Tah Dah!!

The New And Improved: CARCHARODONNA.

Hope you like it! My back aches and I'm drunk from all the red wine I drank.
I learned a lot. I screwed up a lot, which taught me many things.

Mostly that drinking red wine while trying to figure out basic HTML is a no-win situation.

I posted a poem.
A couple of you may know that I used to like to write poems.
I used to write them constantly, actually. I always had a notebook (or two) with me that I would scribble in. It was actually pretty annoying for people around me.
I have over 500 poems in about 20 notebooks. And about 10 of them don't suck!

I won't bore you too much with them, I promise.
But I'm going to be posting some from the wayback days just to flex my muscles a bit.

You see, my life is lacking something.
I used to define myself by my writing and other artistic pursuits I was heavily engaged in.
That is what I DID, that was who I WAS.
I knew exactly where I was going in my personal pursuit of art.

I lost that some time ago and it has been bothering me.
A lot. Lately. I've been really bothered lately.

I used to think that there was something special about me.
Something that set me apart, something that I had of my own.
A gift, or an affinity (or an ego, HELLO?) something that made me think I wasn't just a complete hack with this writing stuff.

However deluded I may have been, I was much happier then.
I need a little bit of that happiness in my life lately.

I laid in bed all weekend (avec flu) wondering how I got to be this person that I am now.
Some of this 32 year old me is okay, but most of it is lazy, bitchy, and full of unrequited ambition.

So for what it is worth, I'm going to try to make an effort to remember just a bit of that wild, endlessly creative 20 year old I was.

What do you think of the new site?

Poetry Contest Submission #1

Angler

Swim fast, little fish
Dive deep
dark sea

plunge hapless until dangered be.

Why seek I the witch?
Why taunt the sharks with blood?

Do I desire the purity of sea foam,
knowing that it wastes into mud?

I'm going to get bitten

I'm going to die
down here

someday.


(1994)

Woof

Tonight on a brief, rant-filled conversation with my parents I said something about how my cats have had to defend their territory against invading neighbor cats.

(It's true, there are a couple new cats in the 'hood, and our door flap broke, so we're OPEN all the time over here at Chez Pope N' Sal. The cats have the nerve to actually come in the door and walk all nonchalant into the house. Sends Lucy into a caterwauling fit, she makes sounds that could probably bend metal. Finny goes apeshit and careens off everything in his path on his way to the door - he does this, you see, because he's running while turned sideways and that is really hard to do)

So I mention this to my parents and my dad says,

"Do they know that Finny is the size of a goddamned dog??"

And the answer to that is:

They do now.

Hooray for Me

I have successfully removed all the hair from my left upper arm.

In other news, the Pope had the flu for 45 seconds and then gave it to me.
I expect to be out for a month.

I didn't wash my hair this morning and by about 3pm I could have fried doughnuts in it.

Inexplicable facial breakout refuses to be subdued.
Correspondingly thick makeup continues.

All three cats were complete jerks this morning.
They typically can't stand each other long enough to team up - but something was bugging them this morning.
Probably something dead that will stink soon.

Yoo Hoo.

An Okay Day

I had an ok day.

• Worked out HARD and erased all aggression from my spirit. (Which is good, considering I honked viciously at an absolute moron right before going to gym. Unfortunately, they were going almost my entire way there, so by the the time I turned into the gym's driveway, I'd totally freaked them out like I was going to follow them and beat the snot out of them for that totally bullshit turn on red they took. Which, come to think of it, I was pretty heavily debating. They pulled into an alley and waited for me to pass. HAW. Dorks.)
• Put my Italian Lessons on my iPOD. Because sitting on the desk untouched? Not really working.
• Watered all plants. (sorry plants I'll be better, thanks for not dying)
• Ate pretty well today.
• Was generally congenial and productive at work.
• DID NOT SMOKE EVEN THOUGH I'M FUCKIN' DYIN OVAH HEAH.

