positions,
And I placed my palms on your stubbly cheeks,
And pulled your face to mine?
And I wrote back....
Who could forget such a thing?
I got dust on my pants.
(Your palms were cool like marble,
But warm like silver.
My cheeks will never be the same.)
She wrote to me....
I think that is the best kiss I ever had in my life.
Your tongue was sweet-flavoured and gentle.
And I wrote back....
Likewise.
She wrote to me....
Do you remember the third kiss of our life,
The one where you leaned into the car window,
And kissed me rough,
Hungry,
Almost violent?
You bit my lip.
And I wrote back....
Sorry about that.
I was carried away.
(I can still feel the press of the window's frame,
Across my neck.
Her teeth as they clattered on mine.
The weight of her tongue.)
She wrote to me....
I think that is the best kiss I ever had in my life.
I liked that you just took it.
And I wrote back....
Likewise.
She wrote to me....
Do you remember the last kiss we shared?
The one you kissed onto my palm through the open window?
The one that lingered?
The one you said was my traveler?
And I wrote back....
Absolutely.
(For I spit a part of my heart into her palm,
With that kiss,
And trusted her with its safe-keeping.)
She wrote to me....
I think that is the best kiss I ever had in my life.
My palm hummed as with stigmata.
And I wrote back....
Likewise.
She wrote to me....
I used that kiss before you were out of sight down the ramp.
I licked my palm,
That I might taste you again.
I'm fresh out.
Might I have another?
And I ran to her.
In my third best pants.
For she was that kind of woman.
posted by michael Friday, November 17, 2006
Let's call this one "Tonight," for that seems to fit and let's dedicate it to the new pornographer. He knows who he is.
Tonight, my heart is at the Outback Steakhouse.
My beautiful heart.
Tonight, my heart is out.
Tonight, my heart will order for the first time,
A Manhattan,
Extra sweet, straight up,
Just as I coached.
Tonight, my heart will probably not enjoy that drink,
Too boozy perhaps, too strong.
Not right.
Tonight, I suspect, my heart,
Will enjoy nothing at all.
Not the warm ambience,
The friendly server,
The everlasting bread.
Tonight, my heart is broken,
Having dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.
My heart is broken,
Confused and angry.
Tonight, my heart,
My so beautiful heart,
Is at the Outback Steakhouse.
Tonight, my heart is out.
Tonight, my heart,
My so beautiful heart,
Will come home to an unhappy home.
Confused and angry.
Tonight, my heart,
My so beautiful heart,
Will reach for me,
Think of me,
Yearn for me.
Tonight, my heart and I,
My so beautiful heart,
Are a million miles distant.
Distant,
A million, million miles.
Close as sheets on a bed.
Separate.
posted by michael Tuesday, November 14, 2006
So here's what happened to me today.
I have had for some time a problem with my brain. Episodes in 2004 and 2005 have been recorded here. About five weeks ago, these problems re-surfaced with a vengeance and when I called my friendly neurologist, I was given an appointment to see him in February next. God speed, write if you get work.
Today, I started to experience some dizziness and blurred, tunnely vision, so I left work and went to emerg at Victoria Hospital. I went through the usual shit and when they took my blood pressure, it was discovered to be 215 over 145. My, but that got me some attention. It got me a private room and two nurses and a doctor and a med student and a shot of some magic, mathematical juice in my vein that could reduce numbers and a trip to the inner workings of the hospital, back where you hear all the screaming.
Parenthetically, said med student was young and female and somewhat attractive and when she bent over to do her things to me I could not help but notice that she was wearing shiny and purple thong underwear; they stuck up out of her green scrub pants. That made me feel old.
So I made my way up a floor or two to radiology with the help of a nice fellow named Phil where they cat-scanned me for a bit. For those of you who have not been so blessed, I can only report that cat-scans are not painful but unpleasant; they are noisy and scary and discombobulating and when you get up you are dizzy. The technicians are not friendly. They are mean and yell at you if you do not keep your head still.
And then they sent me home.
So, now I am at home for a while, forbidden to work, awaiting the results of said scans and the resultant doctors' conference, for my neurologist was not available today but might be tomorrow.
I have been told to relax and rest, but I can do neither.
Two or three times a day I get major 15 minute head-aches all round my left ear. Most of the time I feel pressure behind my left eyeball like it is being pushed out of the socket. My left arm is tingly and always fatigued, like I have been doing serious reps with a serious weight, which of course I have never done, nor will I do. Exercise, of course, being for those who do not believe in God's will.
I cried today in the examination room because I was so alone and so scared. They leave you alone for prolonged periods of time while they work their mojo. I do not tell my wife most of this shit, just the bare minimum. She has been through a lot of hospital stuff and death and stuff in the last while with her mom and I do not want to add to her burden when she is just beginning to relinquish the burden of what she had. Our relationship has not been great of late (my fault) and I fear the final straw, as it were.
So I am off work for a while in order to rest and relax and await the results of blah, blah, blah.
I have never felt so alone.
I haven't told anyone else about this; let's keep it between ourselves for now. I'll let you know how it turns out.
So how was your day?
And finally, a confidential word or two to C, so if your name isn't C, move on, mother fucker.
C
I broke your fucking rule, couldn't help it.
Broke it months ago; smashed it with a ball bat, right in the head.
You gave me two and I surely broke the one and if I could break the second, I would do so in a flash.
Stupid fucking rule.
I never stood a chance.
So, sue me, you beautiful, enchanting, wonderful, bitch.
M
posted by michael Tuesday, November 07, 2006
My youngest, my daughter, wrote to me a letter recently in which she said I was "double dandy, yupper". That was nice.
She concluded said letter by asking why I wrote so much "poitry".
And I thought long and hard about that question for I think long and hard about every question.
And the best answer I could come up with is;
"Fucked if I know."
It takes me nowhere, it gives me nothing, it takes up valuable time.
And when said process is over, I just know that I had to get it out of me and that it feels good when it's out.
So to follow the analogy, I suppose you could say that for me writing a poem is like taking a shit.
Sad analogy really, but as true as true can be.
It is natural and necessary and sometimes it stinks but it feels good.
This will be the last of the "new girl" poems.
They are spiralling out of control.
Much like my life.
My relationship with wife and children is at an all-time ebb.
I am drinking far too much.
I am spending too much time alone than is healthy for God's creatures.
I have an upcoming appointment with my neurologist (my third) to see if he can finally figure out why I get these headaches behind the left ear and what's with the pressure behind my left eye that makes it hard to see occasionally.
Wish I could say that all was rosy folks, but it's not.
I am only truly happy about one minute per day and if I were to tell you about that minute we would be here all night.
Will someone write to me at mkuiack@gmail.com and tell me they think fondly of me?
I need some huggin'.
Regardless, this is the last I think unless I eat something disturbing.
It is one of the ones that I like for the throwaway phrase.
See if you can find the phrase I mean.
So let's think for a moment,
You and I.
Let's fantasize.
Let's use our imaginations.
Let's imagine a woman.
She is young and beautiful.
She has long and flingy, chestnut hair.
Lips like pillows.
Let's add that she's built like a brick shit-house.
Let's say that I love her.
Are you getting the picture?
Remember, it's a fantasy,
It's just something we're thinking.
We're using our imaginations.
It's just an exercise.
We're just fucking around.
Let's say this woman has this boyfriend,
This bad, bad boyfriend.
Let's imagine they're breaking up.
Let's imagine it's not amicable,
More ugly than not.
Perhaps there's another woman,
But that's hard to imagine,
Is it not?
How can there be another woman,
When the bad, bad boyfriend,
Already has the perfect girlfriend?
Lips like pillows, remember?
And a way of looking up,
From under chestnut lashes.
A way of looking up at you,
That can start a fire.
Try to stay with me.
Use your imagination.
Let's just imagine for a moment,
A silly pipe-dream,
A fantasy, remember.
Let's imagine that I was in love with her.
Let's try to imagine love.
That's it, close your eyes, you remember.
Let's imagine that she had looked up at me,
From under chestnut lashes,
Once too often.
Let's imagine that I fell in love with those pillow lips.
Remember, it's a fantasy,
It's just something we're thinking.
We're using our imaginations.
It's just an exercise.
We're just fucking around.
Let's throw something else into the mix,
For the sake of the exercise.
Let's really stretch ourselves.
Let's imagine that she is smart and funny,
And witty and quick.
Let's say for the sake of saying,
That she is my equal in those things.
Let's imagine her voice is sexy-soft.
Let's say she is built like a brick shit-house.
Let's imagine that she has flingy, chestnut hair,
Fine as silk and sweet smelling.
Let's say she fills my dreams,
And my waking moments both.
Just thinking, remember.
Imagining.
A bagatelle, a lark.
We're just talking.
Just fucking around.
Kicking around some ideas.
Shooting the shit.
Let's imagine for a moment,
That she filled my heart daily,
With visions of chestnut lashes,
And the sounds of a sexy-soft voice.
That I poured my heart out nightly.
Let's imagine that I wrote such poetry for her.
Let's imagine said poetry,
So florid and lurid,
That I blush to recall.
Imagine perhaps, if you can make the stretch,
That I became short of breath when she was in the room,
Like she consumed more than her share,
Of the available air,
And left me panting.
Vacant.
Let's think for a moment,
Silly, really,
That I yearned to touch her,
And that the sight of the skin at the back of her neck,
That neck so long and slender,
Sloping to glorious shoulders,
Made me weak at the knees.
Silly, really.
Just an exercise.
And juvenile at that.
Let's imagine that we told each other secrets,
She and I.
In quiet times,
In quiet voices,
Lest others hear.
Let's imagine that she was built like a brick shit-house.
Lips like pillows,
Smart and funny,
Quick and witty.
Let's throw chestnut lashes back into the mix.
A bagatelle, a lark.
We're just talking.
We can add whatever we'd like.
Let's say for the sake of saying,
That I was there for her during this time,
The time of the bad, bad boyfriend.
Or perhaps for the sake of accuracy,
Let's say that I was there for me.
Lips like pillows, remember?
Flingy,chestnut hair.
Try to stay with me.
I feel you slipping away.
Let's say that I was her friend,
And we talked,
Commiserated,
And walked some laps,
And dealt with the shit of life,
And the stepping therein.
Let's imagine, just out of nowhere,
That near the end of one of those walks,
Just as we were about to turn the corner,
Toward work and people and reality,
She had reached for me,
As I strode ahead.
Took hold of my arm,
And swung me,
Turned me,
Until we were face to face,
With a bump.
We're just talking, remember.
Just fucking around.
Imagine that she looked up at me,
From under chestnut lashes,
And kissed me chaste, sexy-soft,
On the middle of my lips.
Imagine that she stepped back,
But held me firm and strong at the shoulders,
And looked up at me,
From under chestnut lashes.
Imagine one of those looks,
You know the ones?
You remember?
The ones that could ignite tinder.
Imagine she said to me,
And I'm out on a limb here.
Imagine she said to me,
Just out of the blue,
"I wish you were my boyfriend."
Let's say that I said something stupid like;
"I think I was your boyfriend before I was born."
Because I was born to say the stupid thing,
At the stupid time,
With a girl kissing me,
Pillow lips,
Chestnut hair.
And experience has borne that true.
Can you imagine her reply?
Do you remember that she is smart and funny,
And witty and quick?
"Don't get deep on me now," she would say.
For she teased me about my supposed depth.
"Now is the time for shallow and obvious."
"Can you do shallow and obvious, just for today?"
And of course she would smile,
And show perfect teeth.
Perfect as imagination.
Perfect as fucking around.
Imagine she pulled me close and kissed me again.
Harder, off-center, less chaste.
Imagine my arms curling about her.
Imagine the swell of her breasts against me.
Imagine the bump,
Groin to groin.
Imagine the feel of her tongue.
Your imagination certainly cannot describe the smell of her.
That I can provide.
My imagination being that much more than yours.
Pipe tobacco and melon and sex and caramel.
Can you smell it?
Can you imagine the feel of her tongue?
Warm and alive,
Squirming like some newborn mammal.
Moist and firm and textured like apple meat.
And the taste of her.
Can you imagine?
Imagine that I wanted to kiss her,
For the rest of my life,
There near the end of our walk.
Her lips on mine.
Hard and off-center,
Just as we were about to turn the corner.
Imagine if you will;
Let's finish the game.
Imagine the feel of her chestnut hair,
On my cheek and neck.
Imagine she made a small noise as she kissed,
A noise of hunger and satisfaction.
Like a baby,
Latching on to the nipple.
Imagine her fingers in my hair.
Imagine she pulled me closer.
Imagine that I wanted to kiss her,
For the rest of my life.
Imagine that I wanted to kiss her,
For the rest of my life.
There near the end of our walk,
Just as we were about to turn the corner.
Mere steps from work and people and reality.
Imagine this in its literal sense,
Without the touch of poesy,
Hyperbole free.
We're just fucking around here.
We can do what we like.
Imagine that I wanted to kiss her,
For the rest of my life.
There near the end of our walk.
Kiss her until I succumbed,
To thirst or hunger or exposure or cancer.
Kiss her until I crumpled dead to the sidewalk,
There near the end of our walk.
Can you imagine such a thing?
Remember, it's a fantasy,
It's just something we're thinking.
We're using our imaginations.
It's just an exercise.
We're just fucking around.
Can you imagine such a thing?
I can.
posted by michael Monday, October 30, 2006
Your breaking heart is breaking my fucking heart.
I yearn for you.
Where is God when I need him?
Fuck karma.
Fuck fate.
I need God.
And he is nowhere to be found.
I yearn for you.
Your breaking heart is breaking my fucking heart.
posted by michael Friday, October 27, 2006
Can you feel it?
The pressure on the trigger?
Can you feel the first squeeze of sweat from the pores?
The squint of the eyes?
The half-breath...
Then, hold.
The barrel is loaded.
The barrel is loaded.
posted by michael Monday, October 23, 2006
I'm reading British books these days, tons of British books, British books by the yard.
I read lots of books all the time.
Just look at the state of my marriage or the condition of my house or yard or my relationship with my children and you will see how much I read; always and all the time. Can't get enough of the printed word.
Anyway, been going through the British contemporary list and I have found some gems and some dogs.
In one gem I found this;
Marry your sexual obsession...The one you kept going back to, the one you never quite got to the end of. Marry her....Not the beauty, not the brains....Don't marry the droll brain surgeon. Don't marry the dreaming stunner who works in famine relief. Marry the town pump. Marry the one who does it for a drag of your cigarette....Marry the one who made you the hardest. Marry her.
And in another gem, I found this;
Richard Tull was crying in his sleep. The woman beside him, his wife, Gina, woke and turned. She moved up on him from behind and laid hands on his pale and straining shoulders. There was a professionalism in her blinks and frowns and whispers: like the person at the pool-side, trained in first aid; like the figure surging in on the blood-smeared macadam, a striding Christ of mouth-to-mouth. She was a woman. She knew so much more about tears than he did. She didn't know about Swift's juvenalia, or Wordsworth's senilia, or how Cressida had variously fared at the hands of Boccaccio, of Chaucer, of Robert Henryson, of Shakespeare; she didn't know Proust. But she knew tears. Gina had tears cold.
The first bit is interesting and I will not belabour the point. I would ask only that all those reading here think for a single 60-second minute about what it would have been like if they had married their sexual obsession. Hmmmm!
The second bit is just brilliant writing. It is the kind of phrasing and tempo and content that I would kill to be able to write.
"...a striding Christ of mouth-to-mouth...." makes;
"Soft as beach sand,
Deep as the sea."
sound like a shopping list for the shit store.
I am sending in some poems and things to a big literary contest sponsored by the CBC.
Thanks to my professor sister for bringing said contest to my attention. I'll let you know how it turns out.
On a professional note, I should add that the "powers-that-be" have decided to end my contract status and give me a full-time permanent position with a promotion and benefits and a "holy-shit" sized raise.
I accepted.
If I would have drooled any more, they would have charged me for the carpet.
My new e-mail is mkuiack@gmail.com.
Rogers and I had a falling out. They got the house and wife and kids and I got a decent speed of connection that works more than some of the time.
My lawyer was a brick.
We lost my mother-in-law this time last year. Let's give some thought tonight to the dead people in our lives. They live more than some of the live ones.
That's all tonight.
Kisses to bald ladies, moms and dads, to photographers and card-sharks, and a snappy salute to your ships and all those who sail therein.
Write if you get work!
posted by michael Sunday, October 22, 2006
Sometimes I write a poem that I don't much like and it never sees these pages.
Sometimes I write a poem that hurts or feels so much that I keep it to myself.
Sometimes I write a long-ish poem and I cut it short.
Sometimes I keep a poem that is not particularily good and give it to you simply because of a throw-away phrase that I find pleasing.
Such is the case with this one.
I love the phrasing of...
"Soft as beach sand,
Deep as the sea."
I bragged about that phrase to my wife and applauded its merits. She calmly informed me that not all beach sand is soft.
"The sand at Port Stanley is not soft," she said.
And who can argue that.
