one fluid gesture, like stepping back in time; trapped in amber, i'm paralyzed...

okay. lets have a talk. let's hunker down (i've always loved that word) at the table and have a sleeves-rolled halfway, tie-askew, glass-jar-full-of-sharpened-pencils to-go-along-with-the-yellow-lined-legal-pads-of-paper, "jeannie, hold all my calls--it's gonna be a long night" talk. call me a cynic. go ahead...i'll wait. okay, there is a REASON why the romantic movies are engineered the way they are. the audience gets a washroom attendant's view of the protagonist aaaaaaaaaaaaagonizing over his or her lost love. we get to see the soul-searching, questioning, rationalizing, second guessing, finally having an epiphany, then heading for his beloved at breakneck speed. sidenote: why are these montages always set to the tune of bands like snow patrol and sheryl-fucking-crow? my pain always feels like a tom waits set after he has been touring for six months and living on a diet of cigarettes, bourbon, grey flannel, and nostalgia...

...but i digress.

once our protagonist reaches his destination, seemingly not able to spot his love until she is RIGHT in front of him, he stands breathlessly, and delivers what will no doubt be the impassioned speech that is equal parts "i know i was an idiot, but..." and "you have no reason to trust me..." and "but we can't deny this feeling inside...", mixed with a pinch of self-effacement and breath-holding hope. of COURSE the intended has a moment of hesitation...perhaps we even have to wait an entire scene's length before she hilariously declares, "i love you too, you idiot!" (insert sigh, tear-wipe, and head-shaking-"it's so true!"-giggle here)

aaaaaaaaaaaand...credits. we don't get to see what happens later. we don't get to see the argument about his farting in bed. we aren't privy to his reaction the first time she calls him "just like his father". and there is no way we'll be witness to the first time he can't get an erection because he's been fantasizing about the barista at starbuck's and is CONVINCED that she found out somehow. such a movie wouldn't sell, of course, because we all neeeeeeed to believe that just the epiphany is enough. it isn't, and this is why i always feel so...so...deflated after a romantic movie. i know that the wry smile and turn of phrase are not enough to sustain a carbonated heart. i am painfully aware of the fact that loving "what's inside" isn't enough either if one grows to find the exterior repugnant.

however...

the palimpsest left behind by a story left unfinished 10 years ago has sneaked up behind me, slipped the mask over my nose and mouth, and sent me ether-tumbling backwards into an age when daisies could dictate romantic success based on an odd or even number of petals. the montage is "heartbeats" by jose gonzalez, "transatlantique" by beirut, "run" by hal hartley...look it up.

today's word of the day is peregrinations, for reasons obvious to some.

we are, we are, we are mature children, finding our way around indecision...

for you. you know who you are

a train. punctuated by cold and bookended by the howl of a train. i watched the reflection of the engine's smoke filter across your irises. they were dark, almost black. i wanted to believe that the smoke was actually drifting in your eyes. the gauze shifts as you look from train to sky, and the grey becomes black. punctuated by the cold, between the howls of the train, we have the opportunity that silence provides. the vibrating ground chatters up through our feet. the things i could reach, the touchable world projected on your eyes, miniaturized, controlled, not through them, like the cliche says. it doesn't keep me any warmer than your shirt does. cold tongues lap down the too-big neck of it, and i wish you'd finish your cigarette. i know it's a prop, but we have no dialogue, and i'm cold. i want you to run your fingers through your hair in an act of shy discomfort, or else through mine in one of gentle romanticism.

you transfer your cigarette and put your cold hand in your pocket.

again, the howl of a train and no words.
i remember now...you want to talk big talks with good intentions about serious things. inhale.
exhale.
blink.
the tiny world on your eyes changes from blue-white light to red pulses as you look from streetlight to neon sign. inhale. pause.
you turn and exhale, and my reflection is bathed in a pale, blue-black veil. even though it rained today, the ground is dry. leaves that have long since forfeited their green and bled into yellow and brown sound like tap shoes, and i'm reminded of the music i heard in my head when you used to kiss me. they spiral, twisting faster, upwards, away, and i lose them in the black, blinded, instead by a lamppost i'm positive i can hear. when i look back to your face, only the dark remains.
inhale.
cold.
the howl of the train and the sandpaper of the leaves. inhale. exhale. the rhythm of machinery. the cigarette. your eyes. i want to go inside. i'm willing you, silently, counting the stripes in your shirt. green. say something. brown. say something. black. say something. white. please say something. by the time i get to your collar, the wind licks me again. shiver. a long neck, scattering of freckles. brown hair. warm eyes. shiver. your eyes narrow and the tiny world is destroyed as you cough.
"i wish i had an explanation." and your smell--soap, tobacco, my imagination. arms. a warm hand braces the back of my neck. gone. my reflection is blinked, blurred, cleared, and replaced. instead, your eyes reflect the street, the stoplight at the end, and the sign entrance that will become the stairs, the stairs that will become the subway, and the subway that will become the train that will take that tiny world away from me forever.

