Morbid
I’m Being Morbid
I’m being Morbid & saying things like, “The Universe hates me & wants me dead.” Lee ignores my outburst. In fact, he just keeps talking, only a little louder.
I am morbid. My shoulder hurts. I have no money. I’m bored with the same old worries (a stupid thing to write—almost guarantees that you will get some new & different worries. Big unforgettable ones.) Enough of that.
I look around. This (the Olive Way store, formerly a Boston Market) is a giant Starbucks. It takes (in) all kinds. I suppose we (we?) could try to list the changes that have taken place in cafes over the years. I wonder if ever before the café spread so widely as has the Starbucks. But this mass marketing, the chain, is only as old as—what, Howard Johnson? Woolworth’s? There have been teashops—Jolyons—since WWI in London. But before that?
Maybe just the fact that a pub is a pub, an inn an inn wherever you go. Yes & I guess there were small cafes all over Europe ever since…and coffeehouses in London back to 1580.
It seems odd that—here everyone is so well dressed. I think a lot of the crowd comes by car. We have a motleyer clientele at the 15th Ave Starbucks. Hilda, the monks, the halfway housers, the retards—& me. But there is that strange & pathetic (or strangely pathetic) little man over there with the bald head & the funny suit drinking his Frappucino all by himself & never once looking up. When he gets up to leave I see he drags his left leg. One of the halt.
Must check & see if halt means precisely the same as lame.
I’m tired of writing. But I suppose I might as well continue because what else can I do—plus it’s a way of “being elsewhere.” The only one I can afford.
Lee gave me his coffee allotment. He is a doll.
O.W./B.M Starbuck's 2/2/01
Perfect Peach
I ask Lee if he wants to be a dear or a doll & he said to describe him as a peach. I hope I’m not taking the coffee out of his mouth. I appreciated it this morning, I did.
I've been writing whine-flavored emails to everyone I know & they all ignore my plaints. I manage fairly well during the day, but waking up continues to be a problem. I should stop thinking about dying in my sleep. I mean if I didn't think that I might die in my sleep & just never wake up at all, I wouldn't feel so horribly disappointed each morning to find out the world & I were still there (to cease upon the midnight...with no pain). I would like to stop ruminating the subject but I have struggled against the stupid world's stupid disregard ever since, and if I can't have Fun, let me have nothing. Not that I don't manage to have a bit of fun under difficult conditions. Like watching that guy over there, exaggeratedly mouthing some words to—well, it looks like he's mouthing them to no one, to the air. But I suspect there's someone behind that pillar, invisible to me. I should swallow my pride (hey, is that what that knot in my throat is?) & get some glasses. Bifocals & just bite it.
Two friendly little cats today. Six-toes on 16th Avenue & B/W from the porch up on Belmont across from the B&O.
The rejections come dribbling in. I stretch for...meaning.
Nothing good comes back to me. Why is that?
BM Starbucks 2/3/01
I Should Wait, but I Just Can't
I find a Valentine ring of finest red plastic in my cupcake icing & run over to present it to Lee. It's his Friday, so he's happy anyway. He laughs his laugh. I had to send him out to look at the sunset, all pink & blue & steel gray & wondrous over across the water.
Such is the virtue of living on a hill.
Such is the virtue of sitting by the door. I look up to see the big lion-headed woman with the cane who's leaving is Shirley M., scourge of the Hearing Examiner's Office. I smile & wave & she smiles back uncertainly ("who's that?"). And then a weird little white guy in a weird little beige trenchcoat leaps in the door & cuts a wee caper. First cousin perhaps to the elfin crippled guy who guzzled his Frappucino without looking up. Spirit galore.
It has been an awful day qua day. It rained whenever I thought seriously about going out. The clouds looked clean as laundry suds overflowing the heavens. I didn't like what I was reading (Amy Bloom stories), so I read something I liked even less (Ian McEwan stories), & then I put red marks all over an essay that's supposed to be finished.
The good part was when Mom called, she weaseled out of me that I didn't have job or rent. Well, it wasn't such a hard weasel. She volunteered to "loan" me the rent.
I'm afraid I cried.
Well, I cry all the time, don't I? I'm the crybaby Moo-cow of the Ellingson family.
But at least I can refrain from worrying my mind & stop thinking about pink bathrobe belt versus charcoal briquettes. It means I won't put quite so much onto the results of the last six submissions I have out (it's not nice to hate that much).
