Normal document format. Here it is again. 3:30 am. Acid firing up the gullet. Night sounds and cold hovering just under my feet. Hum and ... mmmm... just hum ... Madonna.
Life is not a Victorian novel and this is not an expository essay. I don't use "man" to refer to "humans" and I do use the word "fuck" as often as I reasonably can. If only I could go back to Maryland and write those undergraduate papers over again. And not get A's. And then slam into the prof's office and demand an A anyway. If only I had told my poetry professor to lick my ass after he told me I needed to change my image. If only I had had the balls then that I'm still missing now.
I love to write. I love the challenge of writing. I love the challenge of taking a potentially boring topic and pulling its guts inside out until it drips red and sparkles. I love getting A's from teachers who'd rather not but just can't help themselves. I need to write. I need to show off. I need to be clever.
Why the hell am I doing taxes? Balance. And books. I love books and balance. Makes sense. But I love bugs, too. Bugs, Books, and Balance. The name of a new company? Bugs, Books & Balance. Maybe so. But only in San Francisco could that be the name of a bookkeeping service. Maybe not even in San Francisco. Bookkeeping consulting services for the numerically challenged. Don't know a debit from a credit? Think your checkbook is in balance if the difference is under $10? Would rather eat a pile of live worms than read the manual of your latest accounting software? Suffer no longer! Bugs, Books & Balance. Weird name. Great service. (Bug's books in balance)
In Balance
Bookkeeping consulting services for those who are just a little off.
I could do your books and play meditation tapes while you stroll through my insect museum. I could get one of those Japanese fountains.
And when I'm not balancing other peoples' books I could be writing them myself.
How about massage while you wait? Yeah, that's it. Rugs and bugs. Rugs with bugs. Bugs on rugs. Cozy as a bug in a rug.
This current method of working is NOT working! I've got to be with people. I've got to be REAL with people.
If I could have people come to ME that would be the best. And bring: bank statements, checkbooks, invoices, data file on diskette, etc. Send them a checklist of items to bring with them as well as an engagement letter that is a bit lighter in tone than the standard form letter.
Pen and ink. What if words were a web? Written on the back of a green-eyed dung beetle with blue wings. Not just written but balanced on the back of a green -eyed dung beetle with blue wings. The books of the world. The woman sewn into the book balanced on the back of a green-eyed dung beetle with blue wings. Actually, she's ripping herself out. The threads are breaking and she's got her own pen and she's begun to write herself in a completely different color and shape. The beetle is her familiar I suppose. A feather pen? A peacock feather pen?
The ice was breaking in the movie and pieces of people across my lips... I mean desk... I mean the window had blown open and sprayed bits of dust like fiberglass through your hair... Be careful... I could cut your hand on my face....
I cannot tell you... it's too hard to do it with words because words are limits... words make things big. Words are like lines... they're like crosswalks... they're like rules and rulers... words are like numbers... I mean numerals... or notes. Words tell you this not that. They whisper beside you... whack weeds... bridge gaps... narrowly. Arundhati Roy wrote The God of Small Things because she couldn't bring herself to use a sieve with bigger holes. And still there are things, tiny fluttering wings just there in the corners... see them? And others just there even smaller... and look...
(this is the silence that follows the looking... white... inevitable...)
See for yourself how many pieces were missed just then in that word, "silence."
What do I mean? Well, here would be an interesting study: Can you find any word in the dictionary that has only one possible definition? Can you find one word that is so specific it has no synonym... no sidekick... no other?
I can't. Perhaps if I were Muslim....
But even the Ayatollah could not draw a point, as any elementary geometrist would point out. Only a symbol. Only a symbol? My point: That symbol, written or not, contains the Universe.
Every word is just too damned big! (*)
And yet... and yet... the human brain is a big thing and not made to fit through the sieve I have in mind. (Which I don't actually have in my mind, but merely the idea of a sieve which is not much more than a symbol in itself, ¿no?)
* Exclamation point added for ironic purposes only. Any other meaning ascribed thereto must be understood as the sole property of it's owner. Consider the possibilities...
Okay. Fine. Clever. Still... these knives... no... stones... sharp, in my gut. Hard, gray dread... chipped... red cell... rib. keep on. bone. temple. brow. tooth. shake. hold. token. tone.
It's too hard! God, it's so hard! There must be a way around it, but I can't see! I push. I need a language. I need words to be water. I can't wait! If tears could wash the pages in patterns you would know. It's you, isn't it? It's always been you. Get the fuck away from me. It's my language. But it's yours. It's your language but it's theirs. It's not about tears at all and yet it's all about tears. It's this rhythm thing that feels like waiting on a bus or in line or in church. Oh please. Put your hands on my torn knees and find scarves... or birds... put your hand on my head with or without olive oil... I've never been seen...
Maybe Roy is right. Maybe a story ...
There were toucans in the red shack that had been built against the fence holding in the german shepherds. No, not toucans. Girls. Well, there was one girl. She had bangs and pale pink polyester shorts and she wanted to make curtains for the club house. We think it was because she was afraid to jump off the cherry tree onto the rope swing. The rest were boys in red shorts. They had bare chests and smelled like sour apples. She hid under the house when they were there.
She also would hide in the coat closet at church. And that's as far as I'm going with this tonight. Fuck it. I can't explain.
