This is a post that was solely created for the sake of creating a post. I have not updated this neglected blog in a long while. So, instead of thinking of a creative concept to write about or a mundane occurrence that brought a slightly new perspective, I will be recording marginalia as if it mattered. It doesn’t.
The last two weeks I have had Phantom of the Opera singing inside of my head. Not constantly but often enough to start to listen a bit too much. I don’t think things originating inside of my head should be given more attention time than things in the outside world, but my attention often disagrees. My brain can amuse me for hours. Far too many hours.
Finally “Abide With Me” would occasionally supplant Phantom, but didn’t oust it entirely. It wasn’t until the Tony Awards on Sunday when the number “I Believe” from the Book of Mormon musical took over my brain. I have been slowly trying to listen to the other numbers from the musical, but haven’t yet.
I am supposed to be studying for the GRE. I’m not. Well, I am learning vocab, but that’s about it. I think I should give up on math. I haven’t studied any since I was 16 or 17. I lie about my age consistently, but that was more than a decade ago.
I am trying to catch up with all the cycling races that are currently on my DVR. I recently reduced my hours so I could sleep, so I’m still catching up from that. I have one stage left of the Giro d’Italia, four stages of the Criterium de Dauphine, and the first four stages of le Tour de Suisse. So, lots of television time, during which I will be learning lines.
I finished the last performance of The Merchant of Venice from Utah Shakespeare in the Park on Saturday and rehearsals for All’s Well That Ends Well started Monday. I have a small part, which means more time to study for the GRE (watch le Tour de France). I am usually a pretty good student, but since school ended in April, I have felt particularly unmotivated.
My supposed life goal is to get a doctorate in English, but I keep forgetting that with the sun shining and the pool beckoning with it’s chlorine fumes. Also the mountains just keep staring at me, daring me to climb them. And the sun is a temptress – seducing me to go outside where I can lay down all afternoon and sleep in the grass. My favorite shorts have grass stains.
So that is the conclusion of the meaningless nothings that should not be noted.
Tuesday
Sunday
Best Conversation of the Month
Me: I wish Pizzeria 712 was open really late so I could get their pizza for my hypothetical pizza party.
Lawrence: You mean the one where it's going to be Mexican food or pizza?
Me: Yeah. . . Wait, how did you know about my hypothetical pizza party?
Lawrence: I checked your messages.
(phone was in my backpack during rehearsal)
Lawrence: You mean the one where it's going to be Mexican food or pizza?
Me: Yeah. . . Wait, how did you know about my hypothetical pizza party?
Lawrence: I checked your messages.
(phone was in my backpack during rehearsal)
Weddings
I thought my next blog entry would be a rant about the royal wedding and the pageantry involved. But after only watching a few arrivals, I was in awe over the utter pointlessness of ceremony, and felt sorry for the two fools smiling for the cameras. This cemented my plans to elope to Vegas and be married by Elvis. Vegas has great deals on hotel rooms and buffets. No planning needed. Some may argue that Vegas is commercial and crass, but after watching the 24-hour coverage of the royal wedding and seeing many couples spend thousands of dollars on the perfect wedding, I wonder what the difference is between Vegas and the thirty-million dollar picture-perfect, 700-guest, gourmet catered wedding on the beach in Maui complete with doves. Vegas is obviously commercial, but is commercial for the masses, compared to the selectivity that most people desire as an ambiance at their wedding. The white-robed bride is supposed to be detached from the problems that are going to be inherent in marriage. Weddings cost a fortune, but instead of being realistic as to their income, the couple (for a day or week) pretends to a much higher standard of wealth than they possess. I want weddings to start off in the seeming mundane reality. All romance stories end at the wedding or the consummation because after that everything gets “boring.” But everyday, especially those where nothing happens, is like the first morning of snowfall for the winter. It has happened before, and it will happen again. We will eventually come to hate snow for the extra time needed every morning to scrape and shovel it away, but for a few moments it is a sudden miracle. Like brushing your teeth with someone, or finding a good song on the radio – miracles are mundane. They are everywhere and all the time and every morning there is snow in May, we forget about miracles because who wants to wear a parka on top of a sunburn. So, instead of planning a wedding like many other girls do, I will dream instead about a crappy apartment in a complex populated by the Mexican gangs, whom I will probably get along with. I will dream about a sofa that was retrieved from a junk pile and sags in the middle and stacks of books all around because we don’t have shelves. I dream about having a horribly miraculous reality to share with someone.
