July 27: discovery (5-7 minutes apiece and edited a bit)

august chagrin's turtleneck skin suit
in which august chagrin discusses and perhaps demonstrates with you the audience member the many uses of the foreskin which he was so lucky to have been born with but which nobody else (boys or girls) seem to have received -- not even his very own father.
gasp!
egad!
delight!
will you be the lucky person selected (raise your hand high) to be invited onstage and allowed to touch this mysterious gift???
"god is great, god is good, let us thank him for my foreskin!"
august chagrin will appear in three-dimensional nudity for this piece, so bring your camera, bring your charcoal and sketchpad, bring your children -- hurry, hurry, hurry, step right up!
the end
august chagrin's tomato/tomato/houston/houston
in which august chagrin will tell you some of the things he remembers from his childhood in houston, texas -- such as astroworld, art school, the alley theater, etc. -- and will then show you the items he purchased on houston street in new york city that very afternoon -- such as a bowie knife, a badminton racket, a plantain banana, etc.
a raffle ticket will have been included with your admission price, and august chagrin will draw several tickets out of one of those big spinning things (with a roasted duck in it) -- one for each of the items -- and he will give away each of the items, inviting each winner one at a time onto the stage.
he will ask you the winner to share childhood memories and what you plan to do with your prize.
at the end of the performance, august chagrin will share the roasted duck with everyone else, giving you the part of the duck that your raffle ticket stub has stuck to, allowing everyone to go home a winner.
the end
august chagrin's paulio
in which august chagrin acts out a variety of ailments and afflictions (perhaps with the aid of a projection screen showing people with actual ailments).
he will then turn off the projector and stand completely still for a long time, beyond what you think is possible or comfortable for a performance art piece.
you will wonder how he or anyone can remain as still as that for so long.
you may wonder why he's standing so still for so long.
you might even raise your hand during the q&a portion of the performance at the end and ask him.
he will tell you, "that is nothing, my sister has asperger syndrome and she can stand so still that a wild bird will land on her."
(august chagrin may or may not tell you that his mother painted pictures of his sister in this fashion.)
august chagrin will also tell you a story about a brand new affliction, an affliction that he has been stricken with:
an affliction called "paulio."
it is the sad but true, shocking story of having your lover stolen by your very own mother.
then he will sit on a toilet and very sloppily eat an entire german chocolate cake.
the end
august chagrin's things i know & nobody else
in which august chagrin looks into a handheld mirror and tells himself, and by way of your ability to listen to him, tells you things about himself that most if not all of you have no possible way of knowing.
for example:
august chagrin calls his mother not by her title of "mother" but rather by her chosen name, a name which was not given to her at birth but rather her initials (first, middle, and last), which, fortunately for those who choose to speak it, consists of a consonant, a vowel, and a consonant (in that order).
after that, if you are not too amazed to continue listening, august chagrin will tell you interesting facts about other family members and their names, including his very own name.
august chagrin will vomit into a mop bucket after talking about each family member.*
to close, he will mop the bucket of vomit onto the clean stage floor.
the end
(*with the help of ipecac syrup)
august chagrin's dress/undress
in which august chagrin stands before you in his birthday suit next to a rack of quite lovely women's wear, each outfit perfect in size and style for august chagrin's skin tone and other body features.
august chagrin will hold each dress in front of his naked body:
1. a sequined number;
2. a simple black dress;
3. a country girl farm dress;
4. something a high-paid prostitute would be pleased to wear;
5. a very conservative preacher's wife ensemble;
6. etc.
and he will allow you the audience to vote on which of the outfits he will put on in that particular performance.
after a short dance to a song appropriate for the dress he is wearing, august chagrin will undress in embarrassing silence to reveal that his penis has magically disappeared.
he will walk off the stage without showing his backside.
the end
august chagrin's where's the rent, jesus?
in which august chagrin rants and raves about his unhappy life as a landlord after having discovered a famous person has taken up residence in one of his organs.
you will wonder if august chagrin is being serious.
you will question whether august chagrin is merely being sacrilegious.
you will be forced to look at your own life, to peer into the contents of your own organs.
august chagrin will guide you to ask yourself if you are an unwitting landlord to a personal squatter or if your property is inhabited by a tenant with whom you have a binding contract.
august chagrin will amaze and perhaps frighten you with his knowledge of the holy bible, misquoting scriptures, perhaps causing you to wonder if they might be actual.
after this, august chagrin will sing a hymn or two in the style of a very old, very religious woman.
the end
august chagrin's injection of love
in which august chagrin will name as many illegal intoxicants as he can come up with and describe the effects they have on your body, mind, and soul.
next he will perform an elaborate ritual while james brown's "i feel good" plays over the speakers:
-he will spoon out a serving of a pink powder called "love";
-he will squeeze a few drops of "actual tears" onto the powder;
-he will light a black candle with a skull and crossbones on it and hold the spoon over the flame to heat the contents;
-he will suck the potion into an oversized hypodermic needle;
-he will inject the potion into his vein.
if you can stomach it you will be allowed to watch as august chagrin personally experiences the effects of "love":
the high,
the peak,
the coming down,
and the eventual withdrawal.
if you* are so inclined, august chagrin will allow one of you to join him onstage and be injected by him to see if you have the same reaction to love.
the end
(*most likely a human plant in the audience)
august chagrin's puppet in my pants (p.i.m.p.)
in which you see august chagrin maneuver the contents of his britches in a most amusing and fascinating way.
you will be driven to say, "how did he do that?" when his hand appears, fingers dangling at the bottom cuff of his highwaters and waves at you.
you might be inclined to wave back before you've had a chance to think better of it.
you might ask yourself or the person sitting in the seat of the crowded theater next to you,
"where does the 'pimp' part come into it?"
ah!
that comes from the fact that august chagrin forces the contents of his britches to do as he
commands, and if the contents of his britches are noncompliant he forces them to be so, even
employing the "bitch-slap" method of punishment if deemed necessary.
the endaugust chagrin's dummy
in which august chagrin simultaneously drinks and expels liquid, not by some form of trickery
but in the manner as was intended by the creator:
in through the pie hole, out through the pee hole.
you will laugh until your bladder aches -- or perhaps you will be very upset and disgusted --
but nevertheless the show will go on.
august chagrin will also manage to sing a song or tell a story that he has written in advance (or
perhaps on the spot) about bed-wetting and the embarrassment that goes along with it, not
just for you the bed-wetter but for the little boy spending the night away from home for the
very first time who wakes up in a pool of your pee.
august chagrin will tell this story between gulps of the liquid he is drinking while standing in a
kiddie pool.
you will likely be amazed by the amount of liquid expelled.
the end

June 26: laundry (40 minutes?)

