July 1 Uh

I got out of that program just in time. Just when I was starting to answer too many questions for other people. I am totally stumped. I decided to take the evening off. I didn't even make a to-do list. I can make a to-do list tomorrow. I have to recognize when it's all just too much. I feel choked up and on the verge of hysterical. I was daydreaming of that little pink trailer on Camas Swale Road. I know it seems simple looking back on that time, but memory is such a liar. It has never been simple. I lose my grasp of what's going on so easily. I can't make any sense tonight. There's a big discontinuity somewhere. I once worked with a person who explained everything that went wrong by saying there was a "disconnect." There's a big big disconnect going on. I'm sitting in a nest of loose ends. Even language is breaking up on me. There's no font that can evoke this disorganization. Every font I know is orderly and precise. Design one where an A came out looking differently every time. Create a language with no grammar. I need it. I'm often tempted to write in syllables here. Uh uh uh or du de du de doo or eh eh deh deh. Rhythmic syllables. Probably because I heard too many nursery rhymes when I was pre-verbal. May I dream in Mother Goose tonight.

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July 2 Another free Friday

Suddenly she wants to fall to her knees and pray for the poets. She imagines them with immaculate ravaged faces, with necklaces of ransacked moons, with teeth which are black stubs. Poets are collections of unused crescents and bandages, confused images and terrible partings. They wear poisoned cameos. There is the prophecy of bridges and remote trains. Kate Braverman, "Winter Blues" I read this story last night in an anthology I almost rejected, Wine Country, ed. by Benjamin Russack. Then I read it again this morning. I read it some more tonight. I never read stories more than once so quickly, but this sounded so familiar -- a woman and child alone, northern California setting, rain, struggling through the day, and then this sudden "unlatched" quality of language. I liked it. I tried another of her stories. I hated it. Too much addiction, too much dialogue, too much extremity, too much of the muchness of Los Angeles. Maybe I'll try one or two more of her stories looking for more unlatching. I finally got the Mac hooked up to email and the Internet today. I looked at the journal. It looked completely different. The text swims in a great empty field. I almost didn't recognize it. I knew this would happen, but it was still a shock. Tomorrow I will tackle uploading from there. Everything is taking some time to figure out. Especially when it is so hot and so muggy. I just laid on the bed for awhile this afternoon, inert, traveling through layers of consciousness. Ear consciousness was listening to: The neighbors hammering on their second story addition A car alarm going off repeatedly Sudden heavy rain Cars swishing through water Emotional consciousness was too hot to react to the sounds. Tonight there was a lot of loud thumping and booming in the near distance. Two towns were having fireworks. I stepped outside for awhile, where it was finally cooler and misty. The sky was lighting up. Instead of fireworks tonight, I watched: Three or four tiny stars just visible through the moist atmosphere Fireflies in the dark bushes up the hillside The little glowing doorbell light across the street Appreciating the smallness of these lights seemed radically comforting.

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July 3 Computer work

I did computer work almost all day. The smoke alarm only went off once. It's fun to think the computer work caused it, but the real reason was probably humidity from the bathroom. I haven't discovered any smoke yet. The Mac keyboard is subtly different from the other one. Let's hope I get used to it. I need a USB to ADB adapter. Damn. There's always one more unexpected glitch. I created the June archive. I hate this task. The archives aren't set up very nicely. They are in humongous monthly pages. I've never liked that those pages are so big. And the anchors don't seem to work correctly. But there are certain advantages to this approach. I don't like the idea of all those daily files floating around. This approach also reduces the amount of links to home and email that I would have to repair if changes are required. And if and when I ever want to print out the material (why?) it will be easy to do from the monthly page. But the worst aspect of archiving is revisiting all those days' worth of writing. The volume starts to make me sick. How do novelists live with themselves. I almost have all the tedious tasks done. I can't imagine wanting to pretty up the site after all this. When the site becomes a battleground between imagination and engineering, imagination always seems to lose. She's a very weak sister.

