Friday, March 27, 2009

to texas and back in 48 hours

off to houston, then, at 630. to teach all day tomorrow and fly back, to work on sunday 10-4, and train on bar from 5-10. it's a long weekend for me, and i'm not sure i'm going to survive the bar gig on sunday. i mean, considering i've never bartended before. it can't be too hard, i mean shit, i stand on my toes for a living. this is just pouring alcohol for a bunch of drunk basketball fans.

hopefully it'll just all be beer and highballs. that way i can just fake it until i learn the hard stuff, cause private party bartending isn't exactly the fanciest drinks in the world. a dirty martini here, a tom collins there, maybe a madras. but it's also very non-stressful and slow, and people are there to see friends and hang out and not expect speedy and perfect service.

oh well, study study study, i guess. i don't need to freak out. i just need to figure it out. that's what the last three weeks have been, and i'm sure that's what the next three weeks will be like anyway. i don't mind a little stress. i just want to make enough money to save some for the certification program and settle down.

commotion, commotion, commotion, all around.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

i am sad, today

and so there are ups, and there are downs. smiling one day, crying into the night the next, we finish off cycles of life just like breath, or the tides of the ocean under the moon.... in and out, up and down, left and right. and no matter how strong we can be there is always room for desperation, to seep through cracks.
i know he said he will be strong, but facing one's mortality is never an easy walk to stride. it's not that i'm scared of his death, or that i don't realize permanence is just a man-made word to make us feel better about things slipping through our fingers. i want to find a way to shield him from the pain he is about to undertake; the soreness and swelling at the site of the ion beam to damage the dna in his cells, the ulcerations and the bleeding... it's his throat. all of this will happen in his throat, and there is a chance that if it swells too much, he won't be able to breathe. and then, the chemo... symptoms including but not limited to loss of memory and hair, depression of the immune system to the point of the inability to fight off a cold, depression of appetite, hemorrhage, vomiting, diarrhea, and anemia...
the man is 84 years old. if the cancer won't kill him, those side effects will, and all i want to do is take the drugs for him so he won't have to go through all of that.
my grandfather, the hero. the man that has been standing by me for longer than i can remember, the man who is about to lose his soft white hair, and maybe the ability to recognize his only granddaughter...
is there a treatment for the people who have to watch the ones they love go through this? or maybe one that takes all the pain away inside me, for not being able to do anything about it?
i am sad today, and all these things are why.

k.

Friday, March 20, 2009

not sorry, me


oh, me.
selfish me,
dishonest me,
subject to
fallibility,
hypocrisy me,
illegitimate me,
egomaniacal misery
me,
brash,
rude,
disrespectful me,
proven to be shrewd,
and untrustworthy...
though from the
beginning
when i planted
my seed
the praise was given
so readily -
good for you!
so proud,
so faithful you see,
unrelenting in
love,
unequivocally,
no doubt, no
fear, no
projected strategy
was upon what
you held
so tenderly.
and now, what
a mess, what
a monstrosity
walking away from
moving forward, it seems,
due to my "free spirit"
and momentous
intensity, this
apple has fallen
far from it's tree...

le sigh.
easy
was never meant
to be.


if nothing else in life, we are to enjoy it and make stupid decisions regarding no one else but ourselves. call it immature, call it brazen, or whatever the fuck stigma you can attach to it. i call it human, and if we aren't that, then i guess we are just droids walking around in people suits.
i'd much rather view people in light than in dark, and if that gets me into trouble or kills me, even, than well... i guess those are my stars, right?
the point is, and so often forgotten, that we don't control anything that happens. it's called fucking life. so no matter cop car or cab, if it's my time to go, it's my time to go. otherwise, i would be wracked with nerves about everything, from going to the supermarket to going out for a drink at night. shit happens. get over it.
the reason why i love my life and at the same time, why people can love me, is my outlook. so take it or leave it, it's all i got to keep a smile on my fucking face every day. otherwise, i'd be diagnosed with the rest of prozac nation, and you know what? i sure as shit don't have a chemical imbalance and i'm not going to cry depression just because i'm scared about failing or dying or getting jumped or life in general.
shit happens, to everyone. we make bad decisions, we make good ones. sometimes both lead to incredible things, and sometimes both lead to death. that's the beauty of the grab bag of life. i'm sorry if it hurts. but i'm not sorry for being who i am, as unrealistic and stupid as i can be sometimes. it's what makes me awesome.