I love my wife at times like these for she keeps me grounded, in the real world as it were.
I hate my wife at times like these for she wouldn't know a good poem if it bit her in the ass.
Regardless, here is another in what I am calling the new girl poems for they are about a new girl of my imagination.
They are my literary mid-life crisis.
Hope you like them.
I do.
I want this on the record.
I want you to know that I know.
So later,
When there are recriminations,
Raised hands perhaps, and certainly voices.
Angry words.
You will know.
I didn't say it at the beginning,
When I first felt it stir.
I held it in me,
Deep.
I didn't say it when you first touched me,
And first pulled away.
Scalded.
I didn't say it after that first kiss,
That beautiful kiss.
That simply beautiful kiss,
Soft as beach sand,
Deep as the sea.
Deep.
Not a word all through the winter.
Never a word in the spring.
When you laid your hand soft on mine in the summer,
Not a word.
When I held you in the autumn,
Not a word.
Yet I kissed your tears from my jacket,
And wept my own.
Always the gentleman.
Deep.
I want this on the record.
I want you to know that I know.
So later,
When there are recriminations,
When my wife is weeping,
And my kids don't understand.
And there are moving trucks,
And visiting days,
And our love is like sunshine,
All the day,
And our love is like sunshine,
Into the darkness of the night.
I want this on the record.
I want you to know that I know.
So later,
When there are recriminations...
You said it first,
You brought it up.
You said the love word,
And I was afraid.
Scared to death.
Your smile calmed me.
"You'll be okay," you said.
And I was okay,
Because I was with you.
And you laid your hand soft on mine.
And I was okay,
Because you touched my hand,
Soft as beach sand,
Deep as the sea.
I want this on the record.
I want you to know that I know.
This is all your fault.
posted by michael Sunday, October 22, 2006
A little night music courtesy of Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Leslie Gore, and Matthew Arnold respectively and, of course, respectfully.
"Tempted by the fruit of another,
Tempted but the truth is discovered,
What's been going on,
Now that you have gone there's no other,
Tempted by the fruit of another,
Tempted but the truth is discovered."
"I'm the town crier,
And everybody knows,
I'm a little down,
With a lifetime to go,
Maybe you don't believe my heart is in the right place,
Why don't you take a good look at my face."
"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to,
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to,
You would cry too if it happened to you."
"Ah, love, let us be true,
To one another! For the world which seems,
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
posted by michael Monday, October 16, 2006
We were playing, laughing.
New friends, and right.
There was contact and touching.
Such as we had never had before.
Then there was an almost kiss.
An accident, really.
There was a mouthful of fragrant hair.
And lungs full of scent.
Sweet as summer.
Then we were clumsy.
We disentangled.
Cumbersome,
Embarassed,
We withdrew.
Suddenly back two steps,
When we had taken barely one.
She fixed me with a glance,
Eyes sharp, like a fox,
But tender, beautiful.
"You aren't going to do anything to ruin this," she asked?
"Are you"?
And she fixed me with a glance,
The glance of the young woman,
Pretty as a picture,
Sexy as a whisper.
I didn't answer.
"Are you," she repeated?
And I looked to her,
With my only look,
That of the alcoholic poet,
Old enough to be her father.
Who had been pole-axed by love.
I looked to her,
And then down to my shoes.
And up to her.
For what could I do?
I had been powerless all along.
She reached for me,
And I saw affection,
But it might have been pity.
She pulled me along by the arm.
"You're an idiot," she said.
But I thought she said it with warm affection.
And my heart....
We walked on.
There was playing.
There was laughter,
For we had much laughter.
We were playing, laughing.
New friends, and right.
posted by michael Sunday, October 15, 2006
We lay, spent,
Emptied, tired, drowsy.
Her back to my chest.
Her hair in my face.
My lungs full of her perfume,
Smoky, pungent, wonderful.
"Am I your woman now," she asked?
"I feel like I'm your woman,
You've had me everywhere.
I think I'm your woman now."
"You've always been my woman," I answered.
"When you were born,
You were my woman.
When you were sucking at your mother's teat,
You were my woman.
When you learned to read,
You were my woman.
All through high school,
You were my woman.
Those other guys meant nothing,
You were always my woman.
And then I met you,
You have always been my woman."
She moved around me,
I felt her clench and grasp.
I pulled her to me,
And bit her ear.
"You have always been my woman," I said.
"There is no other woman for me."
She moved around me.
I felt her pull.
I felt her hand clasp my buttock,
And pull it closer.
"I think I dreamed of you in the womb," she said.
"But I was too young to understand."
And then she drifted off.
I felt it happen,
The twitching,
The feral sigh.
posted by michael Thursday, October 12, 2006
"Do you know what you're doing to me, " she asked?
We were at our secret place.
Astraddle a fallen log.
My back against the stones,
Her back against me,
Watching the water.
My right hand making small circles on the skin of her belly.
My left caressing the very bottom of one cupcake breast,
Where it lifted,
Soft as a puppy.
My lips tracing random, little kisses,
Across the back of her neck.
My jacket enfolding us both.
I was full of the smell of her,
And much distracted.
"Sure I do," I replied.
"I'm loving you.
Just as I always do,
With my every breath,
Every second of the day."
"No, my sweet," she said.
"What you're doing with your lovely hands,
That's not loving me.
It's close, but no cigar.
You were loving me when we walked here,
You held my hand,
You stroked my palm with your thumb.
You were loving me when you held me at the waist,
On the slippery rocks,
To make sure I didn't stumble.
You are loving me at the neck.
Not with those fine, little kisses,
But because you thought to kiss me there,
And in that way.
Love is in the thinking of kissing,
Not the kissing itself."
I edged my right hand lower,
Into her pants,
Until I felt velvet and beyond.
She arched her back away,
And my hand slipped deeper,
And I felt her heat,
And circled there.
I lifted my left hand somewhat higher,
Increased the pressure.
"What about now," I asked?
"Is this love?"
"Colder, my heart," she said.
"You love best without touching,
Although touching is nice.
You love me best when I see you across a room,
And you smile,
And I feel your love, radiant.
You love me best when you pick up the phone,
And I feel your little joy,
Your excitement,
Your frisson,
When you hear my voice."
I pulled her to me and squeezed her,
With my arms and legs.
"You make it sound so simple," I said.
"This love."
"It's actually quite complex," she said.
"Let's go to my house,
And there I can explain its complexities in greater depth.
The ins and outs as it were."
And she extricated herself,
From my hands and arms and legs and lips,
And buttoned and snapped,
And re-arranged.
I reached for her, desperate for friction,
But she danced away,
For she was lithe and graceful,
And quite a good dancer.
"Will you walk in front of me for a while," I asked?
As I stood.
Astraddle the fallen log.
She glanced at my trouser front.
"Of course," she said.
"That's part of love.
The walking in front I mean."
I reached for her, breathless,
And she danced away,
Lithe and graceful.
"But when I can walk beside you," she asked.
Looking back at me,
A promise of smiles.
"Will you hold my hand,
And stroke my palm with your thumb?
That's the most important part of love."
I reached for her, senseless,
And she danced away,
Up the slippery rocks.
Laughing like music,
Lithe and graceful.
And I hurried after,
Lest she stumble.
posted by michael Monday, October 09, 2006
No, no, no.
Hush now, sweet pea.
It's not that kind of love.
It's not the loathsome kind.
It's not jealous.
It's the kind of love,
That gets caught staring,
At the tilt of a perfect nose,
Or the curl of a lip,
Pink, soft, full,
From the corner of the eye.
It's not that other kind.
Hush now, sunshine,
It's not that kind of love.
It's not the stalking kind.
It's the kind of love,
That leaves you breathless,
For no reason.
It's the kind of love,
The fidgit-y love,
The one where you feel the nascent tears,
At first sighting.
The tickle behind the eyes.
The one that causes over-activity of the brain,
And stretches the imagination.
It's the kind of love that you sleep on,
And wake to.
It's the good kind of love.
Not the stalking kind.
It's the kind of love,
In which holding your hand,
Your precious hand,
Softly, so softly,
Might lead to death from joy.
It's that kind of love.
Not the other kind.
No, no, girlie.
It's not that kind of love.
It's not the scary, hitting, shouting kind.
It's the other kind of love,
The good kind,
The kind that brings flowers,
And small presents,
For no reason.
It's the look from across the room.
It's the touch of the eyes.
It's the secret handshake.
It's the wink when we think no one is looking.
It's the love that your friends accuse you of,
And you deny,
Until they catch us kissing,
And we can deny no more.
Hush now, small girl,
It's not that kind of love.
It's the better kind.
It's the kind where kisses are diamonds.
It's the other kind of love,
The kind of love that makes me hold your coat,
When you pee.
It's the kind that makes me hold your coat,
To my nose,
While you pee.
It's the kind that makes me swoon,
Against the wall,
From the smell of you on the coat.
From the smell of our kind of love.
The good kind.
It's the kind where you say,
"Are you okay?"
And I say,
"Just fine."
And we smile.
For we have that kind of love.
But what I want to say is,
"My heart is on fire for you.
I burn."
It's the kind of love where you touch my face,
Just finger tips, like a kiss.
A perfect little kiss,
A promise.
A secret handshake,
A promise.
It's the kind where I steal a glance,
At the tilt of your perfect nose.
It's the kind where I study,
The curl of your lip,
And find you studying me.
The touch of the eyes.
The secret handshake.
It's the kind of love,
In which I would blind myself,
If you were the last thing I could see.
It's that kind of love.
Not the bad kind.
It's the good kind of love.
posted by michael Thursday, October 05, 2006
Here's how it would be,
If there were ever a you and me.
Here's how it would be.
There would be pounding of walls,
Raised voices.
We would shriek,
The most unspeakable of things,
Then retire to refight the battle,
With hips and lips and thighs.
Until, entente.
Here's how it would be,
If there were ever a you and me.
Here's how it would be.
The neighbours would hate us.
The slamming of doors,
The breaking of plates.
Our sex would be legion,
Our kisses,
The irrefutable proof,
Of the existence of God.
posted by michael Sunday, October 01, 2006
Even now as I finger my Zippo,
A gift from friends, long forgotten.
Always in my pocket, never out,
For that would tempt me overly.
Even now as I finger my Zippo,
I think of it in her hand.
Even now when I see a woman's hand,
Pink and slight and slender,
I see my woman's hand,
Pink and slight and slender.
I see the ring,
That thinnest of rings,
With the smallest of diamonds,
For that was all I could afford.
The memory blinds me.
Even now when I smell melon,
I smell the smell of her,
Until smelling the smell of her,
I am asked to move along,
In the grocery store.
Even now when I see chestnut hair,
Longish; blowing; in a crowd.
Chestnut hair, light and airy,
I pull up short,
With her name in my voice,
And in my throat the smell of melon.
Even now when I am by myself,
And I fill my life with music and smoke.
Even now when I am by myself,
And drowning myself in intoxicating beverage.
Even when I sleep,
Upon the smell of her nightgown,
And breathe the smell of melon,
And dream the touch of her hand,
Pink and slight and slender.
Even then, I dream of her.
Sleeping, waking, the same.
Handing her the Zippo,
I said, "I love you",
And handing me back the Zippo,
She said, "You're stupid."
"You don't even know me."
But know her I did,
I knew the touch of her hand,
Pink and slight and slender.
I knew the smell of her,
Like melon, the sweetest of melon.
And I knew her chestnut hair,
Light and airy,
For I had studied it like a scientist,
When I thought her not looking.
But she was always looking.
God, did I know her chestnut hair.
Even now as I finger my Zippo,
A gift from friends, long forgotten.
Names engraved, but faded.
Faces misty, just out of focus.
Even now as I finger my Zippo,
Always in my pocket, never out,
For that would tempt me overly.
Even now as I finger my Zippo,
I think of it in her hands.
I think she is lost.
I think she loved me.
I think she is lost.
Somewhere in the passing of time,
She is lost.
And I do not know how to find her.
Even now when I see a woman's hand,
Pink and slight and slender,
I see my woman's hand,
Pink and slight and slender.
I see the ring,
That thinnest of rings,
With the smallest of diamonds,
For that was all I could afford.
Even now when I see a woman's hand,
Pink and slight and slender,
I see the light in her eyes,
When she saw that thinnest of rings,
With the smallest of diamonds,
I see the light in her eyes,
I feel her chestnut hair, light and airy,
And I smell the smell of melon.
"You're stupid," she said,
"I love you."
And she kissed me like there was no tomorrow,
For she always kissed like that.
And I smelt her chestnut hair,
Light and airy,
Sweet and musky like melon.
Now she is lost,
And I don't know how to find her.
posted by michael Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Here's one for my friend (and yours) Karlo, with whom I have recently been in touch. He will be 31 on Saturday and God willing, (and with the approval of She Who Must Be Obeyed) I will be there to say "Happy Birthday; Godspeed; Write if you get work". This one has no title; titles are for nancy-boys and girly-men.
"Is there anything about me you ever loved.
Any thing. Any small thing?"
This in my simpering, tiny voice,
For we had just fought,
And she had bested me,
As she always did.
She had played her trump card early,
The Ace of Spades,
The Big Mogilla.
"I fucking hate you,"
She had screamed.
Close to my face,
Flecks of horsey, white spit at her lips.
Eyes flashing like amber.
"Is there anything about me you ever loved.
Any thing. Any small thing?"
This in my simpering, tiny voice,
For we had just fought,
And she had bested me,
As she always did.
"I loved you once when we were at my sister's house."
This all clumsy as she struggled with a cigarette.
"I loved you when you got down on the floor,
And played with my sister's kid.
I loved you because my sister said to me in the kitchen,
How good it was to see a man who was good with children.
And I felt loved then, by her,
And I felt love for you, I suppose.
Because you were good with children.
I hate you because you don't know shit about women,
And less than shit about me."
"Could you ever love me.
Some time, in the future?"
This in my simpering, tiny voice,
For we had just fought,
And she had bested me,
As she always did.
"Not unless I were a child," she said.
And she turned from me,
And showed me the slope of her shoulders.
White, cold, icy, bright,
Like the top of a mountain.
We had just fought,
And she had bested me,
As she always did.
I think I reached for her.
But that might have been another woman.
Some other time.
posted by michael Thursday, September 14, 2006
Although I have been somewhat incommunicado of late, I keep in touch with most of your lives through your own blogs. It pleases me that the pictures continue to be taken and the babies grow fat and new jobs are started and new mothers are content with their lots in life. In one of those blogs I read recently that I was "...the poet, the one with all the words." Now, that is a crock of shit, a nice crock of shit and complimentary I suppose, but a crock of shit nonetheless. 'Preciate it, as it comes from someone about whom I care and who apparently cares about me.
Regardless, here are some more words. Let's dedicate these words to my friend, the good person, to whom bad things are happening - the baddest of things to the goodest of persons. She is in my thoughts like hunger.
Back in the day,
The day before yesterday,
When she was mine,
And I was hers,
And we lived in the cottage,
Under the willow,
Beside the lake,
And the birds sang from dawn 'til dusk,
She came to bed second,
And I was the first.
Back in the day,
The day before yesterday,
I could hear her in the bathroom,
The tinkle of her pee,
The splash of the sink water,
The spit of her teeth,
And then, for the longest time, silence,
And humming.
Back in the day,
When we lived by the lake,
She went next to the baby,
And there she would sing a verse or two,
Of Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey,
You know the one;
"She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey,
She’s an angel of the first degree.
She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey,
Just like honey from the bee."
For that was the baby's favourite song,
And made her coo with satisfaction.
Back in the day,
Before the madness came,
She came to bed in the dark light of the lake and the willow,
And I would listen to the sandpaper of jeans on thighs,
And the whisper of rayon on shoulders,
And it would make me hard.
Back in the day,
Before the tears washed her and the baby away,
She kept her jewelry in a bowl by the bed,
(Red-rimmed with chips and dragons),
A bowl we bought in Hong Kong ,
Back in the day,
The day before yesterday.
Back in the day,
Before the police came,
I would count the noises,
The ting of the medallion,
The whisper of the fine, gold chain,
The chunks of the pearls from her ears,
And the clink of the ring.
Back in the day,
Before the tears washed her away,
She would slide into bed,
Silent as Spiderman,
And her smells would waft over me.
There was that white-y stuff she put on her face,
So briefly, and then washed away.
And the dust of her hair,
Like sugar,
And the stench of her labour,
With baby and house,
And it ran to my tumescence.
Back in the day,
The day before yesterday,
When she was mine,
And I was hers,
And we lived in the cottage,
Under the willow,
Beside the lake,
And the birds sang from dawn 'til dusk.
She would reach out and grasp me,
In that little perfect hand.
She would reach out and grasp me,
And ask in her too-breathy voice,
"Is this for me?"
And there would be the whisper of rayon,
And the clench of the velvet,
And the kiss of heaven's mouth.
That was back in the day,
Before the madness came,
And the tears washed her away.
When we lived in the cottage,
Under the willow,
Beside the lake,
And the birds sang from dawn 'til dusk.
