5th Day

Christmas in the family went as well as can be expected. Spent too much time in church, ironing, mending, and drinking. Missed the Boy. Argued about Rosseau with D. Made death curry (apparently, zucchini soak up chili powder). Worried, then cried for a full $150 hour at my temporary analyst (she's really my Mum's. I just borrowed her. Apparently, she told Mum that I'm charming. Bah.). Boy came back, argued with the Boy, resented and felt overshadowed by his new Atari system, was told that "it's new and exciting. You're old and busted." then sulked because I just can't take a joke. Ha. Saw Doug when I was out with the Boy, chased him out of the bar and talked to him for a while. Purchased a scarlet silk satin halter dress to wear New Year's Eve.

I've also read about 20 crappy mystery novels since I got home.

All in all, a good break.

A Part

Home again. Parents well. Guest bedroom ghastly. Read Tristram Shandy straight through on the airplane, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 on the Boy's couch, Justine mostly on the Metro, Cathedrals (sadly) on the trip home from the bookstore. Want to write about Justine but need to perhaps read the other volumes.

It has been beautiful seeing the Boy, although I think I may have buggered things up beyond saving. After a couple near-perfect days, I chose to deal with a far too personal problem, curled up sobbing on his bathroom floor the night before he left to go home. He knows most of the bad bits of the backstory- I cannot keep my own secrets and I wanted him to know so he could leave me with no shame to himself. But there is a difference between knowing and seeing.

Everyone living has a body. Necessity, but not one I like. There are worse things than being told you are prettily embodied rather than brave or witty or generous, but I can think of few that are as immediately offputting to me.

But he kissed my neck and held me as I retched and pulled my fingers away from my mouth. He begged me to stop and told me that it wasn't my fault and put me in bed with a glass of water and a trashcan. He told me that of course I am more than beautiful, though he thinks I am that as well. He apologized for his compliment.

La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine

This is just like studying, right? Literature is literature.

And holy fuck, I've been rather bathos-tastic my last couple, haven't I? I'm fine for now, I have an appointment with a proper therapist in a week and a bit once I get home. Maybe I'll get Xanax! I am having worse panic attacks (and, oddly, agoraphobia. That isn't like me at all. I like the outside world much more than I like moping indoors), but I wish I were having problems that would result in uppers.

I went to Mass this morning. I should have stayed in bed. I couldn't concentrate on the glory of God and so managed to commit several sins (commission and omission) while at Divine Service. To wit:

• I didn't participate in the Shmoozing of Peace. I was feeling a bit antisocial, and it's not a custom with which I am comfortable. So I did the Half-Bow of Extreme Politeness at the elderly folk near me with a crazy "step the hell off, grandma" look in my eyes. And I thought bad thoughts about the senile old bird behind me who talked about her bowel problems throughout Mass. Sin of omission: love.
  
• I moped for a full twelve minutes because they did two of my favorite hymns. Except not, really. One they sang to its second setting, a bizarre early 20th cent. waltz thing unsingable by humans unless they are actually cyborgs partially constructed from player pianos, and the other was a spiritual that they attached to some whitebread travesty of a tune. So I hate their music director. And then I got angry at churches that ignore beauty and significance for modern, socially correct orders of the Mass: "Brothers and sisters, we pray for the environment, that people may respect it as a power greater than themselves [I don't even know what this means, but it sounds like idolatry. That and ascribing a personality to the environment.]." Sins: wrath, pride (music/ language snobbery?).
• I forgot money for the collection plate. Mostly I failed to get cash yesterday and woke up too late to think about tithing. On waking, I mostly thought about finding a cute blouse and getting out of the house in less than 7 minutes. Sins: greed, sloth, vanity.
• I wanted a cup of coffee, a cigarette, a fioricet, and a bagel so badly the entire time. Sin: gluttony.
• I was resentful of everyone who did not have to be awake. Sin: envy.
  
• I had a rather graphic sexual daydream. In the line to receive Communion. But at least it was about the Boy! Monogamous (if premarital), so not so bad, right? And then Paul Westerberg joined us in my fantasy and all of my rational was shot. Sins: lust, distractibility, poor timing.

