Trisha’s posterous

A note to self, a book title: (because for some strange reason the title of this book constantly evades me, even though I read the book and saw the movie, and want to read the book again!):

FUGITIVE PIECES (Anne Michaels)

(I think I mix this up with THE TRACY FRAGMENTS...(pieces...fragments...you know)

And note to self: Read Anne Michael's The Winter Vault.  Because it's bound to be wonderful.

I haven't read the book but still I wanted Michaels to win The Giller. 

I wish I could afford to buy books right now.

There's this gray and white female cat in the neighbourhood who's been hanging around since I moved in.  When she meows she sounds like a baby.  She's the sweetest thing.  She lives a couple of doors down, but the guy who (I will never say 'owns))...the guy with whom she resides is in my opinion a jack-ass because she is obviously not cared for properly.  She's always outdoors, even now that it's getting cold, she's too skinny, and she just seems sad all the time.  She meows and meows, so docile, she follows me up the driveway, tries to trip me up, doesn't want me to go.  It breaks my heart.

So for a few days she's had a sore paw, and tonight when I opened up the door for her (I usually give her food and water) her paw was really bad, swollen and infected.  I let her in, and now she's sleeping on my bed (or maybe under it).  I'm so stupid...she got off the bed while I was out of the room, and I didn't realize she couldn't get back on.

Anyway, she's under the bed now. 

I'm keeping her inside here till her paw is better, will stop in at the vet tomorrow and see about antibiotics, or something.  The 'guy with whom she resides' probably won't miss her, but I'll keep an eye out anyway.  If he's really concerned, he should be out looking for her.

I wish I could keep her.  I'd love her more than he does.

I've had a couple of days lately that I'd chalk up as good.  Lots of writing, finishing up another essay.  Damn, I think I"ll have a book soon.  Yeah, stay focused, stay focused. 

There have been a few minutes in these couple of days (short intervals, like for a minute or so, like 60 seconds...I'm being precise because it matters, because sometimes precision matters..because I'm big on precision...so many of us just drift about our lives and don't see  anything...I don't want to miss anything, but I don't want to miss the forest for the trees either)...anyway, there have been a few 60-second intervals when I fell into my own skin, my body, my rhythm. 

I remembered who I was.

I wasn't afraid.

Life, everything, wasn't so big, you know?

I can't remember the last time I felt that way.  I must have been, what, 10 or 11, maybe 12 years old.  I realize that sounds dramatic, but I think it might be true.

It's like having asthma (which I do), not being able to breathe well, but for years, months, years without relief, then taking a shot of your inhaler and just like that, you feel your lungs open, your chest becomes open, and you can breathe.

Those sixty-second intervals, they're like that.

It's 2:30 am and I'm up watching Bend it like Beckam,  If I spelled 'Beckam' wrong you'll have to forgive me.  Serves him right for marrying a spice girl.

My toes hurt big time from running tonight (first run in weeks).  It felt really good.  I've lost endurance and strength, but I'll get it back.

Off to see the kitty.

PS: If you are reading this and you have a cat (or dog or fish or bird or iguana or hamster or horse or giraffe or bunny rabbit and bunny rabbits need a lot of care and attention so don't just get one cause they're cute...etcetera), PLEASE...take GOOD, VERY GOOD, care of your animals.  You will GO TO HEAVEN if you do this.

Gandhi said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way its animals are treated."

Please do not cage any animal, or any one for that matter.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&source=hp&q=kenny%20chesney%20and%20dave%20matthews%20i%27m%20alive&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#

My behaviour with her (rambling, doing my 'homework' like a good girl) is all very weird.  It's weird because I really am pretty close-mouthed in most situations, therapy especially.  I don't 'talk' this much in my appointments with Dr. P.  I don't talk that much in general; always the quiet one in the family and elsewhere, in group settings, I prefer not to interact verbally, or at all if possible.  Right now, for example, I am in the most discreet out-of-sight table in the back end of the Serious Coffee.  I always sit here, hate to even be 'seen' when at a different table out in the open (in the event that 'my discreet sanctuary' is being used by someone else.

So why with Dr. V do I go on and on, often even interrupting her? 

