MOONFLOWERS IN A TOXIC WASTE DUMP

Libra Horoscope for Week of April 19, 2007:

You could grow moonflowers in a toxic waste dump, Libra. You could lift the spirits of a child who has been raised in grievous poverty. That’s how much regenerative power you possess right now. You might even be able to locate underground water in a desert, or resurrect a dead dream, or alleviate half of your deepest suffering. I’m not absolutely sure you could transform lead into gold, but I do know that now is one of your best chances ever to pull it off.

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“MUZZLE OF BEES”

Not only do I have a doppelganger, but I may have a tripleganger as well.

My friends see me walking across campus, or entering a restaurant. But then they’re startled, because it really isn’t me.

In a town of 10,000 people, how likely could this be?

What was I doing? I ask them, fascinated. How did I seem?

How many of them are there? Who keeps the Xerox machine? (Will their sleeves come unstitched from climbing your tree?)

Today I saw a Mourning Cloak perching in the grass, ragged wings like handmade paper tipped in gilt, waiting for female butterflies to come by.

Have you seen me lately? What was I doing? How did I seem?

There’s an invisible filament that glistens in the morning if I’m still awake, stretching from Point A to Point B, a glitter of nothing, tiny spider’s tightrope.

Half of it’s you, half is me . . .

Have you seen me lately? What was I doing? How did I seem?

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LEFT OF THE DIAL

1. Icy Hot! (Or, I’m Too Sexy For My Shirt)

Today I was humiliatingly reduced, for the third time this past week, to slapping an Icy Hot patch on my Grading Knot/Lump/Hump. Now I’m feeling slightly anxious because I’ve used up the last of my Secret Icy Hot Patch Stash, yet my Urgent Pile-O-Grading is asexually intercoursing and becoming increasingly gargantuan and behemothic. In other words, and not to put too fine a point on it, the Icy Hot to Grading ratio is most alarmingly all out of whack.

(Embarrassing Blurtage #144: The Secret Icy Hot Patch Stash was originally purchased after a particularly wild night of dancing, after which I developed a sore neck from flinging my hair about too much in the wanton abandon of my (clearly former) youth. That’s (Icy) Hot, right?)

(Embarrassing Blurtage #145: I sort of like the way Icy Hot smells. That’s even (Icy) Hotter, right?)

So in order to sidestep what is undoubtedly turning into a Dangerous Icy Hot Dependency, I think I’m going to have to cold turkey myself off any further Icy Hot Goodness.

Seriously. Aren’t you a little embarrassed for me at this juncture? I’m a little embarrassed for me.

2. Testy When Tested

I became testy with one of my colleagues, A., at a committee meeting today. He was, perhaps, purposely yanking on my chain a little, but was, nonetheless, maintaining an essentialized notion of maleness and femaleness, and was resisting my dogged insistence that sex and gender had to be clearly uncoupled in a project that was ostensibly all about examining gender roles in Shakespeare’s tragedies. I, predictably, was yammering on about Judith Butler and performativity, and, as I became increasingly agitated, putting cranky air quotes around “masculinity” and “femininity” and saying things like “allegedly masculine traits” and “allegedly feminine traits.” At one point, A. was saying something along the lines of how such-and-such was “just in a woman’s nature and what are you going to do with a woman like that? She had to be punished and made to swallow fire.”

It was at that point that I exclaimed, “Jesus Fucking Christ, A.!” and flung my pen across the table.

Because I am a Consummate Professional. Reeking of Icy Hot.

Afterwards, A. thanked me for a “spirited discussion.”

3. Fire Eaters

I will not play with fire.
I wll not play with fire.
I will not play with fire.
I will not play with fire.

4. Peel Back the Sky

All the stars fall down in a brilliant icy clatter.
My flushed cheeks sting.
Not stars . . . but snow.

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DIATRIBE IN FAVOR OF JOUISSANCE

Today I walked by the river, where the hoofprints of deer crimped the mud into dainty, tear-shaped ridges. Water cycloned in cold swift eddies. Tight buds were swelling on the tree branches in an insistence of green aching.

Today I did something completely out of character. Today I did something that made myself vulnerable. And you know what? I didn’t come unraveled. All my limbs didn’t fall off. My head didn’t burst into flame.

