Good Idea: Trying on the bathing suit you ordered. Deciding it's a good time to go work out on your Urban Rebounder.
 

Bad Idea: Before working out, drink 3 cups of coffee (stimulant); while working out, get an I-can't-breath-ow-my-side-is-being-pierced-by-a-spear cramp; decide it's due to asthma and use inhaler (stimulant); keep working out until your heart rate is so high that you might turn into the hulk and your breath is forced out with the timber of a cow's moo; pause the video and stick head between your legs; remember what you looked like in a swim suit; get back up and work out some more; repeat; repeat; repeat.




Okay, so I'm realizing that the vast majority of my liquid intake is coffee. Not much else. Probably not good. I'm probably dehydrated. But I finished despite all of the near-death episodes. That's a plus. But I don't WANT to feel like crap when I'm working out. So, I'm making it my mission to drink more water. But does anyone have ANY advice on what to do once you get that side cramp? I know that it's a result of carbon dioxide building up in your system, and I try to focus on the breath out as opposed to the breath in, but once I get one, I really can't get rid of it for the rest of the work out. Even if it subsides when I take a break, it comes back. Help?

Here we are. Day 1 of I don't care if no one is around to read this, I'm going to document my life anyway.* Today's topic: my fourth of July weekend.

For the last few years, we have gone to a Santa Cruz beach. Technically, fireworks are illegal there. They make a big production of checking all bags & coolers and whatnot to make sure no one brings in fireworks, glass, or bombs of any sort. Last year, we threw our $80 collection of fireworks over the cliff-thingy to come back & get, but the beach police found it before we did.**

All this ruckus, and yet once the sun sets, all the smarter-than-me Santa Cruzians dig up their stashes & put on a spectacular fireworks show. It's not officially sanctioned, but no one tries to stop it either. And it's far better than any fireworks show I've seen, since the people on the beach aren't particularly worried about whether they're illegal.

But not this year. This year, I last minute convinced my sister to take us to her boyfriend's*** family cabin and on the boyfriend's family boat. I spent my fourth with my 11-year-old Mia, my boyfriend, my mamma, brother Joseph, sister & boyfriend Mike, and cousins Bekah & Mary. My youngest daughter, Luna, was noticably absent. I alternate holidays with her dad, and though I'm getting used to it, it still sucks not to be able to share experiences with 1/4 of my immediate family.

The day went something like this: Get up early(ish). Pick up a Mother's Day present for my mother, because I am a horrible daughter and hadn't gotten anything yet. Pick up a card & gift card's for my brother, whose birthday was over a month ago. Drive. Get to Modesto. Drive. Get to Groveland. Wait. Finally get on the boat. It's nearly 5 PM by this time. And then it goes something like this:

Drink. Get on the boat. Drink. Eat the wind as it inflates my lungs. Pretend the forest that surrounds the lake is the jungle. Drink. Watch my sister catch a 2 inch fish. Throw it back. Drink to the fish. Anchor & jump in. Discover it is very tiring to tread water for significant periods of time. Discover it is pleasurable to instead have a life jacket on and no longer worry about drowning. Drink. Chase geese with use of my handy-dandy life jacket. Use chips to lure geese in. Discover they are still faster than me. Drink. Pour drinks into the mouths of swimmers. Laugh when they complain about kamakazi in the eye. Drink. Drift. Watch as the sky reminds us why we're here. Watch as Mia forgets to try to act cool when watching magic explode in the air. Miss my Luna.

The next day, many of the family had to go home, but we went thrift store shopping and back to the lake. Sometimes you know you are in an emotional state. Sometimes it is the product of biology. But even that knowledge doesn't prevent sadness from creeping up when you just want to be held. When you just want to be paid attention to. The boyfriend never really seems to care when that's the case. And if that's my only problem with him currently, we're doing great. But it still made me sad in the moment. I wish that I could say to him, "Hey, I'm stupidly emotional right now. I need you to pay attention to me right now. I'm going to be needy for a day or two. Then I'll go back to normal. Swear. Can you be there for me until then?" Or, more accurately, I wish I could say that to him and him respond in a positive manner. Eh. I'll live.****

All in all (which is the MOST annoying way that my students conclude their essays), I had a wonderful time. Didn't feel much in the way of patriotism, but that's nothing new. And now back to my regularly scheduled life.



*I'm being dramatic. I know people still read and comment on my entries sometimes. And I appreciate those that are sticking with it immeasurably. I just have a flare for hyperbole.