Tuesday
Tragedy
I’ve been watching several Zhang Yimou movies and I wonder why do all Chinese love stories end in tragedy? The happiest couples end in death together, love consummated in spiritual eternity together. Somehow watching the tragic end of young couples moves us more than watching a couple live together, have children, have fights about toast and doing the dishes, and grow old. These couples eventually leave all drama with years they gain. Slowly they grow accustomed to everything they used to hate about each other. Toilet seats are now left up and toilet paper rolls are never replaced. Car attention lights are ignored and boxes are not flattened. It is all so mundane and boring. Each moment could be beautiful. Moment after moment leads to millions of moments and they all blend together and become unremarkable. But in tragedy, love is confined to only a few moments, so every moment is whirling kisses and dancing under rainbows in fields of poppies. Instead of taxes and grocery shopping, the only moments are those of incapacitating emotion. Beautiful moments are rare moments. If they happened every day, they would be as beautiful as taking the garbage out. But why isn’t taking out the garbage beautiful? Why can’t we slowly gather the plastic bag, then tie it up, hold it together and waltz out into the rain where we will run out to the can, then joyfully fling the bag into the can before we clang the lid down. Garbage duty would then be a wonderful thing.
Monday
Delaware Water Gap
We are off to the Delaware Water Gap!
Tents packed and rusty ancient stove,
Dad stops to buy marshmallows.
We make up songs about
Trash dumps and Jersey,
Driving up to the campsite raked clean
Blue sky and sun grinning
on our noisy machines.
Test driving the Nissan,
“Don't tell Mom!”
We finally settled down after supper
Slowly adults ordered children to bed
Fires began to be shared as adults sat
huddled by the light. My father
noticed me and with a broken promise
I stayed as he retired to the tent
and listened to stories with grave intent.
Free and alone, stranger's faces shone
and embers were almost blue
from heat against the cold night.
Wood burning and flickering light
then I gazed out into the dark
so still, no trucks or traffic distant.
And up above, more bright and clear
stars seemed much more near.
The last two and their homey voices
drift away from my fire.
Feeling the wildest breath of the trees yell at me
Now alone they stop whispering.
The star's stony silence and the trees
shouting in the night.
I sprint to join the wind in battering
the loud leaves and bowing grass
Trunks backed farther away, and when
I fell the earth warmed me from the day
Still I laid and the roaring earth beated out my time
the wind told me secrets from the trees
and then the stars squinted until I stood to see.
Trees quiet for a minute,
the stars tried to wish me near.
But the distance was too far
and the tree-wind fury too fierce.
I danced letting the wind steer
wild whirling in the tree-claimed night
until back to the fire I stared down.
Pounding from the ground.
Trying to be the new wild me.
Bowed head, asking the wind and the earth to let me stay.
Then slowly the stars dimmed with light
The trees were not dark but outlined with gray
The fire was low and the first bird call
heralded first daylight and the death of night.
Then I pulled my sleeping bag to the Nissan
And covered my head in a reclined driver’s seat
and could not dream.
Tents packed and rusty ancient stove,
Dad stops to buy marshmallows.
We make up songs about
Trash dumps and Jersey,
Driving up to the campsite raked clean
Blue sky and sun grinning
on our noisy machines.
Test driving the Nissan,
“Don't tell Mom!”
We finally settled down after supper
Slowly adults ordered children to bed
Fires began to be shared as adults sat
huddled by the light. My father
noticed me and with a broken promise
I stayed as he retired to the tent
and listened to stories with grave intent.
Free and alone, stranger's faces shone
and embers were almost blue
from heat against the cold night.
Wood burning and flickering light
then I gazed out into the dark
so still, no trucks or traffic distant.
And up above, more bright and clear
stars seemed much more near.
The last two and their homey voices
drift away from my fire.
Feeling the wildest breath of the trees yell at me
Now alone they stop whispering.
The star's stony silence and the trees
shouting in the night.
I sprint to join the wind in battering
the loud leaves and bowing grass
Trunks backed farther away, and when
I fell the earth warmed me from the day
Still I laid and the roaring earth beated out my time
the wind told me secrets from the trees
and then the stars squinted until I stood to see.
Trees quiet for a minute,
the stars tried to wish me near.
But the distance was too far
and the tree-wind fury too fierce.
I danced letting the wind steer
wild whirling in the tree-claimed night
until back to the fire I stared down.
Pounding from the ground.
Trying to be the new wild me.
Bowed head, asking the wind and the earth to let me stay.
Then slowly the stars dimmed with light
The trees were not dark but outlined with gray
The fire was low and the first bird call
heralded first daylight and the death of night.
Then I pulled my sleeping bag to the Nissan
And covered my head in a reclined driver’s seat
and could not dream.
Thursday
mango
I hate you most when I remember the day
we laid on the soccer field hands melted together
warm salted skin still sticky
from the bleeding mango juice
when you flayed the fruit,
skin shaved off and
filleted out flesh for me.
I curse you when you said you liked me
And then handed me the knife and
showed me how to stab and slice
down to the pith.
I will rain down fire and ashes to burn
Your blood-juicy body
already empty of the sticky warm water
fed to hungry mother earth.
