stand up
you've got to manage
i won't sympathize
anymore.

and if you complain once more
you'll meet an army of me

you're alright
there's nothing wrong
self-sufficience please!
and get to work.

you're on your own now
we won't save you
your rescue squad
is too exhausted

okay, it's almost three o' clock on sunday and i still haven't left yet. instead, i'm reading bjork lyrics and feeling grumpy.

it's okay, though -- now is one of those times when the pressure everyone else has laid on me or each other is simply not going to stick. i don't care if i let anybody down, the best i can do is take care of myself. hannah and cindy and baby aren't stressing about not getting there before the sun dips behind the horizon, they don't care if i can fit a bass drum in my car*, they don't care if c gets in touch with j to score the e, i don't care about that. i don't care about any of it, in a little while i am simply going to pack my things, mix the brownies, get into the shower, shave my legs just to take some extra time, remove myself from the shower, remove the brownies from the oven, remember that i want to bring the new sharon olds book my brother got me for christmas with me, clean my car, go to the gas station, vacuum and fill my car with fossil fuels,** and pick up my girls at my leisure.

n.b. this article sums up a lot of things on my mind re: the problem of writing poetry in this century quite exactly, and also mentions brenda hillman.

*yeah, someone actually called me at 11:30 this morning to ask me if i could stop by and jam a bass drum in my car whenever i left. because they didn't think it would fit in their car. i'm glad my friends think they're rock stars, as long as that belief does not extend into them thinking i am a roadie.

**old blood, black bones, fossils and a little bit of lava

things i have done

* emptied and refilled the dishwasher.

* made blueberry muffins for no good reason at all.

* emailed diego in argentina re:cc the fact that the government is currently experiencing a coup of last week's coup.*

things i still have to do

* get all my shit for the trip to lake wallenpaupack together. i'm supposed to drive cindy and hannah and baby** up there tomorrow*** and i still have to empty my trunk and clean the inside of my car whilst simultaneously doing laundry, showering, and

* bake brownies for NYE.

* pick up cheque sometime tomorrow afternoon.

* cash cheque at a sketchy cheque-cashing place.

* empty dishwasher again.

*it amuses me to no end that the government has simply immediately agreed to turn itself over and resign at the demand of the people not once but twice in the last week, and diego, in the midst o' buenos aires, claims everything is actually being overdramatized and is quite fine, actually. i wish our government worked this quickly.

**baby is the name of a miniature pinscher belonging to diego's brother. he shipped her up in a cargo plane from florida, and hannah and i are bringing her along to the lake house for NYE.

***"before dark!" stressed alex, and i stress STRESSED. i mean, god, it gets dark at four o' clock and it's like a two and a half hour drive, thanks. and earlier in the evening he even called me his "bootstrap." as in, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps?" i don't know. shouldn't he be his own fucking bootstraps? nonetheless, it makes me feel guilty.

is it wicked not to care when they say that you're mistaken
thinking hopes and lots of dreams that aren't there?
is it wicked not to care when you've wasted many hours
talking endlessly to anyone that's there?

i know the truth awaits me
but still i hesitate because of fear

skipping tickets making rhymes
is that all that you believe in?

is it wicked when you smile
even though you feel like crying
even though you could be sick at any time?

but if there was a sequel
would you love me as an equal?
would you love me till i'm dead?
and if there was a sequel
would you love me as an equal?
would you love me till i'm dead,
or is there someone else instead?

belle and sebastian

...

today i did the final christmas shopping.

this weekend was a weekend of parties and trauma. both of which i am used to by now.

i am tired of fear. i am tired of being talked down to by everyone. i am bummed that friends i haven't seen saw me at the party last night and said "you look cranky," or "what's wrong?" i know they all had genuinely good intentions, that perhaps my crankiness was showing, perhaps i am worn down.

having faith is not my problem. i guess i have faith in the wrong things, in the wrong people. d told me i need to focus more energy into myself, which is definitely true. he feels like i focus so much energy on him, and nothing is ever going to happen between us. he says he's been irresponsible, making me hopeful. he says people are afraid to tell me things, that i can't take criticism and i think too much, i tear everything apart.