**That may have been the last straw and why I didn't particularly want to go there this year. I want my money back!

***This guy's actually really awesome, but I have to hate him a little for HAVING AN EXTRA HOUSE. Granted it's his family's or whatever, but I don't even have ONE house. He's got multiple. Spoiled brat.

****But I'm still going to whine about it.

So I've been not-so-privately whimpering & crying over how facebook has made lj boring. Boring is really not the right word. More like lonely. Facebook has made it easier for all of my friends to quickly blurb about what they are up to, and so they have abandoned the ye olde tradition of writing in multiple full sentences.

Part of me understands this. I, too, have less time than I once did. But as I was searching my cliched soul to find out why I was so bothered by everyone leaving lj, I came up with this. Part of it is that I miss reading full posts. Sometimes witty. Sometimes whiny. Sometimes entertaining. These posts always helped me to feel closer to the poster, as I felt they had shared some insight into their lives.

But my upset also has more selfish and narcissistic roots. I also like to have an audience for what I say. I enjoy having people comment on whatever I just wrote. I enjoy keeping that audience in mind when writing whatever it is that I'm writing. One, because, again, I get lonely too easily, and it feels like a community. But also, because it makes me think twice before I write. It makes me deal with whatever issues I'm dealing with in a more intelligent and thoughtful manner. I can't just spout some drivel about how my boyfriend is a cad and an idiot (for example) without thinking first about my own involvement in the situation, as, above all, I have this requirement and expectation of honesty in this journal.

Finally, I also think that the way I write is influence by knowing that others will be reading. I pay a bit more attention to my actual style, which is good practice for, you know, writing poetry.

But. Facts are facts. Many fewer people are keeping up with livejournal. So, it has led me to question why I still persist. And I've come up with this: I do want to document my life. Like, I don't know, a journal. I do want to be able to look back on my 4th of July weekend 2009 and know what I did, know who was there, know how I felt. I want to remember the annoying and adorable things my children do.

So, I have decided to keep up this journal for posterity. Or, until all you face-book-crack-heads come back. Whatev. I'll do my best to keep my poor broken heart intact until then.
 

With each day that passes, I seem to be getting older. Crazy, right? With age, comes wisdom. So they say. I'm still waiting. With age, comes problems. At least medical problems. One of them being the carpel tunnel that seems to be getting worse. Okay, so maybe this isn't an age issue, but it IS just one on a long list of ailments that I've become used to just living with.

So, the doctor tells me I shouldn't get another cortizone shot, since I've already had one, and it is not recommended to have more than two or three in YOUR LIFETIME because it will eat away at the tendon and you won't be able to use your hands. I like my hands. I want to continue to be able to use them. Instead, I'm supposed to be wearing these braces 20 HOURS A DAY. Uh...lame. It's like being disabled before I'm actually disabled. They have metal rods in them to prevent me from bending my wrists, which makes it hard to do things like, I don't know, pick something up. I find myself subconsciously taking them off around the house. Losing them because I don't remember my body rejecting the incumberance. I'm like an old lady wandering around the house, "Now where did I put my glasses?"

And, for pure vanity's sake, I'm not sure I like having to be "the cripple" everywhere I go. I've noticed people helping me more often. Holding doors and offering to hold things for me. I just think they're being nice at first, until I realize, Duh! They think I'm disabled, and they are doing their good deed for the day.

I'm going to have to come to terms with this. I don't see myself as disabled, but the general populace is going to. That may be their first impression of me. And as much as I don't wan't to find this distasteful, there's a part of me that thinks when they think disabled, they're also thinking weak. So much of my self image has been wrapped around being strong. Something as simple as wrist braces may call for a disassembling of my current view of self and a reassembling of a new identity. Kind of a scary proposition.

[	Tags	|	friends, life, poets	]
[	Current Mood	|	contemplative	]

There is a man. A poet I know. Who once lived here, but now does not. He has commandeered the stars. Something about the motion, the crook of the neck, when straining to see past so much city and smog to see pinpricks of light burst through. The inherent magic in that moment. He knows so much of stars, their placement and stories. I can barely recognize the dippers. But I have stood until the position, night air, and mosquitoes cramped my neck just to hear the rumble of his voice as he pointed out each legend living and interacting with each other in the otherwise lonely blackness.

I miss this. I miss him.

But what strikes me is that this man has commandeered the stars for me. Thoughts of him permanently attached. How nice that must be. I'd love to be associated with something so cool. So lovely. Or maybe anything at all. Whenever person A sees bananas, they think of me. Or whenever person B sees a chipped bowl, it reminds them of me. I'd like there to be an impetus for a memory. I wonder if there is.