Like yesterday's entry, this is a writing exercise found in an old notebook.

We can't even do laundry together without getting into a fight. Do you put the laundry soap in the bottom of the washer or on top of the clothes? Is powder better than liquid? How should you separate -- what colors are colors and what colors are whites?

The smells of the laundromat brings back unpleasant memories, the smell of bleach, the detergent, the softener sheets.

Big sheets are hard to fold in a laundromat. Do you let them touch the floor, or should you leave the bottom half in the roller basket and make do as best you can, pulling the fabric up and out into the folding process? Is there a right way to fold a fitted sheet? Does it even matter? Do we have to do it like the Hispanic women at the Holiday Inn? Once you stretch it over the mattress the wrinkles disappear like magic. And who cares about a few wrinkles in your sheets anyway? Isn't that what the covers are for, to hide the ills of the sheets below? The wrinkles, the stains, the threadbare old sheets that are worse for wear but none more comfortable?

I've only had 100% cotton sheets a couple of times in my life, maybe only once. There was a time in my life when I had a job that paid me enough to be able to say, "I want cotton sheets; I want designer fashions; I want fancy things." The sheets took years to break in, but even while they were breaking in the stiffness was comfortable. Sliding into freshly washed sheets after a shower is a wonderful thing; I like to do it naked, it's the only time I sleep naked, when I have a clean set of sheets to slide into.

Yes, I had 100% cotton sheets twice in my life. The first set were black sheets. They weren't striped with colors but striped in the way the big machine knitted(?) them together, thin stripes about 1/4" wide from top to bottom, running vertically along the lines of the body. Black is slimming, stripes are slimming, so these sheets made me look sexy.

I also had a set of deep blue cotton sheets. The black sheets didn't last as long as the blue sheets. I wonder if it was because of the stripes, I wonder if that made the fabric weaker. Or maybe I just wore them out faster because I felt so sexy in them. I was a lot sexier then; I thought of myself in terms of sexiness more back then. And when I say "back then," I'm talking about all of my life until very recently.

Back in the time of the striped black sheets, though, I was sexier, was more sexually active, though no less conflicted and afflicted by the strain of sexiness. Scorpio -- ooh, that word makes people bristle, for better or for worse. I don't know if it's really true that Scorpios are more sexual, or if the fact that being a Scorpio makes other people (people with a lot of knowledge of the horoscope) say that Scorpios are sexual makes us more sexual. But whatever the cause, I have always had a strong connection/affliction to/with my sex/sexuality/sexiness.

I had my first sexual experience when I was in the fourth grade. I won't say a boy molested me because he was my age (is that still the same? I wasn't really unwilling, just freaked out) and had a lot of time between that experience and the next to think about my sex. Not so much about my sexuality; I didn't start thinking about that until long after I was having sex, masturbating and messing around. I was truly intrigued by it all, the body, the body parts -- mine and others -- but I didn't put the two together (figuratively or literally) until much later.

I masturbated a lot after we moved into the house on Donovan. Didn't think much about the fact that the clearish-white semen would make a stain on the bottom of the box springs where I wiped it. Didn't even know there was a stain there until my father had died and my mother bought me a waterbed and we were moving my old bed out of my room. "What's that?" my mother asked. "I don't know," I said, and I didn't know at first; it was a curious brown stain, not like shit, but definitely of an organic nature. It took only a couple of brief moments for me to realize what it was. I didn't say anything, of course, but I'm sure I blushed or made some other sort of body language that was as loudly recognizable as an admittance of what I'd done.

I was 16 or 17, though. A normal thing, masturbating. But my mother wouldn't have understood, wouldn't have known what to do with such information, such honesty. We were a Christian family, but honesty was not a trait I feel we embodied much. There were so many secrets, half-truths, omissions, going way back to the death of my mother's younger brother. He was seven, she was 12 or 13, I think. He was hit by a car. They kept his clothes, his toys, all the remnants of the little boy, put them in a trunk, put the trunk in a closet and moved on and never said another thing about the life that was gone. A huge picture of Jimmy hung over the piano in Nana's living room -- the fancy room we didn't go into (us kids) -- and I always thought it was David, my mother's brother who is only five years older than me.

Did I ask about the picture? If so, was I lied to? I didn't know until I was a teenager that the picture was of Jimmy, and that David was the replacement son. David who grew up with a heavy cloud of expectation hanging over him, who couldn't possibly live up to the ideal seven-year-old angelic boy who was killed on Halloween by a car, run over in the road, excited about the holiday.

David took drugs, he challenged his parents; he was a big drug addict. But he was young and free and sexy; I was attracted to him. Once my clothes were dirty and I had to wear some of his clothes, his underwear; we changed in his room and I got a hard-on putting on his boxer shorts. I hid it. I wonder if he knew what power he had over me, him a testosterone charged teenager, me a curious preteen...

June 25: the most erotic part of my body (15 minutes?)

I've been busily working on my novel and not doing as many writing exercises the last couple of days. Here's one I came across in an old notebook from before I started blogging. This is from Chapter 38 in Writing Down The Bones, "A Big Topic: Eroticism" -- I don't know how long the exercise was, but judging from the amount of space it takes up on the page I'm assuming it was fifteen.

When I'm lying on my side, legs slightly bent, one knee down in front of the other, my top hip juts up and rounds over in a most erotic way; this has always been my favorite part of my body. The muscles of my long legs are thick and strong and well-defined. I like to rest a hand there; a palm sits nicely on the expanse of my upper thigh, the meat of my hip. The hair is more fine up there, softer than on other parts of my leg.

I once went home with a man and he confirmed the erotic nature of this part of my body; he pulled out a sketch pad and pencil and drew me, drew that very part of my body. With the top knee sitting down on the surface of the bed, my private parts are hidden from view. If you were standing behind me you could perhaps see my balls sticking out or some of the flesh of my penis, but from the front the flesh is all leg and chest and a little upper stomach, and in the middle of all of that is darkness, mystery. This part of the body isn't male or female. It's a limb, something I use to latch onto another body and pull that body into mine, into the darkness. And by watching myself do this I become very turned on.

In the hot tub I sit and stare up at the people as they drop their garments and unselfconsciously climb down into the water; their hips shudder, their muscles flex and flow, ripple into the surface of the hot water, bubbling up, steamy in the starry night. When the water is too hot, people sit on the edge; they don't hide themselves. Don't come around here if you're trying to hide yourself! The thighs and hips spread out.

