Semi-Daily Scribbles

slipshod

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too Pure

In Junior High (ages me right there using that term) we got to do work rotations in the school office. What a lucky day that was when you got assigned mimeograph duty. The cranking of the machine! Silky, glistening paper rolling out thanks to your labor!! The smell!!! Bottle that shit, man. Oh, the soothing, boozy, candy coated aroma of the ink coming off the cylinder is exactly the balm the world needs right now.

A Unifiable Theme

To make something beautiful is a lifelong pursuit.
Keep edges rough.
Lines are suggestions on where they should be crossed.
This is a love letter to your unfettered spirit.

It is the rough edge of one's work that establishes merit.
Beginning. Middle. End.
The order in which the dream is conveyed is inconsequential.

Mastery is misleading. Know when to write the final sentence and then walk away.
One's engagement with your creation is not the reason why you got into this game.
You've dictated the rules. Now go help someone else find her through line.

Challenge everything that makes you feel in control.
To understand one's desire is a trial of the soul.

Shade

Sharon's hair (admit it. you don't know her name. sharon was your babysitter.) gleams like burnished bronze as she sits in a stream of March's best light. The scene inside the café reminds you of the time you stood nose to canvas with Bierstadt's California Spring (the interplay of sun and shade always has a sinister twinge, you feel.) Windows offer distorted views of sidewalks and shoes (no golden beam can save this city.) Sharon (not sharon) scratches her scalp just above the left ear and that totally alters your opinion of her.

Love is Rough

I informed Elinore that I trusted my gut more than some expert's opinion on how best to sell myself to the Cogs of Industry. She didn't believe me. All is right in the world if we choose to listen to the mysteries in the wind that sigh and cry. Soughing and cooing from on high to get us to heed the knowing in our hearts. I persist because progression is in my bones. Maybe I'm a throwback, but I keep comin' back. I only know how to dog paddle, but the inelegant splashing gets me from one end of The Universe to the other. Success is spotting a mess and then coming up with an exit plan. I do not want to be The Petrified Man to stand sentinel over complacency for all eternity. Struggle is what gets you a first class ticket to the stars. You need to look up to see where you've been.

Ah, Elinore. You peaked at 19, but you're still my queen. There was always a smack of schmaltz about you. And that's why I love you. Love is lovely and it made you lose your edge. Standing out on that ledge, what thoughts have now replaced the darkness? The dream is now rinse and repeat. It's difficult to call the attainment of respectability a defeat. But where is the hunger? The longing. The yearning. Has it all been replaced by a sizable yearly earning? You will always be a bit of rough sport to me, bon ami.

The Hidden Part

What is it you need to show to the world? What's the one thing you want me to know about you? How can you tell your story without it being a masterfully manipulated collection of photographs on Insty-Sham?

Here's what Phyllida wants us to know about her:

I am the Crone. I am your Forever Home. Come rest in my arms so evergreen. I am soon to be riding the #9 and so close to being whole. I feel young/old/accomplished/benighted ... happy to have sensations at all. I am grateful for my cave; my hideout from the world as I've undergone this painful transformation. I don't look any different. The wrapper is no worse for wear. But the little spark of wonder that has always caused me pain is now a rampaging flame of wisdom. Can't unknow what you know. Or, in other words, this light ain't goin' out any time soon, bebe ko.

To Spot

nice guys
know a kind word
plus an easy smile
are the best lures
to snare an unsuspecting heart
so simple to kill them with attention
they were all easy girls once
no more bullseye on their backs
j. could pick them out of a crowd too
and she warned the neighbor about m.
sometimes the wrong boy is the safe choice
but a girl doesn't listen when she's got
stars in her eyes

Eyes Don't Lie

Sometimes when I talk to you, your eyes are distorted by a liquid shimmer.

"I'm not crying. You're crying!"

A dead guy once called that rheumy-eyed stare "the puddly look of nostalgia."

Are you reliving the past when you look at me? I have to admit there was something oddly familiar the first time I saw you, banging on the side of the vending machine in Bldg. B to loosen a scrunched and skewed bag of Cool Ranch Doritos so it'd drop down into the tray.

Surreal Estate

If someone uses the phrase "safe as houses," think twice before you accept their invitation to come around for tea. Houses are portals to places we've never been, and would do well to traverse with care. Is it hospitality or the promise of the unknown that propels us to cross the threshold as we stand on the stoop examining the door? It is power all the same. This old house is charming and a curse. A house needs good bones to support dark corners and hidden rooms. Buyers, cellars; agents of forces too great to contain. And gardens are camouflage for that which must be kept covered.

Hunch

Jessamine got to school early to snatch a desk at the back. Not her preferred seating arrangement, but the boy named Micah would be her object of study for the next hour and not the lesson on Cosecant / Secant / Cotangent Functions Ms. Onoko promised the day before. Micah. The friendly one who everybody thought was cool, and who didn't belong to any group. Not an athlete or drama kid. He didn't pound the timpani or give the teachers shit. Jessamine didn't even know if he was any good at school, but he advanced to the next grade alongside her ever since kindergarten. A nice boy. But Jessamine had grown up some since she and Micah were five. She'd noticed little things. Like Micah hung out with girls more than boys. Like how nothing got past him. He'd comment on one girl's newly clipped bangs, someone else's espadrille wedges, or Gwendolyne's switch from Diet Coke to Jones Soda. Jessamine had to admit Micah's power of observation was as finely honed as hers. Maybe he was gay, but she and all the rest of the kids would have known that in kindergarten, even if they hadn't the vocabulary back then to articulate their suspicions with each other on the playground. They were practically adults now, hoping to pass their classes and move on to the next phase of life. Moving on. Having a life. Maybe the new girl had picked up on the same vibes Jessamine felt when Micah was near. Lightheaded and queasy, Jessamine closed her eyes and slowly inhaled as Micah entered the room.