k.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

eight months


i have to thank you, though
over the years,
you've fed on my despair,
whispered to me
threats of loss and
weakness. the honey-sweet
danger of your voice
lures me from faith
and sips with me
on my whiskey...
to forget
that life is destructible
and loss,
inevitable; that
i will wake one day
without one man's
likenesses and
another's kindness.
you will have scooped
them up, one
night, under closed
lids, dreaming
that things are alright.
and i should thank you,
still, for
you will have taught
me the value
of what i've had
but never touched.
it wont be the regret
of a loss of a
feeling, anymore,
it will be a regret
of a loss.
smile through the
sunsets of their lives,
a poem once said,
all the while
tearing into my head,
though i should still
thank you, and
learn the value
of vacancy.
these years have been
my happiest, with
you between my ears
and inside their blood, so
thank you, for
walking with me,
holding me.

k.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

kiss kiss, bang bang

goodbye, and
good riddance to you,
for the thought of
us, together
gets under my skin
and tumbles
my stomach, acrid
with sweet rotting
words i
choked on, so
long before.
thievery,
you and
your hands,
adumbral eyes
under brooding
lids, laden too
heavy with
undeserved sense of
accomplishments...
feet never fast
enough, until
the pavement
gave payment, and
quickened underneath,
what lovely sound
of walking away,
heels echoing
heart,nose
to the moon,
frozen with triumph
in the bitter
eventide air.
the streets, lit
low and soft,
hummed against
each sole passed-
and farther,
and farther,
and gone;
and you, alone
as you ever were,
ever wanted to be,
simply -
free.

k.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

on glass boxes and not god

i don't think i've ever had the ability to fathom what comes next. every day i wake up, i am surprised i'm still alive. not to mention the fact that i'm incredibly clumsy and undeniably awkward, to the point where it is detrimental to my everyday health.
i can't save money, i can't plan for the future, i can't look towards a goal without finding the possibility that it most likely won't ever happen. everything i've ever done was due to a happy accident, and this fact alone makes me wonder - how much of my life did i really create intentionally? what have i achieved so significant that has been due to a proper course of planning, and not received largely because of some serendipitous grant that worked it's way into my life?
even though i live shrouded in a world of cynicism, it's never jaded me to the point where the outcome is that of despair and hopelessness. it's odd - to be a sarcastic optimist. a juxtaposition, really. although i have at times thought that i may never make it out of certain situations, there's always been an overwhelming sense of "this too shall pass" effigy. especially now, faced with an incredible sense of frenetic madness, in a city where i know no one and make less money than i ever had in my working life... i still feel like this is the next step before being settled. it's largely due to my glass box.
what is this glass box you possess, you ask? well, i'll tell you, baby birds.
maybe a large part of my small successes have been due to the fact that there is an intangible quality inside me that is untouchable. no matter where i am, who i have chosen to be destructive with, or any negativity being thrown my way... there has always been this one shred of nothingness that allows me to find optimism in bad situations. it is fragile and can be bruised and broken if someone else was able to touch it, their dirty little fingerprints mauling the outside prismatic beauty of it's walls. but the glass houses this seed, and allows it to grow even in the shade of our venal tendencies. it is what i cherish most in my life, this little seed of faith, and i protect it to all ends because in turn, it protects me from all the bad.
i will tell you right now. this essay is NOT about god. how overbearingly cliche.
we all possess this seed. some of us just choose not to allow it to grow. and this, is a fatal downfall. because if you lose faith in yourself, you have lost the fight against everything else.
after a two month long downward spiral during and coming back from san francisco, in which i had lost my pre-planned californian life, my hard earned apartment, half my furniture, my independence, my boyfriend to adultery, my family, my dignity, and my mutual fund... i was devastated. i found it increasingly difficult to look in the mirror and find things to be happy about, like the fact that i had a career that i had worked towards for twenty years and a car to drive to that career and that i had a loft with things to decorate it with...
these "things" never made me happy. my life was full of tangible shit that i could see and touch and hold, and i was empty as the day was long. it saddened me to know that i had lost this vibrancy i once depended on, that i employed to get me through all the rough shit. and so, i got rid of it all. of everything. minus about two boxes that are currently residing at my parents' house in north carolina. i had to shed everything to understand what it was like to live inside nothing, which is where all my strength decided to shine through.
when i made the decision to leave atlanta behind, all the baggage and trials and tribulations, i knew it was a decision based on seeing if i had enough inside me to eventually get it all back, the way i wanted to. so currently i sleep on my floor, on a cushioned mattress and two blankets warm enough to make do, walking fifteen minutes to get a train to where i need to go, with no pictures, pillows, and only two suitcases full of clothes and shoes to get by. i have very little money to get new things, which will change as soon as i can get the means to do so, which is fine by me. i'll eventually get my things back, through patience and time, and i'm okay with this. because none of those things would ever change the fact that my glass box is pulsing with the notion that all this too, soon shall pass.
it's not what we have that makes us strong. it's what we don't. and no amount of furniture, pets, or even love will give it to us. it's that shred of delicious self certainty, of complete awareness that what you have to offer is what everyone will desire as well... that's the most important thing for successes and happiness. without that, we have everything in the world but nothing to show for it.