The hip is very sensitive to the touch. Usually there is a layer covering this part of me, oftentimes two layers, and in cold weather three or more layers. If I'm walking naked and someone touches my hip skin I feel tingles shooting through me, energy. I like to stand with both hands just forward of my upper thighs, in front of my hips.

June 24: Aunt Esther (30 minutes)

I had a bizarre dream that awoke me nauseous. It was part of a much longer more entangled dream, naturally, but I forgot everything that came before when I entered one of those rotating exit doors and there was no opening on the other side to let me out, and when I got back around to the inside of the building where I had entered, it was closed up too, and it was motorized so it was going around on its own and I had to follow it around and around in a tight circle. The glass doors and concave walls were tinted a dark smoky gray to keep the inside of the building cooler so I couldn't very well see who was in the building. There were a few people sitting in chairs like in a hospital waiting room or lobby and they were only silhouettes. The glass was thick and my hands slapping on it weren't making much noise on the inside of the churning capsule I was caught in and I figured even less noise on the outside. I wished that I had on a ring so that the tapping could possibly be heard. I was surprised that nobody else had come along to exit, to discover me in my distress.

One of the silhouettes in the chairs in the building reminded me of the black woman who recently came into Treasure City Thrift, where I volunteer two to six on Fridays. She took a dress into the dressing closet, came out with it on, threw her blue jean shorts and T-shirt on the counter as she unraveled two dollar bills and said, "How much you want for that dress?" I told her the dresses are four dollars. She said, "I got two." I said, "Well, it's four dollars right now, four plus tax: four-twenty-five." She said, "That's too much for that dress. It ain't even a designer label." I told her that all the dresses are the same price, that labels don't matter to us. She said, "Well, they do to me."

She threw the two dollars and a cell phone on the counter, opening the cell phone and showing me, I guess, that it actually worked. "I'll leave you my phone and go next door and get you the other two dollars." I was hesitant. She said, "Give me a bag for my clothes." I was reluctant -- it's a store policy not to give out bags because people use them for shoplifting. I started pulling a plastic bag out of the pile then thought better of it, realized I was somehow being played. I told her she should leave the dress in the store, go get her money and come back and buy the dress. She said, "Mother fucker! I'm leaving my three-hundred dollar phone!" I said, "Yeah, don't do that." I told her again that she should leave the dress and come back with the money.

She went off like an X-rated version of Aunt Esther from "Sanford & Son." "That's right, mother fucker, I'm gonna leave the dress here. But I ain't coming back. I'm in this mother fuckin' store every goddamn day! Four dollars for a fuckin' dress, ain't even a designer label." While she was saying all of this, she went back into the dressing closet and was changing. I stayed calm, continued my afternoon job of searching out wire hangers on the racks and replacing them with the plastic kind with heavier metal rotating hooks at the top.

Scott, the guy who essentially runs TCT (along with Tom, the only paid employee), was in Dallas for the weekend, and James, the volunteer who was taking his place for the day, was gone to drop off some recycling at Ecology-Action and then to El Chilito to get us something to eat. Aunt Esther came out of the dressing closet, her T-shirt not pulled down over her oddly-shaped beer belly with the dress wadded up. She tossed it on the counter and walked through the store continuing her rant. "Y'all need to get rid of him," to nobody in particular (there was one other woman in the store shopping). "He's no good; I mean that! He's a bad mother fucker!" I'm pretty sure she didn't mean that last comment in the cool, "bad mamma-jamma" way. Did I mention she wore a frosted blond wig? That's important. Although Aunt Esther didn't wear a frosted blond wig, she did wear a wig, that's part of the image I'm trying to evoke.

After the dust had settled, the other woman asked me a couple of questions about items for sale, bought one of them. Fifty-four cents. As she handed me the exact change she said, "Don't let them get you riled up." I told her I'd try not to, and I'm thinking right now that that sounded kind of racist, though I know that wasn't the tattooed white woman's intent.

Aunt Esther came back later in the day, when James was back, and she bought a different dress. She put four dollars and twenty cents on the counter. I still felt like she was playing me -- hard life, she probably plays and gets played every goddamn day of the mother fuckin' week -- but I felt like I needed to be firm, for my sake as well as hers. I said, "Do you have another nickel? This is four-twenty." She dug into each of her jeans pockets one at a time coming up with nothing. Somewhere in the middle I said, "I can get it out of the penny cup."

She left her four dollars and twenty cents, left the dress, walked out of the store, said, "I'll get it." I offered to get it out of the penny cup again but she ignored me. I wasn't giving her any slack and she wasn't taking my mother fuckin' five-cent charity either! She returned with five pennies. I thanked her, put her dress in a bag and she left without a word, oddly subdued, like she'd stepped out of a dream and disappeared back into it just as quickly.

June 23: it's like (10 minutes)

It's like praying for rain then cursing god because you got caught in a downpour without an umbrella.

It's like planting shade trees to cool your house only to have one fall over and put a hole in your roof.
It's like selling your hair to buy a watch chain; or selling your watch to buy a nice hair comb.
It's like getting your tubes tied then inheriting an orphanage.
It's like getting what you least expected when you've given up all expectations.
It's like jump-starting your car and running out of gas.
It's like proposing to your one true love and she's so excited she dies instantly of a heart attack.
It's like catching pneumonia the day before you're supposed to go on an expedition to the North Pole.
It's like slathering yourself with suntan lotion then drowning in the ocean.
It's like finally getting health insurance the day after you've been diagnosed with a terminal disease.
It's like getting rid of your entire black wardrobe, buying a brand new wardrobe of brightly colored clothes and going colorblind.

June 22: church (20 minutes)

There was a time when I liked church, liked dressing up, liked Sunday School, the special programs, Vacation Bible school, the singing. When I was in high school there was a time when I valued the idea of being Saved, believed that when I died I would go to Heaven. I used to like the religious television shows, a shaky old woman named Katherine Kuhlman starting her talk show with the same phrase every week: "I believe in miracles." She didn't perform miracles, she just believed in them. I think people called in and told her what miracles had happened to them, causing her to exclaim at the end of each program: "I believe in miracles." I don't really remember what happened on "The Katherine Kuhlman Show," I just remember her famous catch phrase.

There was a preacher who preached in what was called The Crystal Cathedral. I think it was in California. It was a mostly glass structure and it seemed like every Sunday the sun shined brightly on The Crystal Cathedral. I think his name was Robert Schuller. He was Scottish or Irish. He had a lilt. He was gentle, sweet even. I liked the way he sounded. I liked what he had to say. I don't remember any of it now, but I know I liked him.

