tuckova

day dried my eyes

Oh the nights of hot weeping how I would like to have them behind me. So much else behind me now that these few things are weird stragglers, they're like the people who went to the bathroom too long and got ditched by the group and they come back all abandoned but instead of having the sense to quietly leave they think they can get the party started again on their own. The party is over, you can go home now. The rave has lost its ravey flave, the... yeah I can't top that. Go away now being my point.

What is hard about being a grown up is remembering that you can be one all the time. I don't mean you have to give up balancing on curbs because that would be ridiculous. I mean that you do not have to see that boy from eleven years ago on the street and immediately dissolve into terror that he will hurt you again, that you do not have to alert the teacher to the bully while letting tears in your voice, that you do not have to fight back against perceived authority by sulking louder.

It is funny how knowing yourself can make the same amount of things harder.

I was asked to be wise recently, whereupon wisdom fled me entirely; it is entirely true that I am smarter for anybody than for myself and will say soothingly to you to go ahead and be nice to yourself you are fine a good person lovely inside and out, here is dark chocolate here is a tender kiss, here is warm food and good books and my love, while some small part of my mind is searching for a nice hairshirt for me, something in large because I am fat, and something that is easy to put on because hideous girls who are all thumbs can't get dressed in the dark, I don't mean can't get dressed nicely but seriously, why can't I work these snaps. I need a pullover hairshirt with just that little bit of lycra. No really I'm actually fine.

I have this picture of Gustav Klimt in his garden wearing something by Emilie, and I want to learn to sew well enough to make one for me, for the three of us really, and one extra for you. I will make them in burlap and silk and soak them in wine so that when you visit you can spill over the sides as much as I do. And I will listen.

Morning (by Frank O'Hara)

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

five feelings for the last week

1. FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE = FUNNY
HER: Sorry I was in the restroom for so long. I met an old friend in there.
ME: Wow, I've never heard that before! That's funny!
HER: ...?
ME: It's a great euphemism. In English, I think there's one about a visit from your auntie.
HER: I... didn't meet my auntie in the bathroom? I met an old friend from college.
ME: Oh, you mean you really met an old friend? Oh. Well now it's a different kind of funny.

2. PRAISE = AWESOME
ME: Here is the edited document.
HIM: I used all your suggestions- it is really important to have feedback from you.

3. KAPOW = TOUGH
Wii boxing is going to change my life.

4. MID-TERMS = IRONIC
A midterm meeting that starts with the teacher crying cannot end well, but is so much better than having it start with me crying that I am sorry to say I felt pretty awesome, all things considered.

5. COTTAGE = STILL
As in, it is still going on and it is one of the few places that I can be still. I had a full Proust weekend, finished a book, ate a ton of food, successfully started a fire without being backseat firestarted, and generally am having trouble letting go of the notion that I might live there some day.

Who's your favorite Beatle?

When I was young we crowded around the pictures and we kissed them and he wasn't my favorite but I knew he was everybody else's and I pretended because I was good at that. He was objectively good-looking, pretty in a girly way, and maybe that was my introduction to androgyny and the appreciation of things that looked like other things or maybe I was just trying to fit in, but anyway: it was a physical evaluation, and oh, he passed.

And then in college laughing scoffingly at those people, because then I loved a clever boy/man. I liked a person who set aside privilege and if he did so from a bedroom that cost a fortune to make it look stripped of grandeur I did not care about the hypocrisy because I cared about a turn of phrase, an insight, a way of setting words to music that made the words themselves music. And of course it was full of principle and searching and striving, something better coming up, glimpsed but not reached, hope. But mainly it was about loving what was clever, and how that love is both complicated and pure.

Later, much, when I was even saying I didn't care, I would have said that if I cared I would have gone for -not spirituality, but spiritual searching. And ultimately, kindness. Thoughtfulness and consideration and yearning, which is different from striving, because it involves acknowledging that some things are out of your hands. Understanding that it didn't have to be complicated in order to get the job done, and understanding that getting the job done was important, but at the same time devoting myself to what I cared about. It was about showing up for the team but not necessarily being a team player.

And now, and now I really don't care, but if you asked me I might say that my admiration is turning to the one that showed up every day. Not the prettiest, not the cleverest, not the kindest, but the one who chose to be on a team where he would, by virtue of the company of diamonds, never himself shine. What would it feel like to be fully confident that you were always good, but to understand that in the context you chose you would never be seen as the best. I'd choose goofy, I'd choose an utter disregard for appearance, a lack of interest in proving myself every single second. I'd choose a silly affectation to give people who didn't really know me something to work with in place of my real identity. I'd keep my true identity for people who mattered. I'd choose to get along with everyone even when they're fighting with each other. I'm not saying I'm there. I'm saying I'm realizing that it's worth my admiration.

WWXD

Top five, top of my head:
Judith Martin
Mr. Rogers
David Byrne
Laurie Anderson
Kurt Vonnegut

yours?

vote

If you are legally able to vote in the United States and do not vote in this election I hope you have a good reason (in a coma?) or are not that interested in being my friend, because if you do not vote then we can't talk about politics for four years and I kind of like to talk about politics. Also I kind of like to talk to people I respect and not voting is stupider than not washing your hands after.

In order to vote this year, I had to call the county office a couple times, because apparently they'd unregistered me for some complicated reasons not my fault. They were extraordinarily decent about re-registering me by phone (possibly "Hello, I am calling from the Czech Republic" was effective) and e-mailed me a sample ballot, which they accepted as real when I mailed it in. I get really pissed off that my vote counts the same as that of a person who was dropped frequently as a baby, but I am so thrilled at the lengths that the county went to to make sure that I could vote, and that my vote would count, that maybe it all balances out in the end.

Voting is not effortless, and this vote was a little more complicated than usual, but like: the people at the other end worked harder, and they worked for me. So if you have to stand in line or whatever, remember that there's somebody who took the whole day to be there for you to stand in line, and you know: throw back your shoulders and be proud to vote. If it's raining, remember that in some countries you could wind up in a hail of bullets for voting, and stand up straight and vote. If if if -- my point is, no matter where you are, if you haven't already voted like those of us overseas have, then PLEASE go vote today. Make time for it and go. And take a book just in case.