And if that is a little dark or perhaps inappropriate or untimely, let me leave you and her with the punchline of one of my favourite jokes in which Mickey Mouse tells the psychiatrist;
"No Doc! I didn't say Minny was crazy. I said she was fucking Goofy."
She will appreciate that. She has a fine sense of humour. Wears boots like "Bob's your uncle". Bakes like nobody's business. Smiles like spring sunshine. Warms the hearts of all she meets. Even the dark hearts which are, of course, the ones who most need it. I should know.
"She’s as sweet as Tupelo honey. She’s an angel of the first degree."
posted by michael Tuesday, April 25, 2006
In my midnight dream,
You are wearing a new grey sweatshirt.
I feel the softiness of the fleece on my knuckles.
I count your ribs with my thumbs.
In my midnight dream,
Your breasts are satin smooth,
Soft and cool as marble.
Magnificent.
In my midnight dream,
We do not kiss so well.
There is too much wet,
Too many teeth.
In my midnight dream,
It is the kiss of my life,
For we linger.
In my midnight dream,
There is no hurry.
We have the time of the stars.
In my midnight dream,
You whisper,
"I love you."
In my midnight dream,
I whisper,
"I love you."
In my midnight dream,
We kiss again.
It's better.
You count my ribs with your thumbs.
posted by michael Tuesday, April 04, 2006
So who can say when madness comes; when oddness or harmless eccentricity or simple bad manners become insanity; when things turn hurtful or dangerous; veer, as it were, from the normal toward the tabloid.
I have lived through just that process, without, of course, knowing it for what it was at the time. I remain uncertain as to the boundary between the two just as I am unsure of the phases of the moon or the seasons of the year. Just as the doors that hold me remain locked, so to am I denied any sight of normalcy. I have abdicated my right to these and other things that I now treasure although they are dim to my eyes and garbled to my ear.
Allow me however, if you will, to at least make the attempt, for I am as close as you, out there, will get to the feelings that madmen feel.
So who can say when madness comes; it did not begin with the drinking or the gambling or the narcotics; each of these came in their own way and on their own path. Yet,they did not dictate the path nor did they make it. They were, I think, symbols of a greater malaise. Nor did they, in themselves, represent madness for many the afficionado of these vices are not in the least ways mad.
Likewise, losing my job did not, in itself, constitute madness. Without that job I was certainly hastened on the way to madness. Of that there can be no doubt for its loss removed the structure that defined my life day to day; kicked out the supports, if you will, that kept me upright in the throng. Yet my fate would have been the same had I kept the job or not. My job performance remained exemplary to the end; it simply became impossible for me to appear there with the others. Too much was in my thoughts for me to think of the mundane.
I did not lose my wife and children to madness although losing them certainly hastened my downward path; another support taken away. Without family to regulate my existence, I began a life without regulation.
I emptied the bank accounts in favour of cash. I vacated home and hearth for the temporary refuge of mini-bar and pay-for-porn television. I began to drink more steadily and to consort with persons of bad character for such was mine. I indulged my depravity for I had no reason not to. I had no governor, no moral compass, and when I did occasionally stop my wandering to face north it looked only like guilt. And the guilt led only to self-loathing and that to further escape. But not inexorably to madness. I am sincere in thinking that I was mad all along; it lay just beneath the surface like a nascent tooth.
The question before us remains; who can say when madness comes? At what point did the madness burst to the surface and begin to dominate all else? If only I can answer that single question perhaps it will help the others. I will not talk to the doctors here; them I look through; they think me catatonic. Yet I can speak here to you, in this forum. Would that we had spoken before; consider the lives we might have saved.
The madness did not begin with the blowout with my mother. That was anger, straight up, and would have come, madness or no. Nor did it arrive with the situation with that lady at the bank. In hindsight, it might have ended there had only the police had the wherewithal or the expertise to see through my skull to the madness there. Alas, they had neither and released me back to the world with an apology and a spoken "Sir".
The madness did not arrive with the guns. These I had always had. I had them from my father who had them from his father who had been a policeman in a time long ago. I kept them clean and oiled and liked to hold them and admire their blue steel lustre. Yet, this was as before. The guns did not change me; if anything I was an agent of change for the guns.
So who can say when the madness comes? I remember a roller coaster ride with my father in that time long ago. I remember his arm about my shoulder. I remember the sandpaper feel of his cheek as we were pushed together through the first turn. I remember the sweet and boozy smell of him and I remember loving him at that moment. I remember the long slow pull of the cables up the steepness of the incline and I remember the glint of the light from the tall standards around us on the tarnished metal rail we clutched as we paused for that interminable, vertiginous moment at the top of the peak. I remember looking to my father's eyes at that moment and seeing that glint mirrored there. That was a happy time.
I recalled that glint, that vertigo, and that love when I held them for the first time in my hand. I recalled the love I had felt as they tumbled from the box into my palm. For the longest time I held them, rolling them like worry beads, and smelling their oily smell. The click of them took me back to the clicking of the roller coaster rails and that was a comfort to me although that particular evening had turned out very, very bad. I did not remember buying them but accepted their presence in my pocket after the long night before as something natural and right. Who am I, after all to question the contents of my pockets?
So can say when the madness comes?
I can, for me.
The madness came for me with the bullets.
posted by michael Saturday, February 11, 2006
Credo quia absurdum est.
posted by michael Saturday, February 11, 2006
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful; who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape.
I Corinthians 10:13
posted by michael Saturday, February 11, 2006
A funny-ish sort of thing happened to me the other day. I was pan-handled as I walked through Gotham City's downtown. That in itself is not unusual as I walk through Gotham City's downtown ten times a week and am pan-handled every day. What was funny-ish about this episode was that my pan-handler was speaking on a cell phone. As I approached, he said;
"Just a second;"
into the cell phone and took the cell phone from his ear and held it behind his back. Then he turned to me and said;
"Can you spare any change, Sir? Even a little bit would help."
I did not give him any money!
posted by michael Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Coconut is evil.
posted by michael Monday, January 09, 2006
So here they are; the long awaited....
Top Ten Reasons I Love My New Job
10. I do not have a phone on my desk.
9. The training systems are operational and live.
8. No one ever yells at me.
7. I can leave my desk anytime I want.
6. I eat lunch at lunch time.
5. No one has ever uttered the words "going forward".
4. I log in to all my tools with 1 password.
3. I work on the 7th floor.
2. I can see out a window.
and the number one reason why I love my new job.....
1. The office is 90% women and 10% foxes.
posted by michael Wednesday, October 12, 2005
There have been many moments in my life that might qualify as the happiest, the most pleasant, the most joyous, or whatever...
- seeing Meatloaf sing All Revved Up With No Place To Go
- reading Tolkien's The Hobbit
- The Boss telling me about Racin' in the Streets
- kissing my first breast
- kissing my first lips (for that matter)
- my first orgasm, other than self-inflicted
- my first pay cheque
- proposing and being accepted (although that is a whole other story)
...you get the picture.
The saddest however, thus far, and with a bullet as they say in the music biz, was escorting my wife to the front of the little country church to say goodbye to her mother in the open casket just before it was to be closed. My wife smoothed her mother's hair and made sure it covered her ears as my mother-in-law was always sensitive about the size of her ears and then bent and kissed her mother's forehead.
Here is what my wife said...
"I love you. You are the best Mom in the world ever. I will see you soon."
After that was crying and difficulty and we required the help of a funeral home guy to get my wife to our seat.
That was the saddest part of a totally sad time.
Actually "sad" is an insufficient word to encompass this time. There should be a longer, more serious sounding word, with a noble Greek etymology, Latin being somewhat common and arriviste.
To describe my wife these days I would use the word "shattered", which has no etymology at all as far as I know.
Sure does paint a picture, though.
posted by michael Thursday, October 06, 2005
Sylvia Joan Reid
1934 - 2005
Dormir
posted by michael Thursday, September 29, 2005
Here are two interesting passages I found recently in books I have been reading; they amused and/or inspired me in some fashion. I am reading a lot these days. So much on my plate. So many plates. If you only knew the half of it....and yes, Little Mama, that is much better.
"Draft Magnus for President?" Bee purred, sitting up straight and pressing out her breasts as if somebody had offered her a chocolate. "Oh goody."
"Life is a dream, a little more coherent than most."
And lest I forget, welcome home to the meatman who has been away.
posted by michael Wednesday, September 28, 2005
I
GOT
A
NEW
JOB!
More details to follow. My last day will be sometime before the Thanksgiving weekend. Please contribute generously to the group gift and remember, tuxedos are not necessarily "required" at the going away gala, although they are always nice.
The men can wear whatever they like.
That is stuff that is good.
There is stuff going on that is bad.
The wife is at Mom's bedside.
Mom is in a coma.
Mom weighs 81 pounds.
Mom has not consumed food nor drink since Sunday last.
Dad has made funeral arrangements.
The wife does not like that Dad has made funeral arrangements.
Dad has gathered the clan.
The wife does not like that Dad has gathered the clan.
The wife is in a bit of denial.
I man the home fort.
I talk on the phone and keep the children clean and fed and answer the questions about Death and Heaven and Embalming and Cemeteries and Death.
My Dad is helping me.
The wife is angry because her Mom is leaving her "all alone".
I am angry because my place of work is not treating my situation with dignity and respect as advertised.
There is much debate about feeding tubes and IV feeding and forced feeding, the last of which is a practise without dignity.
If you have a Dad or a Mom out there, please hug them, or, if that is not possible, give them a call.
They will die at some point and you will not be able to hug nor call them.
You will feel bad that you hadn't.
posted by michael Thursday, September 22, 2005
Some catching up blogs.
Firstly, happy babies to the two new babies in my life, of mothers that I love and fathers who I do not know. I trust they will be good fathers as they have been chosen by these women that I love.
One piece of advice, the only word you will ever hear from me on the matter:
If you have a choice between doing something for your child or doing something with your child, always choose the latter.
There! it's that simple. Now get to it.
Best wishes also to young babies and to those babies not expected until March. Eat sensibly and get lots of sleep and that goes for the parents too.
To first time grandmas - never stop wearing those boots. You are only ever as old as you look in your boots.
My wife and I have a romantic kid-less weekend this weekend. Dinner at Home Restaurant where my friend Sandro will make me his famous seafood chowder. And some sex we (I) hope. Kids are at my sisters' in Strathroy.
I interview for a new job on Monday. All those who know me and know my role down at the plant are wishing me luck I know. 'preciate that.
I watch very early morning TV most mornings and I just want to assure everyone out there that there is no miracle pill that will make your cock grow bigger. This is medically impossible. Please come to your senses. Think about it; a single capsule full of growing type things that will affect only your dick. Really!
The thing in New Orleans never really hit me until I watched the recent charity thing on TV and saw Randy Newman singing Louisiana (They're Trying to Wash Us Away) to his own piano accompaniment. That hit home. I sent some money in Randy's name. You should too.
posted by michael Friday, September 16, 2005
Here is a thing that recently made me say Hmmm!
There is a store here in Gotham City, the marquee advertising above which says:
THE BREAD STORE
MORE THAN JUST A BREAD STORE
This store is out of business.
Can anyone out there figure out why?
posted by michael Friday, September 16, 2005
Funny thing happened on the way to this happy blog. I originally typed this happy type blog yesterday. It took me 28 minutes and when I was finished and tried to post, BLOGGER told me it was under maintenance and would not be able to publish as such. And all was lost. Funny when you consider the tone I was trying for....
Just when all my faithful readers are ready to write me off as suicidal (and who can blame them after the timbre of the last couple of entries here) I am happy to report that I passed a most pleasant weekend this weekend past. I have been burning up my accumulated vacation time by taking 3 day weekends for July and much of August. It makes for an easy work week and a more sane blogger, which is I.
I spent this one at my in-laws as I have spent most of the other ones; my wife's mother....ad nauseum. Here is how it went.
We arrived at the homestead late-ish on Friday evening in time for Chinese food and a few pops and early to bed. The older brother is there from Calgary with some of his family and this is the only time this year that my wife's whole family will be together at the bedside as it were.
Saturday we were up early for a canoe trip - we (me, 2 brothers in law and assorted nieces and sons and nephews) did six miles of the Saugeen at a leisurely pace, stopping twice for lunching and swimming, and a great time was had by all. Then it was home for chili and garlic bread and early to bed for my body was sorely used.
Sunday I was up early to do some manual labour in fixing up Grandpa's patio stones. I whipper snipped and edged and dug and then blew clean and power washed. About five hours in the hottest of heat and the sweatiest of sweatiness. Looked good when it was done though and then off with sister-in-law and niece and son to a flea market junk shop of sorts where I was able to get a first edition of Cameron Hawley's The Lincoln Lords and a rare copy of The Witnesses, a compilation of the witness testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assasination of JFK. Both for two bucks; score! Then home for steak and my famous ginger mussels and then early to bed for my body was sorely used.
Monday it was up early to play golf with Grandpa and brother in law and friend of Grandpa and assorted nephews and sons and I shot a 45, my best round in ages and I would have scored even better had my putter not gone south in a big way. I did however, hit my driver like nobody's business and my short game was sweet. There was that one bad lie in the sand but life goes on. And then back to pack and a last minute vist with Grandma in the hospital where she lives while on the list for a long term care facility where she will die. As we thought, she will not come home, she is is far gone.
Then home to Gotham City and all the kids to bath and bed and I got to sleep in my own bed with wife and that was good too; nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.
So there, you see that I am capable of joy and pleasure and happitude just like any other man. I write here about things that provoke in me great emotion and those things are almost always the bad, the dark kind of emotion.
For instance I could have added that Ted had a skin graft taken from the inside of his thigh to be pasted down the back of his throat and the problems with rejection in a procedure of that sort. I could have told you how my wife wept as she wandered around the homestead picking out picures and mementoes and the like with which to populate Mom's room in the long term care facility in which she will die and how the wife described the process as picking out things for their value as "the last thing my mom will ever see". That provoked in me a strong emotion.
I heard from Brent Soby in a nice e-mail and from Lori Van B as well. They both thrive in their respective new homes and send best wishes to us in Gotham City and down at the plant.
They are both loved and missed and we rejoice that they escaped.
In conclusion, let me paraphrase The Counting Crows on this whole matter. They said....
I have trouble writing normal when I'm nervous.
P.S. A funny thing happened on the way to my getting ahead down at the plant. I'll tell you the story some day, soon as the restraining orders are lifted and all those living or dead are living or dead. Funny story, really, once you climb past the petty and hurdle the truly sad.
Platonic type kisses to the sick time lady too. Don't know you but seem quite pleasant and obviously your taste in blogs is second to none.
Any babies yet?
posted by michael Thursday, August 11, 2005
My more faithful readers will remember some time ago when I wrote;
"My friend Ted has been treated for throat cancer and has lost the ability to produce saliva. He is not yet out of the woods and the woods are dark and scary and filled with shadows and bears. Mean, man-eating, terrible bears; rabid, hungry bears with needles for teeth and razor claws."
Well Ted escaped those bears and lived for some eight months a normal life of sorts except for the saliva thing and the not working and the rest. The cancer that they found as of that last post was a "secondary" cancer and the doctors kept bringing him back every month for scopes down the throat and other things equally nasty to look for the "primary" and were prepared to give him a clean bill of health and send him back to light duty at work until this April past when they scoped him again and discovered a thing, a crack, a deposit, a bump, at the back of his tongue where it slithers in reverse down the throat and they did some biopsies and discovered more cancer and decided that it had to be removed. This was the "primary" growth they had been missing all this time.
Here is how the doctors remove a cancerous thing, a crack, a deposit, a bump, at the back of the tongue where it slithers in reverse down the throat.
First they cut the skin of your lower face in a fine line down from the center of your bottom lip to the point of your chin and beyond, down the center of your neck to where it meets your torso and then they turn left with the scalpel and continue the cut up across the top of the torso to almost the point of the shoulder and then they turn left again with the scalpel and cut the skin up past the front of the left ear to the temple. Then they stop with the scalpel and pick up a small surgical chisel and break the jaw at the point of the chin between the two lower front teeth and again at the pivot under the ear. Then they pick up aforementioned scalpel and cut again through the hard and gristly tissue under the tongue and palate and across the top of the shoulder until they are able to lift the whole side of the face up and over so it rests on the head over the ear. Prep work done they cut out bits of tongue and palate and throat until all the dangerous looking things have been removed. That done to their satisfaction, they reverse the process and wire the jaw in two places and put in three hundred or so stitches and perform a tracheotomy to facilitate breathing and insert a feeding tube into the stomach to facilitate eating and hope for the best.
After the surgery, Ted's face looked like he had been hit by a bus, right in the face. He was literally, unrecognizable. He is better now; he can breathe but he cannot eat and suffers the feeding tube.
When Ted was before what he is now, he was young and vigorous and hunted and fished and owned a boat and a cottage and could tie knots and light a fire from nothing at all in the middle of a storm and had a wife and a daughter and a son, the last of which he was teaching to be young and vigorous and hunt and fish and own a boat and a cottage and tie knots and light a fire from nothing at all in the middle of a storm. He was quiet as a rule, even shy, but after a couple of beers he could tell the best stories and we would laugh. His stories were self-deprecating; he was the butt of all his best jokes.