But then I started getting confused. I wanted to know if cigarette-smoking, alcohol-drinking Jerry Lewis was going to Hell, even though he did that wonderful thing for all of those people with Muscular Dystrophy. I collected money for Jerry's Kids one time, went door-to-door with a mayonnaise jar and asked people for money, and I got it, too. I was cute with my long hair and my best friend Trixie with me, running around my feet, barking happily, nipping at my shoestrings. She made a too big circle around me and ran in front of a car, died instantly. The man who ran over her put her in a garbage bag and took us home, told my mother he accidentally ran over her daughter's dog. I had a jar of coins, more than half full, mostly not pennies. It sat in my bedroom for weeks, untouched. I didn't turn it in. My tragedy was much worse.

Would Jerry Lewis go to Hell? If he hadn't accepted Jesus as his personal savior by the time he died, he would. Would Trixie go to Hell? No, dogs don't go to Heaven or Hell, they just die. Where does it say that? "Why?" I asked. Don't question God, I was told. But I couldn't help myself. I did question God. I wondered about a lot of things; I asked God all kinds of deep, personal important questions, but God never once responded to my questions, didn't answer my prayers. I found myself wondering if this or that was a sign from God. Why did he have to be so clever? Why couldn't I just hear the answer in my ear. It didn't have to be loud; a whisper would do, I was listening. But no. He could even have sent a letter, signed God. But he didn't.

That's why I never believed those black billboards with the white lettering that were supposed to have been from God. "We need to talk. --God" and "What part of 'Thou Shalt Not' do you not understand? --God" What a bitch! Church turned on me. Or maybe not church, but religion, the idea of church.

When I grew up, I felt like I needed a church to make me whole. I found a UU church in Nashville. That was good for a while. But it wasn't because of God. It was because of the minister, Mary Katherine Morn. I loved her. She was the first great spiritual leader in my life. I also loved the community I found at that church. And then I moved away. When I went back, she was gone and I felt lost. The community wasn't the same. I spent several years looking for a community. In some ways I think I've found one, but in other ways I think I never will find what I'm looking for.

June 21: details (15 minutes)

It's all in the details.

This is your brain on drugs.

Little cement boy peeing in a bathtub, leaning back, hips pushed forward, one hand on a hip, the other at his penis which is a broken piece of concrete and a black copper pipe.

Girl in a tree, on the speaker, in stereo.

Grackle in the birdbath...taking a bath. Isn't that what they're there for?

There's a wedge of chocolate espresso cake in front of me. I haven't touched it yet. It's like a brown sponge, really like four brown sponges with brown vinyl between the layers.

A fly is getting to friendly with my chai so I put my hand over it, cupped upward so the foam doesn't get on my hand.

Now the fly is getting familiar with my cake. I swat him away and get chocolate on my hand.

Red table. Red enamel metal table, metal chairs connected to it, old chairs, like heavy yard chairs -- lawn chairs -- once bright colors like the table but thousands of butts and backs have worn away their paint jobs. One has a peacock feather back, though not as elaborate as that sounds. The one next to it, across from me, has a more simple arched back. The chair next to me has little pill shaped holes in it, little wafer ovals, smaller than wafers, like miniature horse tracks, an odd series, strange pattern of holes in the browned metal.

There are two cottages on the other side of the wooden fence. Stucco houses, one off-white with deep red trim, the other off-white (but more greenish than the other off-white, which is more yellowish) with blue-gray trim. It's like the colors of the Civil War, two little houses, side by side, cute little houses. I could sit here at this metal table and write all day about those two cottages.

But not today.

Today: chapter seven.

Pecan tree over my shoulder, shading the table, catching the rain and magnifying, throwing it down in bigger drops.

Flies are crazy here. I guess they're used to getting fed around here; open garbage cans with remnants of chips and salsa and other leftovers -- chocolate espresso cake? Not yet.

There's an ironing board planted in the yard; no, two of them, side by side and catacorner, turning reddish-brown with rust, breaking down, eventually to return to dust. Plastic won't do that. Or at least not as quickly. Plastic just tends to get dirty. It doesn't disintegrate, it camouflages.

June 20: constipation (20 minutes)

I'm not full of shit, that's not what I'm saying -- I just shat a three-flusher (our toilet's old and I usually give up after two flushes because, really, how much water do I need to waste to get rid of unsightliness? --but these turds were clouding up the water so I flushed again to get it all down) -- I'm talking about creativity, particularly my novel. Good ol' chapter seven is a stick in the mud, in the shit-colored muck of what I think will be an exceptional novel when I'm through with it. I dare not say "if" or even "when and if."

I found some similarities between chapters seven and nine, and I think I've pretty much eradicated those; I think I have a pretty good idea about how to get chapter seven out, and I've written it down. But now the editing process -- the copy editing process is poking at me. Got me stuck. I feel like I'm red-inking typos and stupid shit when I really want/need to be getting through the story, moving on to the next chapter, which isn't chapter eight because I feel okay with that -- it's a short chapter, a diary entry, as four or five chapters of the fourteen are. Next is chapter nine. The leftovers, so to speak, of chapter seven. But that's not exactly true because chapter seven and chapter nine weren't identical, they just shared some basic points, which as I already stated, I'm pretty sure I've removed.

I met a guy the other night. When I was introduced to him, the guy doing the introducing said, "Oh, hey, this guy's a writer, too. You should talk." In my head I thought, Why? It's not like we're Trekkies or even engineers so that we would have something in common to talk about. Instead I swallowed my insipidness and asked, "What do you write?" He said, "Well, I haven't written anything in a while." I thought, Well, then, you're more of a thinker, aren't you? (Or at least a thinking-about-being-a-writer...) He said something that I can't remember, to which I replied, "Because writing is hard!" He said, "No, actually, it's very easy, you just have to let it flow." Yeah, and shitting is easy when you've got diarrhea.

I didn't say that.

When I told Steven this story, he did a little wave bye-bye sign with his hand, as if to say he has no patience for people like that. I guess I have more patience than that, but I was thinking in the moment What are we talking for? He was kind of a reactionary and opinionated dude. I don't know where to go with people like that. I don't want to argue, and I really don't enjoy just humoring them, so I feel myself sort of clamming up. Self-inflicted social constipation!