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July 4 Dog day

I took my dog to the beach for a walk this morning about 7:30. I wish it would have been 5:30, but I woke up late from a heat stupor I can't call sleep. There were a lot of people there already. It was about 85 degrees. Vinnie was there. Vinnie's master said "Hello and Goodbye, Vinnie, Hello and Goodbye." Vinnie is the world's most obedient dog, a small chunky black canine. He's never on the leash because he doesn't need to be. I could never take my dog off the leash. He's undisciplined. Vinnie said Hello to Kirby, and then he said Goodbye, just as instructed. I think Vinnie's master leaves the water bowl out by the spigot near the bathrooms. I walked Kirby up to the water bowl thinking he might want a drink. Instead of taking a drink he tried to piss in it. They say people resemble their dogs and I've noticed this is often true. I worry about that. My dog is small, lean and white with brown spots. But it's in his personality traits that I worry I resemble him. He takes offense easily, tends to try to run away, is extremely messy, and wants to take on bigger dogs. As well as wanting to piss in the communal water bowl. And he has to sniff everything. I'm not like that, am I? I sketched out the professional website today. Adobe GoLive is starting to get a little clearer. My son called it "golive" as though it rhymed with "olive" and I'm afraid the pronunciation has stuck in my head. I am in an unreasonably good mood. It's too hot to get upset about anything. Kirby agrees. Most of the day I was fantasizing about moving to Vancouver, BC. I want to move. Why not?

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July 5 Oleo keyboard

I thought I was crying, but it was sweat. The heat is sitting on my head like a sultan, eating my thoughts like a caterpillar. The sun never set. The day will never be over. The web will never forgive me. The earthworms travel deeper and deeper. I haven't been anywhere for a long time. I'm afraid to sleep. I don't know what will happen if I enter the everlasting hot night of sleep. My skin won't adapt. It will bloom like a burned lily. My face will turn the color of the black hollyhock, white at the neck, with a raw pink necklace. My eyes will squelch like weeping stones. Butter turned to gas will enter my lungs, leaving permanent greasy tan trails. My organs dry, ancient sponge fossils. My feet will grow feathery fungus, making wings of their claws, and will fly away seeking their aqua half lives in some other forever. Through the heat -- the other side of heat -- a pale flat vision. Gray tightfitting clothes, neat hair combed in a bun, a calmness in housekeeping. Her name is Simplicity. All her coins are picked up and filed. All files are sealed and sent away with a kiss. All kisses are cool and memorized. All memories are wrapped in gauze and frozen. Then the freezer is locked.

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July 6 Equation and calibration

The older women, my surrogate grandmas, have been helping me. Tonight I talked to Dot and Peg. Email from Pat. Mail from Dianne. The contact has been wonderful. I have a lot of surrogate grandmas. I need a lot of them. Tomorrow I will call Alice. And maybe Natalie. And another meeting. It takes at least ten older women to cancel out the effects of one monstrous teenage male. I'm still running a deficit. Kuan Yin seems to be the goddess needed. I can feel her in this cooler breeze that's occasionally reaching in the window. The type size is manically jumping around. What looks right on the Mac looks huge on the PC with AOL. I'm still calibrating it. For all I know this is a useless effort for the general reader. Just like so many other things, I'm doing it for me and me alone.

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July 7 Gaudy night

It looks cool. Maybe it looks gimmicky. Maybe it looks gaudy. I know the reflection is the wrong shape, but I don't know how to fix it. Maybe this one is better. I usually try to do too much. I enjoy feeling puzzled about how to use graphics on this site. How should the graphics relate to the words? I don't want them to take attention away from the text, my firstborn and favorite. I am determined to develop some philosophies about this, but I don't have any yet. Except this one: that the page shouldn't take ages to load.

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July 8 Energy ebb

What happened? Today I'm reeling with fatigue. I came home from the computer lab today and went straight to bed for a nap. When I woke up I felt worse than ever. I've been working on my "portfolio" every day this week, from about 9 to 2. It seemed to be relaxing and productive work, but today I felt wretchedly sick of it. I've been worrying a lot. I've been stressing about not having a job. I'm feeling aftereffects from the heat wave. I don't drink enough water. Today I've been refilling my little water bottle over and over to try to rehydrate myself. And consciously trying to eat more because I didn't eat those two very hot days. The household chores are backed up. I need to do laundry and mow the lawn. I wore a long skirt today instead of shorts. The skirt made me feel more vulnerable than usual. Claudia thinks everyone should have a massage once a month. I have a lot going on the next few days. Social events. Lunch, dinner, poetry group. I don't know if I can handle it. It wouldn't be good to just start crying with fatigue in public. And Saturday is my son's birthday. He'll be eleven years old. I hope I have enough energy to celebrate.

