from Poem for the Blue Heron by Mary Oliver

I've posted this poem before, but it's in my head this weekend, especially the last bit. Simple repetition can be a powerful thing.

I gather wood, kindling, paper; I make fire
after fire after fire.

you want to hear about the deal I'm making?

So, Why Do You Have a Shitty, Emotionally-Triggered Endless Headache Today, Jessica?

Check all that apply.

_Didn't eat?
_Cold Front coming in?
_Pouty bitchiness?
_Too much to do?
_Dehydration?
_Over-identifying with Brienne's POV chapter descriptions of her own ugliness?
_Feeling, as my mother puts it, "like chopped liver?"
_Too much coffee?
_Not enough coffee?
_Work?
_Play?
_Feelings hurt?
_Deep-seated repressed anger/revenge issues?
_Tried Kombucha for the first time?
_Spent too long in Walmart?
_Hair up too long?
_Hair down too long?
_Hair too long?
_Futility?
_Inability to help?
_Haven't?
_Have? (Haven't.)
_Miley Cyrus?
_This great country version of Wrecking Ball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7JgVqbh8nE ?
_Sudden realizations?
_Over tired?
_Full moon?
_Full moon lunar eclipse in Aries?
_Prehypertension?
_Copperheads?

Hah, no, but really.

I went running at the park yesterday and ran into the guy who harassed me last time. He was by the playground, sitting on the hood of his notorious car the way I used to do in high school.  He had a little baby two year old girl on his lap. She had the brightest blonde hair, like mine was at that age, and like any child I ever have's will certainly be. She was so cute I didn't even recognize the guy she was with until he waved at me. He looked embarrassed, and asked, "Did you change your mind?"

Objects are made by men and used for many purposes. But we never love objects.

The descent into apathy or vengeance-oriented living I mentioned last post has been going well. Despite my occasionally passing significant swathes of time glowering out of windows at the rain like a Disney villain today, I still managed to be pretty productive, of which I will tell you about not at all.

I've got a bit of a gourd thing. I really like pumpkins. A lot. Too much. I like the weird ones--the little squat fantasy cinderella, the green-blue spooky kind, the noble white ghost pumpkin. There is this giant white one on a porch downtown that I pass every morning on my way to work, and it's all I can do not to vault out of my car and snatch it. Then I wouldn't go to work, I'd just go home and spend time with the pumpkin. But even regular plain pumpkins: the orange patch kind. God, I just like them so much. Not even only this time of year--all the times. Now I just have an excuse. And I'm going to take advantage of the season and buy a bunch this very week.

I changed my hair. I know objectively I still look really blonde, but this is seriously as dark as my hair has been in four years. I'm sorry about the obnoxious, sad-seeming selfie--between not wearing makeup today and the humidity, I looked like a sleepy poof lion. And it's like I said. I've got to work on my villain face.

on chaotic evil

I couldn't get my mom on the phone, so I decided what I needed after today was a hard run (take a shot). I went to gypsy hill park. There's a paved driving loop that's a little over a mile and a half, so it's nice to run when I'm in a hurry and just want to stack miles. The driving loop means that there are always some cars going about 5 miles an hour over the speed bumps.

So I'm running, and this young redneck guy drove by really slowly in an old, beat-up white Cadillac, leaned out the window, and yelled "I think I love you!" as I ran by. I felt like today especially this was a particularly ironic thing for him to yell, like something out there had been listening to all the secret inane little things I hold in the smallest parts of my heart--listening so it could stomp them into the ground at an appropriate later time. I'd also thought I'd looked pretty today for the first time in ages, but felt like complete, worthless shit. So that also. I ignored him, he drove around the loop, yelled on his second pass, "I love you!" 

The third time he did this, I looked over at him in confusion, which I knew was a mistake. It seemed to encourage him. He drove the loop around again and again, escalating each time he passed me, while I blindly pretended to ignore him, "Can I have your number?" "Is that a yes?" "Is that a no?" Finally, he drove by so slowly by that the car is almost stopped, hanging out the window to wave a slip of paper at me, yelling "Just take my number!" 

All this time, I had been building slowly to a fever-pitch of cold rage. All I had wanted was this stupid run. It was the only thing. It was what I got. I hadn't wanted to have to stop, cut it short, and leave because some douche was harassing me.

So, I stopped. I lurched at his car in a suicidal haze and yelled in his face "Does that ever actually work?"

It was such a dumb thing to say. Of all the great stuff I could've yelled. All the good swear words I know, all the great right-things to say that I come up with hours after the fact.

He seemed genuinely confused too. He had blue eyes and he looked younger than me. He was wearing one of those dumb camo hats and his teeth were questionable in the meth kind of way. Of course. Of fucking course. My meaning sunk in, and he let the car roll on. He smiled his big dumb methtooth smile and offered, hopefully, sheepishly, boyishly, "..Uh...Maybe?"

I physically felt something shift in my head. It made a little click.

it's about that time

The weather is weirding me out a little. I have pulled out and sorted all of my winter clothes, put away my summer, but then all the sudden, summer some more. I don't mind warm, but I wish it would make up its mind. I also want to wear my new green wool sweater like a girl. Today, there's rain coming still far off, and the tree outside my bedroom window is making such much noise with the leaves. I'm feeling more like myself for this time of year, but I'm not sure if I'm riding this, or this is riding me.

from With a Ravenous Spike by Beckian Fritz Goldberg

Do you know, even if it is trying to make me kill myself with vitamin D deficiency, I love this time of year. I take what I get. I wanna wear my cutoffs one last time before it gets cold. I was looking through old posts in this blog and I think you could play a drinking game in which you take a shot for every instance wherein I mention cutoffs, running alone, doing laundry, being 26, or where I used a run-on sentence. And at the end you die.  This poem keeps coming to me in the early fall morning when I'm getting ready, making coffee in the kitchen. The day begins with what we've left behind.


...this hunter’s hour—a parity of coolness 
and hand, dream and ear. Coyote, I return 
to my only true subject in light 
of desert autumn; no amount of road or house 
or urban sprawling drives me out. Though long-winged 
memory pursues me: the chick responds to the shadow 
of a hawk even before it’s out of the shell. And in my bed 
the fever’s passing made me wonder if daily a secret combustible 
need makes a man quieter, more polite, more 
carefully correct, lest he flame— 
We are what eats us. Coyote. 
The dog-star’s fading, and the only woman-star 
I can name is a burning princess once 
fed to the jaws of a serpent. 
A story before you sleep. From that dark cave 
poked in the mountain the city is only haze, glint. 
The day begins with what 
we’ve left behind. Oh, slowly, I get to my eyes, 
face, mouth, shirt, stunned kitchen.