pedal. pause. stop. breathe. sleep. wake. go.

sometimes you just can't do it all. i never figure it out until i'm already doing it all.
when you're doing it all, you can't do it all perfect. i don't realize that until i'm doing it less than.
there are days when you will get sick in the shower, and you will throw up less than a hour before you have to be at work.
it's okay if you know this is not, like, sick sick. that this is stress and panic-induced.
it is okay to call in.
and if you DO go in when you likely should not, it is okay go home after only half a day and sleep before you have to go to another job.
even if you are only part time and feel totally obligated to never ever have any work conflicts at all.
how does a person get to a place where they actually really believe that they have to be a super human to warrant any right to exist at all?
that must take years.
and time,
energy,
stress,
tough and lonely she-balls isolated at 0∘celsius in a backpack or purse or notebook or yoga mat
chunking up at the bottom of the soymilk container.
"easy going"
"laid back"
that's the plea i keep hearing. and to find that shocking, that i am neither of those things, well, there you have it. that there's the problemo. it is not a mode of function with which i am even acquainted.
and it will drive a railroad spike between your teeth
your esophagus and your stomach
your large intestine and your sphincter
nature and nurture
heart and mind
hands holding hands holding hope holding pillows and pride and late night burritos.

it won't fix itself.
patience is a tough virtue to patient for.

news to me

i am glad granny is okay now.
i am glad tomorrow is friday.
i am glad sunday brings a break from the show, even though i love that show's pants off.
i am glad for next Saturday when i get my first day off in nearly 2 weeks.

i have ants in my pants. pretty much all the time. when you are young, everything happens very quickly even when it is happening slowly and when things don't happen quickly all at once when i need them to, i freak out. when things that i hate happen very quickly all at once, i freak out. when i have a day off, i freak out.

this year, i wanted to be more informed. i wake up to wake up to a morning call from my cellphone. i leap from my bed to the phone in barely more than a step. i always think i have overslept, that my cellphone is ringing because i am late for work or i have missed an appointment and someone is calling to tell me that. it's not. my cellphone is ringing because i told it to ring.

i've done that before. overslept. i did it for at least two semesters in college. i did it through at least two jobs. that was at least 6 years ago by now. i am still scared of it. it haunts me.

soon after i've silenced the ghost call, the radio rouses itself and blares the morning news. it used to blare music. it made me feel ignorant and indifferent, so i changed it to the news and called in for the pledge drive. they sent me free magazine subscriptions. i wake to news. i break from work and fall asleep to news in print. some of it registers. most of it confuses. it irritates. why do i feel responsible for reading it, for knowing each minute detail? i don't need the details. i'm not an idiot. i understand the things that are going on. i don't understand the cultural stuff, or the economical stuff. i understand that it's an overwhelming amount of misunderstanding that will never be resolved based on whether or not i read and listen to it.

i'm just trying to pinpoint the things that make me sad. i'm trying to make a list of every possible thing that could be dragging me down that i set upon myself as a duty. news is one of those things. but you can't just ignore the news, can you?

even newsweek is depressed. "anti-depressants work," it says on one end of the cover. turn the magazine over. "anti-depressants don't work." i'm not kidding you. this is life on the cover of a weekly, written to inform.
don't know, here.
do i really need to be informed right now? because, i feel like i get it pretty loud and clear.
the news is just one of the things depressing me.
the possibility of my dad getting laid off.
it's all looming. i think about it constantly. i think about what i have, what i don't deserve, and what other people demand of each other--even strangers--because there is a possibility of comfort at the grave bottom of every need.




i think about you.




i think about her.




i think about her birthday and how i moved away.
500 miles is far when you're getting vital updates via voicemail, when you work 10 days a week, when the alignment is clearly off and has been for over a year, when you empty your bank account with a rent check, and keep friggin paying the GAS company instead of the POWER company.


i promise i'm not trying to be sad. it's not on my agenda. it's pretty much the only thing not in my day planner at this point.
EYE am the only thing not in my day planner.
EVER.
AT ALL.
it's clear now.
i get it.

dug my "singin in the rain" CD out of the basement because i had to -or- where did all the good dance numbers go?

* * * * *

all of chicago north of north south of irving, and east of damen should be bombed back to the stone age. i honestly don't know what we're doing in the middle east. i've encountered more than a few terrorists, and most of them keep addresses in lincoln park or wrigleyville. i almost get mowed down at the intersection of roscoe & sheffield, at the south east corner headed north, across the street from penny's noodle shop and less than two blocks from my last apartment. i saddled up to the accompanying car to my left and crossed the four way stop when he/she did. when that car was about a foot in front of me, the car at the right stop sign gunned it, looking right at me. he laid on his horn. at me. for fucking crossing the street. his intent was to hit me, or at least to come so close to hitting me that he would scare the shit out of me, intimidate me--i can only suppose--for not driving. for not being a superficial tramp in heels, for looking like shit today, for being really tired, particularly stressed, sad, and underpaid. honestly? i don't know why. but i know he saw me. he didn't want me in his way. i--as he saw it--was in his way. so inconveniently in my way, that he wanted to hit me--A HUMAN BEING!!!--with his big ass day trader daddy's money soul sucking conservative racist homophobic war whistling cum ride because i don't deserve to be here as much as he does. i so don't deserve to be here that i don't even deserve to cross roscoe + sheffield, under the L tracks for fuck's sake.