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July 9 Perils of the poet

The poet is a little bit peeved right now. The poet came home from the computer lab early and had lunch with Mr. Silvercurls. She cruelly laughed her head off over his tales of fried mice and squashed hamster. She in turn told her tales of frog rescue and turtle death in a thunderstorm. Maybe this was morbid, but laughing at the little animals' expense was a relief. Then the poet went home to try to nap. No nap was to be had. Gregory Corso's poem "Poets Hitchhiking on the Highway" wouldn't leave her alone. She lay on the bed trying to think of ways to instigate a mad poetic duel via email. This would be a dream come true. But no mad poetic duel would seem to be forthcoming. The poet drove back to White Plains for the final dinner with the computer class. The radio news reports kept triggering inflamed commentary in the poet's overtired mind. Giuliani, mayor of New York, says no one cares whether Tina Brown's party were held in the sky or on earth. The poet begged to differ, she would certainly care whether a party were held in the sky or on earth. The poet felt badly about being different. The poet then heard a news story about a woman being prosecuted for her baby's death due to her "insufficient breast milk." The poet felt livid. She wanted to invoke the ten grandmas of the apocalypse on the people who failed that mother. The poet felt politically inadequate. Again. The poet gets to the restaurant. She drinks one beer and laughs and eats a lot of appetizers. The poet is a lightweight and starts to feel sick. She can't sustain her attention to anything because her mind goes blank when she can't think. She goes into the bathroom. It's a tiny one-seater, but there is a huge bouquet of fresh pink freesias on the sinkboard. She likes it in there, but she has to leave to go to the poetry group. The poet gets to the poetry group late. She is already feeling very isolated and spacey. She tries to fit in, and listens politely although she feels like making a big scene. Finally, when she has the floor, she reads Gregory Corso's "Poets Hitchhiking on the Highway." She gets no audience reaction, so she tries to explain it, which is always a mistake. No one offers to join in a mad poetic duel. Then she reads "Antidote Poem." It is not easy to read; the rhythm seems kind of off. Or maybe the audience is kind of off. The poet is certainly kind of off. She explains that the poem is a chant. She explains that she would like to hear it done chorally. Someone in the group offers to join in a chant next time. Several people encourage her to bring copies. The poet feels totally flummoxed by reality. She can't bear to offer her precious goddessy chant-poem to people who might not get it. Especially men. She doesn't like the idea of miscellaneous disrespectful types mussing up the difficult rhythm. She can't stand the thought of doing it without ritual mood-lighting and some sort of trance-induction. She doesn't want to have to explain. The poet is messed up. She has to write an entry where she calls herself a poet about a million times so she can begin to understand the nature of the problem. She "ended by melting away, hating the air. "

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July 10 Spooked on a birthday

I spent most of the day making festive birthday things happen. So why do I feel so spooked now? There's a cool breeze blowing in the window. It feels good. The birthday boy went to his dad's tonight. When he left I wanted to give in to my fears. I'm alone. My family life is weird. I don't have a job. The Internet is a lonely inhuman place. The birthday could have been better. Etc, etc, etc. I've been pretty brave though. I just distracted myself with some stupid cleanup tasks on the resume site. I'm very dissatisfied with it, but I'm trying not to push myself too hard. I just fixed some background colors and alignments and header sizes. That was probably enough. I don't trust the Internet as a means of looking for a job. Is anyone really out there to receive these things I send out? I browsed the WebMonkey site for a long time today. There's a lot of information, but I have such a hard time with the perkiness and trendiness of most of the prose. Who are these people? I also can't tolerate watching most sporting events. My nerves are too jangled by the suspense of not knowing who will win. But I forced myself to sit through the penalty kicks at the end of the Women's World Cup Soccer match. I was trying to strengthen myself by watching the teams' strength under pressure. I went to the bike store today to buy birthday boy a new bike helmet. I miss my bike so much. I loved putting on those padded half-finger gloves. I loved swinging my leg up and over the seat, and feeling the pedals engage with my muscles when I first pushed off. I loved the feeling of getting into an easy rhythm pedaling around the flat track at the beach. I cried for two solid hours the day my bike went away. I'm still spooked by that day. Too spooked to write about it. And the worst part is, I feel completely unentitled to my hysterical reaction. If I have any money left when I finally get a job, I'm going to buy bikes for myself and Younger One. Maybe the bike story will have a happy ending someday. Link to be used at your own risk: WebMonkey, a resource for web developers

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July 11 Theoretical foundations of spooking (long)

From Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology, "Prelude to the Third Passage," page 317-318: ... the first chapter of this Passage will be concerned with Spooking. The Haggard Journeyer will not be astonished to find that Spooking is multi-leveled. Women are spooked by patriarchal males in a variety of ways; for example, through implicit messages of their institutions, through body language, through the silences and deceptive devices of their media, their grammar, their education, their professions, their technology, their oppressive and confusing fashions, customs, etiquette, "humor," through their subliminal advertising and their "sublime" music (such as christmas carols piped into supermarkets that seduce the listener into identifying with the tamed Goddess who abjectly adores her son). Women are also spooked by other women who act as instrumental agents for partriarchal males, concurring, with varying degrees of conscious complicity, in all of the above tactics. To the extent that any woman acts -- or nonacts when action is required -- in such complicity, she functions as a double agent of spooking, for politically she is and is not functioning as a woman. Since Hags/Witches have expectations of her -- righteous expectations which are almost impossible to discard without falling into total cynicism and despair -- she spooks us doubly, particularly by her absences/silences/non-support. Finally, Spinsters are spooked by the alien presences that have ben inspired (breathed into) our own spirits/minds. These involve fragments of the false self which are still acting/nonacting in complicity with the Possessors. They also take the shape of nameless fears, unbearable implanted guilt feelings for affirming our own being, fear of our newly discovered powers and of successful use of them, fear of dis-covering/releasing our own deep wells of anger, particularly fear of our anger against other women and against ourselves for failing our Selves. Spinsters are spooked by fear of the Ultimate Irony, which would be to become a martyr/scapegoat for feminism, whose purpose is to release women from the role of martyr and scapegoat. Faced with being spooked, Spinsters are learning to Spook/Speak back. This Spinster-Spooking is also re-calling/re-membering/re-claiming our Witches' power to cast spells, to charm, to overcome prestige with prestidigitation, to cast glamours, to employ occult grammar, to enthrall, to bewitch. Spinster-Spooking is both cognitive and tactical. Cognitively, it means pattern-detecting. It means understanding the time-warps through which women are divided from each other -- since each woman comes to consciousness through the unique events of her own history. It means also seeing the problems caused through space-warps--since Hags and potential Hags are divided from each other in separate institutional settings, disabled from sharing survival tactics in our condition of common isolation, spooked by our apparent aloneness. Tactically, Spooking means learning to refuse the seductive summons by the Passive Voices that call us into the State of Animated Death. It means learning to hear and respond to the call of the wild, learning ways of en-couraging and en-spiriting the Self and other Spinsters, learning con-questing, learning methods of dispossession, specifically of dis-possessing the Self of possession by the past and possession by the future. It means a-mazing the modern witchcraze, developing skills for unpainting the Painted Birds possessed through the device of tokenism, exposing the Thoroughly Therapeutic Society.

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July 12 Without metaphors

Tenar walked without metaphors. What can this mean? I thought metaphors were good. I wanted to encourage them. Now I rethink -- maybe they are like fuzz, a blurring, a lack of distinctness (directness). Do I want to walk without metaphors? No. I want to wrap myself with them, my orange fake fur shrug, my teal mohair scarf, my dark red bundling of down coat. Comforts. Security. Elusiveness. Shifting sands. This means this; no, it means that. Correspondences and spells, indirectness. I don't want to be pinned down. I don't want to have to answer for anything. My head wants to spin with metaphors. Then I couldn't possibly walk, I'd be too dizzy. To walk without metaphors -- death? It sounds skeletal. Determined. Too determined. Grim. Well, Tenar was determined at that point in the story. She was doing what she had to do. Most of my waking life is walking without metaphor. I was raised without metaphor. I work without metaphor, I raise my kids without metaphor, I pay my bills without metaphor. I get up in the morning without metaphor, which is why I'm so damn anxious and bony all the time. I just can't get the hang of it. If I flood my life with metaphor, and spend all my time underwater in these salty shallows making correspondences with sea creatures, I'll just -- drown? There will be no definite reality. A bad thing. But how much of every day, every week, every month, every year needs to be so overly determined? Note: this reference comes from Tehanu, by Ursula LeGuin. I don't have the exact quote handy. But reading that Tenar "walked without metaphors" shocked me. I had to stop reading with lack of breath.

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July 13 Reservations

Well, tonight I took a long walk after dark. I took out the trash and I didn't mean to leave home but I just kept going and I never looked back. While I was walking, a guy in a car yelled at me "You dirty whore" which didn't help my mood any and startled me so much it took me five whole seconds before I had the presence of mind to call upon the Great Hags for the right words to curse him, and the words I got were "You will die" which is probably a pretty good curse because it's pretty damn sure to happen, and I hope sooner rather than later, or maybe later depending on what life brings him. I don't think he knew exactly who he was yelling at or he would have been more careful. Anyway, as I walked, I was wishing myself so hard back to the reservation that I'm sure some people or animals there heard me wishing, maybe some sisters walking their baby strollers around the trailer park after supper hoping to lull their fussy infants, or maybe some people walking home from the bar drunk getting ready to be hit by a car, or maybe a coyote loping along the stream below Table Rock, or maybe one of those big prehistoric fish in Omak Lake. I wonder how Lilly is, how many kids she has, and whether her hair is still so dark and thick and glossy. I wonder how many of the girls are still alive. The Nespelem powwow is probably over by now. I wonder whether Ruby got married; maybe she has inherited her mother's ranch in Canada, cause I'm sure Rosie wouldn't have. I wonder about the Bigwolfs. I'm sure Frank is just as big and quiet as he always was and Carolyn just as dumb. I wonder about Chief Timentwa. He always seemed so gentle, but I was afraid of him, and sometimes I'd like to take my soft white son's butt out there and ask Chief to whup it. I wonder if Annie Butterfly still rides horses at a gallop wearing a red bandana, and if her beautiful Mongolian cheekbones are unscarred, and if her legs still look impossibly long. Probably, in heaven. I know if I went back there I would find nothing but trouble. I know I can't go back. I know. I KNOW! I just wish myself back there so hard sometimes because it's the place I know most different from here.