It is likely he will never do any of these things again. His wife is a nurse and because she is a nurse the doctors admitted there was a 70% chance they had got "it" all. They were unwilling to put up odds on "recovery".
Ted's wife is one of my wife's best friends from childhood days.
It is my practise to be flippant about things that distress me and insodoing I remarked to my wife appropos of Ted that "at least we had our health". She broke down and cried and collapsed on the kitchen floor. She has been going through some stuff with her mother and had been trooper strong until my callous remark. I felt bad as bad can feel but I think she forgives me for she knows that it is my practise to be flippant about things that distress me. I will try not be so any more because it does not pay; it causes pain to those I love and does little to help me.
Last night in my bed and alone (for I go to bed early, early these days) I cried a bit for Ted. I am fixated by his feeding tube and the fact that he has not chewed food for so long. I remember eating venison steaks with Ted, venison cut and cured and cooked over flame by his own hand. If he could have seen me in my tearful state, he would have said "quit being such a fucking baby, Mike". And I would have said "fuck you Ted". And he would have said, "did you ever hear the story about the time me and Bob Mateev took that old Charger of his partridge hunting up the ice road". And I would have said "no, why don't you tell me that lie" although I had heard it before and knew it to be true for I had been in the hotel when they returned and heard it first hand before they had time to embellish. Good story, that. Good man. Doesn't deserve a feeding tube. Deserves a lot better than 70%.
posted by michael Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The Death Watch is begun.
posted by michael Monday, August 01, 2005
So repeat after me children, the following three rules for modern survival; my survival, not necessarily yours.
I do not need to have a telephone attached to my body at all times.
I can go for 15 minutes without having a drink of water from a $2.99 bottle.
I will wear sunglasses only when I am outside in the bright sunshine.
Hello to new reader Jer, who surprises me. Yes, this is where the anger comes out. Kisses to fat pregnant ladies and best wishes to them. Here is what I know about your experiences to come; yes, it will hurt like the dickens but you will smile to split your face when all is screamed and done. Did I mention your life will never be the same? Nor will you want it to be.
Under some pressure at work to get ahead; don't know which way to jump.
Thoughts for my mom in law who had some seizures and is in the H. She will probably never come home. We are up there every weekend these days. Did I mention this is killing my wife and I pray for death to overtake life at the turn and sprint home? It makes me drink more. Most things do.
To the fat one, I can only say the lack of an opportunity for comments on this venue is by choice. It is me sending. I receive all the time, usually against my will. If something is bursting, you can get me here.
Write if you get work.
P.S. Nice mural. Some one gave me shit for my comments about your breasts in a previous blog - "insensitive" he called them, the comments I mean. I should apologize I'm sure but I can't; the truth will out. They were beautiful before and I'm sure they're even more so now. I like tits, I told him. Sue me!
posted by michael Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Just a short, caveat emptor type blog this morning. I went downtown yesterday to purchase my tickets for the World Transplant Games and imagine my surprise when I discovered that no one was going to be doing any actual transplants. It appears that these so-called Transplant Games involve persons who have had transplants of some kind competing in mundane athletic events. Boy, was my face red! So, be forewarned and always read the fine print.
posted by michael Monday, July 04, 2005
Such a long time since I blogged. Yes, all is relatively well. I guess I have much on my plate these days or perhaps I have a smaller plate than some. I am listening to some new music and working on a new story and an old story and a story for a friend and a web site for another friend and some odds and sods besides. Of course, there are the wife and the kids and they all thrive despite my best efforts to grind them down. I went on my golf trip and that was more than fine. I made a birdie and broke my finger and got stupid drunk and won a prize. Regardless I'm back and today I have a list of things that give me the willies. They are in no particular order as that is the way of the universe of my experience.
- sitting on a toilet seat still warm from someone else's ass
- being alone in the men's room with an oriental
- sour cream - indeed all curdled milk products but especially sour cream
- being late
- snakes
- dogs licking my face, or anyone else's face for that matter
- cream sauce on meat
- koolaid that is not green or red or purple or orange like God intended
- nuns
- spiders
- bologna
- short forms like xmas
- emoticons
I will try to be more regular in the future. Kisses to new babies and new parents. Happiness to both.
posted by michael Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Here are two selections from things that I have been reading; one old and one new.
The first is from Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus!. It struck me as being plenty deep and patently true.
"...the five most unattractive traits in people are cheapness, clinginess, neediness, unwillingness to change and jealousy. Jealousy is the worst, and by far the hardest to conceal....Jealousy is the one emotion that lies in wait."
The second is from John Donne's Elegie on M. Boulstred. This one just plain frightened me. He is writing of the years of the Bubonic plague which decimated Europe in the Middle Ages. I have modernized the English here somewhat.
The Earth's face is but thy table; there are set
Plants, cattle, men, dishes for Death to eat.
In a rude hunger now he millions draws
Into his bloody, or plaguey, or starved jaws.
That's how I've been spending my time. Please write if you get work.
As an addendum to my last post I should add that the unfortunate soul who forgot to go to her exam ad nauseum appealed to her faculty dean and was allowed to write said exam at her convenience.
That makes me go Hmmmm!
posted by michael Monday, May 02, 2005
As some of you know, my youngest sister teaches at the university here in Gotham City. She recently received a missive from one of the "leaders of tomorrow" she is privileged to instruct and as she shared with me, I will share with you, gentle reader. As Homer says; "It's funny 'cuz it's true!" I do think the chemo reference is a nice touch. I reproduce it verbatim below with name excised to protect those who obviously need protecting. And if any one out there knows this future leader, let's just keep this on the QT.
P.S. Vote for Pedro
Hi, this is leader of tomorrow. I am in your Family Studies 020 class. I missed the exam last night. I somehow confused the days and thought it was tonight at 7 pm. I was studying last night for the exam for what I thought was tonight and kept experiencing pain in my lower back. I had pain all day since about 8 am and had an upset stomach for two days. So I decided to phone telehealth about the problem. When I was 17 I had two kidney stones which makes me prone to getting more so I was concerned. The telehealth nurse advised that I see a doctor within 4 hours and my only option was the hospital. So I went to emerge and waited until 3 am to be seen by a doctor. It wasn't until I was sitting in the hospital bed going over my lecture notes that I seen a side note saying: "final exam, April 25 7 pm" I nearly had a heartache. I started crying and panicing and since nobody was coming I put my clothes back on and left because I could barely keep my eyes open, I felt terrible and had a headache so I just went home where I could panic in privacy. I have no idea what to do. I feel so stupid and very upset. I don't understand how I mixed this up. I am a good student and try very hard at everything I do. I've shown up to every lecture but 1 this year because I needed to go to the doctors for the annual female check-up at a clinic in St.Thomas that only runs at night on Tuesdays. Family Studies is my major so this is the worst thing that could happened. I don't know what to do. I feel terrible and very disappointed in myself. I just wanted to be honest and tell you the truth about why I missed the exam. This has never happened to me and is every students worst nightmare. It was an honest mistake. I pray to God that there is something I can do. I work full time as a nanny taking care of a young mom and her two year old son. If you get this message before 4 can you please call me . We are going to be out for a couple of hours around noon because we need to go to the cancer centre so the mom can have blood taken for the kemotherapy she is receiving. Thank-you for taking the time to read my email. I just hope that there is something....anything I can do so I don't receive a zero. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience but it was just an honest mistake. I would never miss an exam for anything.
posted by michael Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Here are some random thoughts and, as always, I know them to be true.
We are getting new doors for our house, front and back. I pick them up tomorrow and our friend Tom will install them since I have no skill in the installation of such things.
My oldest boy won the city championship for Peewee hockey last weekend. We are very proud. He is a goalie and a good one. He was 6 and 1 in the playoffs with 2 shutouts.
My boss is a good man who is troubled by the bad things that he sees around him.
I am looking forward to my annual golf week end at the beginning of June. God, how I am looking forward to my golf weekend at the beginning of June.
I have an interesting job opportunity approaching; back in Stratford and back in the restaurant field. I think I will take it. I've talked it over with my wife, who wanted me to get out of Stratford and out of the restaurant business very much and she wants me to take the job. She knows that I am unhappy and because she loves me she wants me to be happier.
My father is dying.
I recently watched The Village. It is a good and simple movie.
My job is a quagmire and I fear I will be fired.
When we are finished with the new doors, front and back, we will replace the bathroom fixtures etc. That is long overdue. Our bathroom is very weak. It approaches criminal.
Happy birthday to Dan and Dave and Denise. Some of these are friends of mine and one is in the family.
If I had a nickel for every time some one said to me "what's a guy like you doing doing a job like this" I would have a quarter.
Kisses to Lori who is in love and I hope it is real and true. The world is weak before love. It drops to one knee.
There are two people on my current team at work whom I want to kill with my bare hands. We are getting new teams soon. Perhaps soon enough.
After listening to all the heart songs I have to say that the ones I liked the best were from Shane. Shane is a good guy who I barely know.
Whatever happened to Brad and Joanna and Rebecca and Karen and Karen. I miss you and wish you would send word that all is well and that you grow strong and limber. I miss Denise too and her baking. I hope she is being a good mom to her baby. There are some out there who are not.
And finally to Sheila; fuck you, you brown-nosed butt kissing, sycophantic whore. How ever do you sleep at night?
posted by michael Sunday, April 17, 2005
I heard my second son refer to a bra as an "over the shoulder boulder holder" today and that took me back to my own time as a child and prompted me to think about plus ca change etc. and how what is old is never new again. There was a time at the turn of the century or thereabouts when we counted as thus; "eenie, meenie, minie, mo, catch a nigger by the toe"; and we thought that was all right. We meant no harm. We knew no better. At the time I did not know what a nigger was except for some pictures in a book about Little Black Sambo and from that single source I knew that niggers were small black boys with big red lips who wore overalls with no shirt. Later, when I was older, my family moved to a small town that contained one nigger yet he was the vice-principal of the high school and later the mayor and unquestionably the finest man I have ever known. No one ever called him nigger. Everyone who knew him called him SIR. And everyone who knew him meant it. He lives still. He is getting on in years. He is very fond of trains. He carries an umbrella on days that threaten rain. He is a friend to all. I remember a friend of mine, in trouble with the law, telling me through the bars in the local jail, urging me to call the local nigger in lieu of his parents for help with his legal jam. "He's a mean cocksucker", my legally challenged friend said at the time, "but he'll be fair". And in lieu of the involved parents I called the local nigger to mediate that dispute with the local constabulary (didn't hurt that he was the mayor at the time)and he did and he did. He lives still. He is very fond of trains. He carries an umbrella on days that threaten rain. He is a friend to all. He plays the piano and organ and leads one of the local church choirs. I have seen him manhandle the biggest high school thug and I have seen him be as gentle as a lamb. I have spent long hours with him talking of his childhood in the Ontario of the fifties and what it was like to a nigger then. I know that he plays Bach on the organ but prefers Rosemary Clooney and the like for just plain listening. I know that if I asked him he would give me the shoes from his feet and wish me godspeed. I know that he was a good, good friend to my family when times were bad and there were few friends to be had for my family. His name is Ted Jewell and he lives in Kapuskasing. He is black but he is not a nigger. Never was. He lives still. He is getting on in years. He is very fond of trains.
posted by michael Saturday, April 09, 2005
I am reading a novel currently. It is called Cryptonomicon by one Neal Stephenson. It is so good that I find myself putting my finger between the pages several times per read and turning my head so those around me cannot see my delighted or hysterical or sentimental response. It is a comedy and a romance and some science fiction and a book for the ages and one that would make anyone who has ever written quit writing as inadequate. I recommend it completely.
posted by michael Friday, April 08, 2005
My, such a lot of anger in that last post. Sorry you had to witness that little outburst. Like a kid having a tantrum in a grocery store. Surprising how good it made me feel though. God, I hated that girl for what she did on that auspicious event and myself even more for standing to acknowledge her ruining that auspicious event. I'm much better now, the headaches have stopped and the twitching - well, who doesn't twitch at times? Great thing Google is! In a hundred years when people are talking about inventions that truly changed the world and are talking about steam turbines and blah, blah, blah, I will nominate Google. For today I typed in the 10 words I could remember of my favourite song from The Band, a song I heard on the radio as I was driving not a half hour ago (which speaks well to my short term memory - uh what was I talking about?) and it produced for me the required results. The song is called "The Weight" although I now not why and what I am circling around the long way to tell you is this thing I know to be true. I have seen The Band do this song live twice and have listened to 4 recorded versions (thanks Kazaa, my second nomination in the aforementioned best invention contest) and the best version I have ever heard of this song was at the Dominion House Tavern in Stratford, Ontario and it was played by a bunch of no-names led by John Till, the father of my good friend Mike Till (HOLA!). They had the guitar and the 4 part harmonies and the acoustics at the Dominion are excellent although it does smell like vomit a lot. John Till, you should know, used to play lead guitar for Janis Joplin and now lives in Stratford and smokes a pipe. He is a great guitarist and an okay singer. The first time I heard he and his friends play this song I got all weepy and weird. It was because it was so good. And later John sat with us and regaled us with tales of the bands in which had played and Janis and Jimmi and we drank the Dominion House out of Labatt's 50 and the bartender apologized and gave us a round of our second choice free. Mike and I played golf the next day and I shot 89. Now that is a good weekend and a nice positive note on which to end. So you see my life is not all gloom and doom, just lately.
posted by michael Saturday, April 02, 2005
Firstly, kisses to pregnant ladies. Wish we still worked together so I could watch these magic things happen to you. I have some experience with pregnant ladies and you up and left me before I could give you the benefit of that experience.
Last night was a first; me and the wife at home, all the kids at sleeps over. We bought a six-pack and watched The Grudge and, well, you know how the night turned out. I am encouraging the children to sleep over everywhere and often, all the time.
I am pissed at radio station program directors these days. I listen to the oldies stations for the most part and what I want to scream at these individuals is that they should explore some other music options. Led Zeppelin recorded more than one song, so did Kiss, so did the Smiths, so did The Doors. So much good music out there and we listen to the same 100 songs again and again, interspersed with commercials. My, the rage.
Was watching Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan, of whom I had never heard until educated in front of an audience at the video store by my 6 year old daughter. It is a movie about life in high school and it is a good movie and it leads me to this....
Here is a thing that happened to me. Here is a thing I know to be true. When I was in Grade 13, the valedictorian of my graduating class was a girl named Lise Trottier. I am using her real name here because I want her to 'Google' her name and find these things I should have said. She was the valedictorian and when she gave her valedictory address she spoke with much venom of the cliques that abounded at our high school and how she hoped that the future would be clique-less and all would be friends and comrades and there would be much hugging in the halls. The most embarrassing part of this memory is that we gave her a standing ovation at the end of that stupid and inappropriate and insipid, stupid speech. I stood because those around me did and I felt that I should or I had to and for that I am ashamed. I take that standing ovation back.
For my part, I do not think I was part of that cliquey crowd. I had 5 good friends with whom I did things in various combinations. I was just getting used to life without the braces. I played no school sports well. I was a space filler on the wrestling team and I ran cross country and some long-distance track. I had a girlfriend (my first) who I loved. I got good grades and never studied. I had a job and some money. My father was gone, so home life was calm. I count my high school years as among my happiest ever. On the evening of the graduation, I had people back to my house where my mom did a little champagne thing for us (my Dad was in absentia at this time, not to appear in my life again for several years). And when we left my house we stopped in at 2 other parties for a bit and I drove everyone home (although I should not have been driving the Dodge Monaco station wagon at all) and my girlfriend and I had some sort of sex at the side of Bariault's Road and we went home to our parents.
I finished 3rd in my class that year and won prizes in Geography, History, and English Literature. I won a scholarship to university that evening. And the thing is that I didn't speak to Lise Trottier at all that evening, nor had I spoken to her for the previous 3 or 4 years. I didn't see her at my place nor at the parties I visited before I stopped to have sex on Bariault's Road. That's because she was not invited to these places. That's because Lise Trottier was a fucking bitch in high school. I think she probably still is. That's because Lise Trottier was a fucking cunt in high school, a superioristic cunt who never had a good word to say about anyone. Probably still is. As a matter of fact, I'd bet my life on it. What I know is that I spent that night with my friends, my high school friends, and Lise spent the night with hers, alone. When I stood and clapped Lise, I didn't mean it. Nor did any one else.
posted by michael Saturday, March 19, 2005
Sometimes we play this game, and I mean who doesn't, the game of '...if I could appear on stage one time and play one instrument on one song what song and what instrument would that be?'
