It, dude, was my week off & I think that means I can write about it however I like. I took no notes, in fact, I never take notes, but this week I didn’t even take mental ones & it’s all very bleary. It has that nice underwater quality that memory occasionally acquires around this time of year when it’s dark all the time & everything’s a little crazed & festive. As if it all happened in a castle in the bottom of the sea. Well, it might as well have. I’ll tell you what I remember in just the order I remember it, until I get tired under the weight of all this memory & decide to cut off abruptly & focus my thoughts on the future.
First & foremost, obviously, it was in the bleak December & each burning dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. That should go without saying. My mother was in town, I was recovering from something? Oh yes, Los Angeles. I was recovering from Los Angeles & preparing to return. So we devoured a lot of food. Basically most of the time was spent on devouring. If it’s decadent, I’ll do it. That’s my unofficial motto. Test it out on me sometime. I devoured quite a menagerie early this week. Oysters, foie gras, some kind of coarse sausage, lamb chops… perhaps it’s better to tell you the cruel foods I didn’t eat. No veal, no ortolan drowned in Armagnac, no live monkey brains, no dogs hanged by the neck until dead. No human flesh. I ate no human flesh, so far as I know.
"I weep for you," the Walrus said, "I deeply sympathsize."
& then my family departed & I was left to my own devices. Everything’s covered in Christmas lights, nice since it gets dark shortly after three. It’s been rainy though (very [I think]) so the streets shine. Must love the hall of days. The Hall of Days, get it? It’s what we call a play on words in the poetry industry. “Make it till you fake it,” I say, regarding the creation of poetry. That’s my inspirational lower back tattoo.
Oh well. I went Christmas shopping a lot but it took me a long time to find anything. I saw interesting things in junk shops. I kind of wanted to buy people junk for Christmas, but I didn’t think they’d understand. Maybe staying at Ptolemy’s house warped my brain. I saw lots of things I liked like a Jesus Saves piggybank & some old watches. There were trillions of alarming dolls. A doll with a black horn strapped to her head. A doll in a mask & cape. & the best one, a doll’s head with its eyes partially but not entirely closed resting on some tiny eggs in an ashtray.
No birds were flying overhead
--there were no birds to fly
Oh also, I got a package. Early in the week I got a most interesting package from commenter Suzanne. It was FULL of fascinating things. Books, & a grey cashmere scarf, & some hand soap in a ziploc bag & old photos & a wishbone, I think, or what I hope was a wishbone, that had shattered into four pieces & lay at the bottom of everything. My favorite thing was a long narrow picture of her house. Also, four pairs of socks, which is wonderful. I don’t have any socks.
The moon was shining sulkily, because she thought the sun had got no business to be there after the day was done--
It must be something to do with the project. I don’t get any money, or work, or love or anything, but now I HAVE got seven pairs of socks. & socks are just what I need. Money & love may come & go but I never have socks. Ptolemy got me three pairs when I came to his house & now Suzanne sent me four pairs & it means whenever I put on my socks I’m thinking of you. I only have two other pairs of socks, really. & one pair belongs to an old boyfriend & the other pair to a former stepfather. I suppose I have trouble clothing my feet. I need you nice people to do it for me.
Anyway, Suzanne, please consider this a public thank you note. I am of the firm belief that it’s best, these days, to do almost everything publicly.
Later that night, I walked into a bar (ouch) & found Jesus
Along those lines, some interesting plans have been materializing rapidly & then rapidly falling apart. I’ve been very knotty this year but I trust Santa will come through regardless.
He has the most interesting Tweets.
Also, things are festive. Parties & Christmas shopping. On Thursday I went to a cocktail party at Jessica’s new place which is very nice. There’s a fireplace & a budgie in her bedroom & the walls in the hallways are concrete & the doors are all shiny metal & industrial looking. There was egg-nog, but I didn’t drink that (ew) I just drank everything else in the room.
how many steps again? much more than 12...
Then on Sunday I went to a brunch at Braden’s house & met 18 very pleasant people. It was a pajama party brunch so I wore my velvet dressing gown & a slip over this zippered leotard that I’ve been wearing for the past three days. I was kind of the second most dressed up person at the party but I don’t mind, that always happens.