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July 14 Mon frère

"I want to work in freedom: but in Paris, which I love. Look here, I'm a pedestrian, nothing more; I arrive in the immense city without material resources: but you said to me: Whoever wants to be a worker for fifteen cents a day applies here, does this, lives like that. I apply here, do this, live like that. I beg you to point out jobs that aren't too involving, because thinking takes up large blocks of time. Releasing the poet, these material seesaws become too agreeable. I'm in Paris: I need a positive economy!" Arthur Rimbaud writing to Paul Demeny, Charleville, August 1871 "When the endless servitude of woman is smashed, when she lives for and by herself, man -- heretofore abominable -- having given her her release, she too will be a poet! Woman will discover some of the unknown! Will her world of ideas differ from ours? -- She will find strange, unfathomable, repulsive, delicious things: we will take them, we will understand them." From another letter to Demeny I would like the journal to resemble Illuminations. I want to find strange, unfathomable, repulsive, delicious things. I want Rimbaud to be my brother. Is this too much to ask?

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July 15 Scorecard

4 agencies contacted by phone 2 agencies met with in person 1 meeting with friend who would love to hire me but she has no work right now 3 proficiency tests taken, Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop; score: proficient uncountably large number of versions of resume proliferated (ASCII, Word, inline email, pdf, fax spooled); all dramatically flawed and now multiplying completely out of control 1 unsolicited resume cast out upon the waters; score: an immediate ferocious bite from the president of the company, scaring the heck out of me, interview next week 1 nerve shattering accompaniment of son to driving test; score: didn't pass 1 nerve wracking accompaniment of other son to doctor for infected scrape on shin; germs and antibiotics tied at the end of this inning, time out taken at grandma's 1 non-relationship of 9 years duration ended; 1 imaginary brother relationship invented; score net zero male relationships 2 eyes feeling like grimy dishcloths which have been wrung out too many times 2 legs feeling like limp thawed catfish fillets left out on the counter by accident I'm hungry but I can't eat. I'm tired but I can't sleep. I'm taking a mini-vacation. Tomorrow night -- camping under the stars. No computers. Later.

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July 19 "Little Bird"

It's too hot to compose. We will have a guest writer, Annie Lennox. This is a lyric from "Diva." It's my current theme song. "Little Bird" I look up to the little bird That glides across the sky He sings the clearest melody It makes me want to cry It makes me want to sit right down and cry cry cry I walk along the city streets So dark with rage and fear And I ... I wish that I could be that bird And fly away from here I wish I had the wings to fly away from here But my my I feel so low My my where do I go? My my what do I know? My my we reap what we sow They always said that you knew best But this little bird's fallen out of that nest now I've got a feeling that it might have been blessed So I've just got to put these wings to test For I am just a troubled soul Who's weighted... Weighted to the ground Give me the strength to carry on Till I can lay this burden down Give me the strength to lay this burden down down down yes Give me the strength to lay it down But my my I feel so low My my where do I go? My my what do I know? My my we reap what we sow They always said that you knew best But this little bird's fallen out of that nest now I've got a feeling that it might have been blessed So I've just got to put these wings to test