i could sleep, i could sleep when i lived alone; is there a ghost in my house?

self-diagnosed ocd strikes again. i lovingly call it "selective ocd" because it only chooses to manifest itself in the oddest of ways (as if there's ANY other way. duh!)
for example:
...while jogging, any cracks, bumps, or lines in the sidewalk that i may hit have to be hit with my right foot...ONLY! also while jogging, any live worms must be "rescued" and put back in the grass.

...it takes me an hour to braid my hair before bed (i cannot stand sleeping with any strands touching my face. you probably could have seen that one coming) because if there is even one lump, i need to unravel and do it again.

...all of the dictionaries in my classroom need to be facing the same way.

...when drinking anything with ice in it, i need to swirl the glass clockwise exactly seven times...you know, for perfect mixing purposes.

...i cannot say "goodbye" first...to the point that a phone conversation will go something like this: "so, call me when you have time." "okay, i'll do that." "great." "i guess i'll talk to you then." "okay." "great." "yeah." "talk to you later." "sure, great!" "good." "okay." "okay." "i'll call you." "okay." "good." ...infinitely. no wonder nobody calls me more than once.

the latest, however, has to do with the cats, ah, the cats. my two, gorgeous, mini-space heaters, my ambient-noise-purr-providers, so much do i love thee. both breeds were listed as "domestic short hair" when i rescued them individually from the shelter. boy, did i get duped. i think "domestic long hair", or even "domestic rapunzel-envy" might be more suitable, if only because "pre-kid's breath dandelion fluff" doesn't qualify as a breed. no kidding. my new daily ritual consists of waking up, closing my eyes and fishing for the pieces of fur strangling them like so much itchy fiberglass, opening, closing and fishing, opening, closing and fishing, then surrendering. i flip on the lights in the bathroom (which take HOURS to fully illuminate while my pitiful peepers writhe in agony, the feline fibres digging deeper and deeper...goddamned energy efficient bulbs!) and spend an hour with magnifying mirror clutched in one hand, tweezers of doom and COMPLETE inaccuracy in the other. i try to fool myself that the one or two strands of fur i liberate from my eyes are it. i know better. it all usually ends in complete surrender, my pudgy little fists desperately massaging each closed eye...exactly what you are told NOT to do when something gets in your eye. hey, to quote a famous song, "it's my party and i'll cry if i want to."

i love my cats, though...they are worth the daily peek into my own dementia.

when you were a boy you used to wish for this, but like a cat who turns his nose up at the dish, now that you have it, you want to give it away...

i kidded myself that i had encountered true bureaucracy--the kind that turns a meek kitten into a raging, betty friedan android. to be honest, i'm not even sure that something this personal can even qualify as bureaucracy. in short, my boss has decided that i am a half-wit. he hired me over the phone when i still lived in cleveland...apparently my stats and credentials spoke for me. i made a misguided attempt to validate his mealy-mouthed ego for it is obvious that principals have outlived their usefulness. there is a reason that principle means an upstanding philosophy and principal means useless paper-pushers who usually sport a mustache (regardless of gender...heh). i sought advice that i didn't really need on an issue that he knew nothing about--classroom management. seriously, the guy couldn't manage a room full of mannequins...i mean, assistant principals. from that day forward, he simply decided that i cannot do my job (check my students' test scores, bub), that i have no control over my students (when they, in actuality, live in a mixed state of terror, awe, and adoration, no doubt!), and that i know nothing of the curriculum (excuse me, didn't i score in the top 15% of test takers of ALL TIME in the praxis? cough).

our department chair, god bless 'im, thought i would be good to head the freshmen honor's class. mumblemumblemumble...something about high expectations, holding the line, standards, achievement gap, etc. i thought it might be fun to teach students the garnishes and desserts of literary analysis alongwith the meat and potatoes of reading and grammar fundamentals. it sounded like we had found each other at last! ah, l'amour! my principal (for i can no longer choke out the word "boss" with regards to him) even approached me as i crossed campus one day. "you got time (sic) for a five-minute chat?" he told me he appreciated my flexibility in the past years when it came to scheduling (insert eye roll). he said he liked my "witty rapport with my students" (pfft! i knew that!). he claimed he respected my, "rigor and high expectations of the students" (okay, this time i KNOW he was lying! on more than one occasion, he has asked me to "be more understanding" about students' struggles...translation? change the grade so our starting quarterback could be eligible). i began to develop my lesson plans for the honor's classes. dreams of complex sentence structure and essays longer than 5 paragraphs and actual comprehension of "the odyssey" began to dance in my head nightly.

