tell me what you saw, tell me what you saw

I'd been panko-battering some chicken for fucking Chicken Parmesan, a dish I don't know how to make even a little bit, when it happened. I rinsed the chicken bowl and then tossed the water out into my garden, since the landlord hasn't had a chance to come look our clog-prone kitchen sink yet, and I didn't want to chance that any little chickeny bits might go down the freshly-emptied sink. Then I went back to my cooking. A bit later, I half-glanced outside and saw movement. At first I took it to be a cat. Then I realized it was much too big to be a cat.

It was a giant-ass fucking possum.

It was licking at the place where I'd splashed the water. I don't know what was more horrifying, the sheer unlikely girth of the creature, clearly visible in the remaining daylight, or the fact that it had appeared so quickly--so nearly instantaneously--that it had to have been watching me. What else had it watched me do that afternoon? Select a green apple from the bowl on the counter? Chatter crazily to General B? Check out my own ass in the mirror? Badly imitate the scalding wailing in my jam Gold Lion?

At any rate, I ran at it. This proved to be a poor outlet for my horror and indignation, as the possum was not afraid of me in the least bit and did not do an especially good job pretending to be for the sake of my feeling. It sort of ambled away from me, as if it were banking on the likelihood that I would soon retreat back inside and it wanted to be sure it could get back to its chickenwater feast in a timely manner. I'll remind my gentle reader, it had already presumably witnessed me pretending to be Karen O., and Lord knows what other horrors. I act very dumb when I think I'm alone.

However, neither am I afraid of possums. This particular fiend might have been several hundred times larger than the baby one I expelled from our home during the dreamy summer, but I grew up in a household where possums and other minor woodland pests had no standing. I cannot put a number on how many my father trapped and offered to me as a pet for my childhood amusement--enough that I grew bored of them and ran out of names. They'd get into his pigeon coop and eat up the eggs, so he was always catching and removing them, one way or another.

At any rate, this was the part where I realized the possum wasn't going anywhere and that I could, if I wanted to, realistically and easily grab the thing. But this all happened much too fast. I am very much like my father in this regard. I've been trained to it. It has been a problem before--when I see an animal and the much faster kid inside of me (yes, I hear it--keep going) goes "Oh, cool! Get it!" before the rational adult can say "no, that's not necessary" and all the sudden I've got a handful of snake or seagull or whatever.

I didn't grab it. But I could have. And I came so damn close--only I will know truly how close. My hand was inches from its goading, sassy tail. I guess it's not a very good story, coming really, really close to grabbing a giant possum, but on the other hand, it was kind of a profound moment for me. Seeing the ghost of my father's wildlife irresponsibility rise up within me and then, denying it?

On the other, other hand? It knows. For a moment afterward, I stood, my breath clouding in the cold air, looking directly into those shitty evil possum eyes and I knew it knew I was not formidable. I displayed weakness before it, and that weakness was noted. And now I have an enemy.

I knew I was no Billy the Kid

When I got up, it was snowing just lightly. I cooked steak and eggs for breakfast, and then drove out to go for a run in the mountains. We'd had just a tiny bit of snow over the weekend here in town, but out there everything was perfectly cased in ice, although the creeks were still running. It cast an odd sort of white light on everything.

It always pleases me to discover how quickly my endurance returns after taking even a few weeks break from running. The first time I do it again is very miserably hard, and then almost immediately, the next few times feel easier and easier. I did two miles quickly and then some exploring. I sat by a brook and got very, very cold. I keep thinking that it would be nice to have some quiet time to myself to work out some of my stupid emotions and anxieties, but when I come to such quiet places, everything slides out of my mind.

I have been having these curious, vivid dreams in the past few days. Mostly out of boredom, I've been trying my hand at interpreting them: a brand of my beloved new age bullshit I haven't dabbled in previously and clearly the errand of a totally crazy person. But I've always liked the floppy, hysterical, contradictory nature of symbolism. Forests as the unknown or as something magical and sacred, fish for semen, keys for power or self-identity, knives and aggressive wolves both fear and a perceived threat. (Everything will probably be all right.)

It's one of those cold winter nights when the air smells like snow--sort of smoky and distinctive. I can tell this because every time the wind blows, I can feel and smell the draft of the air as it comes in through the window.

am I drunk? transitions are for the birds.

I thought I lost my little hoop upper ear piercing today forever, but then I found it. It turned out I took it off in bed, but I was really really really sleepy so I didn't remember doing it. Good story. I'm so glad I have a blog for this kind of important shit.

*

I'm writing this poem; it's so disgusting. I feel sick when I think of how much I hate it. But I have to keep going because it's the first poem-thing I've written in 6-9 months. I should instead write another poem about dead thistles, as if I don't have enough poems about fucking thistles. Someday, I will be a real person.

