Tuesday, December 11, 2012

I love you just the way you are

The rabbi always says you can't change the world until you accept things just the way they are. I think that applies to myself as well. I am always fighting against myself. Dr. L says change the negatives to positives. Make the foibles things you love about your self...

I love that I'm terrified to take responsibility
I love that every new assignment scares the shit out of me
I love that I think I will suck at every new thing I try
I love that I watch tv and smoke pot during all of my free time
I love that I make most of my time free time
I love that I haven't worked to improve my skills since the last job ended
I love that I barely do any writing and then I lament that writing doesn't come easy
I love that I revert to the excuse that I didn't study writing or filmmaking in college
I love that I've realized that I didn't do or learn much at all in college
I still love that I graduated summa cum laude
I love that I love doing nothing most of the time


Monday, December 3, 2012

Happy Birthday

"I'm coming out west for my birthday," he tells me, that beautiful hunk of man I crushed on for a decade. A boy to me, though he's about to be 42. We were intimate friends for years who'd only met a handful of times.  He's tall and broad and tasty.

He's going to Vegas for his birthday and I snigger silently. The boys, they love the gambling and the whores. He's going with the guys. Even though he's married now and has a big-eyed jug eared kid.

He tells me again the next time we mail. "Did I tell you I'm coming out west." Asks me how long it took me to get there when I went to meet up with the gals. "Too long," I reply. It's nearly 300 miles.  I still don't get it. "I guess I won't be seeing you," he finally writes. Oh jeez. Is that what you meant?

What did he mean? I have faith he's a faithful  husband but I let my mind go there for just a second. I haven't thought about his big chocolate-colored muscly frame in years but for an instant I think about sliding under the sheet beside him. He's soft now too but I feel only the weight of my belly sinking toward the center of earth, heavier than the room, and I can't stay in that place.

Turning 60. Hitting 60. Banging hard on 60.  Really just sets it in stone. I've been over the hill for so long I can't even remember what's behind me. My belly, empty of babies, shy of men, full of shit and fear.


The sound of one wing flapping

Awakened this morning by the sound of something banging against my house. This is the third time this week.  At least I wasn't in a deep dream this time.  It's 7:30 in the morning, golden sun creeping over the ridge across the way looks beautiful through a crack in my purple crushed velvet drapes, but it's too early for me to be out of bed.

I wonder if it's the little girls from across the alley playing basketball but it's 7:30 on a Wednesday morning. Why would they be out there? One time in a driving rainstorm the girls were playing in the alley, using wheeled vehicles like trikes or carts with steering wheels. They banged into the garage door over an over again.  I just smiled indulgently. Didn't want to be like the the neighbors who berate them and fight with their parents. Those two are sweet to me and I love them from afar.  Anyway the girls are so much older now. I don't even know which is which and forgot their names long ago.



I decide it was the birds (it wasn't). Tap tap tapping. Not the same as banging. The birds on the skylight, sometimes thwap thwap thwapping. The gulls with their webbed feet. I thought it was a break-in the first time it woke me. Birds on the skylight or wind in the vertical blinds. I grabbed my grandma's scissors and called the neighborhood watch. Police cars jammed the lane and me in my nighty. Just an ankle long t-shirt, so unforgiving. With all the cops there and me clutching the shears, I thought of my fat and the spectacle I was.