The Pope loved his first day of work, and promptly came down with the flu tonight. Chills and frogs in throats to beat the band. This poor guy. He marries me and all he gets is my luck.

I had a very withdrawn weekend. We attended a birthday party, and after I took an hour to get home (seriously, what the fuck Seattle? Is it POSSIBLE to not have traffic. Once?) I crawled into bed and stayed there for about 28 hours straight.

I'd go on, but I'm developing a bad case of ennui.

NOSMO KING

Today was my first day without a cigarette in a very long time.
That is, of course, unless I was so sick I was coughing up blood and I sounded like a stalled car when breathing.

It has actually been about 24 hours without one, now.

Which is HUGE. HAYOOOOGE. Big.

I am wearing the patch. I started wearing the patch (from a pack I bought about 6 months ago and never used) approximately two weeks ago. I immediately noticed a significant decrease in my irritation level, something I think the four or five of you reading this will raise your eyebrows at, because what is Salome if she is not irritated???? And the answer to that is, of course: BITCHY.)

I wore the patch and occasionally smoked until the patches ran out. Then I went to get more patches. My smoking hadn't stopped, but it had significantly decreased, enough to make me want more patches. And at the store I discovered an ASTOUNDING thing.

I bought the wrong patches the first time. I bought Step 3! I tried to cut in line!
The first time I opened the right patch (Step 1, I'm doing it right this time...) I about gagged.

Step 3's patch is tiny and cute and fits discreetly on my upper arm, where I would painfully rip out seemingly endless hairs each morning while removing it. I alternated between arms and rarely was bothered by it, in fact, almost always was able to forget about it completely.

Step 1's patch is not fucking around. It has about 3x more nicotine than Step 3 and is about 20x times the size. It is almost just exactly kind of like stepping into a body-sized flypaper. It covers the width of my arm and extends further than a really bad tattoo. I can't help but notice it, because it wrinkles when I move and is visible in a Tshirt. It also rips out all kinds of new seemingly endless hairs, on a much larger scale.

And seriously, when am I going to rip out all the hairs? I can't possible have this much hair on my upper arm. Gross!

The increased nicotine made the skin around the patch (in bleedy, veiny patterns) bright red, almost immediately. I saw it and was alarmed at first, and then thought, "lung cancer is probably way grosser," so I left it alone. The red is gone now, except for a perfect, patch-sized square that remains no matter how long it has been since I forcibly ripped it off, wincing and dancing every morning in the shower.

And I like it. I'm not freaking out or anything, this high level of nicotine isn't making me loopy or weird like the Zyban generics do, meaning I don't sit and drool vacantly in front of my computer anymore, and I really don't feel a tremendous urge to smoke. I finished out the pack (of course) when I first started wearing them and smoking was nasty, something I had to do, but really wanted to get over as soon as possible.

The only thing that freaks me out about these patches is the dreaming.
I'm dreaming in vivid technicolor, and soooooooo detailed. I'm detailed down the hairs on a dog in a farm in Ireland where I've set up a complicated business of creating paper from words spoken by druids that survived all these years by eating the DNA off of roots of the hairs plucked from Scottish beards. I could probably sit down right now and write you my business plan.

I've thought that I should write these down, because they are WAY weird. I mean, no one would believe this stuff. I think my REM cycle treats nicotine like coffee, and is finally like, "Now is MY turn to talk!"

And Brain?
You're fucking strange.
I mean, all along I've thought I was a bit off. But THIS?

This is INSANE.

Last night I dreamt that my brother and I were taking some sort of seminar together, in an area that my entire family was vacationing (because what better time to go to a SEMINAR??).
Each morning a buffet was laid out in my parents' hotel and my brother and I would go there to scavenge it. They had some dish that had cottage cheese and fruit all mixed together like a salad, and it was good, it was really good, and I woke up thinking I needed to write it down so I could make it. They also had a runny, bean-dip kind of salad that had tortilla chips in it and my Dad yelled at me that I was taking too long in line trying to get one single tortilla chip to sop up all the goop with. Looked like it had a bunch of chips mixed in, but every scoop was just more and more bean dip. I ended up somehow with my cousin Ricky and some other person in my tiny apartment in the heart of a city and while I thought we all went out and had a great time, I woke up in the dream and everyone told me I had fallen asleep early and just dreamt that I was a good hostess and they were all annoyed with me. There was a lot more, but I'll move on....