*

Everything I have tried to do today I have failed at. This is to include: putting away some socks, writing shitty poems, writing shitty other things, cheering you up, this goddamn roasted chicken, bathtub laundry, spinning this post to sound funny and upbeat instead of hysterical and dramatic, looking good in the face region, putting on pants, finding a job, washing the cat, not being, as I already mentioned, pathetic.

*

Great, and now my ear is bleeding.

*

I have officially gotten to the point in my job hunt desperation where I view good job news from my unemployed friends with a mild jealous dismay instead of loving friendship pride, and then I feel guilty and miserable about it all day.

*

The last time I was at Joe and Chris's, I stepped on some glass. It didn't really hurt, but when I walked up the stairs, my footprints were bloody. I have had not one but three nightmares about this now.

*


This part of Virginia has good hiking twenty minutes away. Here is some of it.

Ice in the ground.

We tried to ford the river, but the path was washed out.

A solution presented itself.
Moss still grows in the winter.

Distantly, Mt. Doom.



Half-way down on the side of this particular mountain, there was an old-fashioned car crashed into a tree.



These are my fightin' boots.



Post-hike half-asleep self portrait with half-asleep B.

part of the rain has fallen, the rest still to fall

I got all these poetry books today out of the library and now I'm going through them and getting mad and disappointed about them in turn. I think that's the only thing that my 6 years of fine education qualifies me to do: to check out and then yell about shitty books of poetry. To say nothing of the good books, of course. I think I have checked out Charles Wright's Appalachia more than any other person in the history of people. I check it out, keep it until it's overdue, then I check it out again. I should really just buy the goddamn thing. It's $5.15 at the Barnes and Noble website, and I even have a giftcard. $5.15 is less than fines I've accrued for checking out the stupid book. I will not probably not, all the same.

It is being really stormy right now in Staunton and the wind is slamming the windows in their frames.

I'm really, really scared about jobs and money right now, but I'm also really, really bored of being scared about jobs and money right now. I applied for two jobs tonight. One of them is something that could potentially combine my nerd passion for history with my human love of eating. The other could possibly involve other humans luring me into their basements and eating me. Hmm.

Both jobs are in C-ville. C-ville.

I know it well

Tonight, I'm writing small things. I'm also editing lesser shitty poems. I finished my one about the green heron that used to haunt me when I was lurking along that lesser-famous creek at Hollins. Confession? I really miss fucking Hollins.

I've finally sketched some kind of an emergency backup plan, but God, it's a bad one.

ain't it just like the present to be showing up like this

Oh, I know it's not yet 11pm and I'm having a drink to counter irrational emotions and I've been updating this stupid thing too often and my hands are bleach-burned from the kind of scrubbing I usually associate with the influences of our sex-crazed house ghost but this, this poem:

Handy Guide

By Dean Young

Avoid adjectives of scale.

Dandelion broth instead of duck soup.

Don’t even think you’ve seen a meadow, ever.

The minor adjustments in our equations

still indicate the universe is insane,

when it laughs a silk dress comes out its mouth

but we never put it on. Put it on.

Cry often and while asleep.

If it’s raw, forge it in fire.

That’s not a mountain, that’s crumble.

If it’s fire, swallow.

The heart of a scarecrow isn’t geometrical.

That’s not a diamond, it’s salt.

That’s not the sky but it’s not your fault.

My dragon may be your neurotoxin.

Your electrocardiogram may be my fortune cookie.

Once an angel has made an annunciation,

it’s impossible to tell him he has the wrong address.

Moonlight has its own befuddlements.

The rest of us can wear the wolf mask if we want

or look like reflections wandered off.

Eventually armor, eventually sunk.

You wanted love and expected what?

A parachute? Morphine? A gold sticker star?

The moment you were born—

you have to trust others because you weren’t there.

Ditto death.

The strongest gift I was ever given

was made of twigs.

It didn’t matter which way it broke.

Source: Poetry (November 2011).

crispy realization

I was in a fey mood this afternoon so I drove out to Fishersville to return an item and pick up some legwarmers, which you wouldn't think are a thing but definitely are important to me surviving the icehaus. I've been really into driving lately.

Anyway, it was strange because at first I thought there was mist or low-hanging clouds on the mountains, but after a bit, I realized it was snowing up there. Down in the valley, it was very sunny, although with intermittent bands of dark storm clouds. Then it started to flurry, despite the obvious blue sky.

By the time I was driving back up 81 to Staunton, I hit basically a wall of hard snow. As I pulled off the exit into my town, it looked to have been snowing heavily the whole time I had been gone. The sky was still blue in patches, but it was coming down really fast and the ground was lightly covered. Also, I guess a waterline had broken, so there was water just pouring out of a hydrant and one lone cop there looking sort of frozen and confused. The whole right lane was a river. It was like the entire city had come under an enchantment or something. I half-expected to get home and find 100 years had passed while I was in Target.

That said, I did get some very nice body wash.

Here is my favorite picture of the rooftops of Staunton in the snow, for a bit of reference to the transformation power. It really does lovely things to this city.