Armadillo Cake
That Reminds Me of the Armadillo Cake in "Steel Magnolias"
So says Danny (young Dan) & when I look blank, he tells me I have to see it. When I confess I don't have a VCR, he tells me he'll act it out for me—all the parts. (Like ChiChi & "Nashville"!)
Sunshine & clouds. Boys in their leather jackets, but not, please leather pants. I can't.... I mean it's....oh, snaky.
All boys tonight: little Flips w/ funny hats, guys reading, bent heads, crossed legs. Two with laptops, and oh wait, there's a Japanese girl. But no sooner have I said what it is tonight than it has changed into something else because this is a cafe & people come & go.
Writing days do have their peaks & valleys, eh? Waking is the valley of the shadow of Kill-Me-Please. Cup of tea, oh that's better. Cup of coffee, whee! Nice day walk—wheee! Cats in the yard, move over, lord. Good bit of writing....oh what a good girl am I. Good or bad. Things happen. Makings.
Then if I have something to read until bedtime, all I have to do is not think. And that suffices unless my infirmities are acting up.
Today the infirmities are acting up. Shoulder & throat. If somebody says something nice to me—like Dan today, or Lee yesterday—that helps make things tolerable.
One rejection today. I curse them.
BM Starbucks 4/7/01
Roofbeams & Track Lighting
And I remember when this was a Winchell's Doughnuts. Today it's too warm, too small. But not packed. I've come to the Broadway Starbs where the sun beams in, where I used to buy a donut on my way to work in 1981. From Shelly who was sleeping in the back with her boyfriend, fresh from Iowa. Or Ohio—I can't tell those 4 letter, 3 vowel mid-western states apart. (Or Illinois from Michigan for that matter.) Suddenly, I look up and there are a thousand people in line; no only 11 but in such a small space: a throng.
I'm suffering. Mostly from guilt, for instead of pushing on w/ Dave. I spent much of Sunday reading True Crime—one Frances Nutcase Mom Schreuder & fils. The twangs in my arm I tell myself are my tendons healing. Not my tumors spreading. (Grandma thought hers were gall bladder pangs.)
The sun came out & another old woman complimented my hair. I need a tiny manic attack but for that I first need something good to happen.
Actually the prospect of literary (instead of True Crime) reading & my promise to myself that I will sit down & whack out a few lines of Dave the Poet (it's garbage anyway) & the prospect of buying some upscale box o'dinner: not so bad.
Three or 4 phone calls today—hang-ups I'm almost curious enough to answer but not quite.
Broadway Starbuck's 4/7/01
How I Interpret My Headache
The suffering from my headache increases as I begin to believe it is not from muscle tension but from venous obstruction. I have begun to think that my two problems may be one problem located in my chest, upper lobe of the lung or lower esophagus. The pain is still on the left, but it's in the back of my head too, and the effect of all that is to make me wish to embrace—you know who. Right, Tomas.
I tell myself that this is a passing grief. That's one. And two, that if it's not, I can go to Harborview E.R. any time. I've called Pac Med & my referral is hung up—& it will take 3 weeks to get an appointment.
Or I can go get acupuncture—the doctors will just take the money anyway. So? Who me, worry?
Last night I dreamed there was another earthquake & I wasn't even surprised. I couldn't find a doorway that wasn't lined with glass. I don't remember what I did. I think Grandma Shevland was there. She was/has been in my thoughts. All her illnesses. Her emergency surgery.
I like to think I'm wrong about by concerns—I've never had a serious illness—but I know I'm not. Bad luck to me.
BM Starbucks 4/8/01
Nervous Attack
It rained all day. About 1:30 I had a hot & cold thrumming fit—what is that, anxiety? I felt like I was going to die—not in a nice midnight-cease way, but in an unpleasant panting, squawking, maybe even shitting your pants kind of way. Instead of calling 911, I got up & paced about & waited to fall, but I did not faint or fall. I got on the phone to Country Dr. & then to the endocrine people at Pac Med. I got an appointment (I can't afford) next Monday. And I feel okay—I mean like I'm not on the point of dying (it must be anxiety/terror or some adrenal gush—it was the same way I felt after I drank the foxglove tea). But my shoulder & the back of my neck hurt.
Mothers & children in Starb's today—though that skeletal-faced woman may not be the girl's mother. They were talking astrology. They were talking about somebody on the cusp. My mouth fell open. This morning at the Community Center I saw an ineffectual, wheedling mother with her well-on-the-way-to-being-a-major-spoiled-little-tyrant boychild. Not yet 2 years old. I wanted to take him away from her—and raise him right.
And it keeps on raining.