I always bounced between two of these selections but since I have had Joe Jackson's jazzy, not live but sort of concert recorded Night and Day digitized and burned to CD, I can now rule out playing the bongos on Joe's "Everything Gives You Cancer". Great song sure and great bongos (great piano too for that matter) but the new winner is drums on XTC's "Senses Working Overtime". I think the difference is having seen Terry Chambers play this one live one very sticky night at Seneca College Fieldhouse when it was a hotbed of punk in toronto, back before most of you were born. I had been washing piles of bennies down with Moody Blue wine that evening as I recall - easy to recall for I did that a lot back then - and had never felt better until the next time or the last time or the time in between.
On a completely unrelated matter, I had a dream last night in which I was at a concert of some sort and this scene morphed as I walked down a long concrete ramp with my (unidentified) date into an airport and from there to a security checkpoint where I was frisked and probed in the anus by a security gurd who mumbled and whispered somewhat like the voices in my head sometimes do, unintelligible for the most part but very present and very ominous. I could feel quite clearly the intrusion of his gloved thumb in my ass and this woke me. (Point of etiquette - does one wake one's wife at this juncture or simply let it slide? I chose to let it slide.) I remember too the agonized looks of the Japanese gentlemen who seemed to form said dream's (Greek?) chorus. I have researched same in the dream interpretation databases - there is insufficient data. I think it might have something to do with my current work conditions. Could be insanity. Coin toss, really. Could go either way.
posted by michael Thursday, March 10, 2005
Thinking today when reading some philosophy stuff (not at work, because I am no longer allowed to read at work) that you cannot really know someone until you know what they think about when they masturbate.
Distasteful, perhaps, but can you fault the logic?
Had a dream last night, a terrible and terribler dream, in which I slept upon an Auschwitz pillow. Scard the living shit out of me then. Still does.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Oopsie! Forgot to say; kisses to bald men and pregnant ladies. Hello to Dan who went back to work too early. Much love to Kevin who needs much love and more love besides for he is my hero and he is hurting inside where his heart is. Please write if you get work. And for fuck's sake, be nice to each other. You know who I'm talking to.
posted by michael Sunday, March 06, 2005
Here is a thing that happened to me. Here is a thing that I know to be true.
Not too long ago when I was a younger man, I worked at a place that sold fun times and community and pleasure at a great price. I was the one in charge of the fun times and the community and the pleasure and for being in charge I charged a great price.
The job was the job that did not go away. I carried a beeper when beepers were for doctors and trailed my laptop when laptops weighed a ton. I supervised those who supervised others and served on committees and took lunches and dinners and plotted my machinations and watched my budgets and hired and fired and instructed others to hire and fire and for that I charged a great price.
And around the time that I was hiring and firing and instructing others to hire and fire I got married and I worked 4 days into the schedule for some sort of honeymoon that I barely remember for I was tired and drinking too much and had things on my mind. I had the job that did not go away.
Part of my job was to travel and that had always been my dream. So I did the job and I hired and fired and instructed others to hire and fire and I travelled. I travelled to Texas and Georgia and Louisiana and Toronto and Michigan and to Georgia again; it seemed I was always in Georgia.
When my first boy was 4 days old I went to Georgia for Georgia was important to my job and the hiring and firing of others and I feared the firing of me and the hiring of another. So I saw my wife home from the hospital and saw the baby safe in his crib and packed my bag and flew to Georgia for Georgia was important to my job at the time. And I missed 8 of the first 12 days of my boy's life and I did not feel a thing at the time for I had an important job and I was an important fellow and the importance flowed from me like blood.
I missed the birth of my second boy because of my job. For I was a member of some committee or the head of some committee and I had turned off the beeper and was taking no calls. If I could cut off my arm to earn a replay of that day it would be done.
Did I mention that I drank when I was not working at my so important job and sometimes when I was doing my so important job for it was important for me to be social because I was the one in charge of the fun times and the community and the pleasure and for being in charge I charged a great price? Drinking helped me to be social when I felt not social at all.
When I was near the end of my tenure at that job I had what was described as a cardiac incident although I think I was just on the tail end of some mini-binge. And the doctor said that I travelled too much and drank too much and smoked too much and slept too little and had no hobbies or pastimes and that I was the proud holder of a one-way ticket to death.
And his words weighed heavily on me and weighed more heavily on me when I came home to the one son walking and I had missed his starting that and the second son eating solid foods and I had missed that and finally I just quit that job although I had no other job to which I could go. Just walked away and came home and told my wife I had walked away. I do not think she was displeased although she made a show of it.
And I became the dad guy who stayed at home and I spent up the money that I had earned when I had my important job and watched my boys do all of the things that baby boys do and took them to the park in the afternoon and taught them things and I drank less and smoked less and my doctor was most pleased with the transformation in the test-y things he always did. And my wife was free to do some of her things and she was happy and we were all happy for I put my mind to being a dad and husband like I put my mind to the job where I hired and fired and instructed other to hire and fire.
And I went back to school when the money ran out and got another job and that is where this blog comes in.
When you ask why didn't I try for TMG, I can only say that the price is too high. There was a time in high summer some years ago when I did not see my wife awake for 16 days running. There was a time in high summer some years ago when I would come home drunk and fall to sleep with my hand through the bars of the crib so I could touch my boy and smell his baby smell. Those were the days when I had to be at work because my work was so important that it required my every attention. Those were the days when I took extra clothes to work in case I had to spend the night putting out some fire or extinguishing another.
So when you ask why I did not try for that job or another that might raise my profile or inflate my pay I can only think back to those days when I did not know my kids, one from the other. I think of those days and they make so tired I want to go to sleep for the rest of my life.
posted by michael Sunday, March 06, 2005
Those of you who know me, know that I like to read. I like to read a lot. I recently came across a British poll of the top 100 novels of the century - found said poll on the Internet and here I thought it was just for porn. So I have undertaken to read the 100 novels despite the fact that I disagree with about 90 of the 100 selected. I read one called The Wasp Factory by Iain Stone and, liking it, I decided to read another of his called A Song of Stone. The latter really sucked. In the course of the reading of this book, I came across this quotation and it encapsulated for me everything that is wrong with this particular novel and indeed most modern novels and many of those selected in the aforementioned poll.
"I do not like people who make me notice what they fail to find impressive in themselves."
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
That's all for today. As for quitting smoking, let me say that smoking is proving to be strong and I am proving to be weak. Write if you get work. Kisses to pregnant ladies.
posted by michael Friday, February 25, 2005
Here is an idea I have for making life on this planet more worthwhile and more meaningful and perhaps even more fun.
I would make three changes to the way things are. And apologies to the one from whom I stole one of these ideas and to all those who read one of these ideas heretofore.
Everyone should be able to choose their street address at random. This includes apartment number (if applicable), street name, and house number.
For instance, my address in this new world would be;
1414 Magnolia Lane
London, Ontario
1
The incidence of spontaneous human combustion would increase to 1 in 20. Self-explanatory.
Everyone on the planet would get the opportunity once each month to punch somebody else on the planet right in the mouth; no questions asked.
Thanks to those who responded to the ‘heart songs’ question in the last post or so. Boy, you cats listen to some weird shit. I am kazaa-ing them all and listening to them faithfully.
Surprises too from those who are reading this blog. Don’t you people have something more important to do?
And if I am reading the other blogs correctly and the Leanne who is pregnant is the Leanne I know then kudos to Leanne and the sperm donor (who I do not know but I trust will be a fine fellow because the Leanne I know will not accept any sperm but the best) and especially kudos to the small zygote in her belly. What a life you will lead when you begin as breast feeding thus. Cheers to you, zygote.
And finally; These are good beets!
“Losing you is just a memory.
Memories don’t mean that much to me.”
And remember that what is said in Latin always sounds profound.
posted by michael Saturday, February 12, 2005
In my life I have smoked somewhere over 200,000 cigarettes. I have recently undertaken to quit the smoking of cigarettes. That undertaking goes well, except for the despondency and the periods of homicidal rage.
posted by michael Thursday, February 10, 2005
So tonight we will talk of music for I have been thinking of music of late since a friend asked me to name the five songs I loved the most. Not my favourite songs, he said, the ones I loved the most. And when I queried further about these songs that one might love the most he was epigrammatic; the five songs that touched you in the heart with ice, he said, the five songs that you heard the first time with your spine and not your ears.
And I thought of this question for some time and after some time I began to list them at work (for I have time to think about such things at work for I rarely have to think about my work) and I added things and crossed them off in fits of pique and spells of regret. And then I broached the subject with my wife and explained to her my difficulty in fulfilling this simple task of finding the five songs I loved the most and my wife laughed and spouted her list of five without hesitation.
And I was embarrassed for she knew right off what was required and had them on the tip of her tongue as if she had spent her whole life preparing for that very question while it had snuck up on me and bit me on the ass.
I should explain that my wife is a musical person. She sings for money now and then and has somewhat since I have known her. Of course the banking job pays the bills but I know she loves the use of her voice that much more. Monday evenings have always been her nights to rehearse and be with her musical friends and Wednesdays and Fridays of concert weeks and sometimes I will go to listen. She likes me to do so but likes more the fact that she is there; it matters not whether anyone listens at all I think. She stopped for a year some time ago because of conflicts with my work schedule but told me soon after that this would not work and so my schedule was re-arranged to accomodate the singing. She could not, she said, live without it. And I must say she is much happier when she does it and thus I am happier as well. Sometimes she sings arias when she is washing the dishes or making the kids' lunches when she thinks no one can hear and that is as close as I come to crying since that night with my Dad.
So our house is filled with music. There is my wife with her operatic and choral works and Eminem and 50 Cent from the oldest boy and Hillary Duff from the daughter and often all three in conflicting tones. And me, I have the basement office with aforementioned stereo (still working on both sides thanks for asking) and there I have my records. And there I write my books and read my books and scribble here and listen to the songs of my youth. Tonight it is Boz Scaggs Silk Degrees and that is fine music for bloggin'. When my life is in a tumult or I have had more to drink I will graduate to the Who or Bruce or if my life is in considerable tumult or I have had a great deal to drink I will progress to the Ramones and Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson and when my life is at its tumultuous worst and I have had an awful lot to drink (for often these two incidents coincide) I will move on to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground and finally to the Smiths when things are the blackest and hope seems out of the question.
I take two longish drives by myself each year to events in which I take part and in the car I take the same music each time. I take Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell; Elvis Presley's Number Ones; Handel's Water Music: and Scott Merritt's only album, Purple and Black. These are the albums with which I travel and they fill all my needs. Radio cannot be trusted these days, too spotty, too many commercials. The four albums listed above fill all my needs. They are not the albums I would have with me on the desert island but they are the ones with which I travel best.
I play golf for four days every June and have for many years and on this golf journey I listen to the fab four as listed above but must leave them in the car. For we decided, the eight of us who play golf for four days every June, that we will only listen to Jimi Hendrix and Dean Martin. An odd mix you might think, but if you put in four of each flavour into the changer and set it to play at random and add eight disparate personalities and some scotch and some red wine and meechiwacan and some golf stories you would be surprised to learn how pleasant that all can be. Quite a voice that Dean and of course Jimi knows his guitar.
Meanwhile back to the five songs that I heard the first time with my spine and not my ears. I narrowed this down from a list of over seventy songs that came up for consideration (did I mention that I have a lot of time at work to consider such things). These five are the ones that I can remember clearly the first time I heard them, every detail, who I was with and what was going on. These are the ones that I heard the first time with my spine and not my ears. They may not be my favourite songs, these are not my desert island songs, these are not the tell your friends about songs, these are the heart songs. These are the ones that touched my heart with ice and made me shiver.
Tom Petty - Breakdown
Elvis Costello - (Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Nirvana - Polly
Bruce Springsteen - Racing in the Streets
The Smiths - I Know It's Over
And what of your choices? Tell me here.
My Heart Songs
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head. And as I climb into an empty bed. Oh well. Enough said.
posted by michael Sunday, January 16, 2005
Just a quick note to bring you the first nominee in the first annual Stupidest Thing I Ever Heard Contest as recorded this sixth day of the new year.
One woman to another at work today;
"Pink is the new black!"
And welcome to a new northern reader, sort of a relative, sort of a friend.
posted by michael Thursday, January 06, 2005
Like the queen, it is time for my annual message. My Christmas was a good one. I did not get all the things that I asked Santa for which were a trip backwards in time to August of 1965 to see Elvis sing Are You Lonesome Tonight for the first time live at the Stardust in Las Vegas (you know the spoken word version made so popular in later recordings), a new set of golf clubs, and a blow job. Sorry old fucker, Santa not Elvis; it's the last time I leave him shortbreads and rootbeer. I did get some other things including new slippers with Homer Simpson on the toes so the day was not a complete loss. Here are some people I am thinking of tonight; Lori by herself in Ireland, Brad who should never have let her go to Ireland by herself, Frankie in Toronto who was like my brother for so long, Snarf and Dimmy, my Uncle Ralph who got a job, the Bristow brothers, my Aunt Mary who is swimming with barracudas, my friend the bike guy with whom I never get a chance to speak these days beyond sound bites and sadly so for I like talking with him very much, Tanya, Andre who might be dead, my cousin David who is on his way back to jail where he belongs, Karla Homolka, and my northern friend Dan who has a hole in his bladder which will be repaired in the new year. Let's all pray for Dan if praying is what we do. We are off tomorrow for the in-laws, enough about that has preceded. I hope for good driving weather for I am spooked since we recently got 9 feet of snow in 1 hour and I had to shovel it. Here's to a good new year folks and gentle readers. Let's all try to do right thing all the time and don't tell lies. If you have children, hug them every day, and if you have parents, phone them once a week. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. My mother used to say that to me and now I say it to my daughter who still believes in Santa Claus because she got everything that she asked for. Or maybe she got everything she asked for because she still believes in Santa Claus. Coin toss; could go either way.
posted by michael Saturday, December 25, 2004
Some good news for a change although of a mundane nature.
I have been having some trouble with my stereo for a few years now, it will not balance, the left side speakers working and the right not. So we bought ourselves some things for Christmas, namely a new entertainment unit and new TV, DVD, and VCR things and this necessitated moving the old unit around and transferring the old TV, DVD, and VCR things to the rec-room for the kids and somewhere in the midst of the move I had to unhook the wires for my stereo and when I hooked everything back up and repaired the broken wire, everything was working just fine.
It is an old stereo; I bought it in July of 1980; Cerwin Vega blasters and Pioneer amp and pre-amp and turntable (yes, records kids). Snarf, if you're still reading here, you know it well for you spent many an altered evening listening to my tunes from those devices. Anyway, when I repaired the wire, it works fine and I have Jimmi's Electric Ladyland on now and can hear him from both sides. And he sounds fine indeed.
That is good news.
On the bad side, my wife and I have been going through a rough spot because I did something stupid. Work is as okay as it ever was and I have a line on something better for the new year.
We are having an open house on Sunday the 19th. If you can find 160 Culver Cres. between 2 and 6 on that date please come by for some Christmas cheer and snacks. I hate to drink alone although I routinely do.
Kisses to my Irish friend who is probably lonesome. It was tonight one year ago when she hugged me after my car was smashed and I love her for that and for tons more. Happy Christmas to you in Ireland. Remember who loves you.
One other thing to report, a funny thing but sad. We went to the Christmas concert for the kids' school a night ago and we took a tour afterward of some lights and then to Tim's for refreshment. So we bought 2 coffees and 3 hot chocolates and when we came to the drive through window the clerk pushed the 5 cups toward me and asked; Tray?
Why not just hold out the coffee pot and ask; Cup?
Regardless, happy days to you all. We will be at the in-laws for the holiday week. We suspect it will be Grandma's last. That will be tough. Tragic is always toughest when tempered with joy. For I know that my wife looks at my mother-in-law and remembers how she was and then remembers her Grandmother and how she was and then looks in the mirror and wonders about herself in her golden years and then looks at my daughter who still believes in Santa Claus and this will make her cry. And I feel the heel for I recently did a bad thing that hurt her and our family and this has made her cry. Sometimes like now and always I feel that I do not deserve her nor the family she has given me. Sometimes like now and always I feel like a bad, bad man.
Sunday the 19th is also my birthday. I will be 44 years old. I was born wrapped in a caul. Popular superstition says this will prevent me from drowning.
posted by michael Saturday, December 18, 2004
Another weekend at the in-laws.
Here are some things you should know about my mother-in-law. When she was well, she was the best of cooks and could put together a Thanksgiving dinner like nobody's business. She knew the names of all the flowers and herbs in her garden and how best to make them thrive. She was funny and smart and a great grandmother to my children; she would sit with them for hours on the floor and make play-do figures and do jigsaw puzzles and she was tireless at reading stories and listening to stories and was always good for hot chocolate with marshmallows when it was time to come in from the cold. She knew the names of all the birds and could whistle their songs in imitation. She was never tired; she was always the first one up and the one to get us breakfast of pancakes and bacon.
Here it is how it is now with my mother-in-law. She weighs less than my second son; when you hug her hello, you can feel every bone in her back. Her wrists and ankles are Biafran. She naps four or five times a day, sometimes unwittingly. She cannot put together a coherent sentence. She talks a lot of the white birds with their white wings and how they wait for her outside to be fed. She cannot cook pancakes and bacon for she has a habit of putting such things in the fridge to cook. She cannot be left alone.