I will simply wander aimlessly propelled by my aimless thought patters.  My mind is always reeling, over-stimulated with 'stuff' on the outside, people, things, traffic, lighting, my posture in a chair, do my thighs look fat this way, how's my skin (like crap these days, not sure why, probably bad nutrition, the ticking of a clock like fingernails scraping the chalkboard of my mind, temperature, air flow, the whiteness of the walls, the poster about mental health on one of the walls, the tightness of my shoes, and on and on.

The door closes, I sit down, and suddenly I am talking and talking, telling all, bluntly and directly, unabashedly.  My filter is vapourized in sessions with Dr. V.

Every time I leave an appointment (as in today), I berate myself for never shutting up, for talking so much, for revealing everything, pretty much anyway.  And I doing it now, berating myself.  I call myself the most demeaning and vulgar names, way over the top, insults one might bestow upon a Hitler or George double-ewe Bush.  I have always done this, in the mirror and often, pinching myself and sucking in my gut, pressing my hands against my cheeks, wishing they were hollow,  In high school I would stand naked in front of the hallway mirror in our house, as a kind of punishment to myself, pinching my naked body, disgusted with myself.  It burned evil into me, into my body.  I have carried this with me every day since.

So I go on and on with Dr. V (like I'm going on and on with you now, which I will forgive, because this is writing and writing is what I do).

Maybe all this has to do with the fact that she is a woman.  She's also young, probably younger than me (which in comparison makes me feel like a total failure as a human being).  (I have always been competitive).  But she's female, close in age to me, she's nice (not that Dr. P is not nice, he is), and her demeanor in general I suppose is inviting.  She's so beautiful and slender too.  Again, I pale in comparison.  But oh well.  One day I will get over this kind of self-judgment and comparison.  (I hope so).

But still, it's really beyond me.  She must think I'm such a loud mouth.  But in reality, I am nearly silent, like, almost all the time.

I felt compelled to put that out there (my otherwise quiet nature), because that is true of me, and also because I can't stand loud obnoxious people.  I hate that anyone would incorrectly think that I am loud and obnoxious.

Okay, that's it.

So tired it's sort of unbelievable.

Benadryl for allergies (my eyes are swollen and stinging) makes me drowsy.

Saw my step-daughter L today.  She is so growing up.  I have missed her, hugged her tight after dropping her off, kissed her on the forehead and said, "I love you so much."  She had a good  night.  She told us our fortunes with a homemade paper fortune teller.  You know those ones you made out of a sheet of paper back in 7th grade?  L is smart, sharp, been through a lot for someone so young, 13.  She's almost always happy, upbeat, and was today, but I see the teenager coming in slowly, brooding, sweet without knowing it, her mind and body still growing, her shiny smooth hair, her eyeliner and mascara perfectly applied.  She is pretty.  She wants to be a lawyer one day, and eventually a judge.  She will be, trust me.

Evening's events and today in general, costly.  Coffee shop visit with L turned into dinner, for her and me, bill was more than I thought, and a lot more than the $5 I had put aside to buy her hot chocolate and me coffee at Starbucks in The Village.  Had to buy Benadryl <-- I don't know how to spell Benadryl...and too tired to look it up.  Anyway, Benadryl ($19) , dinner ($22), food for my rabbits, my little skittles I call them lately, ($10), and I'm flat busted.  It's ridiculous, living on virtually no income.  I am literally impoverished, choosing Benadryl over food, and carrots over my livelihood for the next week.  It's impossible.  I'm in a dire situation.  But I have this sense of levity about it, because when you know you have almost $0, you feel liberated from the financial spectrum all together, and being so down and out and knowing there is nothing you can do about it,...why bother worrying?  It's well beyond worry.  It's out of my hands entirely (for now).  This state of nothingness is also liberating.  I do realize this sounds like I am removing myself from accountability as a holistic and valid discipline (part of being a 'grown up'), But that's not the situation here.  My hands are simply tied.  Cannot work until some paperwork comes through (waiting for about 9 weeks now), and quite honestly, I don't know if I have it in me to work right now.  I feel like I might shatter like glass at any given moment, so unhinged, alone, terrified lately.  The evenings are truly hard.  I have been feeling a sense of irrational certainty that I will die soon, like death is literally, for real, coming for me.  I feel like it's all going to just end.  I don't mean that I am wanting to kill myself hardcore 24/7...this sensation is outside of me, comes from a silhouette, the dark side of the moon, bad overused metaphors and that place just off my periphery...that is death coming.  It is already decided; that's how it feels.  Last time I was consistently feeling this way, this surreal pending doom, was just before the hospital back in May.  Maybe it will fade out soon.  That is possible.

