Little Grey Aliens Probed my Brain But I'm Feeling Much Better Now

It's now 3:33 a.m. & I imagine this to be significant. I've been sick, sick, sick but think I'm finally on the mend, although my voice still sounds eerily like Kathleen Turner's. It's my whiskey voice. Ha.

I wish I had a voice like Nic Sebastian's, who makes my poem, "Coyote" sound downright chilling! Check it out at Whale Sound.


***

Dreading the holidays. I don't like shopping. People get downright scary sometimes. Wish I could shop exclusively online but this never works out. I wish I had a funky pink Christmas Tree and some homemade fudge. I have this recipe for spiced chai carrot cake that I think will make awesome cupcakes AND will solve the whole ten-pound-bag-of-carrots-endless-carrots-who-wants-some-freaking-carrots problem. Also: I had a dream that my floor was covered with disembodied human ears scuttling about on tiny legs like a zillion centipedes which surely means I've finally gone 'round the bend.

***

Reading: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Watching: My So-Called Life

Feeling: Phlegmatic

Post in which I reference both Pat Sajak & Harrison Ford

I think I had a dream about a puppet that looked like Pat Sajak. I'm certain this was creepy & unpleasant. It's possible his face appeared in a partially melted stick of butter. I suspect this dream means I should be more aware of reversals of fortune, but I'm way overdue for an upswing, anyway. Hah. Recent tarot readings suggest I will find security & succeed in overcoming certain obstacles. I am my own worst enemy. I am held back by my own fears & etc...

I have yet to figure out ways to be hella organized & astoundingly awesome. Basically, this means that I need to scrub my shower & clean out the fridge. I made my favorite salad for lunch today (roasted pears & arugula!) and ate a smidge too much because I have no self control & besides it was salad. Salad is like free calories. Eat as much as you want. I like to pretend this salad does not contain highly caloric ingredients like toasted pecans and salty slivers of fancy cheese. After all, these things are garnishes. Garnishes do not count.

I am hoping to finish reading submissions for blossombones over the next week or two. I'm about halfway through the subs (plus there are a few I'm holding on to for a second reading). Writerly things keep slipping into future time. I'm attending to life's minutiae. I wish someone would come over and make me a lasagna. With spinach. I like spinach.

I took Z to a job interview today & I waited for him in the car. I heard two songs that appeared in The Wedding Singer & I wasn't even listening to the 80s station.

Last night I tried for the millionth time to get M to watch Blade Runner. And he fell asleep. As always.

Man, Harrison Ford was all kinds of hotness in the 80s before he was a smarmy old man with a creepy-ass diamond earring. I am going to pretend they are two different people.

Lost Time

Q: Why do I torture myself?

A: I don't know. Perhaps I like the feeling of being buried alive in a tiny casket with a couple of live crows pecking at my eyes.


***

Reading: Man on Extremely Small Island by Jason Koo

Watching: Random 70s Horror Flicks

Eating: Too Damn Much.

Coyote

This might have something to do with predation, a paper cocoon
in a dead girl’s mouth, a bloody arrow drawn on an oak leaf.

Nothing is so slick as the red marrow from a femur, the red skirt
draped over a thigh. Call her a striptease, a hotel keychain, a pool

of wet painted under the body. She was breathing when you began
whistling between your teeth. Now there are beetles in her hair,

and she is folded over, raw fragments, the knucklebone
you swallowed, the plastic bag of fingernails you keep

under the backseat. She is the pair of lips you tattooed on your wrist
that means something, the secret you tongue when you’re alone

in rented rooms, the damp graffiti you left on the pavement
in the shape of canid claws. You imagine she might return

as a mouse, something dark and skittering in your peripheral vision.
This is a trick. You appear in numerous guises, but her ghost

always knows you by the damage you cause to exterior tissue,
the oval tracks that lead away from the pretty carcass.


(First published in Ghost Ocean Magazine, Issue 2)

More on Hauntings & Random Shite

I have decided I would like to live in a haunted house. It should be creaky & eerie & inhabited by benevolent ghosts. I would hold old-fashioned seances for tourists & the tables would levitate & there would be rattling chains & knockings in the walls. I would have a crystal ball. I would serve tea & biscuits. Life would be relatively peaceful. I suspect I have a stronger affinity for the dead than for the living.

Last night I dreamt my house was very, very dirty. The sofa cushions were stained & the bathroom tiles were crusty. Neighbors were wandering through the house commenting on the general filthiness & I felt terribly embarrassed. This is a lame dream. Apparently I am not as cool as I think I am & I actually care what people think of me. How dreadful.

If I lived in a haunted house, a little filth would be expected. And the ghosts wouldn't care anyway.

***

Poetry Brothel was awesome this weekend. I find it uplifting to spend time in the presence of poets & dancers & musicians. It reminds me that people are generally pretty cool & that humanity does have some redeeming qualities. I read my poem about Elizabeth Bathory. I think people liked it. All of the brothel poets are super-cool & the dancers are amazing & I am now fascinated with the burlesque, with dancing as a means for storytelling. It's such a compelling art form. I love it.

I am very lazy about uploading pictures from my camera. I will post some soon. Probably.

***

Later, in the real world, where people are not dressed in beautiful costumes:

Lately I am very aware of being snubbed, rebuffed, given the stink-eye & other forms of passive-aggressive behavior. I dislike this. I try not to do this to anyone, even if I am not particularly fond of them. I am a big believer in civility. I don't expect to like everyone, but I do think it's important to be polite.

I am very tired of worrying about inadvertently offending people. I don't mean to be weird. Honest.


Scary Vending Machine Item of the Week: Plastic tray of pre-cooked bacon & eggs. Horrifying.

Vice & Verse!

The Chicago Poetry Brothel
Friday, November 5th, 2010
8:00 p.m.
House of Blues Foundation Room
329 N. Dearborn
Chicago Illinois 60654

My alter ego, August Rose, will be reading poems in the voices of female serial killers and their victims. Or perhaps there will be villainous steampunk robots. You never know.

Two new poems are up at the beautifully edited Ghost Ocean Magazine! Read.

Insomnia or the early symptoms of zombie virus?

Cannot sleep. I have the blues tonight. I think I might be turning into one of those hoarders you see on television who cannot throw anything away--broken spoons & plastic easter eggs & socks with holes in the heel & outdated prescription glasses & expired medicine & all manner of weirdness.

According to my November horoscope I should expect to earn scads of income this month. Riches shall rain from the sky upon my roof & whatnot. I think it's unlikely, although I would certainly like it very much. When an astrologist says "riches" they really mean "frogs & locusts" so I am preparing for an apocalyptic plague, just in case.

What I would really like is to wait out the apocalypse with some hot cocoa with Baileys or some homemade caramel corn with sea salt or maybe just a really, really warm winter coat. I have to stop cooking things that no one will eat. There is too much soup in this house. I'm pretty sure the endless pots of soup signify my emotional unraveling. M talked me into buying a ten pound bag of carrots at Costco & I'm not sure how many more carrot sticks we can eat. This situation calls for cake, I think.

I need two full days to myself where I watch movies and eat popcorn and light a fire in the fireplace and hide from the world but this pretty much never happens except in my head. I am planning a femme-centric horror movie marathon to include: Ginger Snaps, The Descent, Audition, & I cannot decide what else. . . I have nothing particularly interesting to say; I'm just clearing the cobwebs tonight.

Wish I could shake this feeling of ick.