Clothes on the Freeway

Today on the freeway I passed several piles of clothes.
They were men's clothing, flannels and knitted hats - socks and other items.
I wondered about the story.

A badly-packed moving van, a pickup; items thrown carelessly and tied haphazardly with too-little rope?
What of the story?

Bad breakup - last minute preparations - idiocy.
What?

Or a young woman, having been dumped by one of the first of many worthless lovers, being driven around town by an understanding and sympathetically angry friend, eyes red from crying for hours, deeply pulling on cigarette after cigarette while a song they love that says everything so exactly right plays on a continuous loop - stabbed by the index finger of the girl at the closing swell of music. The friend drives while looking over and agreeing with all the aspects of the loser boyfriend that the friend wants her to know.

You Know? she'll say. And the friend will nod, understanding, or say, Fuck yeah.

YouKnowYouKnowYouKnowYouKnowYouKnow? And the friend will know. Over and over again while they drive with the small items he left in her house. Items he doesn't want, which is why they've stayed at the girlfriend's house this whole time.

And they'll be on the freeway, and the girl's heart will break in a crashing wave larger than all the crashing waves she's felt since he told her, and she'll turn to her friend and tell her she's going to throw his shit out, and the friend will look over and her heart will twist, the girl's red rimmed eyes and phlegmy sniffling - the byproduct of furious tears that rise and fall in the crescendos of the song, and she'll say, absolutely.

And she'll grab armfuls of his clothes and she'll toss them out the window and they'll howl at this, and turn the music up louder, and she'll feel better for a minute, light a new cigarette and nod her head vigorously like she's shaking the ache off, and then they'll fall silent and continue driving, and the tears will break again like waves against the shore.

And this will be the first of so many men that will twist her heart and break her places, but she'll always have this story.

She will always have this story.

My Darling Fabric

Last night, I lovingly curled around my cat in bed.
"Ruuuuucy...." I crooned.

I layed very still, how I do, to make sure that Lucy wasn't disrupted enough to get up and leave.

I'm not sure why I do this, since to get her off my lap when I'm on the couch I have to stand up, tip her sideways, and dump her screeching nest of claws off of me.

But anyway, when I'm going to sleep I need her and so I am very careful not to offend.

So there I was, lovingly curled around her, when she jumped up next to my face.

Which means that for the preceeding 20 minutes I had been lovingly nestled around the wadded up bedsheet.

Sigh.

Hello, my name is Salome, and this is the Pope.

Virginia Tech Massacre

Totally unlike how I felt when the Columbine tragedy occured, I am filled with sadness for the Virginia Tech shooter.
An immigrant - painfully isolated and unable to relate. Attending a school with the over-privileged.

I myself have issues with the over-privileged. You think, I work so hard, I work SO HARD and still I am scraping by.
And this kid invents (by all accounts thus far) a romance with a completely unrequiting girl, and then loses it and kills everyone in sight.

I'm still interested in seeing what his possible motive could have been, but far less am I sorry for the innocent bystanders.
I am sorry for this poor kid's rage and unhappiness and what would have caused him to violently self-destruct like this.

I know what it is like to feel isolated and completely out of touch with people. I also remember well being ridiculed in grade school and even to an extent in college.

I escaped, but I think there were moments when I was an insult or sly glance away from climbing the tower with an UZI and making my fatal point.

I am still writing nasty letters because they bleed off the pressure of living in a society that so focused on the wrong things.
No one gives an inch to anyone else, because everyone's leverage is so hard come by.

This world, this life, it is all so hard, and it just gets harder and more complicated, and as I get older there are just more disappointments and more difficult things to grasp.

I feel for everyone who has just HAD ENOUGH OF IT ALREADY.

I do, I really do, I understand.

I'm finding writing anything to be very difficult lately. I don't even type well, I'm clumsy on the keyboard which is unlike me.
I'm not depressed, but I am disappointed. There are too many people living just for themselves. 9 out of every 10 I meet are doing this. It makes it almost impossible to be kind and try to effect some change. Because the first through 8th person you will try this with will take advantage of you, because they can. Because you asked them to. Because you didn't just assume they would screw you, and so you didn't protect yourself and watch out for it.

Okay, can anyone help me with the fucking MAC? Is there anyway to be typing on a document with a font larger than 5 point? I'm going to go fucking blind already.

I practically need magnifying glasses to read what I'm typing. And the internet? Fucking forget about it.
Everything you pull up to read would fit in my wallet. On the head of a pin. What good is the ability to be working on several windows at a time when I can't see anything on any of them?

I love the new computer and all, but FOR THE LOVE OF FUCKING GOD, you're a MAC, you're supposed to be intuitive to learn, and YOU'RE NOT. All those commercials? Bullshit. Making the transition from a PC to a MAC has been agony.

Nothing works the way you think it should. Applications don't make sense and printing off of the internet requires an advanced computer technology degree.

Sigh.

See? Even the good things in life are so fucking complicated.

Plus I'm fat and dieting only makes me crave the things I should not have. They scream in my head all day long. Plus I have a pain in my kidney area and today my pee was orangey-pink and smelled like buttered popcorn. That can't be good.

College Junior Takes a Typesetting Class!

Correspondence File: April 2007

Dear Minivan Woman on Phone Stopped at the Green Light for 10 Minutes:

Bitch, PLEASE. I've been waiting patiently back here, but if you don't act soon I'm going to miss this light. And if I miss this light, then I'm going to miss the next light, and eventually you will have screwed up my entire commute into work.