Anyway, yes, the financial spectrum: I am living on welfare ($610 month, $400 of this goes for rent) and a few bucks here and there vis a vis a methodology of external generosity and my resounding shame...that ensures my survival in this short term situation.

So I am broke again.

This is a problem because I have to buy bunny litter b/c the little skittles pawned their litter for a new big screen tv and a whole bunch of other stuff they don't need, so many units and stereos and computers, everything with a remote control that is completely impossible to operate.

I seriously have to sleep now.

a quote before going...a poem by John Donne I read in between stacks of books in the high school library, grade 11, that hell, that poem in that book with worried thin paper.  I remember how the paper smelled, mossy, a patch of moss on a cloudy day around dusk somewhere in England perhaps, the scent of English paper. 

Blank paper has a scent.

(Tonight, my step-daughter let me smell her new perfume, on her upturned wrist.  And I sniffed that small space of skin.  I was simultaneously stricken by the complex swirls of scent, some flower, delicate, so much softer than a rose, a hybrid of an unknowable flower, a flower without a name, a hint of Samsura, and the faintest touch of a lily which is living off the heat of whatever flower it was that came first.  And that moment changed the whole dynamic of my relationship with that little girl I've known since she was four.  It just clicked into a new configuration; all the same parts realigned, Familiar but in flex, up-rooted.  The scent of rich black soil.  A tough root clenched in the hand, pulled from a place that was locked but is not now.  A balmy wind; that scent of autumn coming.  Autumn, not spring.  It's cooler than usual, more sleek, quieter).

Sleep deprivation loosens my prose.

That poem by John Donne, one of the metaphysical poets of his time.  I love this poetry stuff, in particular this poetry that focuses upon the subtle turns between mind and body. 

If ever I could get to the bottom of this, I would be healed.

( Title unknown )...I don't remember it.

As lines so loves oblique may well
themselves at every angle greet
but ours so truly parallel
though infinite shall never meet.

Therefore this love which us doth bind
but fate so enviously debars
is the conjunction of the mind
and opposition of the stars.

Those trapeze artists are still leaping, swinging, in my mind.  They are located in my mind, or maybe in my chest where the proverbial heart resides, but not in the heart itself.

Everything must necessarily be linked to a geography, however small that geography might be.  If it doesn't reside in a particular geography, however small, then that thing doesn't yet exist.  But there's nothing to say that one day it won't exist.  Everything eventually does.

I saw Dr. V today.  Felt invigorated right after the session, but plummeted so quickly afterward.

I'm hungry but feeling heavy these days.

My eyes are itchy from allergies, and I think I need glasses.

Must go to the dentist.

So, see eye doctor (paradox intended) and make that shameful dentist's appointment, shame for not having been in sooo long, and so prepare yourself for hygienist scrutiny and contempt of the plaque build-up on my teeth, and 'no, I do not floss regularly...'  I mean, I don't even cook, like, almost never.

Alison, do you really think I could publish these journals one day?  Thanks for saying that anyway...that was nice of you...I sort of have this dream of finishing my non-fiction collection (the subject matter of which is fully echoed in these blog entries, or maybe it's these journals that inspire sort of co-dependently the book).  And yeah, the dream is to then compile these journals together as a kind of appendix to the book.

Anyway...hope you are doing well...Really, seriously, I would love to see you sometime before a long time...

I'm back after a short departure, after another ducking-out of this cyberworld.

I miss the medium too much, feel compelled to write on walls and inside bathroom stalls, on metal, or on hard wooden surfaces, scratches across the skin, the wrists, chalk on sidewalks, paint on canvass.

Exacto knives and oil paint.  Paper cuts and charcoal.

Horror and bliss.

It's all right here.