BM Starbucks 2/4/01
I’m being Morbid & saying things like, “The Universe hates me & wants me dead.” Lee ignores my outburst. In fact, he just keeps talking, only a little louder.
I am morbid. My shoulder hurts. I have no money. I’m bored with the same old worries (a stupid thing to write—almost guarantees that you will get some new & different worries. Big unforgettable ones.) Enough of that.
I look around. This (the Olive Way store, formerly a Boston Market) is a giant Starbucks. It takes (in) all kinds. I suppose we (we?) could try to list the changes that have taken place in cafes over the years. I wonder if ever before the café spread so widely as has the Starbucks. But this mass marketing, the chain, is only as old as—what, Howard Johnson? Woolworth’s? There have been teashops—Jolyons—since WWI in London. But before that?
Maybe just the fact that a pub is a pub, an inn an inn wherever you go. Yes & I guess there were small cafes all over Europe ever since…and coffeehouses in London back to 1580.
It seems odd that—here everyone is so well dressed. I think a lot of the crowd comes by car. We have a motleyer clientele at the 15th Ave Starbucks. Hilda, the monks, the halfway housers, the retards—& me. But there is that strange & pathetic (or strangely pathetic) little man over there with the bald head & the funny suit drinking his Frappucino all by himself & never once looking up. When he gets up to leave I see he drags his left leg. One of the halt.
Must check & see if halt means precisely the same as lame.
I’m tired of writing. But I suppose I might as well continue because what else can I do—plus it’s a way of “being elsewhere.” The only one I can afford.
Lee gave me his coffee allotment. He is a doll.
O.W./B.M Starbuck's 2/2/01
Perfect Peach
I ask Lee if he wants to be a dear or a doll & he said to describe him as a peach. I hope I’m not taking the coffee out of his mouth. I appreciated it this morning, I did.
I've been writing whine-flavored emails to everyone I know & they all ignore my plaints. I manage fairly well during the day, but waking up continues to be a problem. I should stop thinking about dying in my sleep. I mean if I didn't think that I might die in my sleep & just never wake up at all, I wouldn't feel so horribly disappointed each morning to find out the world & I were still there (to cease upon the midnight...with no pain). I would like to stop ruminating the subject but I have struggled against the stupid world's stupid disregard ever since, and if I can't have Fun, let me have nothing. Not that I don't manage to have a bit of fun under difficult conditions. Like watching that guy over there, exaggeratedly mouthing some words to—well, it looks like he's mouthing them to no one, to the air. But I suspect there's someone behind that pillar, invisible to me. I should swallow my pride (hey, is that what that knot in my throat is?) & get some glasses. Bifocals & just bite it.
Two friendly little cats today. Six-toes on 16th Avenue & B/W from the porch up on Belmont across from the B&O.
The rejections come dribbling in. I stretch for...meaning.
Nothing good comes back to me. Why is that?
BM Starbucks 2/3/01
I Should Wait, but I Just Can't
I find a Valentine ring of finest red plastic in my cupcake icing & run over to present it to Lee. It's his Friday, so he's happy anyway. He laughs his laugh. I had to send him out to look at the sunset, all pink & blue & steel gray & wondrous over across the water.
Such is the virtue of living on a hill.
Such is the virtue of sitting by the door. I look up to see the big lion-headed woman with the cane who's leaving is Shirley M., scourge of the Hearing Examiner's Office. I smile & wave & she smiles back uncertainly ("who's that?"). And then a weird little white guy in a weird little beige trenchcoat leaps in the door & cuts a wee caper. First cousin perhaps to the elfin crippled guy who guzzled his Frappucino without looking up. Spirit galore.
It has been an awful day qua day. It rained whenever I thought seriously about going out. The clouds looked clean as laundry suds overflowing the heavens. I didn't like what I was reading (Amy Bloom stories), so I read something I liked even less (Ian McEwan stories), & then I put red marks all over an essay that's supposed to be finished.
The good part was when Mom called, she weaseled out of me that I didn't have job or rent. Well, it wasn't such a hard weasel. She volunteered to "loan" me the rent.
I'm afraid I cried.
Well, I cry all the time, don't I? I'm the crybaby Moo-cow of the Ellingson family.
But at least I can refrain from worrying my mind & stop thinking about pink bathrobe belt versus charcoal briquettes. It means I won't put quite so much onto the results of the last six submissions I have out (it's not nice to hate that much).
BM Starbucks 2/4/01
posted by K. E. Ellingson at 4:04 PM
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