i got hit by a car once. about this time, three years ago. crossing south on dayton, i believe it was, at from the east corner of armitage. she was brunette and driving a black Porsche Cayenne. she drove right into me. not hard. i wasn't hurt. it was more a nudge than "hit." but i would imagine people saw it? they must have. that is a busy area. loads of strollers and facials. no one said anything. i think i flicked her off. i don't remember. i was so inconsequential to her. she didn't even look at me. even after she hit me, she pretended not to see me. after i got to the other side of the street, she kept going. or did she go before i finished crossing? all i remember is feeling so...nothing. i remember that no matter what was happening in my life, i was just dropping off the rent and going back to class. i was walking that time, and i had braids in my hair that day, too.

do you want to run me over? be. my. guest.
i mean it. do it.
if that's what you want, if that's how you feel in this big screen plasma deep dish rock band super bowl shuffle moment.
by all means.
get in there.
claim your piece of land.
stick your flag in a grungy pothole and keep on moving.
that's the world we are living in, wrigleyville cickwad. you and i both know it. i wish, for both our sakes, you would have hit me.
you? to add an inch to your measly pecker, a trophy to mama's mantle, and boy scout badge to your cubs shirt, a cold sore to your girlfriend's best friend.
me? to prove a point. a few, in fact.
you can see where i'm going with this. you can see it's not pretty. you can see from this that i'm losing perspective (not to mention sleep) on more than a few things. well, i don't feel like i'm losing it so much as i feel like it's being taken from me. from a lot of us. it's not just me. i know.

i'm sorry, people who know me as a polite and respectful person or family member. i'm sorry for being vulgar and graphic and downright tasteless about things, but something is very wrong around here. lots of things are very very wrong. and that guy who thought about grinding me into the asphalt was right. i don't belong here, in this america. he does. i don't, and you likely don't either. the people who belong here aren't reading this. they're watching Lost. on DVR. with their hand down the front of their sweatpants. smoking a bowl. in my neighbors' living room. if they're reading anything, it's written by dan brown. i've never read dan brown or anything. i'm just saying.

does this belong on the internet or in a overconsidered-looking notebook? is this art? hipster garbage? i don't know what this is and i don't know where to put it. forgive me. it's just that _ _____ ____ ______ __ ____ __ and that's my own fault. when you have something to say, you just have to say it.
somewhere.
or something.
this is a distraction. i shouldn't be here. i should be home. on my way there. booking a flight. closing up shop for a month or so. there are things vastly more important than one's own feelings, that i am thinking of when i remember where she keeps the cards that she taught me to play solitaire with.
no, for real. solitaire the card game. that is the only thing here that is NOT a metaphor for something thick and cakey.
there are half a dozen or so packs. i prefer the blue bicycle cards over the red bees. there are trade paperback mysteries. they come from The Booklegger on Holmes. or they used to, anyway. she took me there once. i got to pick out a book. i don't remember what it was. i think it was a Goosebumps.
if i went to church, she would love me more.
if i were born again and again and again to resolve bad behavior.
if i were a ______ she would love me more.
i didn't send thank you cards this year. i was too busy. i bought them, but i never wrote them. i never sent them.

i can trace this behavior back. my own, i mean. i can trace it back to at least the 5th grade. no no, the 4th grade if not the 2nd, the shame back even beyond my first stab at kindergarten. i can track these patterns up into 7th, down the backside of 10th, swelling through 11th, passing like a stone through 12th and lingering till 14th or so. i can taste it when i swallowed it, when i held it back there for a couple years like a swollen cotton ball vitamin the morning of a hangover. i watered it. eight glasses of eight ounces each. a day. it grew. it bore seeds. i took care of it myself. it grew and grew and grew into the clouds and now there is a giant up there waiting for me fie fo fum.

that story ends somehow. that i started to turn into a really heavy handed metaphor that just isn't worth it. you can look that story up online if you don't remember how it ends. draw your own conclusions. it's clear what they're getting at. i say "they" because i don't remember who wrote it. i suppose i could look that up online, too.

there's too much down the rabbit hole and not enough up the beanstalk if you catch my wind.

six more weeks

coffee.
email.
shower.
writing.
audio hijack.
pistachios.
garage band.
ginger tea.
writing.
writing.
laurie's planet of sound.
new spoon CD.
free charlotte gainsbourg sampler.
baby gift.
home.
itunes.
coffee.
ipod.
stereo.
makeup.
papers
binder.
pavement.
snow.
5153.