Broadway Starbs 4/9/01
So says Danny (young Dan) & when I look blank, he tells me I have to see it. When I confess I don't have a VCR, he tells me he'll act it out for me—all the parts. (Like ChiChi & "Nashville"!)
Sunshine & clouds. Boys in their leather jackets, but not, please leather pants. I can't.... I mean it's....oh, snaky.
All boys tonight: little Flips w/ funny hats, guys reading, bent heads, crossed legs. Two with laptops, and oh wait, there's a Japanese girl. But no sooner have I said what it is tonight than it has changed into something else because this is a cafe & people come & go.
Writing days do have their peaks & valleys, eh? Waking is the valley of the shadow of Kill-Me-Please. Cup of tea, oh that's better. Cup of coffee, whee! Nice day walk—wheee! Cats in the yard, move over, lord. Good bit of writing....oh what a good girl am I. Good or bad. Things happen. Makings.
Then if I have something to read until bedtime, all I have to do is not think. And that suffices unless my infirmities are acting up.
Today the infirmities are acting up. Shoulder & throat. If somebody says something nice to me—like Dan today, or Lee yesterday—that helps make things tolerable.
One rejection today. I curse them.
BM Starbucks 4/7/01
Roofbeams & Track Lighting
And I remember when this was a Winchell's Doughnuts. Today it's too warm, too small. But not packed. I've come to the Broadway Starbs where the sun beams in, where I used to buy a donut on my way to work in 1981. From Shelly who was sleeping in the back with her boyfriend, fresh from Iowa. Or Ohio—I can't tell those 4 letter, 3 vowel mid-western states apart. (Or Illinois from Michigan for that matter.) Suddenly, I look up and there are a thousand people in line; no only 11 but in such a small space: a throng.
I'm suffering. Mostly from guilt, for instead of pushing on w/ Dave. I spent much of Sunday reading True Crime—one Frances Nutcase Mom Schreuder & fils. The twangs in my arm I tell myself are my tendons healing. Not my tumors spreading. (Grandma thought hers were gall bladder pangs.)
The sun came out & another old woman complimented my hair. I need a tiny manic attack but for that I first need something good to happen.
Actually the prospect of literary (instead of True Crime) reading & my promise to myself that I will sit down & whack out a few lines of Dave the Poet (it's garbage anyway) & the prospect of buying some upscale box o'dinner: not so bad.
Three or 4 phone calls today—hang-ups I'm almost curious enough to answer but not quite.
Broadway Starbuck's 4/7/01
How I Interpret My Headache
The suffering from my headache increases as I begin to believe it is not from muscle tension but from venous obstruction. I have begun to think that my two problems may be one problem located in my chest, upper lobe of the lung or lower esophagus. The pain is still on the left, but it's in the back of my head too, and the effect of all that is to make me wish to embrace—you know who. Right, Tomas.
I tell myself that this is a passing grief. That's one. And two, that if it's not, I can go to Harborview E.R. any time. I've called Pac Med & my referral is hung up—& it will take 3 weeks to get an appointment.
Or I can go get acupuncture—the doctors will just take the money anyway. So? Who me, worry?
Last night I dreamed there was another earthquake & I wasn't even surprised. I couldn't find a doorway that wasn't lined with glass. I don't remember what I did. I think Grandma Shevland was there. She was/has been in my thoughts. All her illnesses. Her emergency surgery.
I like to think I'm wrong about by concerns—I've never had a serious illness—but I know I'm not. Bad luck to me.
BM Starbucks 4/8/01
Nervous Attack
It rained all day. About 1:30 I had a hot & cold thrumming fit—what is that, anxiety? I felt like I was going to die—not in a nice midnight-cease way, but in an unpleasant panting, squawking, maybe even shitting your pants kind of way. Instead of calling 911, I got up & paced about & waited to fall, but I did not faint or fall. I got on the phone to Country Dr. & then to the endocrine people at Pac Med. I got an appointment (I can't afford) next Monday. And I feel okay—I mean like I'm not on the point of dying (it must be anxiety/terror or some adrenal gush—it was the same way I felt after I drank the foxglove tea). But my shoulder & the back of my neck hurt.
Mothers & children in Starb's today—though that skeletal-faced woman may not be the girl's mother. They were talking astrology. They were talking about somebody on the cusp. My mouth fell open. This morning at the Community Center I saw an ineffectual, wheedling mother with her well-on-the-way-to-being-a-major-spoiled-little-tyrant boychild. Not yet 2 years old. I wanted to take him away from her—and raise him right.
And it keeps on raining.
Broadway Starbs 4/9/01
posted by K. E. Ellingson at 4:04 PM
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