for once i want someone to say this to me without it being a drawn-out goodbye.

he is right, though. i know i am a walking rut, a gutterball, a promise that has not been fulfilled and a monotonous drone of shit-talking. i know that i need to be doing something with myself other than waitressing. i know i need to go to grad school. why am i so afraid? why would i rather push my relationships towards sickness and tiredness and hatred than space and revival? why, after all the things he has said, all the things i have seen, all i know, why do i obsess over this, less than before but still?

i am constructing a shameless memento mori of sorts to give him before he goes to argentina for a month on the 26th. i have made similar presents for other people, but this one is more personal, more of a shrine. more of a goodbye, a grave marker. why can i never be reassured? why do i need other people more than they need me?

the only real friends i have barely exist. it's best for everyone involved, to keep what we can at arm's length. who wants to get too close, to destroy their ideals? it doesn't bother me anymore because i know what they want. i know how desperate the do-nothing whore is to be loved, how everyone is an addict, how nature is a whore. i know being beautiful helps. i know that there are artists who forget they are artists when it comes time to fuck money-hungry girls. i know that the money-hungry girls think they are artists and that the real artists will agree with them, maybe muster some genuine feeling, if it means getting in their pants (which isn't that hard, dears, it never is -- and this one has been begging all along). i know that the best isn't good enough, that it is better to be obvious and simple and thin and even unattractive and this will earn you all the rights that no one else will ever have. it will earn you intimacies, it will earn you tears. people will think you are independent when you are alone, not lonely. people will think you are strong when you are pathetic.

being alone is a comfort. i don't want your predictable repetitive nothing, your false concerns, your indiscretions that rise from a sense of being owed. i bestow upon all of you what you already have mastered. pass your tainted intimacies in slow-moving circles, sustain yourselves with lies and drugs and wine. that is all you came for. try saying anything else ten times sober.

i was just getting sick of looking at those pictures.

katie and i got a package today from benny. in it he included a light-up glass lord of the rings goblet for each of us. i got arwen, the elf and katie received frodo, the hobbit. i can't wait to see that movie. god, i'm such a dork. and such a sucker for magic, really.

SAINT LUCY'S DAY!

saint lucy in all her glory.

the statue of st. lucy at the church named after her in newark.

it's time for my annual posting of my favorite poem dans la monde.* parce que today is st. lucy's day! actually, it's st. lucy's eve, and tonight at midnight is when the miracles happen, kids! it is also my grandmother's birthday! this makes sense, as she is certainly a sainted shedder of light. also, we are sicilian, and so is saint lucy. or lucia, as mi pisans would say...also, if you're feeling hungry, try this st. lucy's soup. it includes fava beans, so perhaps you'd like to pair it avec a nice chianti?**

a nocturnall upon st. lucies' day, being the shortest day

TIS the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seeme to laugh,
Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee
At the next world, that is, at the next Spring:
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new Alchimie.***
For his art did expresse
A quintessence even from nothingnesse,
From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:
He ruin'd mee, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;
I, by loves limbecke, am the grave
Of all, that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have wee two wept, and so
Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two Chaosses, when we did show
Care to ought else; and often absences
Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;
Were I a man, that I were one,
I needs must know; I should preferre,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; All, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.
You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne
At this time to the Goat is runne
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,
Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call
This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this
Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

that's by the inimitable john donne. it's long and i learned it by heart in the mental hospital, when i was going crazy eating fruit cups and taking too much anti-anxiety medication and befriending only old people with alzheimer dementia and one biscuity boy with schizophrenic delusions. i freaked out the entire staff by reciting it to them. remember, these are the people who kept my crochet hooks in "safe" places. eventually they trusted me and let me feed the kissing fish, but that is neither here nor there. this is a poem i cannot help remembering, it is so beautiful and it represents everything i love about poetry. and here's a rousing lucy poem i found on another page:

Lucia maidens will come too, with silver in their hair
And star boys with their studded wands and pointed caps to wear,
And elfin boys will follow us as we walk everywhere.****

And I will stay awake throughout the longest winter night
And dress up in my silken sash, my crown, my robe of white
And I will be, for one brief day, Lucia of the Light.

read what the catholics have to say about lucy at this link!

a trippy interactive webart thingy inspired by lucy and covered in eyeballs! visit the saint lucy chronicles!(lucy is the patron saint of blindness, often pictured carrying her eyes on a platter)

interactively visit st. lucy's church in newark, new jersey! i might just have to drag my ass down there tonight or tomorrow for some lucy festivities!

if you like the above picture, go here to check out a wealth of holy cards through the ages featuring santa lucia.

also, my dog's name is lucy. my confirmation name is genevieve, but if i had known what i was doing i would have chosen lucia, thanks.