And for that? I will follow you to wherever you are going and beat the shit out of you with that phone.

Move Your Ass,

Salome


Dear Guy at the Mac Store:

Hey, listen. We came here to buy tonight. I don't know if you were pissed that I turned down all the "add-ons" you guys are supposed to upsell, or what, but taking our order for the PC we wanted and then letting it sit in the corner of the store while you helped three different people and then flirted with that man and his daughter? HIGHLY ANNOYING.

You so don't let customers cut in front of other customers. You so so so don't want to do that with me.

Clearly you have not heard of me, but I guarantee you I will beat your ass with my new computer.

Fuming,

Salome


Dear Husband Away on A Business Trip:

Honey, I miss you. The cats and I are just knocking around this big empty house waiting for your return. I need you to come home and say things to me like that thing you said to me last night that was so special to me that I'm going to keep it private forever. I am trying to write my nasty letters but it is difficult because all that I am is suffused with the joy from you.
Come home soon, but I hope you sell your teeth out in New Orleans. Get it? Dental Convention? Teeth Out?

Yeah, I know, but you love me anyway.

My heart grows fonder,

Salome

I tried to write a poem about my divorce.

The WHY. Everyone always wanted to know the why. And I think better in metaphors, and the one that started this poem is the metaphor that I came back to every single time I tried to understand why my marriage failed.

So here it is, and it is a wayback poem. I'm not terribly happy with this one - but I haven't tried to revise it in a while.

Divers (written 7/2/03 - revised on 7/16/03 and hasn't been touched since)

DIVERS


A cool night
spanning years at a time
in a minute

we were chin-up from the water’s surface
taking great gasping gulps of crisp frigid air

I can still see you smile at me
falling short of full lungs in your exultation
and those great blue eyes full of sweetness and hope

I had no hope to return to you.

I sucked the night sky
dry of oxygen.

I couldn't see anything

no land
no clear view of the water below
or what swam down there
waiting

And I guess I never take real deep breaths anymore
I don’t think I’m meant to go down that far.

That was a free dive
Into uncharted territory

And as soon as I headed down
With my big wet hand clutched tightly in yours
And my big wet heart....

Going down with all your hopes riding shotgun,

I realized
There isn’t enough air
To live through this.

And you might as well have been
A bleeding diver in a great white’s path
Poised for a destruction
Astonishing in violence and speed.

Down several fathoms
Farther than rational thought:

I KNEW

we were dying.

You held me so tightly
like you thought I was drowning
like you alone could save me.

We were dead weight
Trailing loosely into abysmal currents
And I was hyperventilating
Choking desperately with asthmatic lungs

lack of air
space
of breath.

So I reached down
To the diver’s knife at my belt

I cut you free of me

And the flood of bubbles
From your shocked and shattered face
Breaks my heart a thousand times a second
Every time I think of it

Every single time I think of it.

You spiraled up like a shot from an underwater flare
Kicking feebly
trying to reach down and grab me

Like you thought you could save me
Like you thought I needed saving

I dove out of your grasp
into the dark and murky depths below
where I have some idea
of what to expect
prowling around me.

I am not prone to drowning.
But you were.

You would have died and stayed at my side

And it would have been dangerous, as frailty always is.

I washed up on the shore,
long after this battle gasped its last and let go

I stayed there
striking the rocks on a cyclic tidal rhythm

Just to make sure you got out.

I need you to know that I would have gone back in
To the depth of a realm I fear more than anything else

To get you
bring you to safety.

But one of the things I’ve learned
in all these esoteric, watery lessons,
is you can help someone only so much
then they’ve got to plunge in
fight for themselves.

So you have to WANT to walk out of that water.

I am still here
Standing now on the shore
I’m leaving,
you know that
But I walk slowly
backwards
eye toward the sea
In case you call me
like you need my help.

But don’t fuck around
And call me just to swim
Because you will eventually drown
And there is nothing that I can do about it.

You know I’m like an angler fish

You don’t get what you see
You get what I give you

and I’m short on that
just now.

Still Loving the iSight Camera.....

This was after I discovered the effects buttons.
What you can't tell from this shot is that I was laughing hysterically - I had tears in my eyes and was gasping for air.



Okay, I've got funnier ones, but it seems to want to upload the same photo everytime - no matter how many times I choose a different one.

Blogger on Macs acts different, and is really kind of pissy. I can no longer change my text font - but the good news is that I always want to write in Trebuchet - and my preset HTML didn't always take in the Windows Blogger.

So anyway, off to my hair appointment!

Hee

Well, we did it.
Because I am actually only 5 years old.
We bought the computer tonight! TONIGHT!

Didn't have as great of a time at the Mac store tonight as we did last night - but I will update you all on that later, I have a couple of letters to the world that I've been working on. I'll compose and post in a bit.

We then decided to go to Johnny Rockets at Tukwila Southcenter to grab a quick bite.
I did try to stay on my diet, but they were out of what I was going to try to eat healthily and so I ordered a chili dog.

Because, if thwarted, I'm THWARTED. ;)

Anyway, here is me after I spent 25 minutes looking for how to operate the camera that comes included in the iMAC.




I'm only posting this one photo because in every single other photo my nose is the size of Cleveland.

We're making the jump......

From my old creaky Dell PC to

THIS

We're very excited.

I am still price comparing at the moment - so no purchase date as of yet, but we went to the Mac store tonight and I can't even tell you the number of times our mouths dropped open and we said wow.

WOW.

All I have to say.

WOW.