There are no white birds with white wings. She is looking at the snow and thinking perhaps of some birds from her past. She laughs when she talks now and I hope it is because she remembers some happier time. I suspect she laughs because she is losing her mind and perhaps she still feels it sometimes slipping away and maybe that is a funny feeling.
This is disturbing me. It is confusing my children. It is killing my father-in-law. It is breaking my wife.
I don't know what to do.
posted by michael Sunday, December 05, 2004
Here is a thing that happened to me. Here is a thing that I know to be true. When I was in high school I had my first true love. Her name was Beth and I first saw her in front of Charlie's Men's Wear on the circle in Kapuskasing when I was 13. She was walking with Crystal Tancredi and I stopped to say hello to Crystal for she was in my class at St. Patrick's and I knew her but I only had eyes for Beth. She was short and full-figured and beautiful and her hair was like fire. We ended up in high school together, Beth and I, but it took me until grade 12 to ask her out although by then the whole school knew how I loved her for I was fond of getting drunk and high and proclaiming that I was in love with Beth for all to hear. She had a boyfriend at the time, (she was the kind of girl who was never without a boyfriend) a fine fellow named Tony but when we were away on our grade 12 trip to Toronto, Beth and I got together. Or rather, Beth got together with me for I had not the moxy to make the approach and she told me later in the warmth of her single bed in her parents' house that she was sick and tired of me being shy. And we carried on a clandestine affair involving my Dad's Dodge Monaco station wagon for a while until she chose to break it off with Tony. So we had the last summer and the last year of my high school life together in this sort of bliss. It was like you read about in novels about first love, except better because it was she and I. We came out before the town at the Beauce Carnaval, walking between the rides holding hands. Up until then I had been the loser. I played no sports, I got good grades, I had no reputation, I wore glasses, the braces had only recently been removed. I remember that the first person to see us was Sue Sabovitch and I watched her eyes travel from Beth to me to our hands clasped together and I remember how she said; "How nice to see you." And I remember her evil little smile. And when she had moved on, Beth squeezed my hand a little tighter and said; "I guess we're public now." And she kissed me there in the fairground, she kissed me where my ear joins my neck and then on my cheek and then on my mouth and I remember the sticky raspberry taste of her lip gloss and I remember it was the finest kiss of my life. And I loved her a little more for she was wiser in the ways of the world and I loved her with every bit of me. Can you hear Springsteen playing in the background? "Once soft infested summer, me and Terry became friends. Trying in vain to breathe the fire we were born in." It was that kind of time. I had Beth and Bruce and nothing could harm me. She made me bullet proof. So we had the summer and we had our glorious senior year and she made me from nothing to something just by being on my arm. For she was beautiful and popular and thus she made me so. And I considered myself the luckiest man in the world and I forgot my friends for the most part to devote myself to her and she made me beautiful and popular by proximity and I thrived. And around me my mother and father divorced in a cataclysmic finale and one sister ran away to get married and another sister, the younger one, got pregnant and stayed home to have the baby and give it up for adoption, and I considered myself the luckiest man in the world for I had Beth and she was beautiful and popular and made me so by proximity and I thrived while my family disintegrated around me and I knew it not. And I went to Toronto and she went to Hamilton and we vowed to finish our studies and come together in a cymbal clash of love and marriage and children. And my Dad did the suicide thing and there was that police situation with my youngest sister and I considered myself the luckiest man in the world for I had a scholarship and a good summer job and lots of money and I had Beth and she was beautiful and popular and made me so by proximity and by virtue of the fact that I loved some one so beautiful and popular and I thrived. And then I met Margaret and she was beautiful and popular and she took me like an avalanche and I found myself in Hamilton telling Beth that I didn't think it would work out between us. And she asked about the cymbal clash of love and marriage and children and I muttered something about space and finding myself and the usual shit a man mutters when what he means to say is; "I've found someone new who'll fuck me." And when Margaret and I fell apart in a cymbal clash of lust and paranoia and jealousy and madness and despair, I called Beth to tell her that I was free and I loved her and all the other things that a man says when he means; "She won't fuck me any more and I want you again." And Beth told me in her own special way; "You only love some one once Michael. You don't get a second chance. Love isn't a fucking free throw." And those were the last words we ever spoke. Did I mention that she was short and full-figured and red-haired and that whenever I picked her up from her job at Woolworth's at 9:00 p.m. on Friday night she would scurry over the vast expanse of the front seat of the Dodge Monaco station wagon and kiss me hard on the mouth and whisper to my ear; You didn't forget that you loved me, did you?" For we had been apart for 6 hours and that was a lifetime in our little world. And the new short answer to that old question is; "Yes, I certainly did. I most certainly fucking did." Did I mention her hair was like fire?
posted by michael Sunday, November 21, 2004
Again, dear readers, sorry for the paucity etc. but life, you know. Here's what's going on in mine. I'm drunk tonight, drunk on Mission Hill Cab. from B.C. courtesy of a friend who we had to dinner and some rum that was from me. Not drunk drunk, not staggering, but drunk enough to put the wife to bed and the kids to bed after the movie and the friends into the cab, drunk enough to put on Lou Reed Live with the Velvet Underground with Nico on the vocals but smart enough to close the offce door so that the wife will not wake. A friend of mine sent me the following. He or his wife always send me the following or stuff like it. And how does one respond when one loves the messenger and hates the message and its method of transmission. There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there. " A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one. Friends are very rare jewels, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed They lend an ear, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to us." It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if it means sending it back to the person who sent it to you. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends. YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED! Now send this to every friend you have!! And to your family. Please forgive me if I have ever left a hole. I did not forward the message other than here but I did write back to ensure my friend that he had left no hole. Indeed, he was in many ways the builder of my fence. I hope that's okay. Now there's an album, the Velvet Underground Live with Nico, and if you you don't own it and worship it, you are a musical dilettante and a disco fag. It is 13th on the Rolling Stone list of the top albums of all time but I think it should be number 3; fucking Beatles! I am home in the evenings now since the new shift bid and that is cool. Dinner at home every night and more sex; wait, that's not cool because I am up so early that I am early to bed and my wife is not. I'm right behind you, she says, but by the time that she's right behind me I am as asleep as asleep can be and the chance is lost. But not last night for I was at home being the dad while she was to a business dinner and when she got in, just as I was about to turn in she said to me; "why don't we go to bed and I'll make love to you". And she grabbed my crotch in a most unusual and unwifely way. And I did and she did and I was left wondering about all the times that I had come home (when I was in the restaurant business, but that's another story) stinking of booze and looking for love and she had denied me. That I thought is a double standard and that is an injustice but when I awoke with my dick sticking to the covers and a smile on my face an hour earlier than the the alarm I said that's cool and I will encourage the wife to attend such business dinners at every available opportunity. They make my wife horny and for that I am glad and will gladly look after the little ones and feed the newt and the guinea pig and supervise the baths and read the stories and all that jazz. Scruples, no! Sex, oh yeah. Congratulations to my man MT on his new home and his new life. He is the world's nicest man and deserves all that he gets. I hope that his new home is good for him and that he finds happiness there. No one deserves it more. I wish I could say he's my friend but I can't so I won't but if I could I would make that happen. Regardless, he is golden. He shines and he doesn't even know it. Happiness to him. I am home in the evening now so I am able to watch prime time TV. So far I have been watching 'Lost' on Wednesday nights and 'Making the Cut' on Tuesday nights. Most of the other stuff does not interest me although I could get into 'Queer Eye For the Straight Guy' if it weren't on so late. I started to watch 'Fear Factor' but lost interest after the challenge where they had the homeless guys shit red wine and taco diahhrea into the mouths of the contestants. Fear Factor, no. Gross Out Factor, yeah. My wife likes to watch Coronation Street on Sunday mornings but I cannot get interested. It is about English people and they bore me for the most part. Kudos to Mrs. Mom for getting another job. I will sorely miss her and the one that went before her. She has promised to make it up to me in the way that only she can do and I will hold her to it. I wish her all the happiness there is in the world for she was a bright spot to me in a time that was full of darkness. I would like to think that we will talk after this is all said and done but my experience tells me she will be off my radar and therefore I will be off hers. More's the pity, for she is the realest and deserves all this and more. Kisses to you with your Tanya Tucker lips. Make him happy and make sure he treats you like a queen. I have been surfing the blogs that I do and I have found an over abundant use of the word 'hate'. In reading the blog of a person whose blog I read I am surprised to learn that she uses the word 'hate' 47 times in her last 16 blog entries. In all 'honesty', she says, she 'hates' 13 persons, 3 current musical groups, 2 musical groups since defunct, 3 inanimate objects, and 4 animals. That is a lot of things to hate. So here is my advice. Use the word 'hate' only if you mean it. As for me, I can only think of 2 things that I hate; those that are intolerant of other peoples' cultures and the Portuguese. Today was Apple Day for the Beavers. I hope you bought an apple from a Beaver if you came across one. I did and it was a delicious apple at that. My son was a Beaver once. Hockey has started for my oldest boy. The first game was today and we had a 2-1 win which is a good omen. My son played half the game and had a shut out. I missed the game because I was at work and that made me sad. On this day in 1975 I bought 'Kiss Alive", my first rock album. The top ten songs in 1975 were; That's The Way (I Like It) - KC & the Sunshine Band; The Hustle - Van McCoy; You're No Good - Linda Ronstadt; You're The First, The Last, My Everything - Barry White; Lyin' Eyes - Eagles; Who Loves You - Four Seasons; Bad Time - Grand Funk; Why Can't We Be Friends - War; Bungle In The Jungle - Jethro Tull; Free Bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd; Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen. Please compare that with the top ten these days. More's the pity. And finally kisses to Sterling Morrison who played bass and some rhythm guitar on today's inspiration album and who died on this day many years ago and to Nico who continues to impress with her "Spent a Year There Last Week" collection. Still rocking her, just like I. And more finally, a bible verse of which I have been at study of late: 3:1 "Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, "Yes, has God said, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'" 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, 3:3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, "You won't surely die, 3:5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit of it, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate. 3:7 Both of their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 3:8 They heard the voice of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. 3:9 Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" 3:10 The man said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." 3:11 God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 3:12 The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." 3:13 Yahweh God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." 3:14 Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above every animal of the field. On your belly shall you go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel." 3:16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 3:17 To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 3:18 Thorns also and thistles will it bring forth to you; and you will eat the herb of the field. 3:19 By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return." 3:20 The man called his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 3:21 Yahweh God made coats of skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them. 3:22 Yahweh God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..." 3:23 Therefore Yahweh God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. And what I am wondering of late is what the Bible means in 3:22 when it says 'the man has become like one of us' and what exactly is the 'tree of life' from which one might eat and live forever. Sounds like there was more than 1 God. Sounds like a mean God showing off for his friends. Sounds like there is a way out of all this. I am writing of heaven these days and when one writes of heaven one wonders about hell and heaven and all that might be between. I wonder what is between. And to he who rides bikes and heads west let us hope that the result is not a mere travelogue, for if I were to visit my ancestor's ship, my, the tales I would tell even if I had to make them up as I often do. Kisses. Hugs for the bald one. Write if you get work.
posted by michael Saturday, October 16, 2004
On the evening of the last day that I was alive I made dinner for my children; they are a boy and a girl, 6 and 4 respectively, and they loved me unconditionally for they were the ages they were and had not yet learned the cynicism of the teenager nor the angst of the pubescent. I made them Pogos from a frozen package and fries and plenty of catsup and sliced pickles and tomatoes to satisfy my wife's requirements for greens. When dinner was done I packed them into heavy jackets and we trekked to the store to rent a movie; each of us with a flashlight, my son to hunt for tigers and skunks, my daughter out of fear of tigers and skunks hunting her, and me because it was required for me to do so to help my son hunt and to protect the daughter. It was fall, late enough in the year to be an early dark but early enough in the year to be not too cool. And safely at home I bathed them and got them into jammies and just in time they were safely esconced in the family room fold out sofa to greet the sitter and, some minutes later, the wife and mother. That was on the evening of the last day that I was alive and I hold that memory to my heart like a bride's bouquet.
On the evening of the last day that I was alive we left the kids with the sitter. The sitter was Sarah, sweet and pretty and blond, troubled, a secret smoker from the smell of her, with her red-haired boyfriend who was not allowed to visit and her rocky relationship with her mom who was the friend of my wife, and her sullen demeanor for she had learned the cynicism of the teenager and outgrown the angst of the pubescent. The kids loved her and she loved them and she pampered them and they showered her with the love and hugs and the kisses that she refused from her own family. My wife and I went to dinner. We made a point of that about every four weekends for our schedules were such that sometimes time did not allow for that sort of thing unless we forced it to happen. My wife wore a green dress cut high on the thigh and as I reached for her as I helped her into the car she slapped at my hand and said in her laughing voice;
"No dessert until after dinner, young man."
And I hardened like a teenager for my wife did that to me even years after I had taken (or rather she had given me) her virginity and I found her to be delightfully carnal and free. That was on the evening of the last day that I was alive and I hold that memory to my heart like a bride's bouquet.
On the evening of the last day that I was alive we went to dinner at a place called The Tasting Room which was one of our favourite places. We dined with client friends of my wife's for she was the high-powered career person in our mix and I the laid back not-so-professional with no clients and no shortage of friends but none for whom we would buy dinner.
On the evening of the last day that I was alive I ordered a nice St. Emilion 1992 to start.
On the evening of the last day that I was alive I was planning to order us a nice, big California Cab for we had all ordered beef as the main course. I remember draining the last of the St. Emilion into the glass of the husband of the client friend of my wife. I remember putting the bottle down on the table and fretting that I had but a glass and a bit of the wine. I remember putting the bottle down on the table and fretting that I had but a glass and a bit of the wine and I remember raising my hand to summon the sommelier who was hovering near the back door as if he knew my thoughts. I remember the look of the sommelier as he neared the table, alarm and nausea and more than a little shock. I looked to my wife and found that look mirrored there, alarm and nausea and more than a little shock. And as my wife's jaw dropped open as I had never seen it before, I felt the moisture on my cheek. And from the face of my wife to the face of the sommelier to the faces of my client-friends of my wife, I saw the same shock and alarm and no little panic. And I raised my hand to my eye to contain the moisture on my cheek and held it up to the gathered company as if to prove there was no need for alarm, nor shock, nor nausea, and seeing the blood there dripping from my fingers, I looked at my wife and said;
What the fuck?"
And that was how I died. A weak blood vessel in my brain somewhere just burst and the blood flowing from the tear duct in my eye became a flood and despite the efforts of the waiters and the ambulance crew and the doctors in the emergency ward I was as dead as dead can be; my brain was filled with blood and it flowed from my eyes and nose and mouth and choked me and filled my lungs and I was as dead as dead can be.
And when I awoke I was floating just above a little road and I recognized the road from my honeymoon. It was the little road between Brunswick Town Center and the beach and as I floated I saw the place in the dunes among the sea grass where my wife and I had made love for perhaps the fifth time and where we scurried back to the road like teenagers zipping up our shorts. And I floated there above that magical spot but could not keep my position and I watched it float away behind me and I guess I cried a bit for I was confused and uneasy. And I cried until I floated smack into a building and I cried because I had floated smack into a building and I could not not get around it and its brown brick walls consumed me with their height and their width and their breadth.
And as I struggled with this problem of the brown brick building that loomed all round me I saw below and to the right a man, an ordinary man, and I cried to him in my cryingest voise;
"Help me. I'm up here. Help me."
And he looked up to me as if I was a vision from his dream that scared him most.
"Are you talking to me?", he said.
And I looked from him who looked altogether transparent and to the brown brick building which looked very formidable to the road below me which looked unapproachable and I repeated;
"Help me. I'm up here. Help me."
And he studied me for the longest time, perhaps an hour or more, and finally said:
"What is it you want help with, Sir?"
And I said;
"I want to quit banging against this brick building and I want to walk on the ground. Then I want to wake up from this dream and be with my wife in the restaurant."
"You can wish yourself down from the building," he said, "and you can wish yourself down to the road. But I can't help you with your wife situation; probably no one can."
What do you mean, where's my wife,"? I exclaimed.
"She's back on earth," he said, "and you're in Heaven."
And for the first of many times I asked:
"How do I get back to earth?"
And for the first of many times I felt the sting of defeat.
"There is no Earth. There is no back. Why don't you concentrate on down."
And I concentrated on down and with a flood I went down and I found myself down with a mouthful of down and I thought that it tasted something like Prince Edward Island and when I went to get up I could not and from my prone position I found my previous helper.
"How do I walk,"? I said.
"Just think about walking," he said.
"What sort of place is this,"? I asked.
"It's heaven," he said. "You'll get used to it."
"How do I get out of here,"? I asked.
"You're in heaven. Why would you want to get out?"