*i have a million other poems that are my favorite, but this is my perennial traditional recitation poem.

**do you know that chianti is often served at room temperature, but some people prefer it chilled? apparently it is vinegary when chilled. i don't know, i don't drink the stuff. i love red wine, though. also, if you cannot identify the fava beans/chianti reference here, you really should ask me and we'll work it out. ignorance is no way to go through life!

***for i am ev'ry dead thing/in whom love wrought new alchemie is probably the most fucking beautiful line o' poetry ever written, this particular line reverberates through me constantly, if i wasn't going to be cremated i'd want it on my tombstone, even though it should probably be on my urn or whatever, because then i would literally be the volcanic ash through which love wrought new alchemie, thanks...

****"And elfin boys will follow us as we walk everywhere," thanks!??!>?!?!?!? i've stalked elfin boys before avec bess, but to my knowledge they've never followed us...

disappear here

i should never have left you tonight. this or any other night.
perhaps you will remember this confidence fondly.
maybe you will even miss me. i miss
your warmth, your breath, your body
urgent, unctuous, undulating
anointing my flesh with your various gifts --

what is dark matter? is it this
graceless state of dismemberment,
aether cluttered between unnamed
stars? (blank verse impresses no one.
least of all you.)

if so, oh, why this?--
my temples are muddied with god.
he makes a mess, leaves sand
all over the car seats after the beach,
where outlaw flares of epiphany
burn solitary against a passionless night.

asylum, lord, sanctuary!
a moment's abeyance for a tired
saint. (it has never been mine.)
you say faith is its own reward? take this
torch, with my blessings! godspeed.
spend your nights tending thankless fire.

rah!

i have been busy. i just finished crocheting a scarf for this crafty mama in return for the amazing handmade journal she sent me last week. i have been working a lot this week. i wish i made more money. it's weird, though. i hardly do anything and my tips are always really good, unfortunately business just so happens to be rilly rilly slow.

i am having a blast over at nervousness. i received surgery journal #2 in the post today, and it is deliciously blank and ready to be filled with my two surgery stories. see, i don't know if it's because i am a scorpio or just a creepy girl that i love talking about my surgeries so much. i had them late in life, so maybe that's why. anyway, this is the perfect outlet for that, so my friends don't have to listen to the same old tired stories of mine over and over again...*

***

from the files of "stories that are not necessarily mine to tell:

some boys i know spent the weekend at a swank party in the city. you know, one of the rich jewesses we know rented out like an entire club or what have you and threw a little party in her own honor. so the boys get bored and the liquor flows slower and two of the boys, let's call them, oh, i don't know, Joe and Paul** decide to corral who is left at the bash and drag them over to Centro-Fly, where Joe can sell some of his pillz*** and everyone can eat them and dance to the music and what have you blah blah blah.

so fast-forward four hours or so. there are only eight boys left, and the last one wanders out of the club to discover a stretch limo filled with his friends, a driver-slash-pimp-slash-coke-dealer and not one but TWO HOOKERS. so, being any red-blooded american male, he gets in. the driver had already hooked up the boys with nose candy, blow, yay, white lightning, stevie nicks in powdered form, what have you. the hookers were getting antsy. so Joe decides to get low-cost oral pleasure from one of the ladies of the night provided. the other one gets bored and the driver takes her home.

so the other boys are sitting there, in the car, whilst Joe gets his rocks off. apparently it's taking a long time, and one of the other boys in the car actually says:

"are you still sucking him off back there?"

at which point ms. cashbooty lifts her no doubt chapped lips from the rubbered member and says:

"yeah, well, he's having a little trouble keeping it hard."

ouch.

