Sun up, Monday morning.

the lion in the wall. discovered while house hunting with g. and k.

Tomorrow night, Renee Alberts will be on Prosody with Jan Beatty. This is a 30 minute interview and reading–I suggest you tune in and listen because Renee is amazing, amazing, amazing.

7pm, on 91.3fm(WYEP).

You can stream the show at wyep.org at 7pm tomorrow night as well, if you are not near a radio.

I’m so very very proud and happy for her.

Sign of a damn good weekend:

When you take your camera everywhere, but fail to snap a single picture. Too involved, too invested.

If you’re tired of me talking about migraines/chronic pain, you can save yourself some trouble and stop reading now.

Emerging from another warped cocoon–I’ve been fighting the same migraine for days now. Yesterday I had to call in sick and sleep my way out of it. A sleep complete with nightmares that left me waking with the most incredible craving for soy ice cream. The kind of craving that (seriously) brought tears to my eyes.

Wednesday evening in class, a girl sat next to me…the usual girl who sits next to me. She was wearing a perfume too strong for me and the edges of my brain were curling up already–within me a voice gently increasing in panic saying, “Oh no oh no oh no no no…” because I was already there, tipping over a threshold and the fragrance gave one more shove to make it certain. In this mode I’m vulnerable to everything–headlights, heavy foot steps, voices raised, and my god the smells. The smell of perfume, the smell of burning.

After class there is a sweet one waiting for me and I’m fighting the tears and the lump in my throat when I see him, because I have to say hello with “sorry I’m feeling so sick…” and a part of me feels that I’ve ruined yet another evening. The night before I missed my inksister’s reading, the night before that I missed everything because I crashed for 12 hours after work. Can I have my time back, please? Some moments without wincing or wondering when I can feel normal again?

Yesterday, I slept and slept hard. I woke up long enough for bathroom breaks and bread(as the only thing I could stomach), I lay in bed before falling asleep in awe of my left hand in a weird stiffened claw, my confusion, the complexity of walking up and down stairs. Migraines are stupid and invisible–they ruin everything. I worry they are hurting me internally; I worry about “the BIG ONE.” This morning I had a tearful conversation with a co-worker, who also experiences migraines. I have to go back to the doctor. I hate the idea of starting the process all over again–the trials of medications and tests, the questions, etc. I tell my co-worker with careful, slow words: There is a part of me that is ashamed to go to the doctor again, to admit I have an illness because I want my life to be normal so badly that I am constantly rebelling against the idea that this is a part of me and I have to address it. I am scared to go on medication for good. I am scared to go through the process and once again receive zero answers. I am scared to be disappointed by the question mark. I’m scared to hear “There’s nothing we can do for you.” I’m scared to have another one. I’m scared to admit all of this. I worry that my friends think I’m a flake. I want to quit acting like a stubborn teenager about my pain–quit doing the things that do not help.

I’m going to just suck it up and go back to seeing a professional. It’s a tiring process but anything is better than letting it happen to me. So it begins. I’ll keep you posted.

this is saturday. please come and support, and celebrate.

I love this so much…

click here for “The Unbelievable Time Required to Cover Immense Distances of Space

(an old chart via boingboing)

Shampoo Suicide - Broken Social Scene

it isn’t evicted
but
it isn’t yours anymore.

the ladder i built from your wine stems
is held in place by abandoned hubcaps
along the side of
32.

passengers always turn their head here so
they always miss it.

remember a summerlit bathroom
the soft beds of my palms scraped to rhubarb
you were cradling and blowing,
my foot against your thigh
you said
“you have my hands,”
and then
some bandages and
sent
on my way.

