she wants what she cannot have

I should absolutely, ABSOLUTELY not be here right now, but that's when I want it the most. I can't help it - maybe that's why I couldn't write all summer, because the keys were so clearly there and my time was so wide open to caress them. Anyway, my psyche is all to complex for the few seconds I can afford between a folder of poetry I need to workshop before one o'clock and the other half-page response I owe to Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. It's the third book for my 19th century lit class and I've all but made up my mind that I'm not a fan. I wasn't a fan of calculus either, but I had to stomach the course to get my diploma. Such is life, I guess.

Speaking of which, [life that is] it continues to move forward. I've inquired about several apartments in the new -ville and I'm looking forward to the end of my other lease. The hour commute to school is wretched with the fuel whores being hungry for more and more and more. And my puppy has all but forgotten that she has a human mommy. I stop in between demands and she has torn the cushions from my antique sofa. I situate them again in their precise order and before I have left [again], she has made her rebellion noticed. With them spread across the living room floor, she perches herself proudly on the now barren lining. She's ready to move, too. The distance is not good for her nerves.

I'd love to scrawl more, but I really have to finish these assignments. More later. More later.

no matter what I do

Summer, like Recession, settled in before we claimed it and before we expected June's sticky slop-for-air. The pristine mornings already are robbed of fresh infancy by humid fog and blinding brightness.

Creek banks are rotting in the sweet stink of rained berries that I've never noticed in all of three years. How they have hidden for so long is my newest quandary. They bleed between my sandaled toes, turning the pink skin deep purple and refusing to wash away. The grass is littered with them, unavoidable in my a.m. and p.m. promenades. I have quickly grown to hate them and the fruit flies they summon in herds. At night, there is a fortunate breeze that will linger only for a while, until the wavy, squiggled mirages of August's Hell settle. Limbs thick with fringe rustle in air not yet still, above the flaming, flickering bulbs of fireflies.

I've walked among these reoccurring scenes for weeks now as my beginnings and ends have become marked with the reliable biology of my dog's need to empty. Only this night I noticed the trees and the hum of early June and the sad, lonely seduction of myself. The warm change of season brings me here where without reason, I withdraw. Every year, slightly askew from the last in its nature, leading me not quite into the depths of Darkness, but to walk on the hems of her skirts. I could bore us both with years of analysis, but I won't. Instead, I'll only say that it comes uninvited with a restless itch.

I've staved off the temptation to succumb, thus far, with a distracted dialog, an open conversation that I imagine to have with him. I comment on the day's doldrums and anticipate the way he would laugh or tease me. I relive and re-relive the archived moments stowed away and rationed in times like this, so the hours keep steady, not losing any momentum. There is something to look toward in them passing as my life might seem to have otherwise settled in 9-to-5, flat monotony.

On the patio of that coffee bar where earlier I sat to scribble empty lines, deep, throaty Blues wafted from speakers over-head. Maybe it's the heavy heat, the weeks having denied us the luxury of communication, rotting-fruit-stench, or a glitch in my psyche that has caused my low spirit. No matter the root, I am lonesome tonight. I am the aching pluck of guitar strings and the brooding ballads birthed in The Delta.

the result of violence and deprivation

I did something I probably shouldn't have last night. I couldn't have foreseen the reaction, in the way that one who doesn't bother reading the warning labels on cleaning products naively mixes the ones that ignite. It's been 5 solid days since I heard his voice, and even then I was alloted a brief bullet-pointed delivery of the day's recap before he had to run. Really, it's been about a week since we've connected in a meaningful, verbal manner. I am apparently a bit needy, and so the apart-ness is hard.

I spent the night curled up on my sofa with Macbeth, gnawing a Nylabone at my feet. We aimed to watch a movie in order to entertain ourselves and enjoy the leisurely evening. I was caught up in the riveting plot. I was on the edge of my seat, rooting for the "good guys" when the bus exploded - blew out the windows, killed off the innocent characters the audience was lured into loving, marked a gain for the fanatical terrorists. I paused the movie. I needed a minute.

I miss him, and I wish the world wasn't such a scary place both in fiction and in reality.

The other stuff.

A lot of what I've written lately has revolved around matters of the heart. I'm sorry, it's distracting. You've all [hopefully] been there...[more than] smitten. The following is an update of life in addition to my amorous chronicles:

Mom has already spilled the beans regarding Christmas gifts. This year I'll be getting a queen size mattress that doesn't sag or fall through Dad's homemade platform bed frame, and my grandmother's 1920-something engagement setting adorned with an antique [conflict-free] diamond solitaire.

WAIT!

Before you jump to conclusions [and I know that if you know me, you are], it is not being passed on as an heirloom symbol of engagement. I already promised to exclude any reference to romance, so breathe and calm your racing pulses! It's just beautiful and it was given to me a few years ago by an aunt [sans rock]. It's very, very, [very] small...maybe 1/8th of a carat? But it's size is to be expected. It was purchased in an[other] era of war and somewhere around the beginning of depression...so it's sweet and sentimental and I'm really excited to finally have it once again intact.