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July 20 Neighborhood Tales

I live a block off Hope Street. Today, walking the dog, 6pm, I passed the brown house. It's deteriorating, holes in the roof, junk on the porch under tarps, saplings growing up in the front yard. An old man lives there with a full head of white hair and a white mustache. Today I glimpsed him hovering just inside the doorway, his white hair barely visible in the darkness. His recycling bin was out. The bottom of the bin was covered with empty tuna fish cans, neatly arranged in rows. Every day I pass a maple tree that's suffering some kind of infestation. There's a fresh pile of sawdust in the street, apparently coming from that tiny hole in the bark over my head. I wonder how much of the inside of that branch has been eaten away into tunnels. I worry that the heavy branch will fall someday just when my dog and I are walking under it. I read the Police Blotter. Two days ago, my neighbor two doors down was featured. I don't know him. The story: he disguised himself with crutches and entered the hospital to spring his girlfriend from the psychiatric ward. He whacked some hospital personnel with a crutch in the process. The girlfriend still hasn't been found. It must be the effect of the heat. I don't walk down on Hope Street anymore. I avoid the mentally ill woman who walked barefoot in winter and wanted to pet my dog even when he was growling and lunging at her. I restrained him, naturally, and she got angry at me and ranted that I wouldn't let her get close to him. A few days ago another neighbor farther down my street was yelling, threatening a young man. "Don't make me have to chase you..." The young man walked past me at top speed and made a quick turn into a driveway. Moments later the chasing guy's big SUV roared up the street chasing him. The chaser jumped out of the car on the corner and looked around wildly. The chasee was nowhere to be seen, and I wasn't going to tell. It's the hottest July on record. Half a block the other direction, there's a house set back from the street, under trees. Only one upstairs window is lit at night, a yellowish light coming from behind thin curtains. There's a sound of chanting from the upstairs room. Buddhist? or Hindu? It's in a foreign language, with a nasal Asian tone. An offkey male voice and, if I listen very closely, a faint woman's voice. I stand out front under the streetlight trying to look inconspicuous while I listen to the chanting. It calms me.

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July 21 One of the unworthy

There are a lot of miscellaneous phrases and emotions floating around out there. But none of them are especially worthy. I reject them all, which makes them feel very badly and lowers their already shaky self-esteem. They'll probably continue hanging around begging for attention, but I won't give them any because I'm trying to maintain a higher standard. Hey! way to start an entry! Reject everything and then what? The blank wall, that's what. When the computer started up, it was blank. Completely blank, just the wallpaper and a little watch icon. Interesting. I tried the first troubleshooting technique that came to mind, which was to rebuild the desktop. It worked. Hey! Who let you in here! It's that scuzzy emotion of self-aggrandizement, slinking past the barriers, always trying to pump up my ego, ain't I smart, I'm better than this ole computer anyday, gee look what I can do; just the emotion I was trying to avoid the most. It's the one which hangs around unwanted during job hunting. It's the one which overcongratulates me when I do well on a proficiency test, slapping my back a little too hard with its sweaty hand. It's the one which whispers overloudly in my ear, "Yenh, give me a break! Laugh in her face! You're worth more than that! Who does she think she is?" I try my hardest to keep a straight face in spite of the harassment. I sit up straight and try to look ready, willing, and able. It finally occurred to me that the very concept of a proficiency test is laughable, because those things get you jobs based on what you know. I think I should get paid twice as much for a job based on what I don't know. A subtle concept that's a lot harder to sell. Crack! Ssszzz, sizzle -- intuition strikes again. I apologize to the scuzzy emotion of self-aggrandizement. You're only trying to help in your own ham-handed used-car-selling way. I'll take you along on the interview tomorrow, as long as you promise to sit quietly in the corner. And please try to dress with a little more subtlety!

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July 22 A flawed turtle

Stress. Stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. I was having minor terrors all evening. Role overload. The required patience causes me to slip into catatonia. Sybase. The sewing machine. The difference between logical and physical modeling. Hemming jeans. I plucked some salary numbers out of the air. Stefan. Barking dogs. A man in the street -- it sounds like he's calling "Jello! Jello!" It's Marcello's dad. Repairing a jacket. Boys playing tag in the dark, causing the dog to bark. Male poets whom I haven't read enough -- Corso, Bly, Blake, Crane, Cummings (B & C section). He scrutinizes my resume website while I'm sitting there; I'm totally quiet while he reads. Packing my son for Idaho. Batteries. Gas. Cash. Snacks. The older son slams doors and cupboards. A bird mess right in the middle of my windshield. The older son hacks and hawks in the shower and breaks the toilet. The living room developed a painful overgrowth of things, I can't even walk through it. I broke a needle sewing over a very small wrinkle. My hands remember how to thread the sewing machine much more definitely than I remember the difference between logical and physical modeling. Both are too frustrating. The shower curtain rod falls down again. On the positive side, I did get to the grocery store and the library. And some phrases appeared in my head and instead of just letting them fly on through, I captured them and wrote them down when I got back to the car: We are a family of flawed and ravenous turtles. We are squids with sucker lips along our radical tentacles. Personable geckos with rubber jaws. Hog noses with oval leathery offspring.