I do these writing exercises but I haven't had a lot of luck in the recent past at actually writing, at being a writer. Maybe I should say I'm an "exercise writer." It seems that I always can start writing, jabbering with a pen, nonsensical stuff like I'm stoned and high on cocaine at the same time. I don't have much desire to do cocaine, but I would like to be high. I find that a good laxative of my creativity. I think a joint would likely cure my creative constipation. Or at the very least it would make me feel good. I think. Unless it didn't. And then what?

I was constipated a few days ago. I imagined that everything I'd been eating was cheese and ice cream and onion rings. Not true, but bad enough. I eventually resorted to a glycerin suppository. I first was given one of those by my boyfriend Jack. I thought they were an Israeli thing since he was Israeli, or maybe a Jewish thing. Or maybe a rich person thing, because he was all of those things. Regardless, the rich Israeli Jewish remedy worked on this po' white trash Southern boy and now I'm a convert. I don't use them a lot, but, boy, it did the trick the other day. That bloated, sluggish feeling was gone almost immediately, after I shat. That was only a two-flusher. Today's three-flusher outdid it, but I had some huge meals over the last couple of days, and in the 90 degree weather no less! What was I thinking?

Comfort food. When I'm feeling creatively constipated I just want to eat.

June 19: how I know I am loved (20 minutes)

Last night, after Body Choir, in the lobby, Laura Rose took my face in her hands and with eyes squinty and glossy from the tears welling up in them, said to me, "I love you so much. You are such a wonderful, unique and special person. There is no one else in the world quite like you and I am so glad you are in my life." I was dumbstruck, thought I would start crying. I hugged her again.

Shortly before that, in Closing Circle, I found myself near the outside of a tight circle in the middle of the room -- but still with hands and heads and bodies touching mine -- where we had all encircled Kimba who had a sudden and unexpected internal infection that nearly killed her (and she's only been out of the hospital for a week or two), everybody humming and chanting her name to help release "all the negative energy" she said she felt was stuck in her body. After the circle opened up and people began to disperse, a couple pairs of fists pressed into my shoulders then walked down my back, then legs were wrapping around my legs, a crotch in my hips, the front of a body against the back of my body, arms wrapped around me, and stringy blond hair landed on my shoulder, touched my neck, my cheek. It was Micah. He kissed the back of my head, said, "I love you, Jay Byrd."

At the beginning of the dance, just after Opening Circle, when the music was starting up still and gentle, my eyes closed, I stretched my legs out in front of me, curled my hands up into the sky to a ballad by Coldplay. My hand touched another hand. We stayed connected; we curled around, rolled on top of each other on the floor, giggling some. It was Wendy. Before Opening Circle, during the Warm-up, we had danced with each other briefly to an upbeat song. In the short break between Warm-up and Opening Circle she said to me, "You look great. You look light. Lighter! Have you been lightening your load?" I said, "Yes!" but I wasn't sure, had to think about it a minute. Yes, I decided, I have been lightening my load, for a couple of years.

On my way out of the house to go to Body Choir, I noticed someone had called while I was in the shower. I listened to the message. It was Peg. She was calling to tell me she'd been thinking about me, that she wanted to check in and see how Steven's nephew was doing. He's been in the hospital with e. coli. I had brought up his name a couple of dances ago. He's only seven. She knew I was concerned about him.

These hippies, I think to myself, laugh to myself, they love me. "Everybody loves you, Jay Byrd," people have told me more than once. Micah's girlfriend, Brianne told me recently that I'm one of her Touchstones, that she always gets a thrill when she sees me at Body Choir, that she always notices when I'm not there, that her dance is better when I am.

I struggle sometimes with my emotions, struggle with my feelings about myself, my feelings about these people, their feelings about me. It's a wonderful thing and sometimes it's an overwhelming thing, scary. I'm not used to being loved so openly, am not always so comfortable with letting the love I feel for these people show. I'm afraid that the women will think I'm coming on to them. I'm afraid that people will think I'm coming on to the men, the younger men. I'm afraid of love. But it's so natural with these people. So free. And it frees me sometimes. Sometimes it comes to me at exactly the right moment, at the moment when I think the least of myself, when I am the most full of doubt about my intentions. "I love you." How nice that sounds, how lovely that feels.

June 16: Saturday (15 minutes)

It's a Saturday. The credit union clock said it's +91º. I went to the drug store and bought dutch chocolate ice cream, cokes, cough drops and contact solution. Before that I was at the grocery store, the big one with all the stuff from Mexico. I bought bright colorful clothespins, plastic, made in Mexico. Better than made in China, I guess. I contemplated the ice cream there, an open deep freezer with a hundred choices. Then I went over to the Mexican pastries and contemplated those for a while, dozens of styles, three-for-a-dollar. I picked up a loaf of fresh baked bread and went back to the deep freezer. I considered light ice cream, no-sugar-added ice cream, sherbet and ice cream sandwiches, then I picked up a six pack of beer and got in line at the ten-items-or-less aisle. The man in front of me had fourteen items. He sheepishly told the cashier he had eleven items. She didn't care. His credit card wouldn't work in the machine until the manager came over and swiped it. The cashier at the next register said, "Rhonda has the magic touch!" Rhonda laughed and repeated that like it was a ridiculous statement. Rhonda had blond helmet hair. The cashier had red and black water fountain hair. The place was a madhouse. Outside, kids were running from ride to ride, putting fifty cents in and wiggling around on carousel horses, dolphins, and a colorful fire engine with Sesame Street characters in the back seat. There was a long line at the snow cone stand. Older kids were shoveling bright blue snow into their blue smeared mouths. There were booths along the front of the store selling everything from cowboy boots to oriental rugs to framed posters of hip-hop stars (Tupac Shakur 1971-1996) and gangster movie stars (Al Pacino with splattered letters: How'd Jou Like Dat?). A homeless man pushing a cart from the far corner of the back parking lot approached me saying something in Spanglish. I smiled and kept walking. I came home, rolled a cigarette, put the last load of laundry in the washing machine, took a dump, put a cough drop in my mouth and smoked on the front porch. I have lots of work to do, but I feel exhausted. My good friend Cindy left yesterday after a ten-day visit. I got Steven to take my "shift" organizing meds for John at his house and I'm enjoying a little time alone. But it's hot and humid and a shower will feel good. Cold water. And then I guess I'll get back to work.

June 15: summer (10 minutes)

Sudden recognition, remembrance from last year. Too short, so deep.

Not too deep because it wasn't something we held onto. But now, this year, here we are, sudden recognition, a strong feeling, a warm embrace, long hold, bodies holding onto each other, leaning in. A sweet dance, a back rub, neck rub, something playful, always wondering, Am I out of line?