Speaking of the infamous fam, Mom will be kindly serving my unknowing father with divorce papers next week. She just wanted me to have a "heads-up"...I was really more inclined to be heads down, over the toilet, sick with upset. No matter, it's coming [can you hear the rumble of impending discourse?]. If possible, I'll attempt to brace myself for the onslaught. Part of that plan includes sitting out on Thanksgiving. I'm staying planted for one of the two dreaded holidays. The [not so] Future Californian has expressed possible interest in spending it with me in rebellion, and The Staff Sergeant might possibly be game, and Mom claims that she might make the drive to Nashville, and maybe a cousin...I just want to lose myself in the preparation of a bird and cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce [even if I spend it alone].

In other news...I love the new[ish] job. Love, love love it! I love the people and the atmosphere, and today I fell in love with a china pattern, or rather, a mix of 3:

Richard Ginori, "Duchessa Gold"
Royal Crown Derby (accent plate only), "Indian Summer"
Haviland, "Laque de Chine Gold" (charger only), in "brick"

Again, WAIT! I haven't "picked out china"! Breathe, my friends. I will gladly accept these items in accordance with any/all upcoming occasions for gift-giving [Christmas, my birthday, just because you like me, etc.].

Now that you've gotten your BPM's down to a level of normalcy, I think Macbeth and I have kicked the flea infestation. I've become a domestic, baking machine [again] and I LOVE it [again]! I've also sworn off sweets, alcohol, and eating out while The Staff Sergeant is out of town in an effort to drop a few pounds [so my jeans fit]. I needed a project to focus on, and today marks the second of my 30-day gym commitment. No, the sudden cool-down is not a result of Hell freezing over, so don't ask or comment.

That's a fairly conclusive and loveless update on my life as I know it. I'm sure next week's earth-shaking debut of legal papers will prompt some interesting words. Until then, I may post again about missing my soldier.

I love it when I'm right. I hate it when I'm right.

Sleep cannot be fitful when it is unachievable. Sleep is, in fact, impossible when the demon-possessed canine whines and cries and when left with no satisfactory response from the human, BARKS [and barks and barks, and it's 11:45pm, but she doesn't care, and she barks]. She is quarantined in her crate at the foot of the bed because of an unfortunate infestation [of fleas]. I will not share the sheets with little nasties and she's pissed. She is irate with her imprisonment, and I am so mind-numbingly tired.

shut-up. shut-up. SHUT UP!

And she barks.

Sunrise is a beautiful phenomenon - the birth of a new day, boundless opportunities, a bounty for the seizing announcing it's debut with jazz-hands and a burst of glowing glory. This said, we are not well acquainted until this week, and it's as though I've reconnected with a distant relative. You know, obligatory familial adoration and the like? Three days later [in a row], and the warmth of camaraderie has shifted a bit to that of friction. We have a shaky love/hate connection. By last night I was hopeful to give our interaction a break. Without veering forth into another pocket of circumstances all together, it became very clear that despite my preferences, the alarms would again sound in the pre-dawn darkness of another day.

Back to my silent seething anger as I lay still, praying to the Gods of Sleep that my thirty-pound, lurid spawn of evil will soon surrender to slumber herself, but she is stubborn. There is apparently no chance she will assume I don't care or can't hear her. She's a persistent little creature and she's testing my patience. I have to be up before the sun to manage a situation, and beyond myself in a bedroom teaming with the echoes of raging protests, I'm pretty sure my neighbors [and roommate] hate us both.

I love the way it feels to reach the noon mark and have mastered a day's worth of living. I love the peaceful beauty as the sorbet sky melts into blue. I hate the way my eyes burn by 3pm and afternoon errands behind the wheel become risky business and good business for the dealers of caffeine. I especially detest the passionate yearning that overtakes my heavy limbs around 10pm to crawl into bed and conclude the day. I'm too young to give up the midnight breach, but such is life. And she barks.

I'm nearing the brink of sanity. My mind is desperate for a solid recharging. She hates her cage. Solitary confinement is more than likely challenging her mental capacity. She's merely making audible the screaming cries of frustration that I contain inside, and I cannot reason with a dog. She doesn't care or understand that I want the wash of sleep to blanket me like asphyxiating lungs beg for air. I concede. She has no principles on which she has based this duel, she just wants free reign at any cost. This isn't a show-down of wit or smarts, so I bow out.

She sleeps in the living room, liberated. The barking ceases. I fall away from consciousness...until the alarms wail.

And they do, before daybreak.

Getting back on track...

Labor Day weekend:

The stowaway

Tuesday:

Good morning, Nashville.

Story Time

Macbeth and I enjoy one last lazy afternoon of summer before classes resume on Wednesday.