I missed my 10 year high school reunion tonight. Two reasons, mainly: I moved today, and had a poetry gig tonight. I’m not really bent out of shape about it. Ten years is a long time, a long time in a way which makes one feel obligated to be present…a long time in a way that keeps you where you are, away from before(as in before then which is, essentially before now. I can say I’m not super-curious about anyone in particular from my graduating class–on one hand, facebook takes the mystery out of question and wondering, and on the other–a lot of my friends were not in my grade to begin with. I see myself standing as an ostrich in some ways–I come from a small town, a place where being 28 and not being married or having kids translates to strange. That is, of course, a generalization. That is, of course, untrue. Where I live now, it is perfectly normal. Normal or otherwise, it doesn’t matter. My path isn’t stunted, or wrong, or just right. It’s a path, and it’s plenty fine. Still, before waking up this morning I had a dream–a dream about going to said reunion and seeing an old friend standing alone at a table in a tux, grinning to receive me as he flipped through a photo album which held pictures of old friends as they might be now. I’m amused with what the mind makes up, with what the mind does when it is faced with a thought left dwelling. So little dissipates, yet so much is gone. It seemed like the right way to attend, regardless.

I moved today. I’m currently sitting in my old place, now empty except for my cat(she will be transported tomorrow), a few mismatched things like this computer, some clothes, an umbrella, a plant, and bags of trash. The old bed, which I will drag down two flights of stairs and to the curb tomorrow(a comedic feat I’m sure, considering I can barely shove the box spring around). I will also discard of the trash bags, and gather my last things and forget to look back, as I’ve looked back enough. There is a part of me that is kind of sad about leaving this neighborhood–I’ve lived in and immediately around it for the past 8 years. Over the past week or so I’ve tried to make it more significant than it is, spent time on the porch staring at the street. The only time it really struck me was on a day walking back from the store with a few groceries–no storm clouds, early evening. I ran into a few familiar faces and slapped hands along the way, noticed people hugging hello and pooled around the tables outside the usual coffee shop. Yes it struck me then. Life is about movement and change, and I am a fool to deprive myself of these things for the sake of comfort or routine. I don’t want to be able to do everything with my eyes closed. I don’t want to feel my feet drop into the same groove I’ve worn into the street. From here to there to here again. It’s time to go, because something within requires I do so.

My new place is great. I’m giddy in every room, because every room is mine. So many windows and lots of sun, and a kitchen I can cook in–I see lots of evenings with the record player, pasta, and homework. I like what I see. This is what comforts me. Becoming friends with a reality that I have both hands in. It’s very hard to explain, but I’m pleased with the decision. That pleasure is what matters. I see this new place as a promise to myself–to treat myself better, to treat myself as well as I want and try to treat others. Sounds backwards, doesn’t it? The truth is I’m not used to it, and it’s time to become familiar. It’s never too late.

In other news, school starts on Monday, and I feel a new fever for the pen coming on, and it’s good. I thought about that a lot tonight, at the reading. Someone said something about words, about the time we have to use them. I felt ashamed for not dedicating more time to saying what I need to say, as in telling the story, as in speaking what cannot be spoken. Like spelling proclamations with lung fluid, like writing the lyrics to the song the elbows sing, like watching someone sleep, like walking a painting, like the way the sun hits the bricks at dust can bust your heart, like hands speak teeth. Telling it, telling it.

Just read that one of my favorite movies from the 80’s is being made into a television show.

St. Elmo’s Fire.

Here is what I say:
NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!
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Saturday, August 29th
@ Modern Formations Gallery
$5, 14 poets.

The Breeders, August 22nd. Ferris snapped this photo & I’m posting it because it’s way less blurry than mine.

