the childhood home has become the settling place

You who have rooted yourself, caught that special someone who put a ring on your finger and filled you up with babies: you have not strayed far from the path your young parents trod. You are in the settling place, and you drive a five-ton car. You are floating behind the dashboard, your infants as ants strapped neatly in the back seats.
I am happy that you feel accomplished, but too much time spent in your presence forces shame into my mind. I met myself first, and got to know her well. I did not play the game, sing the song, and rope someone along. May I come to live in the settling place? No, for I posess an empty car, a quiet night absent of hungry/wet/uncooth children, and bare hands to hold. I may visit, thinking fondly in my mind of the settling place, but I am yet swimming in the air.
A fire is burning in my belly, and so my travels perpetuate. I am as settled as a summer breeze, alive and embodied in the blazing heat of an asphalt-boiling afternoon. The people retreat beneath trees for solace, seeking the relief I too seek.

Happy Christm-akkuh

christmas and hannakuh
easter and passover
they go together sometimes,
maybe every forty years
one coinciding with the other
the same night, the same day.
i got a dreidel last night
and tried to spin it
on its head before
two people corrected me.
two magic mennorahs were lit,
and we sat back to enjoy the light.
happy christm-akkuh.

einstein

legend has it that some brilliant minds out there didn't care much for regimented, institutionalized education. their instructors wrote them off as disinterested, daydreamy, or else trouble-making kids who would never amount to much. HA HA HA! i'll join their ranks now, as i've flunked out of grad school. expect bigger and better things from here on out.

self-portrait

toying with the digital camera is a new hobby... seems like i end up taking a lot of pictures of just me, so consider them a biproduct of overcoming self-image issues. this picture is my self-portrait at age 26.

Xmas in retail landia

I am channeling Dave Sedaris these days (read his novella Holiday on Ice) through this plunge that is "holiday help." More like holiday hell. That ole career-related, resume-boosting position was not waiting for my faithful return at the close of Fall term, no no my friends. And so I am immersed in the throngs of crazed customers, sidling psychopaths, bellowing babies, and syrupy serenades by your favorite contemporary singers. A token favorite rendition of the duet "It's Cold Outside" is belted out by Jessica Simpson and her soon to be ex, Nick Lachey. There are moments, in these extended shopping hours (the last three of which we spend folding towels), when I want to say the f word. The holiday(s) of this month are being/have been for nearly one hundred years drowned out by commercialism, and we in need of extra cash can be found loathing rather than enjoying. There are many in my particular store who would like to say, "Merry Christmas! Now shut the f_ up!"

the return of... chapstick boy!

that is it. fin. done. unwanted, unwelcomed, unsolicited, and unprecedented (for extra measure) male suitors! inappropriate communication and pursuit. may i be nice to you because i am a nice person, or do i have to bring out the bitch EVERY TIME? my stalker, aka "chapstick boy" reappeared this afternoon, but perhaps i do have God on my side because i was left alone. he stayed away, lest i make good on my offer to break his nose (i won't tell you what my sister promised to do). it ended up not being a big deal at all. it's the principle of the matter. people want to set me up sometimes. well, the last one stalked me (thanks, everyone), and the one in college turned out to be violent and psychotic. let me make my own mistakes. living alone on an island with books and a dog for a companion looks really appealing sometimes...

when I reach thirty

i'll have more grey hairs
and lines remaining
after i flash a smile
when i reach thirty.

i'll have nieces enough
to count on both hands
when i reach thirty.

i'll still be paying back
the gov't for me education
when i reach thirty.

i'll be without you,
my old friend i said
i would marry
when i reach thirty.

i'll still compare guys
to you, gaging their
comedic potential
when i reach thirty;
but i am happy
you are happy, tijuman.

just another nancy in a bar

there she was, deliberately clad in boots to walk quickly home in, seated beside a topiary bear. said bear was lit with twinkling lights to compliment the blaring christmas music coming from speakers staged center in uptown. her nose and hands had gone all red from sitting out in the cold, one ungloved hand in her pocket and the other holding a cell phone (as she pondered the thin line between desperation and homelessness. somewhere, a child was crying...). her telecommuting companion was brushing her teeth and gargling [to make her laugh]. what was she doing here?

her boots reminded her of nancy sinatra's breakthrough hit in the 1960s, although she was not looking forward to brushing off this suitor with them. said suitor had left his stepsister's birthday party to get lost trying to find uptown, all to have a drink with our nancy. he just had to see her before he went to hawaii, to the very island she'd taken her (doofus) ex. his unbridled enthusiasm made her stomach turn. "where do i find these guys?" she asked herself.

this one was another classic, glaring at her from across the holiday show. her best friend would have told her to ignore the guy. he didn't have the nerve to speak to her until she was pissed off enough at his ogling to come over and casually introduce herself. and now this guy was going to buy nancy a drink, not carry his half of the conversation, and ask her three times if she liked him. she was being polite, wanting to know as little as possible about him, because she just wasn't interested. nancy knew what kind of night this was going to be: another night with captain insecurity.

the second time he asked if she fancied him, she'd had a couple of glasses of wine, but her answer had not changed.
"oh, you're so angelic looking... you're beautiful... i feel this connection... blah blah blah... kiss me, kiss me... obsurd compliment... do you like me?"
"thank you. i know i'm beautiful. what? what is your problem? kindly get your face out of my face. it's a been a while since someone said that to me, but i still know. what connection are you talking about? i'm just not attracted to you."
he became silent as the grave. wallowing in his own self-pity. such a girl. oh, the let down. your fancies were in your head, my man! GROW UP. have fun on Doofus Island. And don't call me.