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July 23 A long drive in moonlight

There's a poem hiding here somewhere. Let's see if we can find it: Story of a woman named Hester who wore robes of dark red flecked with gold and lived in a bedroom made of straw and slept like an animal and wakened troubled with desires ... Is that a poem? Meditation on the suffixes "ous" and "less" and "ness" and why mysteriouslessness can't be a word although it is fun to say ... Is that a poem? Heralds calling "harken ye unholy ones" to all data executives and flinging out cleverly veiled threats and promising not to destroy anything, just to unsettle ... Is that a poem? Long long too long mono-dialogue by a person insisting she won't tell another person about an embarrassing incident and coming up with all sorts of creative excuses why he doesn't need to know and still not telling him even at the end ... Is that a poem? A series of hyperbolic selections from poets' introductions to each other's books praising each other in more and more fanciful and inflated language ... Is that a poem? I am angry I am angry I am angry Is that a poem?

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July 25 Morning experiment

Yep, it's Sunday morning. I never write the journal in the morning. But I realized I'm only functional between about 6 and 8 am these days. It's almost 9 now so I'm pushing it. My Blodgie has gone to Idaho to stay with his grandparents for a month. Sudden childfreeness is very disorienting. I feel like a major structural support has been removed from my body. So half of me is sagging. I tried to enjoy my freedom. I tried to go out. Friday night I drove a long way to go to an event which didn't happen. I got there on time, but the building was dark and the doors were locked. Two scary guys were loitering on the sidewalk out front. I felt terribly stupid, that I must have gotten the date or time or venue wrong. When I got home, I checked those calendars and realized I hadn't. So one big evening of freedom already wasted. Last night I completely forgot about an event I am supposed to be supporting and I just lay on the bed in front of the fan in a sweaty funk and then walked my dog down on Hope Street where all the normal looking older couples in khakis were standing in line for the movie. I paid all the bills this morning. It is a strange experience to pay the bills when you have no income. If I weren't so enamored of stamps, and envelopes, and order in the bank account, I would hate it. I feel sad. I feel like I should be writing the journal more straightforwardly, be less hysterical and wiggy, be more upfront about my life, this happened, that happened, I felt this, I felt that. There's already so much that goes unsaid, here and everywhere.

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July 26 Morning experiment fails

I'm laughing at myself already this morning. That's a good sign. I can't write in the morning. It's hilarious even to try! I'm too gung ho to get on with the "work" day. Now the question is just -- when to switch back to evenings.... I'm trying to maintain my attitude that unemployment is just one big exciting adventure -- how often does one get to do this, look around, make changes, make new decisions. The Internet has changed job hunting a lot; there's so much company information readily available. And I can use email rather than making phone calls. I dislike using the phone more than almost anything, but I love email. I just finished reading three novels by Shirley Jackson in quick succession: The Road through the Wall, Hangsaman, and The Bird's Nest. This was my recreation over the weekend. I had to keep reassuring myself of my own mental stability while I was reading the last two -- the main characters suffered from schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. Even so, I like Shirley Jackson's work a lot. Ordinary, eerie, humble and horrible, lots of claustrophobia in the home, lots of details about clothes and furnishings, flashes of nursery rhymes woven through. And her humor! She can't help herself. There's a scene near the end of The Bird's Nest where each of the four multiple personalities takes a bath, one after the other, not realizing the body was already pretty darn clean, and using up all Aunt Morgen's pine bath salts in the process. It was so funny it destroyed the horror of the story. But I didn't mind.

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July 27 Morning fears

I forgot. Almost every morning I wake up paralyzed with fears. Most of them are nameless. But some wriggle up to the surface of language. I'm afraid of the breaking monster. I'm afraid of the pretends. I'm afraid of my mosquito bites. I'm afraid there's an iguana with claws somewhere in my bedroom. I'm afraid of my hair. I'm afraid of my face. I'm afraid of the requirements of the day. Even though it's a morning cool and refreshed with rain, I still wake up afraid. I try to solve the fears by lying perfectly still. Or I put my head under the pillow. There I'm afraid of the quilt buried in the chest downstairs. I think it can still see me. It's a quilt with many black embroidered eye knots. And it has antenna of the same black floss. Its background colors are innocuous, pale, and sweet, but its white stitches are bitter. It knows my name and my birthdate. Its antenna are black and many and bristling. This quilt knows I'm reaching out for another blanket. The silly crocheted baby blanket for the long skinny baby. The dimensions of this blanket are ludicrous. The colors are dark and vibrant and mismatched, with vibrating thin stripes of orange on dusk or purple on aqua. It was made of leftover yarns. There's a fringe hanging off the center on one end, like a Miró tail. Even though I don't need a blanket this morning, touching this crunchy yarn helps. Now the dog starts whining at me. I remember one of the goddess's names. I remember to get up and start moving around. The fears go away. They are fleeting. And I forget them.

