august 2017











meteorological fall?









thursday august 31


distant memories fade like suns
becoming only a beautiful thing
as el segundo morphs into the sublime smells of only morning
and jet fuel;
which dance in my mind
like an orange glow
on the horizon
at 5am
in 2017



what a bizarre thing, that i am now the person with distant memories
of which she knows nothing













wednesday august 30


damaged men surround me;
    are they the more vulnerable ones
        are they the broken ones;
            are they the ones that got away...





 









 no never on a sunday
august 27


i often think about brene brown
her TED talk was incredible
because it tells about her lifelong struggle to know what so many of us already know
then she can feed it back
as though we never knew it
as though people like her haven't been our nemesis
as if she's smarter for learning it
as if she isn't part of the problem


it's like humans are in some kind of 'stupid' vortex;
throwing away universal truths
then selling them back to us


will we never truly move forward
the meming of life says no










saturday mbti day
august 26


he asks me to write about how cozy he is in my bed

i will write about MBTI instead.

the Bitch Gene.


everything is a journey, learning data-points and applying them forward,
from careers to marriage, from friends to countries, to children.
mbti is a journey i've taken, with only conclusions in mind, in a black and white mind.
this journey nears its end with the knowledge that M-B were not well educated.
coincidence, i'm not sure, really.
but after tweezing out her kindness from the other parts of her
and pondering all kinds of cognitive dissonances,
the facts remain empirically, that she is kinder than them,
that she has unlimited ability for forgiveness, for learning, for growing,
and such is her path, and i get to watch it, influence it, and stand up for it.
in the very end, our interrupted kindness is created by a cruel world,
and we do what we can to survive it.
are we missing the bitch gene, she and i? is that why we anticipate only kindness in return?
is that why we assume you care? assume you are kind? assume you want to connect with us?
oh what i would give to be a data point in brene brown's research
just to fuck it all up and squeue the results; guess what lady, there ARE people without malice
there are people who are willing to be 100% vulnerable and are not ashamed
there actually are a few humans, like me and her, who are raw human.

or are we just missing the bitch gene?




















monday monday
august 21


i feel partially eclipsed
sleep which hits me like a bag of hammers
is not sleep at all
and i remain
a partial human

perhaps what is too good to be true really is
too good to be true.
















sunday august 20

we serendipitously ended up in a sea of people;
this is something we otherwise would not have done;
two hours early and with chairs to boot
we waited and were not disappointed.
with the child over the fence
it was almost a perfect night
 










friday august 18

personalities are hard to change
eyeglasses are uncomfortable
and we usually live until fridays are not exciting anymore

the madman emerges and insists it was a great summer
for the children


and then some tears come from down the hallway
they speak of children and Barcelona and Lilo
they provide a human respite from all of insanity
if fleeting

this old body slept
remembers
you.



















 tuesday august 15

these mid-august days used to be my favorite
until mid-life
mid afternoon
mid evening
mid Manhattan
but i made it thru the day
at 5:10pm
with ENTPs on the left
and rue on the right
with a wet dog
a sick man
and well
i'm still standing

 








rage against the machine







sunday, august 13

the days run into one another
this time, in mid august;
he asked me to write something
he won't be glad
he asked

because i'm
hellishly waiting for his return
looking for answers where there are most certainly none,
expecting an outcome from a crazy place
expecting control where there is none
and not feeling the love
at all

if you think insanity can be met face-to-face with love
you are mistaken
if you think sanity can prevail
if you think i am bigger than this
you are seeing me through the wrong looking glass
oh yes
that's right
you are.















saturday, august 12

i decided i saved rue.
you're welcome.















friday, august 11

i have made lists
my lists are made
there are a list of facts
a list of questions which are not answerable by yes or no
and a list of demands
there is a list of unacceptable behaviors in an Ombudsman's office;
a list of books to read;
and a list of what happens now
all to remain unanswered
but all written down
to make them real
to justify them
to cross them off
to close my brain
like a To Do list
for my sanity

cause we all gotta manage it
somehow.












thursday, august 10

it's a step or two forward for my brain as well, as this early morning affords me moments of respite from both of ours.
eyeglasses are missing, sadly, otherwise, at 9AM mostly all would be in order

rue has disappeared; alex is a constant NT; maurice is always online; karen is busy; a sleeping child, a missed facetime call (thank God) and a voicemail from parents in nova scotia, these are the social interactions i have, and luckily i woke from that dream.

i'm still walking the hallway daily in search of money,
still filling my calendar with empty appointments,
still picking up socks,
and still kicking around dust in my brain


alt-tab
alt-tab
alt-tab



















monday, august 7

perhaps the interrupted person is me, building my art, in my spare time, with iron
on monday again, the children shout in the park, they cough in the bedroom, they sleep in the living room,
the colors are all gone from this house

rue is gone; my friends are gone; you leave them alone and they all go home;
more coughing from the blue room; she appears as the cage lid crashes down
i hear a bubbling noise
hide the meds
her steps creak in the hall

without sleep
i am nothing
but a place to stick his dick
















friday, august 4

imagine having endless space to write and endless things to say with no time to write it

there are books inside this brain; waiting to come out; interrupted by an INTP and other things

books about what binds us; what i know i know; and what i wish everyone understood

i'm not thinking about rituals anymore because some rituals are not binding

could talk of psychiatry: art:

or of love.


or how they are all intertwined










 wednesday, august 2

in spite of it all, i managed to pen a cheque and leave it in the vestibule.
on time.
i woke with a smaller body in the bed, at least not a two-body problem,
whose downtrodden face and body had me thinking about rituals,
in particular the ones which we pass on.
in my day, rituals were not a summer thing, they were interspersed through daily life,
from sunday mass to dinner at 6. in 2017, the rituals that we pass on are summer ones,
from the quiet beach at cap st Jacques, to the crowds of the just for laughs,
from a lemonade stand with 96 squeezed lemons, to the shiny Adidas store or H&M,
from shakespeare in the park, to Laser Quest, Six flags, water parks,
 these are the rituals of our summers.
    these are the elements of sanity and insanity which we cling to
        particularly when sanity leaves us
                                    temporarily.




















tuesday, august 1

long-term effects of chewing the insides of my mouth are not yet enough to make me stop
sniffly nose comes with moderate pollen levels and teenagers come in taxis
it's hard not to define our lives by what's going on in his;
and it's hard not to stop my life in an attempt to fix his;
but in fact we are parallel; not quantum,
classical, not optimal,
and although separately, we write books,
one is neurotypical
and one is not.