"I hope you can balance these books" was what she said before unloading her suitcase of papers, like laundry, the remains of a bad trip, at my feet -- bare feet, butterfly tattooed. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, reconciling the feet with the job, hesitated back up the length of my jeans, and rested, somewhat relieved, on the bridge of my bespectacled nose. I assured her I could.
I don't like this beginning. It's forced.
When do I ever write anything that doesn't sound forced or wrong?
I'm tired. That's what the problem is.
I don't notice anything so I have nothing to write about.
Okay, so do what you tell Ruby to do.. Free write and see what happens.
His shadow stretched across the floor like a long ache. It was pain that wasn't mine. How to handle pain that I can't feel. Okay, when someone tells me a story like that it's like watching -- anesthetized -- while a doctor slices open my belly and removes my liver. I see what's happening but don't feel it. It's as if they're doing it to someone else.
That's what all this is like. Like this life is happening to someone else.
See, that's why it doesn't really matter what I do, because it's not really me doing it at all. And yet, I have this strong sense that it should matter and that I should feel that it's me. It's like whatever force keeps you from driving into the concrete divider when your friends allow you to drive home drunk and completely stoned so that the road feels like a dream and any minute you will wake up. What is it that somehow tells your hands not to turn that wheel too sharply because this isn't a dream, as ethereal as it may all feel? Is it simply desire? Desire for this world to be as real as they claim it is?
So I went over to M's house and sat on his bedroom floor with him and drank scotch and smoked Marlboros and watched him cry. And listened to his poetry and watched him cry some more. I put my hand on his leg and on his back for a second but felt like an actor in a play so withdrew after an appropriate length of time. I cannot feel anything right now. I cannot feel.
Okay, this is so hard because I am TIRED. I have been watching movies for days and staying up all night. And other peoples' pain is other peoples' pain. My pain does not exist so why should theirs? I'm free-writing. Give me a damn break. I lie when I write like this. Most of what I write is a lie. It is also the absolute truth.
I have a headache.
Well, I'm up all night again. Can't go to bed. Repulsed. Afraid of the lock down. Dad stays up all night too. Stays up all night on the computer like me. But something else about it. Like prison. My side of the bed is against the wall. I hate it. I tried switching with Ruby but couldn't get comfortable -- it was like Reverse Skate -- like how I imagine driving will be in England. So I stay up all night and fry my brain on the internet and then try to write and all that comes out is scribble because I'm too tired to think clearly. BUT when I am awake enough to think, my dreaded insecurity is in full force and my writing hand becomes PARALYZED!
All I do is whine whine whine. I'm not trying to be creative right now. I think this has to be like a real journal where I get to vent and say whatever I feel and not care if anyone will ever read this or not. And yet all the while I write this I am imagining what you will think when you read it. Who you are I do not know and don't really care. All that matters is that you exist -- every moment of my life -- and watch me constantly and comment on my every action, word, thought, emotion.
Why do you care about what I do? What is so important about the life of one American white girl born in January of 1965? It's important because I need it to be. You exist because I need you desperately. To validate and approve of me. Because if God does not exist then SOMETHING must take His place! Maybe you are God. But I don't think so. Because if you were, I think you'd be a little more compassionate. You'd give me some comfort every once in a while. That's what God, or Jesus, is supposed to do, right? That's why steadfast Christian women hold their Bibles to their bosoms in times of crisis and duress, right?
What will happen when I get this tattoo on my ass? I'm a little afraid. I'm not sure if it's sacrilegious or not. Can a woman be ripping herself out of a Bible and rewriting the pages into the shape of a butterfly without being a heretic? Can I have Biblical passages permanently falling down my ass without fear of exile at the gates of Heaven? I don't think I have evil intentions. I really don't. I'm trying. But you can see just how fucked up I am, right? This is the proof. This is all the critics will need. Read my stories. Then read my journal and see what a sick mind it takes to write such filth. She really was demented after all. After the fall.
Crisp cloven dollar bill spill
purse pocket
great goins and gloams
hatred
hat
purloin and purvey
quaint
hatted scene
I need so many things, but most of all I need to write something GOOD and be PUBLISHED before I die. That is my mission. I know it is because it has ALWAYS been my mission. I need a game plan.
Okay, if I do nothing else I will write every day. AND not just at 4:30 in the morning when I am so tired I cannot think clearly. I mean it. I must do this or my life will have been a waste. Whatever. It's true. You don't understand. I knew you wouldn't. Well fuck you anyway. You don't really exist except in my own head, damnit! No one is ever going to read this except you AND you are really ME! See? And if I read this years later, I hope it will be from a place of contentment and not from a place of further and further procrastination and FEAR!
Well, I'm wrapping up my business. Sorting the remaining pieces of my shrinking empire. Still, people call me for bookkeeping work. I could jump out of my skin. I feel nauseous most days. Actually, you know what? Most days I feel like I did when I was seventeen years old and pregnant. When I was trapped in Delaware with yelling PopPop and Period-Checking MomMom. I don't believe I have felt stable since I was seventeen. Oh, there were moments when I was married to Don. Moments with Ruth and moments with Ruby. But for the most part, I think I have felt like I could tip off the edge of the earth ever since I broke with my parents and the Mormon Church.
The Church is in me. It haunts me. It seduces me in my dreams and accuses me awake.
I'm too tired to write anything else or explore this further, but I will come back to it again and again. Trust me.