And I tried to explain about my children and about my wife with her dress with the slit up the thigh and the promise of more thigh to come and when I stopped there was no road and no building and no one to hear me and I was afloat in the ether I suppose for it had no substance nor did I.
posted by michael Saturday, October 02, 2004
Greetings to my faithful readers. Sorry for the paucity of posts of late but I have had some setbacks in the personal area. My great-uncle Josie died in his sleep - he had heart surgery and never quite recovered. My great-uncle Emeric is riddled with cancer and will not make Christmas or maybe not even Halloween. My mother is beside herself about this and when she is beside herself she is all over my sisters and I about stuff. About 5 days ago my tongue went numb, or more properly, the left side of my tongue. A day later the left side of my face went numb and I started to experience some pain underneath the left ear and some generalized headaches as well, which are for me an uncommon thing. So I went to my doctor who thought I might have Bell's Palsy - you can Google that term if you'd like more information. Then I went to another doctor, a more specialized doctor, who was not so sure about the Bell's Palsy thing and he took my blood pressure and discovered it to be high and he has surmised that I have had a stroke. You can Google "stroke" as well but I can tell you that they are bad things. Very bad things. I am waiting now for an MRI to determine if I have actually had one of the bad things. The waiting list for an MRI is between 6 and 12 months. In the meanwhile, I still have no feeling in the left side of my face and no taste sensation in the left side of my tongue and I get a headache a day when before I might have got a headache a year and I've lost some control of my left eye and I'm a little freaked that I might die. In Mr. Stroke's defence I should admit that I have smoked a pack a day since I was 13, I drink like a fish, and I like salt on all my food and then a little more. On the plus side, I had a real good evening with my kids - we watched the 3rd part of Lord of the Rings and had chips and Koolaid. In the meanwhile, I still have no feeling in the left side of my face and no taste sensation in the left side of my tongue and I get a headache a day when before I might have got a headache a year and I've lost some control of my left eye and I'm a little freaked that I might die. My mother doesn't know. Let's keep it between ourselves for now. I'll let you know how it turns out.
posted by michael Sunday, September 26, 2004
I was on the corner of King and Clarence recently when I saw and heard a young man of about 14 years accost an older woman - she was about 70, someone's grandmother, frail but sprightly looking, she looked like she could still dish out some shit.
She was standing at the corner - the south and east corner for those who are details driven. I was sitting on the steps nearby enjoying my after-lunch cigarette and the youth in question was walking north on Clarence.
The old lady was waiting for the light to change but the youth and his sullen and stupid companion blundered across the street into traffic at which point the older lady - frail but sprightly looking, she looked like she could still dish out some shit - reached out to stop their progress into traffic.
It was at that point that the youth in question turned to her and said - and I am able to quote exactly:
"Careful lady, or I'll cut off your tits and make a sandwich."
This is a terrible thing to say to any woman, regardless of age.
I think that this young man, in direct contradiction to the old adage, will never become Prime Minister of the nation. I think rather that he will die in prison and there will be no one to mourn him.
And to the old lady whom I comforted, I send greetings. Cool, old lady - frail but sprightly looking, she looked like she could still dish out some shit - summed it up nicely when she said:
"His parents must be very proud."
Proud indeed.
posted by michael Monday, September 20, 2004
Let me tell you a story, as true as true can be.
It is the story of Johnny Beatle, a 16 year old friend of my 16 year niece. Johnny got his driver's license this spring. One bright sunny day in June, Johnny took a sharp curve too fast, the curve nearest his home at the bottom of the hill near Tim Horton's. The rear end of his truck swung out right, he over-compensated left and ended up sideways and astraddle the lane of oncoming traffic. He was struck broadside by a car - you know how fast they come down that hill. Johnny Beatle's truck was hit hard enough to shear the bed right off and toss the cab into the store parking lot some 100 feet or more. Johnny Beatle's seatbelt snapped with the impact and he was tossed to his right smashing the right side of his head against the passenger window and door frame. Johnny was taken to the hospital in the big city where he was in a coma for a long while. He underwent a long and arduous surgery involving metal plates and pins and reconstruction on a grand scale. It was touch and go for a long while and for even longer it appeared that Johnny would never be the same. He finally perked up and regained his memory and it is thought that with therapy he could be back in school after Christmas. His face is not damaged too badly.
The real tragedy of the situation is that for his whole life Johnny only wanted to be a cop. But Johnny will never realize that dream, the dream he has spent his whole life dreaming. For Johnny is now blind in his right eye and that eye can never be fixed.
posted by michael Thursday, September 02, 2004
Sorry to be so light in the posts of late, dear friends. Much ado. I am editing the story of Sandy and Douglas and plan to shop it around at some point. Problem is I find editing harder than writing off the cuff, always have, and the going is slow. I am working too on a new story about Heaven (I am fascinated by Heaven for some reason) but this story I will keep to myself for a bit.
I would like to thank Sly of the family Wood and the little red-haired girl for their concern expressed after a recent post. Appreciate it, sincerely.
Also goodbye to two friends, Brent Soby and Andrew Liston, who touched me and moved on to different things. God speed to you both. You shine.
And to those of you fond of the quick and the Latin, I give you this adage;
Eadem, sed aliter.
posted by michael Sunday, August 29, 2004
Here are some things that have been going on in my life or in my brain. My littlest sister bought a house. It is a nice house. Her couch will not fit down the stairs to the rec room. Today there was a soccer tournament. My second son is a member of the boys ten and under city championship team. I am very proud. Today we had a sleep over to celebrate my daughter's sixth birthday. There were eight children. We rented movies and had old-fashioned pink popcorn in the elephant box. I am sad because friends from work keep quitting or leaving or being fired and I know that I will not see them anymore. Someone called me a shit-heel on the phone at work so I hung up on them. The word itself is not found on dictionary.com but it sounded bad and I didn't like the tone it which it was spoken. My mother leaves tomorrow after a two week visit. Some thieves broke into our van and stole my wife's credit cards. I did a shift trade at work so that I will not be working evenings come the school year and will be able to have dinner with my family. My Uncle Donny died after a long struggle with cancer of the esophagus. My cousin Jeff's wife lost both her breasts to cancer. My friend Ted has been treated for throat cancer and has lost the ability to produce saliva. He is not yet out of the woods and the woods are dark and scary and filled with shadows and bears. Mean, man-eating, terrible bears; rabid, hungry bears with needles for teeth and razor claws. I played golf with two fellows from work and had a really good time. I played okay but lost five dollars. Made two good putts but sprayed my driver. What's new. My wife got new glasses. I tease her that she looks like Mrs. Beasley but really she looks hot. I think my wife always looks hot. My mother in law is losing her mind due to Alzheimers disease or some such thing. She has no appetite and is losing weight at an alarming rate. She is difficult to talk to. She is difficult to behold. She is, literally, a shadow of her former self. This makes my wife sad and scared. It runs in the family you see. Near the end of this month we will celebrate my wife's parents' fiftieth anniversary with a family reunion and barbeque type party. It will be fun for everyone except my mother in law who cannot remember anyone's name and can still remember when she could. I have been applying for other jobs. We went to Ontario Place for my wife's company picnic and had a lovely time. I spent a lot of time on the water slides with the boys. We got our picture taken on the river raft ride going down the chute. In the picture we are faking our fear because it was our second time around and we were expecting the drop. The picture comes in a really bad cardboard frame. On this day in 1962 Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home in Los Angeles. She was discovered lying nude on her bed, face down, with a telephone in one hand. Empty bottles of pills, prescribed to treat her depression, were littered around the room. After a brief investigation, Los Angeles police concluded that her death was "caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide." That is a lie of course for everyone knows she was killed by the CIA for threatening to report her affair with Bobby. Had she lived, Marilyn would have turned 78 in June. I have begun shaving with the new Quatro razor. Man, that's close. It has been ten years now since my friend Don hung himself. When I get to heaven I am going to kick his ass. Stu sent me a funny joke. A small boy was lost at a large shopping mall. He approached a uniformed policeman and said, "I've lost my grandpa!" The cop asked, "What's he like?" The little boy replied, "Crown Royal and women with big tits". We got a new sectional couch with a pull-out bed. It is a kind of bluey grey colour and quite comfortable. Thank you and godspeed. Write if you get work.
posted by michael Sunday, August 08, 2004
In my waking dream, it is fat with American dollars.
In my waking dream, it is wrapped in silver.
In my waking dream, it catches my eye as I pass.
It glints, half hidden, in the grass just by the curb.
In my waking dream, it is a panacea.
It glints, half hidden, in the grass just by the curb.
In my dream pocket, I feel its warmth.
I feel it add its strength to mine.
In my waking dream, it is a panacea.
It glints, half hidden, in the grass just by the curb.
posted by michael Saturday, August 07, 2004
And in killing Mary I found my center. With Mr. King's help I found a building and began to build Sandy's. And with Mr. King's help I went to my first AA meeting, scheduled, for the convenience of restaurant workers, at three in the afternoon and with him standing at my side I stood and gave my first testimony: "Hello, my name is Douglas," I said. "I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict and a sinner and a generally bad person." And we went from there.
Sandy's took us a year to put together and I modelled it after the restaurant in Big Night with big windows to the street and the bar to the left as you enter and some booths for the drinkers and a dining room beyond with banquettes along the walls and a row of tables down the middle and the kitchen at the far end. I hired my friend Greg from the theater city to run it and paid him a generous wage and we closed the place on Sunday and Monday every week for that was good for the staff to have some family time on a regular basis. And we hired a hot shot chef from a Chicago steak house and we packed the place and Sandy looked down on it all from her portrait place above the bar and after a while we became the place to go in Las Vegas and with Mr. King's help we were full most nights.And without the money worries of most restaurant owners, for I had bought the building we were in, we were able to keep the prices low and build up a wine cellar of some renown and when that became too much for me I hired a young and female sommelier and for that we made the trade papers and business was good. I acted the host most nights, meeting and greeting and kissing goodbye just as my erstwhile boss had preached.
And I missed the booze everyday like it was my mother's milk but I pressed on. And I missed the dope every night like it was my mother's milk but I pressed on. I flew my friends down for the grand opening, scheduled just as the theater season closed in my old town and we wined them and dined them in rooms at the Taittinger and limoed them around and I felt good to be making my friends feel good.
In my AA meetings I met a school teacher who was of similar circumstance and we began to see each other outside of meeting times and eventually we took to having our meetings alone and I fell in love, as, I think, did she. And we lived at the farm for the most part after she got pregnant and spent some nights at the Taittinger and we spent some weeks away for I had found a propensity for travel. I cancelled the private detectives and began to contact some of the people on whom I had been spying and one by one I visited them or brought them to me and put them up in the Taittinger or brought them to the farm and we caught up. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it fell flat but at least I had them in my face and was not hiding behind what I had been hiding behind.
I dug out the old notebooks filled with my study of Walter Weyl and began to finish my thesis as it was to have been done for I had the leisure and the love and the wherewithal to do things as they should have been done. And I would have my degree under the supervision of my desert university so long after I had given that dream up for dead. The type writer I kept to myself as a guilty little secret under a glass cover in the office of the house I built on the farm and I can sit and type as I am doing now and see it and feel its comfort flood to me. I have fenced off my acreage and hired a company to fill it with exotic animals, retired from the zoos and circuses of the world. I want rhinos. I want them like I want life itself.
The End
posted by michael Monday, July 19, 2004
Further to my recent ramblings concerning my ever-increasing consumption of condiments, I have more to report. I recently put a generous helping of mustard on a fish stick sandwich. What's more, I found myself putting mayonnaise on a smoked turkey and swiss sandwich, and a healthy dollop of mayonnaise it was too. I don't think I've eaten mayonnaise in 20 years or more. We're through the looking glass here people. I need someone to hold me and help me through this. Is there some 12 step program I should know about?
I also want report on some interesting t-shirts I have seen recently.
Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease
Gotta love that one. Whether it's true or not depends, I suppose on your life view; you know, is the glass half-empty or half-full of puss-y, vile liquid and chunks of organic flotsam of undetermined origin.
Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced.
That one is just plain funny. And it sort of makes fun of the Irish, which makes it even funnier.
And the winner of the lightning round is;
Jesus Was a Cunt
So offensive, to so many people, in so many ways. To whomever thought that one up, I salute you.
posted by michael Tuesday, June 29, 2004
When I see or read or hear anything about the misadventures of the Ozzy Osbourne family, I am ashamed to be a Homo Sapien.
posted by michael Thursday, June 10, 2004
So did I mean to murder Mary when I showed up at her door that night. Yes, I suppose I did for I had covered my tracks so well. A false story for the keepers of the hotel in San Fransisco, off to Las Vegas for a day or two if you please and a call to the Las Vegas lawyers informing them that I would be checking out 'The Farm', as the Williams acreage in Nevada was known and still is for that matter. To each I was to be in the other place while I was in neither for I was in the plane and in the car and in the other car and then I was shaking, knocking at Mary's front door.
She swung the door open wide as if expecting someone to whom she could give some shit and was perplexed at mine, a face she did not realize.
"It's me Mary. It's Douglas. Don't you remember me?"
And after a longish while she did and I saw her face change from some unexplained perplexation to confusion to understanding to confusion and somewhere in there she opened the door and ushered me inside.
"It's been a long time, Douglas. Did you just happen to be passing by, in the neighbourhood as it were? I don't recall giving you my forwarding address."
"You didn't," I said, "but you're famous these days. I saw you on NPT the other day talking about the forest fires. That's why I'm here, for some closure as they say on Oprah these days."
I gave her my most friendly of smiles, the false one that I had perfected in my Aunt's diner and I felt it rip the muscles in my throat.
She looked at me seriously then and I recognized her suspicious look, her 'if you're fucking with me' look and I surrendered my most benign of smiles.
"How have you been," I asked, and I surrendered my most benign of smiles?
And I saw the transformation take her and I saw her turn from the suspicious young professional opening her door to she knew not what to the feral cat caught in the alley trap and worried for it's life. I saw her turn to the polished professional, back on her feet, just another cocktail party uncomfortable situation to be outlasted and then laughed about with your smart academic friends. I saw her eyes flash with pity, maybe hatred, maybe fear, but no apology. I saw her eyes flash 'once more into the breach'.
"You're looking well," she said and she moved to take me in her arms and I let her and took her in mine. And we hugged. I recognized the smell of her hair (shorter now) and for a moment I felt my resolve weaken because of the smell of her hair for I associated it with orgasm and sweat and pleasure.
"So are you," I said, but I did not mean it for she did not. She was leaner and meaner and had a thin and hunted look about her and a yellowish cast across her cheeks that made me wonder if she was ill.
"Can I get you something," she asked? "I don't drink anymore but I remember that you liked a good belt every now and then. I think I have some sherry."
And she smiled as if we were sharing a tender moment and I smiled as if we were sharing a tender moment. Yet, in my heart, I was shrieking now; "I never drank until I met you, you fucking harridan, I never drank to excess until you crushed my heart under your heel and now I can't drink enough. It's like I'm always thirsty." And I felt my anger build within me. And I smiled as if we were sharing a special moment.
"A drink of water would be nice if you would? I can't stay long."
I saw her shoulders hunch with relief as she moved through the dining room into the kitchen.
And as we passed the dining room table I saw the typewriter, my Weyl typewriter, sitting there on a doilie, no glass cover, and some dried flowers in the keys to make of it a centerpiece.
"That's nice," I said, pointing it out. "Distinctive."
"Oh, the typewriter," she said in passing.
"I found that in a flea market or something, I think. Campy huh? It used to have a glass cover but it got broken at a party."
And I found myself in a frenzy and a calm and a fury all at once.
"Yeah, a real conversation piece," I said out loud.
But in my brain I was crying as I remembered Weyl's aunt as she passed the torch to me.
"I'm not long for this world," she had said. "Probably just go to the trash after I'm gone."
And here I saw as much as in the trash, my typewriter; the typewriter on which he had written in 1912;
Our country..."today is in a sombre, soul-questioning mood. We are in a period of clamor, of bewilderment, of an almost tremulous unrest."
And I remembered how I planned to call my thesis by that name; "An Almost Tremulous Unrest"; and how it was to bring me fame and fortune and responsibility and a sense of purpose and make my life not empty but full. I remembered the original report of his death and how the policeman on the scene had recorded that 'subject's head was resting on typewriter keys, said keys covered with sputum'. For Weyl had died during the influenza pandemic of 1919, choked in his own mucus, and I felt sometimes that I had died with him that awful death in his New York apartment so long ago.
And as she moved before me, talking all the while about her address to the society and was I still in the history field and had I read her books and how she had almost dedicated one to me but didn't know if I would understand and how she had looked for me to explain and make amends, as she moved before me through the dining room and I saw her open the cupboard for a glass and bend to the sink for water, I was filled with an unfathomable fury and I scooped up the typewriter in both my hands and I rushed at her with it held way above me and brought it crashing down so very hard onto the back of her skull and felt it cut and bite into her with a satisfying smack and I held it their in her head and forced her body against the counter with my weight and her head into the sink until I was assured there was no life there and then with a wrenching, sicking sound I pulled the typewriter from her skull and allowed her to slump to the floor.