the upshot? he decided (unofficially...the coward is leaving before the announcement gets made) to give the freshmen honor's class to a guy who worked at the school three years ago, who fucked off at the end of the year, so miserable teaching there that other teachers noticed his markedly depressed moods, and who came crawling back to the school with a list of demands already laminated. must be nice.

so here's the deal: i shall take the freshmen who are at a 3rd grade reading level, tenderize their little brains with information until they are tasty and juicy (mmmm...brainssssssss), and then have them score even higher on the standardized tests than the honor's kids! the gauntlet has been thrown. the glove has slapped me in the face. that man just made my list of things to do today.

i'm comin', and i'm bringin' the big pain with me. he has been warned.

tiptoe through our shiny city with our diamond slippers on. do our gay ballet on ice, bluebirds on our shoulders.

oh, sigmund, how i doubted you. i chased away countless hours in suffocated coffee houses so dim you would swear they were lit by televisions. i sat on a stage wearing a corset ironically and barking out bad feminist poetry like the world's weakest drill seargeant. i was convinced that the crowd couldn't hear my genius because they were too busy staring at my tits and, hey, wasn't that the point of the poem-- to expose the charlatans who used faux empathy as spanish fly? i broiled with rage at your theory that all women, old crone to nubile nymphet all the way down to downy-limbed toddler, existed in either celebratory embrace or else delusional self-denial of the need...the need to have a penis, not in, but on. "impossible!", i trumpeted (never wheedled, of course) for my life has never been about lack.

...apparently, how wrong i was. poor, poor sigmund. now, i'm not one of those sanctimonious bike-riders...at least not sanctimonious because i ride my bike to work, but i cannot tell whether i'm more offended by the people who don't move over at all and nearly
clip
my
handlebars
and
sendmespinningintoaditchohgodohgodohgod!


or...
the folks who swing a huge berth around and make me feel like a giant, two-wheeled monstrosity. either way, 90% of the time when a driver offends me, it is an SUV. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time, the SUV driver is a woman. i don't know if they are not aware of their vehicles' dimensions or what, but i do know that i am wary of how often a grumble to myself, "probably a chick driving that thing!" this afternoon, for example, i was passed by three (!!!!) chevy suburbans in a row, driven by three different soccer moms, and one of the chevys had one of those "happy family" stick people appliques on the back window.
seriously, you'd have thought it was a parade.
ugh.
the point? if we talk about men driving those gigantic machines as compensation for a "shortcoming", perhaps sigmund was right, and all women really want is some form of a penis...even in a modernized form. would but that i could return to the halcyon days of the coffee shop and the microphone that reeked of false anger and other people's spit, i would pen a poem called, "SUV's don't make you a feminist".
god, when did i become such a misogynist?

today's word of the day is syncanthus.

everything she loved went down the dragon track; she had fear of trains...

"why don't you tell them the story about how your brother took up so much space in utero that the doctors couldn't find your heartbeat and assumed you would be stillborn?" that advice, i decided not to take when beginning this blog...no...wait...i guess i inadvertently DID take it.

damn.

forced under the terrible, pretense-inducing glare of introspection again, this time by the final assignment to clear my teaching credential. hmmph. the end of the school year is approaching, bringing with it a less satisfying sigh of relief. this is because the year wasn't NEARLY as stressful as last year, so i guess i should be grateful for that. tagging along for the ride is a mild anxiety about my assignment for next year. i virtually fell in love with the process of teaching the freshmen this year. they are old enough to get excited about challenging philosophical and literary issues. they are old enough to reason with. they are old enough to appreciate the emotional impact of really good writing (despite the fact that school board relentlessly chooses the same easily-digested pabulum year after year). they are old enough to be...earnest.
...they are still young enough to scare.

the woman who teaches the honors students here has been *cough* asked to "step aside". my department chair jokes that, "it is because (i) want her job", and jokes that he told her so. true enough. i relish the opportunity to take everything that is good about teaching freshmen and compound it with a slightly higher ability and/or sense of intrinsic motivation. all year i have been using grammar as the light to which i hold the kids to see where they need mending. the random succeses i have had with the freshmen has made me look forward to next year...even if the former teacher, "is, like, TOTALLY gunning to destroy (me)."

bring it. i'll slap you with a beautifully placed appositive phrase. go ahead. dangle that participle. meet me at high noon, and don't forget to bring a body bag...