if it is a day i’m awake in
then
it’s a definite,
missing you.
you are in my mouth when i talk too much
in my gut when i laugh sometimes from
the ground on up
the conversation i can’t have but
practice for
tireless
on the porch at night
hoping the neighbors don’t wake
with the sound of an old break breaking
a cough to cover it

here is a body
filled like an ocean
here are the things
i can’t make beautiful for you
here is the woman i had to teach myself to be
here is what i don’t understand
this part is vast it is
my unbent interrogative
extended
into
lifeline

and there is a woman
i work with her
from the start i found myself
avoiding
there is nothing wrong with her
she’s quite a sweet thing but me
i’m walking the other way to get past
today
a sense snapped the mystery
in half
she wears
the same perfume
that you did
she smells
just like my mother
and it hurts
and it fills the file room
the memories come swiveling back
i can’t stand it
the fight against missing you
the limb and grasp i couldn’t have
but the glimpses
so glorious,
i thought my lifetime
could live from them
but really
things are getting starved

these days i’m
making shadow puppets with my ribs
drawing from the yellow, the unbelievable
wondering
what is your sleep schedule
do you really miss me
could you pick my voice from a line up of recordings
i cannot be sorry that i look like your
first love
i have questions
that pop and dim
on cued circuits,
they are my streetlights
there is nothing i can do
about needing
what i never had

there is a balled up stitch of cloth
tangled in the breastplate
a white flag
a breath that beats the smoke signals out
i hope you know how to read the sky
even though
i know
i have nothing to say
i dig out a certain valve
drop it in the gape,
i update the milk carton
i call the radio stations and request you
i drag myself to the highest point
the lowest tide
i find the moon and wail
and wail

Had lunch. All food from Aldi’s.

And now I am feeling ridiculously sick to my stomach.

THANKS GROCERY STORE!

I fell into bed around 6:30pm last night and did not get up until 6am this morning. Oh sure, I woke up at 1am, 1:27am, 4am, 4:25am(at which point I seriously wondered if my alarm clock was broken and taking 20 actual minutes per 1 clock minute), and 5-something-am. I woke up long enough to check the time and re-snuggle up with Abacus the cat. Thank you migraine, for once again bringing out the Rip Van Winkle in me.

So many disjointed, fantastic and unsettling dreams. Things like attending high school at my old elementary school, and bumming a ride with my sister to get there because she is the art teacher. Getting in another car and becoming upset because I (seriously) LEFT MY RIGHT ARM ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER. I realized this when I looked down and found an empty socket, sleeve being pulled at by the breeze. My first missing limb dream.

Before my sleep-themed evening and right after work, K. and I went out to Aldi’s to grab some groceries. The bank account is feeling bruised and I needed food on the cheap–buying lunch every day at work adds up. So yes, Aldi’s. My first experience. We pretty much loved it. My favorite things: to use a cart, you have to deposit a quarter into the lockbox attached to the handle of it; nearly zero brand name products which is surprisingly refreshing and easy on the eyes; the allure and intrigue of going to a new place with products you aren’t familiar with. K. and I wanted to pick up and look at everything, which we pretty much did with a scientist eye squint and inquisitive digits. We were being cute. A mother strolled by with two kids–one of the little boys slapped each product they were passing with a run-on exclamation of, “And this…and this…AND this…and THIS–” until he ran right into my stomach(as I was standing there eyeballing the cinnamon grahams). He looked up at me and smiled, saying, “Oh I’m sorry!” and continued on.

The not-so favorite moment: the bag rule. At Aldi’s you bring your own. We were not aware of this. So I had to ask for two of their bags, and K. only had her tiny canvas purse-thing, so we were both bagging our groceries badly, giggling in the corner for way too long. “Not a word of this moment to anyone,” I mumbled. She agreed.

Yet here I am, telling it.

Today is a long day in Oakland. First work, then perhaps some coffee and scribbling to kill time ’til the open mic at Sphinx Cafe(if you are reading this and will be in the Oakland area around 8pm, I suggest coming). Renee is featuring tonight and I’m quite excited about that.

I have more to say, I do. I really do. All in due time. For now, this fragmented and irrelevant bundle of brief rambling will have to do.