The night before I went to a Bible Study Class and it was cool. Which surprised me after I woke up (of course nothing fazes me in the dreams, except for the night before, which I'll tell you about in a sec) because I've always been reticent to attend Bible Studies Classes because I think I'll end up in a circle of overweight women who don't wear makeup and don't color out the gray in their hair, and they'll wear dresses with anklet socks and scrunchies in their hair. These people (men and women) were hip and cool and funky and real. And later John Paul and I returned there and they hooked me up to a heart monitor for hours, and let me sleep and then fed me a chocolate dessert plate with something lemon on it and I remembered thinking, "I should be on a diet, but honestly I'm on a fucking heart monitor here, so fat can't be the worst of my problems" and then we were driving over big hilly roads and I looked out the window and thought, "these would be a bitch to walk up." and then we were antique shopping with the cool people from Bible Study. (This is about 1/100th of the detail and length of the dream. I kid you not).

The kick-off (I've been on the patches for three days) was dreaming about some book being published on the architectural history of the Paris city of Nantes (CLP!!) and at the last minute it was changed to some other city which I remembered the whole next day but now I forget and I was working with the researchers who were really well respected and somehow in the middle of this I had to run to my hotel to get my stuff out of the room, only when I arrived there I didn't just have enough stuff in the room for a hotel stay, but I had apparently lived there for a many years and my entire life collection of crap was there. So I compromised and took three pillows and a cloth purse (because, of course!), and folded them neatly into my suitcase. But to get to my tiny bungalow hotel, I had to go through some ancient but well preserved 4 star hotel, and the whole thing was a mess of weird hallways and elevators and marble sloped floors that I slapped along running like a primate and I was really stressed and pressed for time, and the whole time I'm learning about this architectural city switching and how the researchers are pissed off because they've been working for months and have to redo everything in two days, and then I'm in class telling everybody what I had just learned (so clearly it was really important to my real brain to listen to it) and then the researchers complimented me as we walked outside and I was walking in a ditch next to them, and I handed them my card and felt really hopeful like they were going to make me famous, and then they walked away and the sun was shining and I walked into the cathedral entryway of what was apparently my college and a man walking with his girlfriend stopped me and said, "you know who they were, don't you? Those professors?" I said no, and he said, "They were two of the 11. The Tina Steenson 11. They were two of them." And I gasped like I really knew what the hell he was talking about and the girl he was with pulled at his arm and said, "Let's just go," and the guy walked away and I heard a BUM BUM BAH! in my head like I was a TV detective and my new case had just been revealed for myself and the viewers.

Needless to say, I'm absolutely exhausted every morning.

Worse.

What's worse than finding little dead rodents every so often on your living room, dining room, bedroom, hallway floors?

What's worse?

WHAT'S WORSE?

Feathers.

Lots and lots of feathers.

Covering the hallway.

And then a teensy bird wing, separated at the joint.

And...

Nothing else.

Even though you searched the entire goddamned house looking for a bird carcass.

Sigh.

Dear Eensy Baby Bird,

I'm so sorry. I swear to God I'm going to get that little guy a bell.

Love,

Finny's Mom

p.s. Please, if you are dead and under the bed or something, send your ghost or stink early.

Thoughtful

Today in the mail I received a bubble-pack from Potterchick.
She had called and asked for my zip code, so I knew something was coming.
I asked what and she said, "It's for you. You'll know what it is."

I opened the bubble pack and there was a card and an envelope from her bank.
I opened the envelope first, because I'm really five years old at heart.