*at least not those exact tired stories. seriously, i'm one of THOSE PEOPLE who tells the same stories over and over again to the same people.

**their real names are even more boring and generic, i swear.

***any cheezy spelling alwayz referz to E, man. i mean, isn't EVERYONE sick of that fucking drug yet? it's the hot dog of the drug world. lips and assholes. but it still sellz like hotcaxez to the kidzszasdas! funny how people only care when high school kidz start dying. i can't wait for everyone to get bored and start eating vials of crack whole, like patrick bateman.

so, yeah. there are things i have to keep my mind off of. have i mentioned that?

i'm taking my traumas in stride. i'm remembering that which cannot be forgotten.

i'm remembering how we wind around each other.

so rock on randy, randy rhoads...

i spent last night writing songs with alex. it's a lot of fun, makes us feel productive. and when i say "writing songs" what i really mean is me coming up with lyrics, alex coming up with the actual songs...my favorite lyrics i've written yet are the following:

do you remember the day
back in the school play
you were jackie o
and i was jfk
and i pretended to get shot in the head
but didn't you know
i wasn't really dead...

ha ha. anyway, the song that goes along with it is really awesome. and i'm not tooting my own horn here, i swear. i wish i could arrange it so that you could all hear alex playing guitar. he's seriously amazing. the best part is we wrote three new songs last night, one of them a paean to randy rhoads, ex-quiet riot and sabbath guitarist, who died way too young and basically revolutionized metal/rock guitar. hannah had to literally push me out the door as i was singing with alex:

so rock on, randy
randy rhoads
sabbath blows
you made ozzy glow
randy rhoads

so this is what i did to keep my mind occupied. rock on, randy.

consider the slate wiped clean,
gas tanks on full
something new is coming,
growing hard under winter's
frigid mud.
if you will, or not,
so we won't...

call me naive, but why do we hurt the ones we love? and when i say "we," i am really talking about myself. because the fact is, i have had the most fucked up couple of days, i am tempted to say it has something to do with

a> the gemini full moon

b> some other various astrological things

c> my own karma attacking me at warp speed

but i am trying to be less of a flake and more of a realist, the kind of dreamer who actually has integrity and follows through with their faith instead of playing to be this innocent dreamer, this faithful being who has the deeper love, the deepest love. because i am that, i am, but i become so afraid and so weak in my fear and so desperate for a moment's comfort that i do things that are so bad, so so bad, that when everything goes willy-nilly and hari-kari and i get depressed and then redeemed i get depressed again because i realize that i should have had faith all along, that what is happening isn't really even happening because if anyone knew anything about me, beyond my intentions, beyond my intentions and straight into my total selfishness, my complete self-absorption, whether it is sorrow or love or what have you, i am terribly greedy with all my emotions, with all of my life, with everything that happens to me. the things i do.

the good thing about george harrison being dead is that everyone is talking about him and playing the beatles constantly, on every radio station, primarily songs written by george, which are some of my favorites. i've heard a few gems, such as "i've got my mind set on you," which is a happy silly melodic tune george produced in the eighties and was secretly liked by everyone, also tony bennett singing "something," which george also wrote.

i went to the guggenheim today with d and saw this. it was great. we also walked through central park, downtown forty blocks. it was a nice day to walk in the city.

despite the psychotic-sounding rant above: i know it doesn't matter, but my intentions are truly the best. and you know what? intentions do matter. to me. and i have grown up, but i have to stop doing things i am ashamed of. maybe when i grow out of this i will be able to be honest about it. but i can't do this anymore, because when my faith is renewed i am ashamed, i feel unworthy of whatever small joy i do have. and you know, life has been complicated but rewarding lately, i just need to live my ultimate life, i need to make less thoughtless mistakes and concentrate on where my heart is, my heart has been in that place of vulgarly vivid devotion and adoration and complete peace with and support of and joy with and such and such for so long, oh, why am i explaining this to myself, qualifying anything? i know what i feel. i know i want good things to happen and i just can't wait for them, when i hurt it comes from believing, from being destroyed. it is all i know how to do. because when it all goes down i really do believe it is the last time --