Wednesday, September 29, 2010


My Grandma used to freeze her trash. I thought it was crazy too, until I considered what trash she was freezing. She was only freezing the trash that would cause a stink until it could be taken by the trash man. Leftover carcasses, scraps of casseroles, bones or any food that would rot and leave any odor would be wrapped in foil and put into the freezer until trash day. This could be seen as over orderly, OCD, desperately neat, any title you feel it deserves to make sense of it. But now, at this age, in this time, I get it. I would freeze my trash. Then. But now, we don't have the need, or the inclination. We have disposals (if you are lucky) we have weekly or biweekly trash removal. Recycling, composting, plastic wrap, plastic storage that could survive in space is how we handle leftover food now.

She had a trash compactor for many many years, longer than I was aware of any sort of disposal. I thought it was fun, even a bit exciting to put the tiniest bit of rubbish in the compacter and listen to it crush into near oblivion. The thought of where it was going, who took it there and how long it stayed, was never an issue. Never brought up. The big black plastic bag was just taken out, out into the metal bin and then taken away. Away.

I have been thinking about the freezing. The freezing of what would be offensive, the leftovers, the stink. We have these reminders, scars of what has happened in our lives that we sometimes have no idea what to do with, where to put them. Can we just freeze them, until they are so cold, hard and brittle that we either don't feel them anymore or they are covered up in the back of who we are that we forget? The problem is the thaw and the ultimate stink that will choke up your whole life again. I don't know if there is any away that is away enough to throw these memories and who will hold them? Who is in charge of burning the heap?

Friday, September 17, 2010


Two little girls sitting on the sidewalk, playing in the dirt, decoding which are the bad ants and which are the good. As I walk up to them with Peanut in his carrying cage fresh from a birthday car ride they ask to see my cat. I tell them he isn't a cat, he is a rabbit. "Did you go camping and catch him?" the larger and pushier girl asks. No. "Did you just catch him hopping outside?" asks the other. No. They both press for me to put him down on the side walk to hop hop hop around for them to see, both poking at the front door of the cage with their grubby, filthy hands. A bug flies onto the floor of the cage. I wince. I want him inside my apartment, where there are no bugs, where it is clean, where it is home.

When I come outside an hour later, the girls are still playing. They have more friends with them and as the pushy girl walks over to me I say "You changed your shirt." She answers, "yeah, I changed my name. I'm new now." The younger boy following her asks if I am her mom, wants to know why she says her name is Rose now. "Sorry honey, I don't have any kids. Must be the game she is playing." The boy's nervous wringing hands are covered in warts. He was confused but didn't want to be without this new Rose, no matter. I watch them walk away, and new Rose tells the other kids that her mother "changed her name again too." New Rose is wearing an older woman's tan pumps that look like they have been pulled from a dumpster, a green skirt too short for her age and her mouth is dirty with 2 days of dirt and sweat. As I am leaving they decide to play hide-and-seek in the stairwell. Did they find New Rose?

Saturday, September 11, 2010


I typically do not pick romantic comedies as a movie to watch, in fact I purposely stay away from them. The reasons are many (bad acting, poor plot, predictable plot, emotional manipulation and the same actor and actress repeatedly) but what makes me stay away the most is the torment I put myself under after watching one with all the questions for why I am NOT in a relationship. That makes for neither a romantic nor comedic evening. So, with all of that said, I just watched "He's Just Not that Into You" under the urging of a friend. My critique? Well, shit. I am now stuck with the rest of the night to ransack my brain, and rehash the best and worse of Neil. I am also left to stare down at myself and consider why I would ever want to start the process of a romantic relationship ever again? The saying it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.....I don't know if I subscribe anymore. I did when I was clinging in the middle of a crumble of a love. Now? I do know I am smarter. I do know I am wiser. I do know I am colder. My bitter grinding bite on my reality for the present is less rosy, less possible. I miss her. The her, then. If I hadn't lost what I gave so freely to someone that I had no idea didn't deserve it, I might still be....there. Where I left her.

Friday, September 3, 2010

So, J. Alfred Prufrock had his coffee spoons, Will Freeman had units. I have days with no pain. Or less pain. Hey, days with a good poop measure up pretty good I'd say. I don't know what it is like to not have pain. Maybe no one does. I measure the success of me, by the amount of pain inside my body. If a monkey on your back is a literary form of measurement, some days I have a howler monkey screaming so loud nothing else can be heard. Maybe I should start a rating system: Capuchin, Spider and everyday Marmosets. Never, ever going to invite the Ape for a stay. He would crush me. I stubbornly push off the help, any assist in fighting the weight of carrying my pain monkey around with me. When I wake, when I sleep, it is there. I stupidly think if I can beat it on my own, I win something ( like what a Pride Trophy sheez ) It always wins. It wakes me up from sleep, or keeps me from it. Keeps me from smiling at the little girl skipping and humming because she could. I try to wrestle it on my own, yet it is now and has always been stronger than me. I don't like it. Never will.

And why should I? Why should anyone? It sucks. Literally, it sucks. It sucks life and energy out of you. Depleting what you were, or what you would have liked to be. Your face contorts into this ugly grimace of dislike and distrust. You distrust the time when pain is absent. Oh, it will be back, just like the neighbors you don't want knocking at 11 p.m. asking for the plunger. ( No, you can keep it. Trust me on that. ) Why should I like that after nearly 40 years ( yeah, ugh you read that right and I didn't like typing it either ) not one doctor has any idea better than my own self why I have this pain? Nothing to be glad about on that. Shrug after shrug after shrug. I am simply hoping for as many good days as possible and to survive the bad ones as well as I am able. Possibly without losing friends and family members with my rage and angst along the way. There have been casualties, might be more. For as J. Alfred said....

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

The Bun

The Bun
If you don't like rabbits, you can suck it, shove it and then go soak your head.