Stubborn
Stubborn
I keep circling the mulberry bush, stopping here, stopping there, hurrying on. I like feeling like I belong here. I like chasing my personal stag. I don't understand why life has gotten so complicated that we all have to tend computers. I don't quite accept that I ought to be just like everybody else—when I cannot. I've tried, it doesn't work.
I also don't understand why nobody has called me from TES.
Odd I come back to my couch & my stack, a lapfull of papers, & I page through. Would it be better if I'd come from Catholic South America & had fabulistic tendencies? Could I do it for Parkland? Yes, if I can feel free to lie—or not free, but if I can coax myself to it—to heighten, embroider. No, it would have to be well-lied. Whopperized. I think of the flatness, the scotchbroom, the off-limits reservation, chain link fences & barbwire. The pig farm & peat bogs & the fact that we girls were discouraged from adventure. We went everywhere important in cars & everything seemed forbidden, everywhere was off limits. Constraints.
I don't know when I filled up with hatred. Now I burn with it.
B.M. Starbucks 1/29/01
Submit
I submit stories & essays & when they bow before the editorial powers that be—what do they get but a kick? One & all.
I submit to my fate. I'll probably get a xeroxed rejection there too—and my named spelled wrong.
I didn't go downtown to price pistols. Well, it was cold & windy & when I actually think about walking into the Central Death Exchange. I can feel my blood pressure rise to a painful level. Instead I went to the grocery store and spent my gun money.
"You spent the gun money? Oh, how could you?"
(JHY would appreciate that, but I won't tell him.)
I did a little work. Very little. I decided that I could hang myself with my pink bathrobe belt. I'll have to check & find out how Michael Hutchence did it. Door knob? I don't have a good beam in my apartment, and I'm not sure I'd trust that door-hook. There is the second floor railing to be sure, but I'm a private kind of guy.
So, I got up feeling shitty & about noon started feeling better & by now I feel like I will triumph—even though nothing has changed since yesterday. I got no mail. I got no job. My shoulder improves not. I dreamed my dad died of a stroke.
However, I finally got my resume emailed to Group Health. But I don't want to work there either.
I am improving "Best Man" all out of countenance, but it still won't sell. I do enjoy making it better. It's like completing a jigsaw puzzle.
BM Starbucks 1/30/01
When Was It Good Here?
When was it good anywhere? This stint is marvelous—but marvelous—in tiny little bites. When I finish a job. When the sun comes out. When the cats come running. But all the succulent little bites are surrounded by recalcitrant aridity. Even here, even in a dump like this, though, I can have a fun time. With all I don’t have, there are always those books. However:
It’s not enough to keep me running up that endless staircase. Nothing comes. No mail. No email. No phone calls. No job. No tax return.
As I come to the end of this portion, I find it harder & harder to make what ("normal") people would consider rational plans. Or to talk about anything after next week. It’s going to sleep I like. If only I could stay. Awake, I get nerve attacks.
BM Starbucks 1/31/01
I keep circling the mulberry bush, stopping here, stopping there, hurrying on. I like feeling like I belong here. I like chasing my personal stag. I don't understand why life has gotten so complicated that we all have to tend computers. I don't quite accept that I ought to be just like everybody else—when I cannot. I've tried, it doesn't work.
I also don't understand why nobody has called me from TES.
Odd I come back to my couch & my stack, a lapfull of papers, & I page through. Would it be better if I'd come from Catholic South America & had fabulistic tendencies? Could I do it for Parkland? Yes, if I can feel free to lie—or not free, but if I can coax myself to it—to heighten, embroider. No, it would have to be well-lied. Whopperized. I think of the flatness, the scotchbroom, the off-limits reservation, chain link fences & barbwire. The pig farm & peat bogs & the fact that we girls were discouraged from adventure. We went everywhere important in cars & everything seemed forbidden, everywhere was off limits. Constraints.
I don't know when I filled up with hatred. Now I burn with it.
B.M. Starbucks 1/29/01
Submit
I submit stories & essays & when they bow before the editorial powers that be—what do they get but a kick? One & all.
I submit to my fate. I'll probably get a xeroxed rejection there too—and my named spelled wrong.
I didn't go downtown to price pistols. Well, it was cold & windy & when I actually think about walking into the Central Death Exchange. I can feel my blood pressure rise to a painful level. Instead I went to the grocery store and spent my gun money.
"You spent the gun money? Oh, how could you?"
(JHY would appreciate that, but I won't tell him.)
I did a little work. Very little. I decided that I could hang myself with my pink bathrobe belt. I'll have to check & find out how Michael Hutchence did it. Door knob? I don't have a good beam in my apartment, and I'm not sure I'd trust that door-hook. There is the second floor railing to be sure, but I'm a private kind of guy.
So, I got up feeling shitty & about noon started feeling better & by now I feel like I will triumph—even though nothing has changed since yesterday. I got no mail. I got no job. My shoulder improves not. I dreamed my dad died of a stroke.
However, I finally got my resume emailed to Group Health. But I don't want to work there either.
I am improving "Best Man" all out of countenance, but it still won't sell. I do enjoy making it better. It's like completing a jigsaw puzzle.
BM Starbucks 1/30/01
When Was It Good Here?
When was it good anywhere? This stint is marvelous—but marvelous—in tiny little bites. When I finish a job. When the sun comes out. When the cats come running. But all the succulent little bites are surrounded by recalcitrant aridity. Even here, even in a dump like this, though, I can have a fun time. With all I don’t have, there are always those books. However:
It’s not enough to keep me running up that endless staircase. Nothing comes. No mail. No email. No phone calls. No job. No tax return.
As I come to the end of this portion, I find it harder & harder to make what ("normal") people would consider rational plans. Or to talk about anything after next week. It’s going to sleep I like. If only I could stay. Awake, I get nerve attacks.
BM Starbucks 1/31/01
posted by K. E. Ellingson at 4:04 PM
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