Lady with the bloody dog

I had a debate with myself yesterday, which I still haven't settled.  Do I avoid the ghetto Fry's and its sketchy patrons, no matter how close it is to my house, or do I risk it in order to have stories like these?

I was in line for the self-check-out, right behind a man in one of those electric scooters the store provides.  He was in his thirties or forties, sitting quite comfortably with his legs spread out wide while wearing basketball-type shorts (which always creeps me out, to be honest, because this fabric is much too thin and flexible to be worn in public with your legs spread so far.  There's simply not enough structure between your crotch, and my entire existence.)

As I walked up behind him to wait, a woman, not quite Chekhovian, with a husky on a leash, walked past us.  The man in the scooter turned around, and with a strong Russian accent, and through a few missing front teeth, commented on the big dog, and that he has or had one even bigger.  I gave the obligatory "Oh, yeah, that's a big dog," and a small smile.

Gesturing toward the back of the dog as it walked away, he said, "It's in heat." 

"Oh," I said, and automatically glanced over without thinking.  The dog's skin was slightly reddish in that region, though nothing terribly obvious.

"She's bleeding," he continued.  Apparently he didn't get that Emily Post memo on...well, maybe he just didn't get that memo on Emily Post... 

"Yeah..." I said, and tried to look around to appear uninterested without being overly dismissive.

"Good thing I'm not dog!"  The Russian laughed.

---

I also saw him standing up outside after we'd both purchased our items, and, I'm pretty sure, unlocking his bicycle after parking the scooter.  But somehow, despite his questionable usage of the courtesy vehicle, and his inappropriate conversation starters (and finishers), I can't say I hold entirely disagreeable feelings toward him.  He appeared to have no malicious intentions, or any intentions at all, for that matter, and just seemed somehow pleased with himself, like a little boy who had a good show-and-tell. 

Take the sprinkles and run

So, I've been hearing about these cupcakes. Sprinkles. Sprinkles Cupcakes. You haven't tried them yet? Well-meaning people ask. Nope. Oh, you have to. So when I found myself with a hankerin' for some cake this weekend, I bounced onto the cupcake bubble, and got myself some fancy sweets. And immediately regretted it.

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I <3 love poems

Lame, right?  Well go fuck yourself if you don't.  I've been in the mood to post one- or as close to one as I can muster.  This was written a while ago- 3, 4 years?- I don't know, but I'm gonna pretend like I don't care who sees it.  (P.S.- In addition to a thousand better love poems, there have been many "time" poems done far better than this attempt, too, of course.  See: Hoagland's "The Time Wars,"  or even Eliot's "Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock."  You dig?)

CUTTING INTO YEARS

I.

It isn't right that I'm beginning
to feel the years
about to pile in front of me
like bones
on a plate. That makes it seem
as if we have control—
just eat slower.
As if time is three dimensional,
malleable as gold;
we can make time fit;
tailor it.

But that's not right.
I begin to form a sentence about
the clock being a fallacy,
but at this rate it's best
to keep things simple, just say:
we can’t even see time passing, let alone
touch it.

Yesterday I wished you and I
could have taken that trip we'd talked about.
Afterwards, I'd ask you “How long
do you think we'll be this happy?”
I worry no length of time is enough.
We'll be gluttons for time.
Lust for it.
But who’s ever been happy
as long as I'd like us to be?
And though your being away
is cutting into the years,
erosion has created
some beautiful things.
Ten percent of the moon
is still a crescent.

II.

Once we'd been driving for a while,
through state after state, hill after hill,
I was hoping somewhere, along a road,
among the trees, we might come across
a big clearing, an old battlefield, and have our own
gentle war.   This morning during breakfast
I decide the best part would be—
not the travel, not the seeing, not the consumption
of space and land and time, but—
the perfect silence we'd hear upon waking
in the middle of the field. 
Yet in that moment,
around the lonely kitchen table
is the perfect white noise
of the air conditioner blowing, the familiar sound
of cars driving by, an airplane
moaning overhead.  And there is a certain calm about them.
Maybe, after all those years have piled
into a tall but steady tower, our hearts
will have begun to beat for each other like powerful engines;
nothing inherently pretty anymore
about the heavy steel parts;
nothing more than practical
about the freight they carry;
but the hum they make while flying
will be enough to remind us why we're still here.

Pretty Good Day

It's been a pretty good day so far. 

After giving our most vehement "thumbs-down" hand signals, I yelled at pro-lifers holding signs outside of Planned Parenthood on the way to the Park-n-Ride with 2 good friends this morning.  "Hey, we're going to a farmers market!  Do you wanna come?  We're going to a far-mers mar-ket!"  (SK thought this was a bad idea because the lady standing next to the 4x4 dead fetus sign might actually realize that what we were doing was way more fun than what she was doing.  Which was the point, wasn't it?)  She rudely ignored our invitation.  I may or may not have added more quietly that we were going to the farmers market to get abortions with rusty hangers, but I don't think she heard that part if I did.  She just didn't want to go to the farmers market with us, I guess.

Then we took the lightrail to the farmers market.  It's getting warmer, but the weather's still tolerable.  We bought lattes, and a few other delicious things, like fresh eggs, tortillas, an onion, mixed beans, and a cheese croissant from a Frenchman.  It was divine.

Then we had some salad and cheese and vegetarian bbq sandwich at the store nearby.  It was good. 

We did not get abortions.  We don't want abortions.  For the record, nobody does.  Nobody is Pro-Abortion.

Then we came home.  It's nice and cool in my apartment, and it's almost time to take a nap.

Fall Fever

Everyone is getting into accidents.
The woman who delivers office supplies.
Bill's daughter.  The lawyer next door.  Bill. 

They're all moving around
like flies into window panes.  Traffic
is backed up on every freeway.  Intersections
are a maze.  Even I
almost drove off a cliff—
metaphorically, anyway.

It might be this change of seasons
hovering in the air;
a rarefaction of
the autumnal kind.  It's finally cooling down
from the wicked summer.
We are hovering between heat-lamps
and ice blocks; the perfume
of hot garbage behind you,
freshly frosted glass
a few steps ahead.
It is the time and the place for distraction;
an occasion for remembering the things
one hundred and ten degrees made you forget.
The flies just want to go outside
and unravel themselves out

of the space between window and curtain.

The perfect weather
is the kind you don't notice.
The kind that renders temperature
nonexistent.
This is the weather
where you can get lost among thoughts
or die
without even knowing it.