It's all right here under the circus tent, the blue night sky. 

I have a trapeze painting in mind, a series of three, little white stick people flying through the air on a dark background, stick people swinging between fear and freedom, between despair and delight, stick people leaping across a universe of stellar collisions, blackness, sunlight, through rain, leaping and swinging high above an ocean, a garden, a sidewalk, a lake, a river.

It's just air.

Oh this holy mind.

Oh this holy heart.

In secret I really love myself.

Implicit in being a bright light is the snuffing of it out...

I will not be snuffed out anymore.

Will not be 'guilted' into sex or relationships or marriage anymore.

I miss love.

(Thanks Dr. V).

I believe I have been 'buffered.'  That is...o---k.

I get it.

But still, I'm turning down the volume, turning it down low.

But I do feel stupid, as stupid as that Valentine's Night back in 1993, when I was a kid really, and had a crush on Greg Meldrum, Centre for the Vike's Men's Varsity basketball team, and I secretly left for him that poem by E.E. Cummings along with the chocolate yellow rose...and he (and his really beautiful girlfriend) both snickered at me the next day in the dormitory cafeteria.

I am nothing if not passionate (or do I mean stupid?)  I suck the marrow out of life..and choke on the bone.

"What is there to do but this, to descant on the various properties of a bit of stone..." -A. Rodger. 

I read the above inscription while sitting cross-legged on my cot in the psyche ward, staring out at the three steel cranes gleaming in moonlight, feeling seized, crushed, by some force that I could not define or locate, lungs squeezed, felt like throwing up.  My wrists were stinging.

There is code, code for everything.

Language in itself is--code...code for what it can never fully mean.

(Where is The Artist formerly Known As Prince?)

I am buffered into oblivion.

I do understand though.  I get it, I get it.

But none the less, I am signing off, bugging out.  You will not see me, or hear from me...for a long long while.

I have given too much of myself away.

Yes, RVC, I have given my medicine away...and...what were you thinking?

This is me in retreat.

I am the Artist formerly known as Nothing.

It is not enough to erase me.  I need to have never existed.

And hey, I have also published extensively and won national writing awards...more than one. 

Here I go.  I'm leaving on a jet place don't know when I'll be back again...

And Maverick says, "Remaining migs are bugging out and going home..." (Yeehaw).

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Mailed off 4 copies of The Pavilion today.

So, it's been sent to:

The Walrus
AGNI Magazine (based out of Boston USA)
Event (even though they've never given me the time of day)
and sub-Terrain (who has often given me the time of day, hey, thanks you guys you're cool)

And sent some poetry to ARC.

Have about 4 submissions, other essays, pending, haven't yet heard back.

Have applied for the big grant; we'll see.  That grant, if they give me the grant, will change my life, will be able to move on into my own place, or to Montreal I that's the route I choose, could live comfortably focusing on writing for about 6 months (but I'd work too).

So, now that I lay it out this way, I guess I have a few things going right now.  Maybe something good will come of it.  Gotta try.

Now, at Serious Coffee in the Village, am procrastinating, but will in a moment begin work on the Basho integrated poems, for the CBC Lit deadline.  (gotta try, yeah, again).

Paper cut on corner of my mouth from yesterday has healed; the sting is gone.

Note to self, things to do, because I must retain good behavioural habit, along with (what did he say?), oh, Realistic thinking and Problem Solving.  I find the realistic thinking the most difficult, tend to amplify both ends of the spectrum, utterly idealistic and impossible self-expectations at one end, setting out accordingly...I actually believe I can do anything....then the plummet at the other end of the spectrum, when I cannot meet my own ridiculous standards, and so I fall and fall into that pit of pain, self-loathing, depression, and paralysis.

So yeah, things to do:

-Water the purple heather, tulips and those other flowers I can't remember the name of, the ones I planted along the side of the house, up from my door.

-Vacuum (borrow Ss vacuum)

-hang that fruit basket and the other basket

-fold the laundry I grabbed out of the drier and tossed on the bed this morning

-look up NYC Writing retreats etc, or Virginia Center for the Arts (contact George)

-eat something

-Indulge in my own precarious fantasies about the good doctor...but remember the neighbourhood.