~I still can't say no. I'm sure I come off to most of you as overly confrontational, but I suppose that's only sometimes. Case in point: I am going to get a rebounder. A tiny trampoline, intended to shake myself up a bit. Inspired by an lj/real life friend. I did a bunch of online research about it, and if half of what they say is true, it sounds worth driving to Fremont and paying $15 for a used one. Plus, I think my kids will like it.

I responded to a craigslist ad & called some dude. Said I would come by to get it, but he then informed me that it had a tear in it. I'm thinking a trampoline with a tear in it is probably not much use, but do I say so? No. I still tell him I'm coming by, knowing full well it's a completely douchy thing to do to make someone wait for you to come and to no-show. On my way to work to clean up the hurricane in my classroom, dude calls to ask if I'm on my way. "Yep, I'll be right there," I tell him. Ass-hat. I then proceed to run through a dozen different scenarios that will let me beg off. Maybe tell him I got a flat tire. Maybe tell him there's a family emergency. Maybe tell him I got called into work.

I don't even know this anonymous craigslist-poster, but I'm making the effort to make some shit up to tell him.

Eventually, I call and tell him that I had stopped off somewhere else, and they had a trampoline without a tear, so I bought that one. Almost close to the truth, as I have another one I'm going to go pick up tomorrow. But not the real truth. I don't like being a liar. Apparently, I don' t like saying "no" more.

~I don't like going to the doctor. I'm not scared; I just find it to be a colossal waist of time. So I stack up 15 different things I need to be seen for and go in with a list. Although it was not on that list (I'll tell you more about what was at another time), we discussed smoking. I'm so freaking sick of it. It annoys the shit out of me. And, yes, I've quit before. I know HOW, but with a boyfriend who won't stop, I haven't brought myself to. I am 3 years away from the age my maternal grandfather was when he died of lung cancer. My paternal grandfather also died of lung turned to brain cancer. I'm a freaking idiot for smoking.

And I'm too fat to quit.

Yes, I'm THAT stupid.

When nicotine leaves the body, it makes you gain weight (since nicotine is a stimulant). This is not even taking into consideration that the oral fixation is usually satiated by food when one quits. I'm at the top of the pendulum of weight gain (the end of the school year finds me layered in fat), and I'm just not willing to get any bigger.

So, we talked about getting on Wellbutrin to help me quit. It's a stimulant all by itself, so it should help with the weight gain. And if I go to a 3 hour This Is Why You Should Stop Smoking class, my insurance will pay for the medication. Overall, I'm not a fan of putting chemicals in my body (yes, I see the irony), but I'm going to do this. I signed up for the class for next Tuesday. No waiting for Nationals to be over. No more waiting. No more.

And on that note, I shall sign off for now. More later.

San Jose Poetry Slam Finals @ MACLA
Hosted by Mike McGee

510 S. 1^st Street

San Jose , CA .

7:30 PM doors open
8 PM Show Starts

Tuesday, May 19th

$6 at the door

I am almost thirty

I am the universe. so are we all.

feel more connected to everything

as the years pass. it makes me

wonder about death. that maybe it’s just

becoming a part of all that surrounds us.

I am a philosopher in my old age.

I eat. have always worried about my weight;

don’t know that will ever change, but I’m consciously

 trying to get along with my body.

 to find myself attractive.

I fear the end to my relationship.

only months ago my limbs

wilted. and though I am now turgid

filled,

I won’t forget.

I pretend to have the confidence

I’ve always lacked.

 It’s working.

I write sometimes.

somehow life has drained the fountain I

discovered five years ago

I’m looking for ways to keep it filled

for permanent

I work as a teacher.

still.

have passed the four-year

burn-out mark

I still feel the spark

the intensity born of knowing

165 new people intimately every year

I still want.

want to read for audio books

write a slam textbook

complacency is the death of creativity

fuck complacency

I love everybody

so much

my family sits around the dinner table

laughing more than eating.

still friends with the best of those I knew in my youth

have made friends I hope to know until senility.

and after

we will be a clusterfuck of senile stardust

I don’t  understand what five years will

bring that can be so different.

I’m looking forward to finding out.

I’m becoming more myself,

more who I was meant to be, each year.

Look out for me.

I am twenty-five

I am a galaxy

collecting people to me

have met stars on stage who have been

stars in bed and I’m having

so much fun with it I think I’m leaking joy.

I eat healthier, except when I don’t.

I exercise, except when I don’t.

still think I look better than I did in my teens

have come to appreciate my softness and stretch marks

except when I don’t

I fear being alone.

just left my ex of eleven years

with bones more broken

                               heart more guarded

                                                     and one more child.

my moon.

she deserved life without a mother who

dreamt more often his rust-stained

hands around my neck

than her warm, pudgy

fingers around my thumb

but it is in the quiet times of the night that I am

lonely in these broken bones

for one who knows me

to my toenails

I am out with my friends as often as

babysitters can be found.