2/2 = 1 = 0

first off, congratulations, peter jackson. you somehow managed to murder the lovely bones. well isn't that just downright cgi diarrhea soulsucking crapfest irony. i was the only one in the whole entire theater. the setup was perfect. it was the only thing in the last four days that hasn't made me cry.

i just came home to 26 emails and i have somehow totally effed up my schedule all over the place and today is tomorrow and tomorrow is now and tomorrow is the lonely bones oh shit oh shit oh shit shit shit.

tomorrow is today being now can just be groundhog day. i'm putting it all on you, you bucktoothed dumbass. make the call. you're my tea leaves my tarot cards my palm reading and magic 8 ball my ouija board.
i already know what the answer is.
you generally know with things like this.
i'm talking about the groundhog.
thank god we rolled a sodding eight.
i'm just trying to tighten up the quiet spaces,
filled with ipod all the time everywhere and friendly beers whilst home brewing honey peanut wheat beer
good meeting, new project,
layers of thin wicking hard reckless pedaling cell phone off as much as possible,
it makes me nervous,
on only for the purposes of babysitting and appointment making and family.
i very much need to leave this place right now. very very very much.
after this week i will finish painting my room and sleep in on saturdays
next week i will pick up and move on to the next stage of thinking about.
tomorrow is no more french fries and better organization.

at least i got the birthday cards right.

older than

we're teaching this class at 826 right now. on wednesdays. first class was this week and the kids were just stupendous. one girl threw up. poor thing. 7th grade. it's actually the perfect time to be puking in semi-public (she made it to the bathroom. we didn't even know it'd happened until after the class was over. well done. gold star.). it's sort of a metaphor.

i need to bring in some lyrics for them to create their own work from, and i remembered that i don't know any pop songs, really. and i don't mean that like, "oh i don't listen to Q101, for god's sake." i mean like, "who is this Bowling For Soup?" like, the way copywriters make fun of parents in advertising. and i'm realizing, it's a fine line between hipster cool and old. it's a fine line that maybe you've crossed when you can stand on a straight line and have either your butt or your boobs or your belly extend over when your spine is perfectly aligned. or the front curve of your thighs.

ET came this weekend, couched in a surprise and it was so so so so good to see her. i met her almost two years ago and have not seen her since. it's different to visit with someone on my own turf. sometimes it's nerve wracking, but this was fine. this was an instance where it was real great. and it felt like like i'd seen her, like, last week. in some way. that's cool. that's time being sneaky, i think. that's two years seeming like cream cheese on a bagel. that's just, like, what is going on? what am i doing?

i am getting old enough to shuck them off the tips of my fingers in angry monologues that walk a similar fine line between art and overshares.

i have to remember to make two birthday calls this week, send a birthday card and a baby gift.

i think i am going to try turning my phone off during the day.

i always forget about february. oooh...i really don't like this month.

'scuse me. i just need to shit out of my mouth for a couple minutes before i sleep for awhile.

hard to get up and bike to work
to love
on you
on myself
hearted
on anyone not moving as quickly
or purposefully
eye on a prize or just moving to move
a tough nut to crack
slow to warm
i know it, i know it, i know it already.
i take the car because i have too much stuff.
i learned it in the bathroom at the double sink
on top of cabinets full of bath and body works
sun ripened raspberry
rubber bands and wax for my braces,
hunched over the window seat to that nashville radio station that went static when i was in high school
they played wonderwall and i bought the oasis CD.
i didn't buy it to be cool but then it was cool and i wasn't cool
oh man.
that's an understatement.
there was a lot that i already had figured out,
but then, you know, you're just this age and you just feel this way
and that's stupid, really. to tell a person that.
because, yeah, they're maybe blowing a little out of proportion here and there
because, hello, they're out of proportion here and there
and then stay out of proportion here and there when it's rumored i'll outgrow it.

i've done this more than i've done that.
it's, you know, going to the beach or having a week off school.
just, like, don't get too comfortable.
just don't think, like, i'm not going to do it THIS way like i saw
or THIS way like really bothered me
it's just like, don't do it. period. the end.
back up.
school night.
grade next.
new year.

back to worrying about
important stuff, or whatever.
the weight, the profile, the economy, commas and semi-colons and independent clauses
family
can i work more, please? i'm good at that.
can i work myself into the ground and wake up in 25 years with no kids or friends and a drawer full of old birthday cards from my parents? i'd be real, real good at that.
can i set the bar here? will you watch it for me? i'm just running to the bathroom.
i just need to move the car. i'm in a tow zone.
i just need to check my email and screen this call
and i'll have that with everything on the side please, thank you.
i would like to be better at everything, please.
i was working on giving more hugs
or at least not being the kind of person that other people seemed scared to hug.
i like hugs. i need hugs. i'm sorry i said that. i'll regret saying that.
just a scary person, i guess.
again--learned at the bathroom sink more than a decade ago,
somewhere between 56K and progress reports.
uhg. give me a vacation in a cave, please.
dig me a big fat hole in the middle of winnemac park with mornings off and a payment plan
interest free

i will catch up on movies
i will catch up on sleep
i will catch up on diet and money
and nothing looks good on me anyway.