I only dress for dinner
Sometimes I go to a costume party & I’m the only person in costume. Like this one party in Michigan where I went in drag as Humbert Humbert & then the boy who was going to be Lolita had decided, I guess, not to come in costume & he didn’t know how to tell me so he just didn’t. & everyone else had decided not to come in costume too. But it was ok, because it made my costume so much better, if you think about it. I couldn’t be Humbert Humbert without being jilted like that! I carried around two tennis rackets all night, very mournfully. & looking very handsome in my suit.
'07 was quite a year.
Anyway, back to reality, at this brunch I drank some mimosas & flipped pancakes for a long time in a blissful & dreamy sort of way. When we ate there were crackers with paper hats & actually very good prizes! Somewhere, now, I have a Rubix cube key-chain & a little lock shaped as a heart with two sets of keys. I can put that on my diary, aka the internet, where it will be absolutely useless as a lock.
Orange you glad our hats are so bananas?
Now I’m just rambling, aren’t I. I’ve missed a lot of things. I spent nearly every waking minute with Shannon & some sleeping ones too. I met a Jesus at the beginning of the week (as mentioned in an artful caption) & a Mohammad at the end. I stepped into an elevator which broke instantly. I befriended the homeless man who opens the door for you at the 7-11. Last night he told me he is 49 & asked me if he looks it. “I’m not very good at guessing men’s ages” I said, “& also it’s hard to tell because of your long grey beard.”
“People tell me I look young” he said. So he & I have more than one thing in common.
Now I’m just tiptoing into Elizabeth’s week. It’s a very nice one. I’m also going to be busy. I’m leaving for the island the day after tomorrow. & then after Christmas I’m moving to Los Angeles. I have to pack, among other things. & Christmas is coming (the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat).
Here’s my favorite picture of Elizabeth & me. I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m putting it on the internet. It’s the best photo ever taken, is all.
You can send away for an autographed copy.
Anyway I don’t know what else to tell you. Did I mention I lost the Coin of Destiny in Los Angeles? Did I mention that I’m taking a second week off after Christmas in order to move to there? Did I mention I’m driving?
I like Christmas a lot but I didn’t make gingerbread men or anything this year. There was a time in my life where I made a lot of gingerbread, & went through two jars of molasses every December. I would make five different colors of icing & decorate each cookie differently. I still have lots of cookie cutters. Once when I was ten I made a scale replica of on of the California missions entirely out of gingerbread.
What can I say, I grew up without television. But now all I care about is lipstick & invitations.
Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you spend them writhing with comfort & joy! I know I will.
Chance makes an odd bedfellow
In conclusion, don’t do anything I wouldn’t. & if you’re wont to overspend, as so many of us are, please remember the wisdom that adorns the junk shop coin bank.
The reason for the season, after all.
Good. You’re back. Some were doubters, but others went “all in”, and now everybody wins!
Raw oysters on the half-shell go for at least $3 each in Van, and about 50 cents per, where I live. At our local “Captain Tom’s” a “dozen” simply means the plate is totally covered, no garnish. Not bragging—just wish I could choke down those pleasantly grey, slimy, gritty delicacies. I seem like such a waste. (Sorry. The price of mollusks is such a hausfrau topic.)
Now, I do have one concern about something you brought up, regarding Shannon, my daughter. You say you have spent time “sleeping” with her!!?
If this is true, I must warn you—she KICKS in her sleep. And sometimes chuckles heartily.
oh, no worries, “maxine” — i slept on the couch. & if she chuckled, i sleep like the dead, so i didn’t hear! as for myself, like the dead, i sometimes wake up SCREAMING! but i didn’t that night.
your daughter was very hospitable.
Whew! I was concerned for your safety. Shannon is a sweetheart, but that kicking…!
Re “Maxine”. I use “Maxine” which is my middle name, because if I use “Karen” my first name, then readers of your comments would know my real name, and I won’t be able to fool myself into thinking I’m being anonymous on the internet. This is my first blogging experience, so I’m a little shy and not quite sure if I’m doing it right. Besides, all the best fake names like “Mom”, “Kyla”, “Ptolemy” and “SG” were already taken! I hope you understand.
Thank you for your thank you Emily.