This would be really depressing if it weren't so funny. So I may go to Hell, but at least I will remember my sins with a smirk as I am devoured eternally by the demons of the Pit. Time for Confession, even if I am uncomfortable with the thought of explaining to my priest why I spend so much more time listening to Station to Station and touching myself than praying, doing acts of charity, or working. But Bowie's voice-- and my neeeeeeds!

I really do need good music to concentrate on Mass. Shallow, but true. Short attention span and things.

I was dressed in black

Codeine and whisky. Not quite cocaine, but will have to do. Swallowing pills with a mouthful of liquor seems like what I've been missing- not love or inspiration or God but oblivion and the knowledge that I can just keep on doing it til it becomes a permanent state. I don't think I would, but it's a comfort.

These painkillers are amazing. I remember why I liked these things so much. (This means I should never do this again.) My backache, persistent migraine, and menstrual cramps are gone. As is my spatial sense. And the feeling in my extremities.

I think this is as close to perfection as you can get, in a sick way. Cigarettes in the shower, a tiny bit fucked up, mind swaddled in chemicals, screaming songs when you can remember lyrics, warm water pouring down your back.

Giving me the codeine/ fioricet double punch feels like my doctor wants me to develop some kind of addiction. I have 3 refills for each, too. Jesus.

And scornful Morpheus

Insomnia for the past week. Or more. Or less. I can't remember anymore.

It has gotten to the point where I can almost see, hear, smell the people who are not here. B. is in the bedroom that she slept in for less than a week, listening to Mozart and looking for pins. The Boy about to get into the shower- I could hear him open the bathroom door if it weren't for the water already running over me. My mother in the kitchen she has never seen and never been in, making tea. Jonathan Richman's voice not from my headphones but from the front entranceway. Raymond Carver and Eudora Welty trade off narrator's duties as I type even this. Their words are just on the next page of my book, the next screen I open. A. and M. are asleep, but when they were awake with me earlier I looked past them in an attempt to find the people I know are here.




In my dream this morning, dreamed when I wasn't fully asleep and I could tell that there was sun outside my windows, I was sitting on my Grandpa's old tartan couch in the green house he sold when he remarried. He was young in my dream, like my first memories of him. Before the Parkinsons when he was still himself, a cowboy, toothpick in the corner of his mouth and mud on his boots. Out to feed the cattle 4 times a week during the winter cursing and digging his truck out of the snow. Mending fence in the summer, barbed wire spooled out of a leather sack on his saddle, wire cutters through his belt. Teasing me because I was afraid of Ruby- c'mon girl, she ain't hardly 15 hands, smallest horse I ever owned, scared of a puny horse like that?

He was young, if mid-60s and healthy is young, but I was the age I am now, sitting there on his couch. We just sat there and talked. Made coffee, went down to the corner store (it closed 5 years ago) and got ice cream cones. I knew even as I slept that he was dead and there was no couch, no old green painted house, no corner store. I knew I missed him as I dreamed and we talked.

Now I feel like he's here too. Maybe having a cup of coffee and sneaking a cigarette (he quit really before I was born, but he'd still have one with his cousin at the cabin on a summer night before the cousin died- he died when I was 6 and I can't remember his name now) on the back porch. Maybe he is.

Quote of the Hour

I'll take a dull alive woman any day.
Captain Thorne Sherman

Checklist. Boring? Check.

• Write 1500 words about marriage in the readings for modern short story: Carver, Baldwin, O'Brien. Or Carver, Bambara, Paley. Just Carver?
  
• Study notes for Lit Landmines and MSS.
• Doctor's note from Dal.
• Talk to Lit t.a.
• Talk to academic advisor.
  
• Talk to the Boy, prepare birthday contingency plan. I don't want to turn 21 sitting alone at home and drinking.
• See L., N., S., G., etc. socially before heading home. Friends. Yes.
• Mail postcards.
• Get soymilk.
• Get shirts, spraypaint, exacto knives to make gifts.
• Learn how to freepour and mix a decent drink.
• Fix blouses.