Inside was a dried, pressed red rose.
I stood there and looked at it, mystified for a second and then it hit me.
And I welled up with tears, and felt such gratitude for her, for her thoughfulness, and for the fact that she knew I would want this, that she pressed it and found it again and sent it to me.

My beloved grandfather died December 7th.
At the funeral in Ohio, Potterchick came immediately and stayed with me the whole time. She drove in the funeral procession and listened to me alternately cry my eyes out and bitch at my loser cousins.

She took care of me when I drank two bourbons and a huge shot of Jamieson's on an empty stomach. She drove me all over town. She let me smoke a hundred cigarettes and dash away from her whenever I saw someone I wanted to say something to.

She deflected my increasingly strange aunt from talking to me too much.

She was sympathetic when my stomach went apeshit and sent me to the restroom every 13.4 miliseconds for four days. (What on earth was that? Stress?)

She was, in short, my absolute rock the whole time. She was the one person who I consistently looked for when I felt sad, the one I knew was there for me, and would let me cry without feeling like a huge baby. She let me hug her in her gorgeous suits.

At the cemetary, each family member stepped up and took a single red rose from the arrangement on my grandfather's casket. When we got to the wake, I set the rose on her car seat so I wouldn't mush it up when we were inside. After the bourbons and the whiskey, I didn't recall what happened to that rose.

My mother and sister-in-law and my brother kept their roses and put them in a vase on the kitchen table. I remember feeling like a jerk because I'd gotten too drunk and couldn't find mine. (I also felt slightly reminiscent, because getting drunk and not being able to find things isn't exactly new for me. Where's my car? Dude?)

I just pressed the rose into a beloved picture of my grandfather and I.

Thank you so much for your extreme thoughtfulness. It is appreciated beyond anything I can ever say to you.

Recent events have overcome the grief over the loss of my grandpa. But the loss of him is a palpable one. You would have to had known him to know what he meant to me, and to everyone that ever met him. You would have to know my family and I very closely to know that he will be remembered and missed frequently, all the days of our lives.

It is just every so often that someone comes into your life and makes it better just by the fact of them. My grandfather was one such person, and I had the priviledge to have him for 32 years.

Potterchick, you are another one.

Love you.

In the Weeds

It's been a while, I know.

Work has sucked lately. It has sucked, I have sucked at it, and life sucked thusly.

I've finally decided that I'm fat enough to really get motivated about getting UNfat.

Three times working out at the gym this week. Still get done and skip crunches or ab-work, because, honestly? I don't know what I'm doing there and always feel stupid. I saw this teeny woman doing a series of serious ab work and I was floored. I decided right then and there to have six banana splits when I got home. Just to temper the disappointment in my own shape. Ya know.

We don't really have the fixings for banana splits at home.
I know this because if we did I would have stress-eaten them all, separately, this week.

I got a lot of sleep last night and came in this morning to work, refreshed and enervated.
It was a full 30 minutes before I said, "I totally fucking HATE my job."

Which is excellent, this past week considered.

I have fun things planned for this weekend, Baby Brody turns 1!!!
For those of you who don't know who he is, let me just tell you, he is the most precious little guy you've ever met. He is the kind of cute that makes your ovaries release eggs and your pheromones go crazy, pumping out enough scent to attract all the dogs in Wisconsin.

Yes, honestly, he's that cute. Holding him makes my husband want a baby.
Holding him makes me want a baby. Actually, a baby like him. Because holding him kind of makes me worried that there's no way my temperament could ever produce a child this mellow and happy. Mine will be screaming constantly and will smoke at the age of 6 months.

I am sure of this.

Thinking about all of this has made me want to pull my husband into the bedroom and try to convince him to have a baby 6 months earlier than we've been planning to try to have one.

Excuse me.

More Letters Because I Keep Thinking of New Ones

Dear Asshole in the Mercedes SUV:

You're an asshole. Flooring it alongside me in the merge lane for the 5 Freeway was a dumbass thing to do. You might have realized that when I threw myself on the horn for a full 2 minutes after you forced me to slam on the brakes in a busy merge situation.

