(With apologies to David Markey.)
Lucinda Williams and Pema Chödrön are getting me from 2006 to 2007, which promises to be a better year.
I just wanna live the life I please.
I don’t want no enemies.I don’t want nothin’ if I have to fake it.
Never take nothin’ don’t belong to me.
Everything paid for. Nothin’ free.If I give my heart,
will you promise not to break it?
It looks like I’m buying a house. We’re aiming for a closing date of January 9, 2007. Keep your fingers crossed, please.
…the roots grow ten where we can’t see them.
–Rainer Maria1
I’m thankful for clarity, when it comes to me. The last few weeks have shown me that I really need to figure out what I’m doing with my life. I’m not unhappy, just…coasting. I’m working on being kinder to myself, on understanding that coasting is a perfectly reasonable place to be considering the events of the past year. I don’t want to coast through my whole life, though, waiting for good things to happen to me. I need a blueprint that keeps me on track, that guides my decisions about my personal life (family, friends, romance), my creative life (music, writing, and perhaps visual art), my health (mental and physical), my identity as a scholar and teacher.
I’m thankful for the smart, supportive friends I’ve found here in my new home.
I’m thankful for the resources to work these things out and for the optimism that tells me I’ll be able to.
I dreamed about torture.
I dreamed about deadlines.
I dreamed about moving to a new house (again).
I dreamed it was an old apartment.
No, it was the third floor of a mansion.
It was an enormous secret wing of my uncle’s house.
It was a treehouse.
I was sleeping in my car.
I dreamed I was in a band. I wasn’t prepared.
It was Bruce Springsteen’s band.
No, it was Cat Power.
It was my own band.
It wasn’t a band. It was a play.
It was Shakespeare.
It was Wilde.
It was Ibsen.
I wasn’t prepared.
I dreamed you didn’t come home last night.
I called you but there was no answer.
I dreamed I was awake all night, worrying.
At dawn I reached for the phone, which was covered in spaghetti sauce.
Then I remembered.
We’re not married any more. You don’t live here. You’re all right.
I’m all right.
Everything’s all right.
Everything’s all right.
Everything’s all right.
Dr. B. is working on coming out to her parents as a married woman with a boyfriend.
I’m working on coming out as girly. I mean, I like girls, but I’m kinda girly. In my experience, there are girls who like boys who find me attractive. There are boys who like boys who find me attractive. And there are also girls who like girls who find me attractive. The first category of people are the ones I’m most likely to be attracted to myself. The third category of attraction is the one I find most interesting. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough for me to notice. I have some girly qualities in my appearance and my behavior. I’m okay with that. My hair’s kind of long, I’m tall and thin, and my body language can be sort of feminine. I’m also over six feet tall, 175 pounds, and I have a relatively deep voice, usually. I know these things don’t sound at all like they go together, but somehow it all works reasonably well.