Today I discovered that one could buy schlocky, yet nonetheless delicious, grocery-store carry-out sushi at the Hy-Vee. I ate spicy tuna roll for supper tonight while watching old episodes of The Gilmore Girls.

Today I took an emotional risk. I have taken all sorts of crazy risks in any number of ways throughout my life, but as the mollusk-without-a-shell girl, I will confess that I have become much too adept at avoiding emotional risk-taking. What might look like emotional risk-taking from the outside is really more about allowing collisions with unviable situations, that I know from the outset are ultimately unviable, to happen. So, I took a tiny risk. Just a little one. But I did it. And you know what? I didn’t come unraveled. All my limbs didn’t fall off. My head didn’t burst into flame.

Today someone interpreted my dreams for me.

Today I tell neurosis to back the fuck off, bitch. I tell anxiety to suck my spectral phallus. Today, and even tomorrow, and most likely even the day after as well, I’m going to be all about the jouissance.

Today I tilted at windmills. And lost.

But that’s okay. And you know why? That’s right . . . because I am so all about the jouissance, baby!

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FAVORITE HAT

This is a picture of my favorite hat in the Whole. Wide. World.

It is soft and fleecey, and there’s a maple leaf, with an embroidered beaver on the other side. (Fuck, yeah!)

(I don’t really know why I just exclaimed Fuck, yeah! I guess that’s just how I roll.)

I like to wear my favorite hat backwards.

If I thought I could get away with wearing it every single day, I probably would. (So instead I wear it every other day or so, and hope no one notices.) Sometimes it’s too cold to wear my favorite hat in the whole wide world, and sometimes it’s too hot. This makes me sad.

Occasionally, I fret about what would happen were I to somehow misplace my favorite hat in the whole wide world. (Or should Rabid Marauding Visigoths or Whatnot break into my apartment and steal my favorite hat for use as a Potholder or a Stadium Cushion or a Loincloth or something equally Visigoth-y). And really, I have to say, were I to be permanently separated from my favorite hat in the whole wide world, I don’t know . . . things could get ugly.

Certain difficult individuals have, on occasion, teased me about Attempting to Impersonate a Canadian when I wear this hat, but I think that’s just (a) rude, insolent, and intrusive, and (b) a reading of the semiotic implications of my favorite hat that, quite frankly, lacks a certain nuance.

(Perhaps tomorrow I will Impersonate an Eggplant by wearing a fleece hat in the shape of an eggplant. See what I mean? That’s just crazy talk. Unnuanced crazy talk.)

(And yes, they make fleece hats that look like eggplants. And yes, I want one. Because I happen to really like eggplants. And (recently) cheap beer with copious amounts of olives. And Appletinis. And yum woon sen. And handbags. And hedgehogs. And goldfish. Among other things. Just for the record.)

So, no impersonating of Canadians, although it’s true that once I fell in love in Canada and it was very confusing, because I think that what maybe really happened was that I fell in love with Canada. Or something like that.

But that’s another story altogether.

* * *

Top Secret Message to The Posse: Poker Alice this Friday at Carey’s? 8:00-ish? Come dance with me? (And careful now . . . this Top Secret Message is so Radically Top Secret that, were this Mission Impossible, it would self destruct in 60 seconds.)

* * *

I’m really starting to think that this may be, in fact, my Dumbest. Blog Post. Ever.

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“I’LL RUN AWAY WITH YOU . . .”

5:20 a.m.

Can. Not. Sleep.

Alarm going off in less than an hour.

Why, why, why?

You’re just like a dream.

I want to walk around town in the dark with my disheveled hair, moonlight forking its silvered tinny music through my head, daring the sun to come up.

I want to call down the fog to come and dance with me: all swirl, and dip, fandango, arabesque, and mist.

I want to get on a boat and ride it down the river. All the way to the confluence. All the way to the ocean.

I want to ricochet through the dark, all reckless electricity, and pool the lightbulb on your nightstand with the soft hum of golden lumens burning away the night.

You’re just like a dream.

And I just want to sleep.

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RUNED FOR LIFE

Dr. Medusa! Has done a rune casting for me!

My forecast is to Kiss! Chase! Tilt!

All to the soundtrack of Morphine’s “The Night”!

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