I pull back but we're playful. You want to talk, I want to talk, you call me brother.

I'm confused.
I'm being silly.
Step back, step back, I warn myself.

But you lean in; laughter, smile, I touch you, you don't pull away.

I see you again the next day, night, you're in your element. I'm in your audience along with others, friends, relatives...me -- Who am I? Who am I to you?

I steal a glance. You catch me. It happens again, and again. Or am I catching you? I wonder if this is rolling or if I'm having a fever. You smile through the window, stick out your tongue, a gesture of unheard laughter. I leave, say goodnight, we hug, bodies lean forward, forward.

I come back, but not because of you. I have business there, and you're still there.

Step away, step away.

More stolen glances. I try to be nonchalant; I think I do a pretty good job of it. I plot my departure. No words, no seeking you out for another goodbye. But you come to me and we chat, kid, eyes touch, blue, blue, blue, hazel, hazel, hazel, blond hair, pink lips, white teeth as lips spread, dimples, we both have dimples. You say goodbye, ask me for my number. I know it's not what the intention was but I can't help but imagine a summer romance, can't help but hear myself asking you, "How would you like to have a summer romance?" Can't help but hear you saying, "Yeah. I think so..."

June 14: rumble (13 minutes)

The noise in a Vietnamese shop, way out on Lamar Blvd. (finally I got the truck registered). Shiny cement, stained, varnished. Jibberish to me. Laughs universal. Dragged vowels. Square heads. Tan men. Brownish green. Mexican busboys, or are the Filipino? Sometimes I get confused. Veggie spring rolls and iced coffee with a thick layer of condensed milk; little contraption, silver, drip-drip-drip. How long do I wait?

I couldn't wait to get back home to eat. I had a hankering for Mr. Natural, but I'm too far afield to run my errands and get back before my hunger overtakes me, pains me, puts me on edge, in a bad mood, headache, too late, migraine.

That's a small? A humongous bowl of soup with green veggies and purple onions floating in the murky brown water, tofu obvious under the surface. I'm still enjoying the rolls, dipping them into the dark caramel colored sauce, peanuts floating. A plastic bowl drops to the concrete floor, wobbles to a halt, the rumble subsides momentarily. Now a boy makes a lot of noise holding a cellphone, happy, "Look! Look!" Bright smile. Picture on the phone. "Oooh! Oooh!" His joy bounces off of the concrete, pierces the eardrum. The three men at the table ignore him or engage him, the woman, his mother, shushes him, but he ignores her. Laughter.

There's no tofu, just noodles. Hot soup, murky broth, green veggies and purple onions. My stomach rumbles.

June 12: parking lot (10 minutes)

I'm in kookyland. Sitting in a shady spot, saw a little white worm on the scorching windshield trying to make its way up, but where to? The roof of the car is hotter than the glass. I couldn't stand to watch, got out, found a leaf, squished in the overwatered manicured lawn of the PPD parking lot. I brought S. here so he can go in and pee in a cup for a test so he can hopefully get into a drug trial and make some money. I held the leaf to the worm and he happily climbed onto it. Brown pecan leaf. Just mulch I guess because the tree is oak and it's on an island surrounded by cement and cars. There's a park a block away, maybe the leaf blew here from there. As I was getting the worm an old lady under a red umbrella, lips as red as the womans in the radiator's cheeks were big in Eraserhead, said in an Edie (from John Water's fame, Edie the Egg Lady) voice, "Hello!" I said Hello back. She said, "Summer, summer, hot weather!" She sounded crazy. She was behind the truck. I couldn't see her, couldn't assess her insanity. She was wearing colorful, mismatched clothes, an eggplant purple skirt with white root vegetables on it, a flowery blouse that looked red under the red umbrella, a sweat band like Olivia Newton-John around her head, white shoes and sneakers. When she got around to the other side, "Yes! Yes!" Still talking crazy. I glanced her way -- the worm was free now, on the squishy green grass under the tree near the mulch. The back of her head had a big red spot. She was half bald.

June 11: frustration (19 minutes)

You know that feeling. Is it hunger or craving? Is it meant to stave off an emotional breakdown? Or an emotional uprising? It's so stupid -- so fucking stupid, I want to say because I want to say fuck: FUCK, FUCK, FUCK -- letting it get to me, letting it eventually break me down since, particularly since I went in there with the intention of not letting it get me down.

I should meditate. I mean regularly. I should get back to that. I don't think I would have this feeling right now, this feeling like I'd had too much coffee to drink, as I drink an iced coffee and eat a cinnamon roll. It's a little stale but it's good. I kept fighting that off, kept fighting this off, this urge, the craving, thinking I was being all stoic, being good to myself, not giving in to the craving, not giving in to what I shouldn't be doing.

I shouldn't be "shoulding" on myself, that's what Patrice would say. I'm glad she's not here right now; I'm glad I'm not around anybody right now. No one I have to talk to. There's a retarded man behind me. Sitting at a table with a pastry and a coke. Like a little old man, complacent, contented, confused maybe, sitting there with his little old lady mother. They'd make a good couple if they weren't what they are. But they are and I am and I'm just throwing it out there, throwing out a little insensitivity because I'm frustrated.

I spent half an hour at the tax collector's office waiting to get my title transferred and finally have the truck in my name, legal and all that. The lady who waited on me was nice enough, told me I need a bill of sale as well as the title. I took the form (that would act as a bill of sale) to Libby's house, but she's out of town so Chris signed her name and he dawdled and I felt myself getting anxious. The woman had also told me I have to register the truck by Friday or I'll get fined an additional 5% on top of the already nearly $500.

I went back to the office, waited another thirty minutes (or so), and the next woman who waited on me told me I need a "One of the Same Person." A what? One of the Same Person. I'm not sure I understand... A One of the Same Person. She kept saying it and I felt the anxiety rising, and finally I said, "I don't know what you're talking about!" And she said it again, then added, "It's a form. I'll give it to you." Thank you! It's a form and it's actually called a "One and the Same Person," but she's said it so many times I guess she doesn't even know what she's saying anymore. Basically, the (fucking) stupid thing is that Libby is Elizabeth's nickname. The title is under the name Elizabeth and her signature says Libby, as does the blank next to it because it asks for the PRINTED NAME (SAME AS SIGNATURE). So now she has to sign a form that says Elizabeth and Libby are, all together now... "One of the same person!"

I hightailed it to the Upper Crust for a cinnamon roll and an iced coffee. Ahhh...

June 9, part three: swallow (12.5 minutes)

I swallowed the words again, had to repeat it, felt like I was being clear but the listener said "The What Festival?"

