Quiet...Too Quiet

This post has been generously donated to our friend-blog City Mouse Country and can be found there. You should totally go read it.

Heartbreaking Jerks and Staggering Genius, Part 2

That's right, you knew this was coming. Something about the "Part 1" in the title of the last post. It was just getting so long for a post on a blog that is ostensibly structured around a 17-syllable poem, but I still had more to say.

It's just that seeing Sybil Lamb read and hearing about her various antics reminded me just a little of my first girlfriend, who was also a terrifying genius, who I was afraid to be around because she bullied me and drove drunk, blowing through red lights in lower Manhattan, and started fights with huge cis dudes on the street and wanted to kill the president and wanted to know where I was every minute of the day, but who I hung around for six breathless months because she published slash fiction about PJ Harvey that freaked out a whole web forum and recorded an entire electronic music album on her computer about Super Mario and wrote semi-erotic poetry about her dog and took photographs of road signs and the moon. And who was almost six feet tall although not an actual Tall Girl.

It was a weird time in my life. I was a graduate student of creative writing at a conservative, Catholic football school in the Midwest (why???) and was living with my ex (because we were too co-dependent to do anything different), and she pushed all my boundaries and questioned many of my long-held beliefs. For example, beliefs that I wasn't all that interested in illegal substances. Which turned out to be true, but there's something to be said for testing our own theories now and then.

Anyway, J, if you're out there, I'm glad I knew you and I'm glad I don't know you anymore, and I hope you're still fucking shit up and making someone rethink everything they thought they knew.

Poem for a Mean Love

While on date with me,
Makes out with strange dude in bar.
"See? I ain't no dyke."

Calgon, briefly restore my energy a little!

I've been really tired lately. I can think of several possible reasons. (Seasonal change migraines the medication for the migraines trouble sleeping hormone changes playing a rock show on a week night stress at work Lyme disease probably not but my therapist suggested it might be possible Mercury in retrograde just kidding.)

Tonight I came home from dinner with friends and did not feel like I could do anything but lie down with my eyes closed and the radio on. But I also felt kind of dirty. So I thought I could lie down with my eyes closed in hot water and at least accomplish something before bedtime.

And surprisingly, the bath refreshed me somewhat. Not enough to go back out on the town or anything, but I'm here, ain't I? This confirms for me how much of my recent exhaustion is stress related. Forcing my body to calm down perked me up rather than putting me to sleep. (Also my local radio station just started playing really cute indie pop.)

Poem for still being tired, though

I just learned a thing.
Do I really have to write
A poem now, too?

Even action figures gotta take time for self care.

Now the DJs are talking about the Supreme Court and gay marriage. Zzzzzzzzzzz..........

If you force it, it breaks.

I learned a really beautiful and useful phrase last night, and it is 7 syllables long. I love it when that happens. Thanks, Q.

Haiku for Letting the Right One In

It's cold out, and you're
"Almost the key to my house."
Good thing there's windows.

Twue Wuv, or How I Learned to Equate Misogyny with Romance

Last night I watched an old favorite movie with some friends. We sat out on their lawn with the video projected onto the side of the house. It was nice to watch it with someone who had loved it and who shares my politics, so we could quote along and then criticize the hell out of it. For example, I hadn't realized how heavily the film's humor relies on characters' speech impediments. Westley taking time out from saving Buttercup to raise his hand to her (the consequence for women who lie) also made me squirm. Forget about passing the Bechdel Test. There are only three speaking roles for women, and they're a hapless princess, Miracle Max's wife (whom he calls a witch), and the old crone who boos at Buttercup in her nightmares.

Still, I laughed a lot and might inadvertently find myself saying, "Have fun storming the castle!" someday soon.

Haiku for The Princess Bride

"Inconceivable!"
I do not think that word means 
What you think it means.

I'll have a Sticky Navel

You learn something new every day.

And by "you" I mean "I," and by "every day" I mean "on St. Patrick's Day."

And by "something new" I mean "what a body shot actually looks like."

Haiku for March 16, 2013

You slurp rum off me
As I stretch out on the bar
Who's this "St. Patrick"?