When we were little and played the game of “What would you do if you had one wish?” genie game, we quickly caught on that asking for a trillion billion more wishes was the way to go. That’s how I think of your wishbone – instead of one possible one, you now have four! I confess (going public a la Emily) I would take the four little wishes for you and: keep the siren call of LA at arm’s length, resist the reasons people give for “body work,” keep pets in your life, and find some sort of physical exertion you adore. Godspacking and happy travels, check the forecast for the Ashland pass, and welcome… back to the USofA.
that’s a nice idea… four wishes instead of one.
so it was a wishbone then?
how nice!
i’ll always have pets & LA is only temporary, but i must say, i’m pretty dead-set on botox. the past few months have given me a frown line.
i’d get a nose-job too, if everyone weren’t always discouraging me.
“your nose makes you look so distinguished!” they say.
& how can i argue with that? it’s exactly what i was going for.
I love your week off. Reading this I felt like I was floating through a dream. Most of my dreams contain weird dolls and women dressed as men and sleeping with cats and Jesus. Should I be worried? By the way, you make a handsome (if slightly creepy) man. More pictures of Chance please. If I may make a request. I love how he always looks like he’s saying “Could you please just go away.” Thanks for writing even when you’re on vacation – or taking time off – or not working on your project, supposedly. Anyway, this was one of my very favorite posts. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ve never meant it quite like I do this time. Beautifully, weirdly, wonderfully fun!!!!
well thank you, thank you. i’ll make sure to be “myself” as much as possible in the future.
but your dreams include sleeping with jesus? troubling…
yes, i do make a handsome man, it’s a pity.
can’t post more pics of the chancellor, sadly, as he’s going to the brother’s along with the dog come christmas.
but maybe when i return in april, the coolest month.
maybe i can get my brother to send me weekly photographic updates…
Damn it. A missing comma makes all the difference, doesn’t it. Oh well, I must have meant it if I wrote it. The subconscious and all. If this post is “you,” then I’m all for you being more “you,” whoever “you” are (or is?)????? As you can see, I’m lost without an editor.
Creepy? Bite you tongue. I thought her Humbert Humbert was inspired.
I’m with Don on this post.
Also, I wore a costume to that party! Icy Updike wife, remember?
oh yes! was that the party where you guys came at the maples? those theories of love soirees do tend to blend together. well you looked very pretty, i remember, & so did ll. but you must admit, my costume was a little embarassingly OVERDONE compared to the rest of us.
“the rest of us” aka “the rest of you”
i suppose we all felt soclose back in the day…
We did get an inspired set of photos (with a new Lo, remember?) from that party!
I was like… A new LL?
A new low?
A new… Oh.
Yes I do
hooray for time off! gotta agree with you on the eggnog. who thought of that? they must have wanted to get only a little drunk and then make pancakes…lol….
Cool personalization of the base material in “Navigating Device”. Good point in the Lived By voyage, I think, to be excercising your poetry. Incredibly, Youtube has deemed the leotard so slutty as to declare (at least here in Australia) that “This video may not be suitable for minors”(!)
(P.S. For the love of expression, please do not become another faceless Botox-injected zombie. Oh, and a Merry Christmas to all!)
“People who tend to be dreamy also tend to be negatively psychic and should cultivate positive, out-going and social activities and not, either deliberately or unconsciously, increase their dreamy tendency. Prolonged debilitating illness, sudden and extremely severe shock, the abuse of drugs (including alcohol), may tend to turn non-psychics into (unconscious) psychics. Unless a person is of sound mind, has well-controlled emotions and is quite definitely actuated by the highest motives, he should not invite dissociation by the use of planchette, ouija board, ‘automatic writing,’ etc. To become psychic is to increase responsibilities and those who are unprepared must pay dearly for their temerity.” — Robert Crookall, DURING SLEEP: The possibility of ‘co-operation’ Between the Living and the Dead.
Ouch! I take it you didn’t care for livedby’s dreamy, “warped my brain” comment. Or should I just mind my own business?
Ok umm stop right there…DOes that guys shirt read I Heart Blowjobs??? Ugh you sickos
Ptolemy…you are the creepiest creeperton i have ever seen…emily you actually stayed with him? in his house??? omg your nuts he looks like a serial killer ….CREEEEEEPYY