I haven't had a strong urge to perform since my ten-year gig ended five years ago. Well, that's not exactly right. I've had an urge, but I also have an overriding fear that has prevented it. I did a little community theater in Florida when my music and life partner and I went our separate ways.

And I tried a little stand-up in Tennessee, but it was unsatisfying, mostly I think because I was performing for a room sparsely populated by other people waiting anxiously to perform their five minutes.

And then I came to Austin. I read the audition column in the arts section of the Chronicle occasionally, but never really feel inspired enough to go through with it.

I took an eight-week comedy improv class recently and that was somewhat satisfying but also very terrifying for the first three weeks (until I had to pay the $200 fee, at which point I acquired the shit-or-get-off-the-pot attitude).

An acquaintance wanted me to sing children's songs with her here. I met with her, we sang a little, but it didn't feel right. I backed out. She was okay with that.

And then my former music and life partner moved to Austin, moved in with me -- we're best friends and not much more -- and the two of us sang harmony with a fairly famous lesbian rocker acquaintance we met in NYC 15 years ago who is from here.

And today, in about four hours, I will be performing with her -- in fuzzy orange pants and a gold lamé top -- with a bevvy of other musicians, dancers, etc. (I don't know exactly what the "etc." is, but believe me, it's there) at the Gay Pride Festival in Waterloo Park.

The what? The Pride Festival. That's what I've been saying. People say, "The what?" I say it again. One woman said, "I'm sorry, the What Festival?" I don't know what I'm afraid of. I don't know what I care so much about.

I don't think I really fit in with "those" people all that well, so I guess I'm afraid of the assumptions people might make about me if I say that word. I guess I fear they'll see me the way I see "them."

I think I'm more queer than gay, but that's a term that seems to set people on edge even more. I guess I'm just "not so proud."

June 9, part two: fiction (12.5 minutes)

It's all fiction, isn't it? My birth, life, my eventual death? It is only real in the minute second and then it is memory. Written down or told it is fiction.

The people I meet in my life inspire me, engage me. I don't know who I am, don't know my age, my history. I can make something up. Sure, it's all based on the real thing, based on the memories, but it's all fiction.

I remember very clearly living in New London, Texas, having to take my dogs who got mange out into the government-owned field with my father and shoot them. I remember looking down the barrel of a rifle, seeing the eyes of my faithful puppy looking back saying, "What game is this now?!" I have written that story so many times. I know I exaggerated when I wrote there were piles of dogs, but I remember the one. I was in the fourth grade. That was 35 years ago.

Recently, I saw my sister, and since we don't see each other often enough, are not nearly as close as we would like to be, we found ourselves recalling old stories. Tragedies then that make us laugh now. She said, "Oh, no! You've got it wrong. You and Daddy and the dog went off to the woods, you and Daddy walking slow, the dog bouncing along. Then about 30 minutes later, you came back, the dog bouncing along behind you...!"

Even that story is a fiction. My sister doesn't speak like that. I can't capture how she speaks right now. I would have to work on that, would have to maybe call her or write something shortly after the next time I saw her.

I meet people and am surprised at how young they are. I mean people I have connections with. I know they're younger than me, but I'm surprised to find out they're 19 or 20. Usually 24 or 25 is the age I connect with. They usually are surprised that I'm 43 years old. But we are connected somewhere in the middle I guess. These are not "normal" people. These are freaks. Freaks like me.

43 is a fiction, more so than 19 or 20 is a fiction. But sometimes there are special people who defy age. I've always been that type of person, "young for my age" and now "older than my age states." I don't know if there was a time, a year or two, when I actually "acted my age." If so, I'm sure I was making it up, creating something that I believed was that age.

Maybe I was 28. That was an important year for me because I was born on the 28th day of the month and some new agey woman had told me that would be my Golden Year. I had that in mind when it came. I wrote a lot that year, as always, but I think maybe a lot of my writing that year had to do with that, with the actual number being important.

It's all fiction. I don't think I believe anything I just wrote. But if it's entertaining, that's really the important thing. I will put fact aside any time if fiction is more interesting.

June 9, part one: between... (12 minutes)

...the rows, the little ditches thrive with weeds and grasses -- some kind of monkey grass, some of that annoying St. Augustine -- and there I am on my knees, pebbles crushing into them, sore, coarse, the sun pounding down on my back, my naked neck, my bald head.

It's somewhere between 9:30 and noon, somewhere between breakfast and lunch, a coffee mug sits on the coffee table on the front porch, a few gnats hovering around the remains of cream and coffee drying, coagulating in the bottom. Sitting there I was thinking "I need to do some weeding, get the garden back in order, let the flowers and the vegetables have a little more space, show them I appreciate their effort, make an effort to do so," and the next think I know I'm in the middle of it.

I crawled out of bed to pee an hour before I was ready and went back to bed, lay between the sheets, no cover, that was kicked off in the middle of the night as the humidity rose, the barometric pressure fell, or whatever it does to find its way into my sinuses and throb. The space between my eyes pulls at the top of my mouth and the insides of my nostrils, the back of my throat feels constricted. I lie there naked between the sheets, the ceiling fan making them ripple, the box fan pointing out of the window pulling the breeze over me. No a/c. I don't want to turn it on. My house is situated between bamboo and pecan trees, a veritable forest of green; breezes blow throughout the summer. The hotter it gets, the greener the plant life gets, the taller it grows, the more shade, the better the breeze.

I had wanted to get on the computer, do a little writing, finish that poem. But it's no use. I can't read between the lines, I can't fill in the blanks. If I don't let it all flow at once, the drain goes dry. I know what I wanted to say, but I'll never go back to it. Maybe I'm a lazy poet.

A day when the sun waited for rain,
A day when there was nothing but pain--

No, that wasn't it.

And so I made my coffee, went to the porch, watched the grackles steal dog food kibbles from the neighbor's porch. I could have slept an hour longer. Now I find myself pulling grasses, pulling stubborn little vines that look pretty but turn monstrous, take over everything, climb the sunflower stalks, nine feet high, and choke them like in a horror movie.

I have small pile of already withering weeds piling up between the rows in the garden.

June 8: hair (15 minutes)

When I was a teenager I feared that I would grow hair all over my back. I prayed to god that it wouldn't happen.

I have hair on my back, not a blanket like I feared. Most of it is on and around the scar I have across the middle left from having shingles at age four.

My mother once warned me from shaving too high on my cheeks, said that I would make hair grow there by shaving it.