And I stood above her to observe her deadness, and of that there was no doubt, for her brains were spread across the back of her pinky sweater and the blood was so much everywhere that I had to step back to avoid being caught in the rush.
And I wrapped the typewriter in the table cloth carefully and then retreated to my rental car wiping my fingerprints from every surface I thought I might have touched although I was sure that I had touched nothing of significance in the apartment, much like in my life.
And from there to my other car, keys left carefully in the ignition in a baddish neighbouhood, so that it would be stolen. And then off to the airport and before you could say Jack Robinson I was at the front door of the Taitinger with Mr. King welcoming me home and reaching for my bag with the typewriter stuffed safely inside and before I knew it I was at the mini-bar of my old suite offering Mr. King a chardonnay and he was accepting and he was asking if I were going to stick around for a while. And I felt pretty much normal.
"I think I'm going open up a restaurant in a while. I'm going to call it 'Sandy's'."
"I think that's a fine idea," he said as he sparked a cigarette and offered one to me.
"Las Vegas can always use another fine restaurant."
He paused and drank and smoked for a bit and we kept our silence for we had become comfortable with that.
"That portrait you sent me would look fine in the entryway or above the bar," he said.
"I was thinking above the bar. Will you come and run it for me, Mr. King?"
He looked at me for a long while and as always with him I felt him peel the layers from my soul with his eyes and I fell into discomfort.
"No, it's not my restaurant" he said finally. "But I'll visit you often. I think it will become my favourite place, other than the Taitinger, that is."
And I said that I had expected as much and hoped that it would be so and we raised our glasses.
"To Sandy's," he said, and we clinked and drank and refilled and moved on to other things.
posted by michael Saturday, May 22, 2004
Sometimes, when my wife is giving me the gears about my drinking, I feel like telling her.
It's not that I drink all that much anymore. Indeed, part of the reason that I got into my present life was because I was heading down a slippery slope. Working late, serving booze all night, making a ton of cash money, and spending the cash money in a frenzied, bonhomie hurry and then driving home, sometimes, most times, in a blur.
"Sure, I drink", I tell her, and yet there's so much I haven't told her about drinking.
And when she questions my drinking of a bottle of some fine red (California Zinfandel or an Oregon Pinot Noir if it's bottled before 1999 if you please) every Saturday night, starting with dinner and continuing through the evening, then I feel like telling her.
"How does it look for the kids", she says, "to see their father drinking a whole bottle of wine every Saturday night"?
And I think to myself that at least I am home on the Saturday night and we are all watching a Harry Potter movie on television with pop and cheesies and everyone gets a kiss goodnight and there is no yelling and no blood and nothing gets broken and there are no police cars in the driveway. And sometimes I think maybe I should tell her.
But no, not her, not with her Andy of Mayberry childhood; the fix-it-yourself father and the stay-at-home-and-bake-cookies mom and the brothers and the bridge club. She would fix me with that husband hyberole stare that I know so well and pretend to understand and hug me and love me with her body and we would forget all about it and fall asleep. For it would be foreign to her, like smoked fish or kisses on the cheek in greeting.
And her, with her perfect childhood with the piano lessons and the church choir and the summer camps and meat and potatoes and vegetables for every supper, she would never understand. That is why I married her and that too she would never understand. That, and my loving her with all my heart, such as it is.
And sometimes I think I should sit her down and tell her how some people's childhoods actually transpired. Sometimes I think I should force myself to tell her and force her to really listen.
And if I did, I would tell her about how a young boy was trapped in his room one night, desperately needing to piss, seriously desperate to piss; a young boy, but old enough to know that to soil himself in such a way was simply not done, especially under present circumstances. I would tell her how that young boy, old enough but young, danced about his room and cried there under the posters of Spiderman and his hockey heroes and bounced from leg to leg and cried with fear and frustation. I would tell her that young boy was me.
And if I did, I would tell her that the bathroom was just next door to my bedroom, mere steps down a short hall. And I would tell her that my father was drunk again that night, pounding on his bedroom door, behind which my mother had barricaded herself after calling the police. And I would tell her how my mother's face had spurted blood where my father had hit her and how he had threatened me with a beer bottle when I had dared to stick my face from the door. And I would tell her about my four sisters in their rooms upstairs and attempt to describe to her the shrieking of those four girls as their mother was beaten and how they cried for comfort from the one who could not comfort them for she herself knew no comfort.
And I would tell her that the young boy, dancing from leg to leg with his terrible need to piss, had, in his shame, finally pissed into his laundry hamper, all in a terrible rush, like the most satisfying piss ever in his life, before or since, and how he fell to sleep in his closet so as not to hear the loud and deep voices of the policemen and the softer voices of the ambulance people and the screaming of his father as they took him away again.
And I would tell her that the next day was Saturday, laundry day.
And I would tell her how my mother caught me trying to transfer my own dirty clothes from the hamper to the basket for the trip to the machines downstairs.
And I would tell her how my mother came to help and the look on her face when she smelled the smell of piss that wafted from my collected clothing and her anger when she recognized the smell and the way I began to cry when I told her that I had no choice but to do what I did because Dad was mad and I was afraid to come out of my room.
And I would tell her about my mother's blackened eyes and the stitches on her cheek, still swollen and pussing.
And I would tell about the way my mother's face turned from anger to understanding to tears and how she collapsed to her knees and gathered me to her and crushed me as if to restrain some animal that needed to be restrained.
And I would tell her how my mother's tears burned my neck and my shoulder. And I would tell her how my mother's sobs shook me up and down and how my mother's sobs rocked me back and forth. And I would tell her how my mother's tears burned my neck and my shoulder like acid or bright sunshine.
And I would tell her that I feel those tears still. I would tell her how they burn.
posted by michael Saturday, May 15, 2004
Some extremely random thoughts for today.
I find myself using much more mustard as I get older. Whereas I might have used 5 cc. of mustard on a standard sandwich (2 slices of bread, marg, 2 slices of medium ham, 1 slice of processed cheese) when I was 19 or 20, I now find myself using upwards of 30 cc. of mustard on the same sandwich. I believe this is significant in some way although I am not sure just how. More on this later as the studies come in.
I came across a person in conversation recently who used the word "itch" as a verb. That is, she would describe the act of raking her own nails against her uncomfortable skin as "itching" herself. I am here to report that this is wrong. One scratches an itch. One does not itch an itch. I do not care what the dictionary says. To paraphrase Goebbels; "When I hear the word dictionary, I reach for my pistol."
Likewise, I would like to complain about the phrase; "it's all good". Please stop saying this people, unless of course, it is all good, which it almost never is. Sometimes some of it is good and sometimes the other bits are good but, all of it, highly unlikely. Therefore, for the sake of accuracy, let's just say "no sweat" or "that's okay" or something that applies to the situation at hand and keep the broad generalizations for the pundits on Sunday morning TV.
I will not even get into the most time-wasting/means nothing phrase of all time, which is of course; "don't worry about it". I'll worry about whatever the fuck I feel like, thank you. As a matter of fact, I'm worried right now. Not that it's any of your business.
I am somewhat torn about people I see brushing and/or flossing their teeth at work or in other public venues. On the one hand, I suppose I should admire these persons for their dedication to the regimen of dental hygeine and the pursuit of oral perfection. On the other hand, I suspect they are somehow fucked in the head. Coin toss, I guess. Could go either way.
In our house, we eat fastish food or go to a restaurant once each week. This has become known in the vernacular of the children as "eat out day".
So we have a friend visiting and my youngest, my daughter, asked her mom, my wife;
"Mom, is it eat out day?"
To which Mom, my wife replies;
"I don't know. Ask your father."
To which daughter replies;
"Daddy, Mommy wants to know if it's eat out day".
At which our visiting friend laughed like nobody's business.
We will have to rename "eat out day" to something more benign.
Finally, I am tempted to say that all is said and done but I find that when you say that, there is always more to say and do.
Good night, Irene.
And happy Mother's Day to all the mothers who are reading this. You know who you mothers are. And thanks for the buns to the bun lady. I love the bun lady. I think she loves me. She has lips like Tanya Tucker and those are good lips.
posted by michael Sunday, May 09, 2004
Congrats to Jo-Jo The Dog Faced Boy with her new life, about whom the following poem could never be written for she has sweetness written all over her face and light shining from her pores. Although she will disappear from my life now, I will count her as my friend forever and I will see her in our heaven at the appropriate time and we will take it up then as if we had never been apart.
My how we'll laugh.
Bon Voyage!
Women Can Talk Some Shit
Once, when we lay in fever's glide path,
Nancy and I,
Drying slowly in the soft air of the balcony doors;
She said to me;
"Do you know why I cry sometimes when we're having sex?
And I, (who had had several theories,
But none that I wished to voice,
For the sex was somewhat good and plentiful;
She was skilled with her mouth,
And I fancied myself in love,)
Could say only in an off-hand and tired way;
"No".
"Sometimes when I'm having an orgasm," she said.
"I think that I'm going to die."
"It feels like you're killing me with your cock."
And I, in response, the best that I could summon,
Me, the Bonaparte of the bon mot,
The paramour of the beau geste,
The best that I could summon in response was,
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Then some silence,
For she was a master of silence,
Had learned it at her mother's knee, as it were.
"It's just a thing," she said.
"I've learned to live with it."
"I think it has something to do with my father."
And, in response, the best that I could summon,
Me, the master of wry wit,
The Algonquin Round Table of my peers,
The best that I could summon in response was,
A simple, though long delayed,
"Hmmm".
"My father hates you," she said.
"He says he wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole."
And to that I could not respond at all.
For I knew it to be true.
He had hissed it to me soto voce,
The last time I had been to dinner.
Hopped up on mushrooms,
Stoned on gin,
I hadn't given a good god damn.
So, to that I did not respond at all.
And eventually she rolled away from me,
My skin freshly, wetly cold where we had been touching.
posted by michael Saturday, May 01, 2004
Let me tell you about her.
Hush, now. I've said too much.
posted by michael Thursday, April 15, 2004
I know the word kumquat is not a dirty word but I really think it should be.
posted by michael Tuesday, April 13, 2004
One odd thing about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 - you can Google that if you don't know the story - is that, in addition to the execution of 19 women and the torture death of an 80 year old man, the Puritan powers that were also convicted 2 dogs of witchery and hung them.
How weird is that?
Do you have a dog?
Hmmm!
posted by michael Sunday, April 04, 2004
So did I mean to murder Mary when I sat in my hotel suite in San Fransisco and wrote the instructions to Reid and Carruthers to pass on to the private detective and his firm, for I had them running all through my life now; finding some and fixing others and generally trying to make a lifetime of things right.
Find Betty, I said, and find her they did; divorced from her Lithuanian husband, the bigot, the bastard, the one who beat her and starved her and punished her when I made her work late.
Find Maureen, I said, and find her they did; living in that same little townhouse with her son, the blind one; her other children, Leo the proud and aggressive teenager and Deirdre the beautiful one who would not let me touch her, they were gone and their mom was left on her own as she had always been.
Find Bob Hunter, I said, and find him they did; still just a waiter in a steak house near the stadium, making his good money and pissing it away as he always had, and I wondered which neophytes he had found to seduce and with whom he was walking the golf course these days.
And so it went for some weeks and months. I would wake and sleep at the same time and pick up the phone and ask the impossible of persons for whom anything was possible at the price I was willing to pay.
Find my enemies, find my friends, report back to me.
Find Davide Carmine, find Tim, find Kim who introduced me to AC/DC, find Snarf who liked the Monkees and the Romantics and played darts so well.
Find George, the Italian, whose parents kept rabbits for the eating.
Find Dan Duffy, the holy roller, the catholic priest without the cassock.
Find Kevin and Dom and Josh and Sally and Moira and Katherine and Bill and Sal and Tony and Jim and his brother and his son; find them all for me, for I have lost touch in the worst of ways.
Find the women, the one night stands, the ones I loved, the ones that loved me, the ones I never really met.
Bring me their stories in your detective language. Bring me their pictures, stolen from a great distance.
And for those I had hated as I trolled through life, I simply enjoyed reading of their misfortune. It amused me that Neil was in prison and that Robb's wife was cheating on him with the teenage boy next door. Yet even with the tapes of her screaming that boy's name in my stereo I did not share that hatred nor the misfortune. I did not have the anger.
And those I had loved in my life I reached out to without a word. Cheques I wrote by the dozens. A new house for Betty whose roof was beginning to leak, a new car for Rita whose old Nova had given up the ghost, cheques for all the others for I had at last count 637 million dollars in my chequing account and nothing worth saving toward. I gave it away like a profilgate, a drunken sailor, and then I gave some more.
I hired a lawyer from the yellow pages and a notary public and had them to my hotel to arrange the writing of my will. I did not trust Reid and Carruthers to do the right thing at this point and took steps to move my business to a chartered accountant who had given me his card in the lobby bar as soon as the glitter twins had arranged the sale of the rest of the real estate.
And always, I had them on Mary. I wanted to know her every action for she had become my raison d'etre. Just as some years ago she had spurred me on to work on the venerable Mr. Weyl, so now she spurred me to the reparation of my life. I was the golfer in the sand trap, earnest, intent on erasing the foot steps, the marks of the club and the ball and the spikes, raking back and forth until it was as if I had not been there at all. There it was, the dry sand of the future and the wet sand of the past or was it the future. No matter, for soon it would all be mixed as one, all dried in the sun of the present.
And always I asked them to keep their eye on Mary. I wanted to know every breath she drew and for that I paid through the nose. And when I slept I felt her skinny frame beside me and when I ate she sat across from me and when I masturbated she disturbed me from my fantasies and filled my mind with dark, unholy visions and made me come.
And I sat and listened to the tortured souls of rock and roll. I listened to Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin and Bon Scott and Keith Moon and Nick Mason and I sat in my chair with my knees to my chest wrapped in that thick and rich hotel robe and sometimes I wept and sometimes I watched televison and sometimes I listened to music and sometimes I laughed and sometimes I howled at the moon like a mad dog.
posted by michael Wednesday, March 31, 2004
I am going to do things out of order here. I have a rather large chunk of novel ready to go but I also have a story about something else that has been in my brain for too long and is dying to be out.
Firstly, a hello to my old university friend Brian, who has found and been reading my blog from his home in New Jersey where he works as "Principal Scientist" for a drug company. Welcome aboard Brian, my good, good friend. I hope your life has turned out as you wanted it to.
I try not to think of my readers as I write and will continue as such. With Brian it becomes more difficult for he may know some of the principals in the parts of my stories that are less than fiction but more than truth. Nonetheless, as Sandy said, in for a penny, in for a pound.
And hello too to Karlo and thank you for the renewed blog. Who loves you baby? I do. More than you ever knew. Ever since I heard you use the word ergo on the phone to some trailer park Babette and I thought 'he is for me'. And he has never let me down. My casa is your casa Karlo, forever and always.
And a paraphrased quote from a book I read recently about time travel and Sharon Tate and Charles Manson and the Beatles and the changing of the future....
"....it's the there, there, where there is no there....you know where, right by the edge of the ocean, there, where it meets the sun and boils."
That's nice.
I would like to dedicate this night's writing to slumley who recently got ahead. slumley is one of those with stories to tell who does not tell them. Yet, I think he could tell his stories better than I if he put his mind to it. He has told me stories about the strength of his dad and the events of his youth that had me fascinated and wanting to hear more. So write them down please slumley and put them out there; you and the others, the ones who think they could but are afraid they might. You know who you are.
And off we go.
I have thought for some time now about heaven, and specifically about what happens to the insane when they die. Do the insane go to heaven insane or sane? Does God take you as you were when you died or does he take you as you were when you were your best? Here's a story about that. It's mostly true except for the parts you think might not be true. And to tell the whole truth for once in my life....even I don't know what is true anymore or if anything ever was, true, I mean.
When I was a small boy, my family and I lived in a small town in a land far away. I had and have four sisters and a mom and a dad. My dad's best friend was a man named Clifford Hyland. Clifford lived at the foot of the hill outside of town just where the Ottawa River valley peaked and sloped down to the Madawaska and the Opeongo.
His family had been there from the beginning and they owned thousands of acres of forest. They owned the land from town to the hill and they owned the hill and they owned beyond.
Clifford worked in the forest for his entire life. He logged his land in the winter and sold the logs to the lumber company that owned all the other land nearby. These are vibrant memories of mine, being there to see the horses lashed to the logs and skidding them out over the ice and snow to the river. The panting of the horses, the steam from their big nostrils, the screech of the harness and the thunder as the logs rolled to the river, and me in my mother's arms squirming to get down. In summer, Clifford fought forest fires.
Clifford had two brothers, Gordon and Dennis. Gordon was a ne'erdowell who came by only to cadge money or hide from the law or a woman. I remember my Dad asking him;
"What are you hiding from, Gordon? The law or a woman?"
I remember Gordon shrugging his shoulders and looking the other way.
Dennis worked as a cook in the lumber camps and drank his pay cheque.
I don't know where Clifford's mother lived on a regular basis but I remember the frenzy when she came to visit Clifford and the cl