Empty table sits with my mangoes
waiting for me to feel mango lips
screaming from their orange damp depths.
we laid on the soccer field hands melted together
warm salted skin still sticky
from the bleeding mango juice
when you flayed the fruit,
skin shaved off and
filleted out flesh for me.
I curse you when you said you liked me
And then handed me the knife and
showed me how to stab and slice
down to the pith.
I will rain down fire and ashes to burn
Your blood-juicy body
already empty of the sticky warm water
fed to hungry mother earth.
Empty table sits with my mangoes
waiting for me to feel mango lips
screaming from their orange damp depths.
A Race
What is the color of the sky?
I say “Not blue but gray
With purple and white added up high
today.”
Make me a man in a minute and a half
Call me a monkey
Try to make me just chaff
But I’m too black for you to see
I am black
My mother and sister are white
Two more brothers are Latino
And Dad is frying latkes tonight
When someone calls you dirty
What do you say?
Tuck it tight inside
And walk away.
White mother, try to make me
understand.
White hand in black,
cross the street, hold hands.
Would she lie?
My boy don't cry.
You are mine, toe to nose
and our skin color is just clothes.
Take them off and
we're all the same.
The colors people use
are just a game.
You say I'm white
But look at my skin in the light.
Is it white like paper or clouds?
No it is freckled and really light brown.
Except where you're burnt.
There you are pink
And tan brown where it doesn't hurt.
With a little yellow or orange I think.
So what color are you?
Not black like the cat
But I am brown too,
Just much much darker than you.
In a race someone
wins on a long straight track.
In a maze all are lost until they come
together to the center, coming back.
What is the color of the sky?
I say “No more clouds up high.
Sunset pink, Mom.
Sort of like you.”
I say “Not blue but gray
With purple and white added up high
today.”
Make me a man in a minute and a half
Call me a monkey
Try to make me just chaff
But I’m too black for you to see
I am black
My mother and sister are white
Two more brothers are Latino
And Dad is frying latkes tonight
When someone calls you dirty
What do you say?
Tuck it tight inside
And walk away.
White mother, try to make me
understand.
White hand in black,
cross the street, hold hands.
Would she lie?
My boy don't cry.
You are mine, toe to nose
and our skin color is just clothes.
Take them off and
we're all the same.
The colors people use
are just a game.
You say I'm white
But look at my skin in the light.
Is it white like paper or clouds?
No it is freckled and really light brown.
Except where you're burnt.
There you are pink
And tan brown where it doesn't hurt.
With a little yellow or orange I think.
So what color are you?
Not black like the cat
But I am brown too,
Just much much darker than you.
In a race someone
wins on a long straight track.
In a maze all are lost until they come
together to the center, coming back.
What is the color of the sky?
I say “No more clouds up high.
Sunset pink, Mom.
Sort of like you.”
Return of the Blog Entry
Did she forget about the blog? No. All creative efforts have been focused on a creative writing class and how to survive until the summer. But the summer has now smothered us all and the entries will continue with a vengeance unknown as of yet.
Tuesday
Muffin
I stole a muffin last night
And I’m telling you this morning
Because I thought you might
Notice and wonder where
it went. It didn’t walk away.
It didn’t fall into a refrigerator lair.
I just felt it should play
With me and my appetite
Until it lost to me in a fight
And I ate it up out of sight
Swallowing the evidence.
It was worth stealing.
Maybe I’ll replace it, but
Watch me or I’ll eat that one too
And there will be no muffin for you.
And I’m telling you this morning
Because I thought you might
Notice and wonder where
it went. It didn’t walk away.
It didn’t fall into a refrigerator lair.
I just felt it should play
With me and my appetite
Until it lost to me in a fight
And I ate it up out of sight
Swallowing the evidence.
It was worth stealing.
Maybe I’ll replace it, but
Watch me or I’ll eat that one too
And there will be no muffin for you.
Monday
Keys
Lost again
They treat me like the worst friend
Dumping me and dear john send
And moving around just to confuse
Without a forwarding address
Do they want to me to lose
My mind because I want to find.
Small, they seem to always need to
Be found
But location confounds
Do I not pay enough attention?
Do I abandon and ignore?
This behavior is the typical convention
And attention would be a chore.
Get over it and show yourselves to me
Or I’ll make new copies and you’ll see
Only the inside of a drawer tomb
Until I lose the new ones too.
They treat me like the worst friend
Dumping me and dear john send
And moving around just to confuse
Without a forwarding address
Do they want to me to lose
My mind because I want to find.
Small, they seem to always need to
Be found
But location confounds
Do I not pay enough attention?
Do I abandon and ignore?
This behavior is the typical convention
And attention would be a chore.
Get over it and show yourselves to me
Or I’ll make new copies and you’ll see
Only the inside of a drawer tomb
Until I lose the new ones too.
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