A Calendar of Days - 2019

After Diego's birthday. He is twenty eight now. He was happy today. I’m glad he was so happy. We saw Aladdin at the South Lamar Drafthouse, and had to sit in separate seats because the tickets were almost sold out!

Outside, after the movie, we talked about it enthusiastically like we used to do with more serious films. We skirted the prickles to avoid a fight, and looked out at downtown from the roof of the Drafthouse garage. I remember when Big Bertha's was down there, before it moved to North Loop. Under Austin there's another Austin of memory, layers deep.

Diego's leaving tomorrow morning in Giorgio to work on the Warren campaign, and can't say when he'll be back. He's leaving me in this awful new apartment that smells like death.

This morning, I was upset about our anniversary coming up and he said, “Are we really going to do this today?”

I’ve read books and I know that lives get ruined, that people are destroyed and die unredeemed. It’s an arc for a minor character though, so I didn’t make the connection that my life could be ruined. My emotional pilgrimages and poetic journeys now interpretable as grand mistakes. There's no guarantee that my plot will be a happy one.

Diego took a tiny yogurt mouse, the half inch one made of sculpey. And I sent along the heavy Pudge doll I sewed and embroidered out of denim. Our parting was terrible and quiet. I go back into our disgusting interim apartment, mourning the most beautiful house in the world. I survey all the goddamn stuff he left. Books, guitars, clothes, knicknacks.

I put all my weed into premeasured preground portions that decrease slightly each day. They are stored in coffee filters stacked in an empty bustelo can.

In control, I put it away and close the lid. Brush my teeth.

June 29, high on June 30. Skipped work tonight. Gave notice at TFK.

I didn’t know Nana well. If you want to know people, sometimes you really have to try. Each funeral speaker in turn eulogized her as perfect. Nana never complained, never gossiped, never criticized. And then they all turned to the same happy story: reunion in heaven, restoration of youth. Thin, cowardly words, draped over real, strong family love.

Cousin Becca endeared herself the further to my sisters and myself by driving me and Liza and Diane and Becca to her adorable SLC bungalo. We strolled to a farmer's market and brought back squash, greens, and beef, and had a relaxing dinner with red wine for Cousin Becca and me and Diane.
Cousin Becca tells us that Nana was the black sheep of her own family, having run away from Utah with Grandpa to live in California. Cousin Becca tells us she's seen photos of Nana smoking when she was young and that once, she found a handle of rum in Nana's laundry basket.

Grudges, mistakes, guilt, distance, time, fear, I am annoyed by my parents evident lack of interest in my life at the funeral, but it also seems normal like this: they are strictly interested in the surface, crave no detail that isn't flattering or marketable for them.

I can accept my family for what it is. I came late to a desire for togetherness, but now the shrapnel-scattering of my siblings makes me sorry. I don’t want to be robbed of the chance to be close to them, just because I won't RSVP to the imaginary heaven party.

I find my favorite relationships now stretched to almost breaking. XT (formerly faye) in Cali with not much to say, Max in Chicago dangerously sweet, and Diego in New Hampshire giving me a sour taste, not answering phone calls.

Diego

All my rages lately look like disdain, disappointment, resignation. I can only do better with myself. Diego went away callously, revealed his lack of investment in the life we were building, saddled me with our mutual dreams.

To my surprise, he has proven completely independent from me. All the better for him. Eyes open, I knew that I married a man willing to promise the entire world. I must not fall into the trap of placing any hope in him again. Agonizing, bargaining, indulging, attending, or fretting over him. Allowing him to count me among his attributes. Counting him among my assets. I wish he would never return.

I’m stoned
What does it feel like? My head is empty. I do not notice the music playing in my ears. I’m moderately surprised to be wearing headphones and to be sitting in a chair. Without remembering anything, I am cluttered by idle daydreams. My bodily energy is staticky like an old television. Time passes like a caravan. I look around but I do not wonder. I stand up and sit down again. I do not have a plan, but I think about plans I could have. I would be bored if I weren’t suffused by gentle confusion.