Listen, DICK, nasty women struggling with anger issues always have the right of way.

One more thing, congratulations on driving a Mercedes. The second I saw your pallid, thin face I knew you worked in Systems Programming at Microsoft. And before you puff up your boyish chest with pride, IT IS NOT A COMPLIMENT.

No matter what you do, no matter what you drive, you will always look like you're on your way to Nerdapalooza. And any hot woman that sleeps with you is only doing it for the money. And you'll know this deep down in your conceited heart, and it will eat at you for the rest of your life.

Enjoy the car,

Salome

Dear Darling Little Girl At Target Today:

I walked past an overstuffed rack of boy clothes and caught your movement below. I looked down, and there you were, peeking out from under the clearance rack of winter boys clothes. You were so mischevious and just about the cutest thing I've seen in days. I smiled at you and you beamed back at me, a smile so sincere and bright that it lit you up like a roman candle. You made my day, sweetie.

Keep on Keeping on,

Salome

Catching up on my correspondence....

Dear Man in Seat 12C:

Thank you for reclining your seat as far back as possible on this 2 hour flight from Colorado to Seattle. I appreciate your consideration, especially since United has the least amount of leg room I've ever flown with. Further, thank you for not believing you were reclined all the way, and repeatedly throwing yourself backward in your chair, and crashing into my knees with each throw. I couldn't appreciate that more.

The next time I fly with you, sir, I intend to purchase the seat in front of YOU, and batter your knees bloody as often as I can.

Sincerely,
Salome

Dear Middle-Aged Couple at TCBY in Denver Airport:

Listen, folks, it doesn't take 20 minutes to order frozen yogurt. I appreciate that you think of each other as "cute," and let me tell you, repeating it for the entire 20 minutes while the line behind you grew 15 people deep, well, that was CUTE. Totally cute. So cute that my teeth hurt, and sugar poured out of my tear ducts. I could have invented yogurt in less time than it took you to order one large Old-Fashioned Vanilla swirled with Juicy Orange Sorbet. Yes, that's right, two spoons. No, two spoons. See, there are two of us, and we're so CUTE. Hey, we got our yogurt, honey! I'm going to rearrange my wallet right here, right now, while the angry young lady behind me is trying to pay. Because I'm cute.

Sincerely,
Salome (the angry young lady who sighed loudly at the contents of your wallet)

Dear Lady Behind Me On The Plane With the Really Annoying Laugh:

You're not funny. Whoever you were sitting next to? Not funny. Nothing could possibly be so funny that you had to laugh that godawful laugh where you trilled up to a closing, "Ha Ha HAAAAAAA!" every thirteen seconds for a two hour flight. I appreciate your general sense of good humor, trust me, I do. If you've read my correspondence file, you'll see that I could use a bit of good humor, in the general sense, in my life. But while I appreciate that you are FUN! and you really think things are FUNNY! I was in agony listening to you. I hated you so much that I sat in my seat, knees bloodied, and thought of ways to cut out your vocal cords with the items commonly found on airplanes. I sincerely regretted the fact that you can't bring explosives on board, because I wanted nothing more than to stuff you full of bombs and set you off. I fell asleep and dreamt of leaping over the three rows that separated us and ripping out your tongue with my bare hands.

Happy Travels,
Salome

Dear Contact in My Left Eye:

I have no idea what I've ever done to you that makes you want to hurt constantly for two days straight. I'm merely trying to see, and go about my life supressing an extraordinary amount of anger. Your tiny little pain spot in the left arc of yourself is present upon every blink. You have travelled up into my eyelid 15 times since I put you in one short month ago. I would throw you out and replace you, but your right eye counterpart is fine, and I am cheap. Please have the courtesy to get your fucking act together.

Sincerely,
Salome

Dear Inexplicable Facial Breakout:

What the fuck?
I mean, seriously, what the fuck?
I'm serious. What the Fuck?

I Hate You,
Salome