k.

Friday, March 6, 2009

bah hahahahaha



this is what i feel like when i wake up every morning. that wall came out of nowhere, man...

k.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

boston's a go - the eagle has landed

so here i am. boston. it really happened, and i am really writing this on my new couch in my new living room, trying to get my feet warm. i actually did it, and i'm doing so trying not to shit myself with fear.

it's not that i don't think i'm going to make it, or even that i'm scared of failing. i'm actually most scared of getting lost in the snow, like i did last night, coming home from davis square. luckily some nice guy named eli who was walking home from the grocery store had an iphone. i really need to invest.

so minus that glitch, and the fact that it took me about an hour and forty-five minutes to complete the fifteen minute walk to davis square from west adams street from earlier that morning, it's been relatively smooth sailing. my roommates are awesome. they are funny and intelligent and they like to drink wine and watch family guy. je l'adore.

and the weather inevitably will get warmer with the onset of spring, which should be coming along any day now. eventually i'd really like to get my clothes and assorted household items back from storage in the mountains, and i think i'd appreciate most a new bed. but those things all will come and are extras anyway. things to make the room more comfortable. a couch is fine with me for the time being, or in my case for the last two nights, my floor.

i think the fear will reside as the days begin to get warmer and the nights shorter. and when i know that i can put away some money to save. that's my biggest thing right now... i have all these dreams and i finally have goals again, manageable and tangible and all within reach.

in atlanta, the desire was always there but i felt like i was cheating because i knew there was nowhere that i could chase after the dreams i had. but i stayed, cause it was safe and easy and i knew that i didn't have to fail if there was nowhere i could try to succeed. and so i just sat, idle, and allowing myself to give up, while little pieces of me broke off every day. not to mention, my youth. atlanta was safe and boring, and now, i'm uncomfortable but i'll pull through. even if i don't get a bed for awhile. even if i have to live on rice and vegetables cause that's all i can afford. it will get better, i will get through, and i will grab this life by the reigns.

a bed would be nice though. if anybody has one to spare, i'm available for immediate pick up.

k.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

genie

oh
this is new, a
new like christmas morning,
unwrapping my
golden shiny and
new,
a simple but
pleaded for
desire in the palm
of a hand
but now i want
my cats
and my fans and
my man
with me...
what can i do
with those wishes?
a lamp, i guess,
and then
give me my dreams i've
had since before
my responsibilities....
come and get me.

k.