I resent my girls in the most recessed,

selfish part of me when they are asleep

and I am alone.

I pretend I am being watched

my version of The Truman Show.

it makes sense. my life has already had more twists

and dark alleys than anything I’ve seen

on the big screen

I write poetry. maybe, I am even a

poet

everything is different. each moment capturable

and I can make up words.

discovered the coolest drama club ever in slam.

everything I write is dark. he says I’ll move past the trauma

I don’t think he understands that I am

nothing more

I work as a teacher. wasn’t sure

I’d have the patience, but am more in

love with these students than feels normal.

a roller coaster, with highs and lows in such

rapid succession, I never truly catch my breath

I want to be independently rich.

a girl can dream.

I love my new, creative, open-minded friends.

love being called mommy by my little ones.

I don’t understand how I’m going to

do this alone.

have decided to be single forever

but bills pile weight upon my shoulders

bury me

I am twenty

I am a nebula

so much is forming around me

in spite of me; because of me.

I made a daughter out of stardust and hydrogen

I revolve around her

I eat too much or not enough

a fat anorexic

diet pills solve everything, until they don’t

a shocking realization,

boys want me.

I give myself to them.

I fear failing this tiny,

perfect child

fear it is too much to put on her

the role of her mother’s savior

from drugs, suicide, carnival life

I pretend I am a princess

yes. still.

I write essays upon essays

have murdered the rainforest single-handedly

school is more fulfilling than I ever imagined

it knocks the breath out of me sometimes,

this responsible parent thing

I work as a telemarketer for colleges and universities

am damn good at my job

“employee of the month” so many

times in a row, they get sick of it

I get married.

my daughter almost dies.

 they try to take her away from me.

I get a divorce.

there is no poem or fancy

words that can capture this.

I want to be a teacher.

again.

it means afternoons and summers with my Mia

the perfect mom-job

I love my two-year-old

when she was dying, my

cells disintegrated inside of me.

when she lived, I bought her every

toy I could find for Christmas.

vowed never to take her for granted.

I don’t understand anything anymore

but I’m trying.  

See explanation in today's first post.






I am fifteen

I am a super nova

a dying star

the best days of my life are behind me.

I eat too much

always

but mostly in the stretch of night hours

can’t sleep only comes

once the sun is serious about staying up.

then I crash on the couch while life buzzes around me.

I’m safe this way.

I’ve fallen apart recently

two years since he went to jail for a few months

(though never far away

mother won’t leave him

or stop talking about him to me)

I have nightmares

often

one year since I dug a hole to China in my wrists

spent weeks in the mental hospital. I

still kind of want to go back there

still plan to.

I fear everything

mostly living

I calculate each place’s potential

 road—night. position yourself just so. decapitation.

tree—find some rope. make some if you have to. hanging.

garbage can—dump out the garbage. salvage the precious plastic. suffocation.

I pretend to be the characters in all the books I read

cry sometimes with that desire.

desperate to live in a fantasy

away from all that is real and gritty and painful

I have not discovered drugs yet.

I work at a bakery.

eat all their food.

an eccentric Cantonese woman, slaps my hands

when I push the wrong button on the cash register

I don’t complain

this is the only place who will hire a fifteen-year-old.

I make $4.25 an hour.

I want to be dead.

alternately, I want to be an actress.

want to put myself into another character.

be anyone other than me.

sometimes I go to school.

mostly, not.

I love my boyfriend.

obsessed with him, and he with me. every

moment possible we cling to each other like lifeline

he makes me feel loved

this feels new

I’m afraid it will go away

when he goes to the optometrist and has to get glasses,

I’m inconsolable

 afraid that he will finally see

how ugly I really am. leave me.

we are Romeo and Juliet.

ridiculous. passionate. no one else understands.

I don’t understand why everyone around me is so selfish;

they won’t let me die

the only way I will ever be happy.

I am ten

I am a black hole.

I am desperately trying to be liked and cool.

Nothing ever works out quite right.

I’m too fat. My perm looks like my mother’s friend

did it in her kitchen.

she did.

I can never pull together a style.

anytime I think I look good,

I go to school and realize I’ve been fooling myself.

I eat what ends up in my lunch pail,

though I’m jealous of the string cheese and chocolate

pudding cups that shine forth from my friend’s lunches.

constantly conscious of being

the poorest girl in a private school.

The scholarship child.