Yep, went to see the Breeders on Saturday night. I kept staring at Kim and thinking, My friend Angi watched Buffy with you. Kelley Deal’s shirt boasted a picture of a banana riding a bicycle. You can’t really top that. This felt like coming home. I thought back to listening to Last Splash on cassette in junior high, hanging out at my grandmother’s house. I used to play “Roi” and “Do You Love Me Now” over and over and(yes) over again. Their original bass player, Josephine Wiggs, played with them–she’s doing a couple dates of the tour which is just insanely awesome. I swooned big time for her. Here’s Josephine on part of “Metal Man,” from Saturday’s show(I did not record this, and the sound isn’t perfect but you get the idea):

So yes. A wise, wise decision to see the Breeders

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Last night, my friend Joe hosted the second official “Classic Wrestling Night.” Highlights included the Jumping Bomb Angels vs. The Glamour Girls(January, 1988), “My Breakfast with Blassie”(Andy Kaufman has breakfast with his hero Fred Blassie and it is a mindblowing 68 minutes), and Ric Flair razoring himself during a fight with Macho Man Randy Savage(including some Elizabeth drama…oh Elizabeth and her drama). A good, good time.

Would it be false information to proclaim myself a pro wrestling fan? Probably. I’m not up to date with any current wrasslers nor do I watch a weekly program of any sort. However, I do enjoy the classic matches–watching old Ric Flair or long ago lady wrestling matches taps into a part of my brain adjacent to my childhood. Wrestling is an archived flavor of nostalgia that I tend to forget about.

Thank goodness I know Joe, who one could consider a professional appreciator of professional wrestling. His brain is a rolodex of matches, strategies, heels and losses. His ocean of knowledge is impressive and somewhat frightening. Part of the fun in Classic Wrestling Night is knowing how much Joe adores the “genre,” and it’s his night to talk shop and shoot the shit about new storylines and wrestler developments with other people who enjoy it as much as he does. Of course I can’t participate in a lot of these conversations, but it’s nice to know any/all of my questions about wrestling can and will be answered. It’s always fun to see a friend in their element. Yes, I would refer to wrestling night as “Joe’s element.”

This is the best part about humans and/or being human: the gray area of likes and dislikes we all dance in. Some would probably scoff at me for admitting that I harbor this funny little affection for classic pro wrestling. But you know what? People aren’t black and white. True, people are generally picky about their preferences–even MORE picky with OTHER PEOPLE’S preferences, which is just downright hilarious to me. Especially in the world of the infamous internet. To narrow it down even more: especially in the world of blogging. Perhaps my thoughts are scattered here, but it’s something I’ve thought about for quite some time, and pro wrestling really brought it out for some reason. Watching Ric Flair yell WOOOOOOOOO! to a crowd of screaming fans in the ’80’s does not make me any less of a female, or artist, or poet(I mean come on, the theatrics! The plots!). It doesn’t brand me a misogynist. It doesn’t make me any less of an athletic person. And liking something doesn’t put me in or out of a box.

I like motivational sport montages, going to the ballet, the Family Ties tv series, the city as much as the farms back in Ohio. I like Hank Williams, De La Soul, Carol King, The Pointer Sisters, and Two Man Advantage. I like demolition derbys and symphony in the park. See? It’s the modge podge that makes us.

via feministing.com:

A socially-conscious video-production class in Chicago created a video on rape culture “to spread awareness and get people thinking about how and why rape happens.”

Here is the video:

I think this is awesome and courageous for youth to be involved in. Definitely.

I have this great/crazy memory from late fall 2007–night time on a farm in Evans City. I yelled some poetry at a bonfire next to Alan while he played guitar. Afterwards I walked to the barn with a wine bottle in hand and witnessed redbeard Joel, Markus and others stomping around in crazy circles, shouting PERSONAL SPACE PERSONAL SPACE! at each other and at the sky/the ground/themselves. Their circles grew tighter, their stomps louder and in time with each other. They were shouting PERSONAL SPACE standing clavicle to clavicle, next to the mouths of others, spinning back out into their own–you got it–personal space. A sight to be seen, indeed.

That’s what I’m thinking about now. Personal space. There is one area in the new apartment that I am already fixated on, obsessing about. A writing nook. My office. My refuge. The place where I will get shit done. A place for bookmaking, scribbling poems, editing, and schoolwork. A corner of comfort and inspiration. I know where this personal space of mine will be(in the sunroom of the new place), but it’s the how I’m working through. I have the desk, aka the spinal cord of the matter. Next I guess it’s a matter of organizing, filing, and images.