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July 28 My instructions

Clean your linen closet and bathroom thoroughly. Answer the phone and make appointments. Eat. Drink. Take a cool bath, soak for a long time, gaze at three candles. Take care of your feet. Read. "Lyssa, the Greek underworld Goddess and her dogs ran wildly over the Earth. She and her pack had an untaming influence on all they met. They especially inspired the Maenads to even greater depths of uninhibited and dangerous worship." Goddess Gallery, Of a Like Mind, lammas 9999 Dream. Two Great Danes were running loose in the road. I was on my way to a seminar or a course; I was preoccupied and in a hurry. The gentler dog adopted me: she jumped into my car and curled up on the passenger seat. I drove along with her. When I got to the course, I was very worried about what I should do with her. I had decided to take her to the pound when I woke up. Walk in the morning. Go to that interview that is scaring you so much and try to keep your wits about you.

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July 30 Cicada soundtrack

"I use my anxiety for the good." (anonymous quote) ~~~~~ Here's what I really want to do with my life -- make gifs out of feathers. (I really want to make feathers out of gifs, but I won't set my sights too high.) Whenever I read Poets&Writers, I get the professional writer heebie-jeebies. It's summer. I'm languid. I'm not used to being languid. I'm not sure it's allowed. Yesterday, there were a series of household emergencies. They were a lot of fun. Emergencies can be interesting and fun when handled with languidity, when there are no back-at-the-office or pantyhose issues to get in the way of my enjoyment. Sewage emergency. Backed up in the basement. I cleaned up the mess remarkably cheerfully. The Roto Rooter man was wonderful, good looking, non-threatening, pleasant, and effective. How do they get this type of person to be a Roto Rooter man? He seemed to love his job. He put his head really close to the main sewer pipe, to listen for a particular quality of gurgle, I guess, while I flushed the toilet repeatedly. I had to relocate four cats, three of them untamed, and a dog, so the Roto Rooter man could work undisturbed by smaller mammals. This was an adventure all in itself, which left me with three holes in my shirt, but luckily none in my skin. This emergency was all nice and under control when I get a call from a breathless, frightened sounding woman. She lives up the street and there's a giant lizard in her tree. The Humane Society gave her our number. Yikes! I make an emergency call to the video store where my son works. He's not there but the word goes out. He shows up 15 minutes later with three friends, two guys and a blue haired girl. If there's one good thing to say about my son it's that he excels at capturing iguanas. The only other activity worth reporting is that I trimmed all the vegetation away from the front door. Pine branches, red maple saplings, English ivy starting to overgrow the front entry of the house. Then I swept the front steps and landing. Symbolically clearing the way for opportunity to come knocking, once languidity has received its due.

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July 31 Saturday's problem

A week has passed. I've been reinventing myself. I have to find a surreal outfit to wear tomorrow night. Problem -- there can be no obvious jokes. No meanings, no matter how hidden. It's not Halloween. The gory or macabre is out of line. Nothing derivative of the log lady. Nothing derivative of anything! That's the main problem. Do I really want to attract surrealists wearing white gloves? Or aged hippies who write hilarious mocking poems about defecation? Angel faced baby slam poets awakening ancient prophecies with their loud voices? What about handsome Roto Rooter men? A gaggle of teenagers who are awake at 7 am on Saturday morning doing a scavenger hunt? Praying mantises who leap at me from the back of the house where they've been resting? Feminist science fiction writers who apparently have their own conference and create planets based on Carnival? I'm uncertain about these attractors. If I were to have to commit to one right now, it would be the praying mantis. I was happy to see him, once I got over the startle effect. This one was about four inches tall. They have weird triangular heads. I like the way they stand up. I like their attitude, which seems much more pugnacious than prayerful. And they are a beautiful light green color (note -- August?) I'm unsuited for a regular job. I don't know what I'm going to do. Pray for me, mantis. Back to the problem. I'm still stuck on the surrealist outfit. At least I understand the issues. The other big concern is level of commitment. A prop like a parasol or a hat would be removable, leaving me looking perfectly normal. The coward's way out. Makeup -- a more definite statement, but I've never been good at it. It's too hot for most of my dressups or any type of layered look. I can't just go as myself because surrealism can't be invisible (although irony can, and unfortunately often is). No historical references; this is not a Costume. Sentimentality is right out. (Oops, a Monty Pythonism snuck in -- No Used Monty Python References.) Total nudity would be very surreal; I have the body for it, but I don't have the guts. Ah me, ah me, what to do. I still have some time to think about it. But first -- I have to prepare a fruit salad.

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