The one who lives in an apartment

whose father is not only gone, but gay.

shudder.

 they pity-pray for me.

when I go to visit my dad and bring

my best friend, she notices a book in the spare room:

The Joy of Gay Sex

She wants to look at it.

I tell her no! and admit that my dad’s roommate is gay.

She thinks it’s cool.

We play Uno instead and I cheat.

I fear hell.

 I fear demons.

In the middle of the night, I fear the red numbers on my alarm clock

I fear I will never be good enough to get into heaven.

I fear I’m rotten to the core.

I fear how close he gets sometimes

Something feels off

It doesn’t seem right for him to kiss me on my lips

I fear I’m rotten to the core.

when no one else is around,

I pretend to be a famous singer

 I can’t sing.

once, my dad catches me dancing to Rhythm Nation.

I almost die of embarrassment

don’t talk to him the rest of the day.

I want to be a teacher.

 I want to teach 5^th grade, though Mrs. Meyers is old,

crotchety and tells me that only prostitutes where earrings.

I get in trouble for drawing pictures of naked men.

a prank we were pulling on Marie’s next door neighbor

left in the lunch room, we

are called into the principal’s office.

I almost died.

willed it to happen

began to think God didn’t like me very much.

later, called into the office for skinny

dipping at a birthday party over the weekend

this is what makes lesbians.

I worry that I will be gay like my father.

I love my friends.

They are my world.

more than I can ever be

if I am around them

all. the. time.

maybe I will be more them than me

I don’t understand myself.

I am five.

I am as oblivious as the moon.

haven’t learned self-consciousness

just a bundle of reactions to the outside world

when I woke up from a nap and couldn’t find my mommy

I called 911

I am reactionary

she returned 15 minutes later

had been doing laundry.

I wasn’t scared. But I paid attention:

if you can’t find your mom, you’re supposed to call 911.

I eat lentils.

sometimes for a week straight

I don’t know I’m poor, just that this week’s

menu hasn’t been yummy.

I fear Indiana Jones.

Or at least the man who pulls the heart

out of the other mans chest, still beating.

And the snake they split

open to reveal thousands of baby snakes.

This is what evil is.

I pretend to be a princess.

everyone would have to listen to me and do what I say.

I think sometimes that I’ve been adopted

my real mother, the queen, will be back for me

when I’ve experienced life as a peasant.

a growing experience.

I want to be a teacher when I grow up.

I want to be a grown up already.

This little body is too limiting.

I love my mommy.

love my little sister so much, I want to carry

her around like a cabbage patch doll.

I don’t understand anything outside a 3 foot radius.

I don’t care to.

dear mommy,

remember when you got me that expensive doll?

I was four. maybe five.

And remember how a beauty

mark was penned on her face.

dark blue ink, between nose and lips

the same as mine

you said,

this is why I don’t can’t get you nice things.

you ruin them.

and spirited away my favorite doll

to languish in a closet

punishing the both of us.

I tried to convince you that I didn’t do it

that it must have happened on the floor of my room;

an open pen, a helpless doll, a fortuitous and random encounter.  

you didn’t believe me

I wouldn’t have believed me either

this, the first time I remember

truth not mattering

no way to vindicate myself

nor the vocabulary to do so beyond stammers and tears

today, I am twenty-nine

older than you were then.

have waited all this time to tell you,

I didn’t do it.

will you believe me now?

Crystal admitted, unabashed, when her son

frustrated her, she imagined

punching her baby boy in the face

watching it crumple around her fist

a kind of sick joy

I couldn’t imagine

until now

the constant demands of toddlers

chubby, clumsy fingers

tantrums and ever-overflowing diapers

those were the glory years

it is when they somehow become

too old to be scared of you

when you are no longer the

20-foot-tall giant who loves and looms

whose anger blocks out the sun

whose smiles they live for

when you are no longer Mommy

when you are Mom,
or worse,
Mother

now, I say things I don’t mean

far out of earshot of the hellions

I want to punch her in the face!

I hate my fucking children. I’m going to give

them away to Salvation Army.

I just want to leave.

go away

never come back.

parenting only truly weighs heavy

when hormones kick in.

maybe I should remove her uterus,

breast buds, pituitary gland,

turn her back in to my pillow angel

yeah, I did it.

threw my baby brother across the room

watched his months old body convulse

go still

so quiet

maybe the first time I’ve heard myself think

in all my twelve years

I couldn’t take it anymore

so many grubby faces, black-rimmed fingernails

clutching at my jeans

being the oldest of ten is like being

swallowed by an anthill

sucked into its belly, consumed by tiny bites

eventually you gotta fight back