To soothe my daydreaming, I started perusing the desks of the well knowns and not-so-well knowns. Something to create sparks from imagery. Here are some favorites:
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Rescue

Pushing towards
the end of another year in which I probably
didn’t die. In which I raise the paw of a baby,
such a little hand and wave at the growling
furtive blasting sage black face
of barreling time. I place my bag
on the ground of the platform. I check my
watch. It’s mine. I’m not
Jacob Boehme. No. There are moments
that only connect to other ones.
This is the nature of time in which
we are brave. I don’t have
a little life. Yet I speak to you
through it. Look at the hand
I wave. My hand is strong and tan
with the branches of my blood
with the tiny spots and golden
hairs, with the protective
tips hidden by glass
tapping along. I hear you.
The seering sounds of the world
occur. It seems a system upholds
the presence of the not me
and its nothing alone.
In the rooms of the culture
across millions of wires and
gaps the invisible forms
that travel fast the meaningless
blasts of light are heading
right through my chest
and me? a bird seems to cheep
yes right through you too.
Inaccessible, ineradicable
the embarassment of being part of it
glimmering a workmen lifts his
chinging hammer
one piercing the other & the
next and the next
a joke for a god to be breathing through
the world the day a dish

I’m moving in 19 days, and counting. There’s a lot to do, but most of it is time sensitive(as in it’s a little too early, time-wise, to start certain balls rolling). Right now my priority is sifting, throwing away, donating, and packing. The other priority: flipping through the Ikea catalog. Combing the thrift store for odds and ends. The catalog is sparking some new storage ideas(my biggest storage challenge: the papers, the files, the writing). Thrift store ventures, so far, have resulted in the purchasing of some very useful and downright hilarious additions to my new abode. Case in point: a miniature(as in perfect for the corner of a countertop) grocery cart, which will be used to hold my fruits and veggies. Other interesting finds from the thrifting: objects/appliances/utensils straight from my childhood. The solid memory kind. Like brightly colored cups, the exact kind I clutched onto in my youth during the summer. Or the picture identical to the one hanging above my grandmother’s kitchen table–a picture I remember looking at often. A typical image, and with religious tones which is totally not my style, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that every time I see that image, I think of my grandmother. That’s pretty important to me right now.

Perhaps this is of no interest to you but hey, the whole “gearing-to-move” thing is my current state of being and focus right now so thereyago.

I just returned from a quick trip home to Ohio to visit the family. My heart is still pretty soft about it today, which is usually the case upon my return. I miss them so much. I’ve been living in Pittsburgh for nearly 8 years now and I still miss them a lot. I lack any blood family here, nobody that knows me before that 8 year mark and sometimes it really confuses/bothers me. I have a life here, I’ve built a history, and it is not an option to turn around and leave it all to return to my hometown. But, for the first time since moving here, I really started thinking about “the future,” in regards to where I want to really “settle.” And oh do I hate that word. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really thought about it. Is this city it for me? Will I grow old here? I really don’t know. And if not here, where? And when? Sometimes I get caught up thinking about how much I’m “missing” back home. Especially now, with a two year old niece. Especially now, noting how gray my father’s hair is when I come to visit. Especially now, when I realize how much I miss being near my sister–when we’re texting how much we miss each other back and forth before I’m even out of the Ohio state limits. Oh jeez I’m getting teary-eyed even typing this. I’ll stop with the listing. I wish I could be there more often, but there’s the full time job/school/the life/the day to day stuff/not having a car.

Why is all of this coming to a head now? I’m not sure. Maybe this is a thing that’s been building, but I also know that I turned 28 and bam–I really, really started to stare at things differently. It also seems that the sound dropped out and left behind this obnoxiously loud tick-tock noise and I’m nervous about it. Who knew that 28 would be the age that turned everything on its head? Not me, says I.

My weapon of choice? Be proactive about it. Take care of what needs taken care of, make the changes you need to make. Be the person you appreciate most(which is, gosh knows, something I’ve struggled with since I was a wee kid). It’s all in the works and I’m sanding down the edges, making all the rooms useful.