It is safe here in my room, except for the phone and myself. The phone, befause it is its own place filled with hurt where I may fall and never stop falling. Myself, because I may ruin everything, even just by sitting still, any little rivulet of thought can take me anywhere. Things are not basically under my control. With time, this suite of circumstances will recede, leaving a dullness and frustrating blockage. Then, sobriety like the white afternoon sun in fall, in glimpses.

I get weed from Krissy:

After I get off, I wait until Julia gets in the shower. Then after Bella goes into her room but before her lights have gone out, I take the car to the bank for the second time in a day to withdraw 20 of the 45 dollars I deposited earlier. I drive carefully on a flat tire and remind myself not to accidentally spend the cash on anything else. I get tacos. I try to remember to drink water but I forget and swallow the tacos in two or three hungry bouts. I turn right then left, back into an angled spot at Barflys.

Krissy is the first person I see. I walk past with a cool hey, nod, smile, salute, squint. There’s no use being hasty, I think. I go to the patio and see one of my coworkers, a recent friend and a dear. I smoke a cigarette with her.

Upstairs Krissy is playing pool. She is slim and willowy, shining straw-colored hair cascades over both her shoulders and down her back. One tiny plait shines above her left temple. She is wearing a little boy’s t-shirt and, far below, a shimmering pale-yellow skirt of chinese silk. She is winning. I sit near her packed bag and tabled drink, joining the circle of people watching her. As her defeated opponent, a tall Japanese man in an immaculate suit, wanders over to the bar, another guy jumps up to put more quarters in the table. Better to wait until the playing's done, I think.

I watch, and woup, and call down the room at some fool macho. People come through and introduce themselves to everybody. Someone named Bri sits by me and we cheer and jibe at Krissy, who swings along the edges of the room. Better not rush it, I think. I see Krissy's bag slumped on a low chair behind Bri. Can I buy you a shot? I ask on one of her rounds. Sure, she says, but my drink is cheaper than my shot. Tell them you want a Krissy.

A Krissy is spiced rum, coconut malibu, and a splash of coke, with two cherries. For myself I get gin and water. Krissy wins again. I move my drink to her table. Bri is circling around now, and an ornery guy has wandered in for me to tease. He scowls and I jeer. Another of my coworkers comes in and says hello, but this time I don’t leave.

After three wins Krissy scratches on the eight. I’m about ready to go have a smoke, I say to her. It is about smoke thirty, isn’t it, she laughs hoarsely as she speaks.
As we go outside we pass my coworkers leaving.

Once everybody's lit up at the patio tables, that's when I say two or three words about did she have any on her that she could sell, got any weed, Krissy? She acts mock-bothered, looking around her and wiggling eyebrows at the fellas, but she's digging in that bag alright. I only brought this much just for me, she says, but I guess I can spare you a little. She wraps it in the corner of the plastic that comes on a pack of cigarettes. I thank her too enthusiastically. She's turned away. I go home.

Oh.
No oh.
While the wind the cold the traffic here in Texas.
Reap Reeking, Rasping, Ruined.

spider-rip my limbs
on the floor.

Lilywhite
The sunlight that follows you
the lie of becoming someone else.

Why did it happen to me? It’s nobody’s fault. I live freely now. I swim alone.
I won't ask, "Why did it happen to you?", none of us knows.

Unable to sleep at 3:30 am, I start writing letters in my head to my mother and end up weeping. I call my sister in Las Vegas, but she doesn’t answer.

I am not crushed by the weight of life.

One foolish thought, enlightenment is gone. One wise thought, enlightenment is regained.

Never know what to make of anything. Not being hurt by not-knowing. Not being proud, which is also the refusal to know or not know.

Pretention or aspiration? More like a very smelly armpit and a nick on the pube from an electric razor.

It’s too late to hang everything all together like a tattered net, I can only dissolve it. What is this work that we do? Even when I’m at my job, still I don’t quite understand or feel that I am working in the true sense.

Crooked right elbow and unmentionable human body and a sense of a sense of a sense.