In the fifth grade I went into my mother and father's room without knocking. He was lying beside/on top of her plucking hairs from around her nipple. There was a frozen moment in time during which we all grew old and died and so did all of our relatives and offspring before Daddy said, "Get out!"

My hair started thinning when I was in my early twenties. I saw my uncles' hairlines on my mother's side, basic male pattern baldness. My grandfather, too. On my father's side, they all had thicker hair, more of it. His was the thinnest of that family. It had receded pretty far back by the time he died at 39. But I'd heard you get your hair from your mother's side of the family, so I was already fucked.

I moussed my hair. It became a spiky thing as it thinned out. I was always putting shit in it. Sometimes desperate about it, sometimes pleased with what I had created.

In NYC, I wrote a play that starred two popular black drag queens. They shaved their heads -- back when this hadn't yet caught on in so big a way. It made it easier (and more comfortable) for wigs. That Halloween I went in drag, shaved my head. I lost the wig early on -- drunk -- and became Sinead O'Connor in my black lace dress, Doc Marten boots, and heavy eyeliner.

My mother was wrong about one thing: Shaving my head has not made hair grow there. (My mother is wrong about more than one thing!)

I started plucking my eyebrows into submission around '93 or '94. I was thirty-something. I was a performer pretending I was twenty-something. I figured wild professorial eyebrows were a dead giveaway. I plucked them for eight or ten years. Now I don't care so much about my eyebrows. Not so much. I still pluck some of the hairs sometimes if they touch my eyelashes or eyeglasses. That's annoying.

Occasionally I find a hair growing out of the end of my nose. I usually pull those out.

I scissor my nostrils sometimes or pluck out the gray ones that grow thick and wiry in there.

I also have a collection of hairs on my ear knobs. If I rub them with my fingertip it sounds like a fly stuck in a microphone real loud in my ear.

The hair on my shins is very thin. For a while it was completely gone when I was wearing socks every day, but now it's growing out sparsely since I rarely wear socks. Maybe I should shave my legs.

June 5: greenbean (10 minutes)

hello, greenbean, hanging on the porch! long, skinny, turdlike creatures come to feed us, give us vitamins and make us smile. smiles specked with flecks of summer green from the beans. yellow flowers like bright little kernels of popped corn appear at the ends of your antenna. they fall off, still bright, still yellow, and slowly wither on the cement. and then you appear, first like commas, tiny and shy. but the yellow sun and the bluesky rain make you grow. one day you're nothing but a dream, a hope, the next (or maybe two) you're realized, hanging heavy on the fragile limbs, oversized leaves soaking up the sun like big green elephant ears or hearts or a drawing of lungs.

it's almost dinnertime. let's have greenbeans. yum! I'm hungry. a pot is boiling on the stove. what's it gonna be? fill my plate with veggies. summer squash from the CSA farm, greenbeans from the porch. parsley and rosemary (sage and thyme, too, if you want to be corny). corn! corn and greenbeans, that would be a nice treat. and don't forget the beer.

my brain is frazzled because my stomach is empty. my brain says what can I eat? give me something quick! don't make me wait! but it'll be worth the wait. cabbage chopped and soaked in seasalt then mixed up with pepper and oil and a little yogurt, lemonjuice, fresh squeezed lemons.

lemon meringue pie! that would take some time.

June 4: wings (15 minutes)

Knock on my door, soft rattle at the door, a flutter against the paint, a coo.
Wings falling from the clouds.
I open up, look up, cry out.
The sky is blue but the sky is wrong.
Today is over, it should be night!
That's why I have come, to tell you of this unforeseen event, this unknowable present.
Wrap yourself in a piece of blanket, share with everyone you know, everyone in your household, run!
Take flight!
Get away.
What's going on?
I shake my head, my eyeballs feel loose, I cry uncontrollably.
Bugs, everywhere bugs.
Nibbling at the greenery, biting my arms and legs, nibbling at my clothes.
A lone preacher makes his way door to door, selling Jesus, telling us there's no other way.
Hurry, out the back children!
We run through the cornfields, stalks twice as high as we are.
The children disappear one at a time.
I'm all alone.
Forever lost, turning, searching, falling.
I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, my feet are sore.
I've just awakened into a pitch black room, my face is wet.
I've been crying.
I touch the bed behind me; it is soft.
You're not there.
You've run away.
You left me long ago and I can't reconcile the emptiness, still hear the sounds, still smell you.
You never existed.
I feel silly.
I've got nothing better to do with my time than sit around making up silly things.
Crazy notions.
I saw it take you over, saw you shrink back, fall down, waste away.
I saw you drinking, smoking, bleeding, dying.
Are you dead?
Can I see you?
There is a knock on the closet door, from the inside, a brushing sound, a wing scraping on the door, weak, a cry, a cooing, the door is slightly ajar.
It moves.
Lightning flashes, the cat jumps.
Run, children, run to the barn!
I can't make out where I've wound up.
I'll see you when I get there!
But you never arrived, you never got here.
I'm heartbroken.
I don't know whether to hate you or throw myself into the fire.
Hot heat, boiling the blood, flesh peels away, muscles cook, meat smell, hunger.
Sorrow on the couch.
A painting with a smudge.
A beautiful landscape but for a smudged tree.
A thumb print.
You ran with it before the oil had time to dry.
Who was coming after you?
And where did you end up?
Where have I ended up?
I'm on a stage, a bedroom scene.
Applause, the curtain rises.
Silence.
I am all alone.
I look up and don't know what to say.
The footlights blind me.
I lift a hand sideways and block the light, stop the glare.
I don't know what I'm looking for, but I see you.
You are getting up from your seat, moving across the row.
Expectancy.
Everyone sits waiting.
You are the only sound I hear.
A knock on the door.
An odd brushing sound.
Wings.
Wings flapping against the door.
Run, children, run!

June 3: migraine (26 minutes)

Marta's collapsed on the divan in the front room where the children generally are not allowed, a washcloth soaked in vinegar across her forehead, over her eyes, too weak to make the trip to the medicine cabinet for aspirins. They wouldn't make any difference anyway.

She feels shameful, trembling, a pain in her lower abdomen turning her disgust around and around, barely 9:30 in the morning and she's already lying down. That's what her husband would say, half joking but completely oblivious, chalking it up to yet another "woman thing," about which he has no understanding and doesn't even try to understand because it is simply beyond his ability.

Marta manages to pull the cloth off of her head, with great effort lifts her left arm up from the side of the divan -- her hand lightly resting on the floor on its knuckles -- and swipes the moist cloth downward like she's cleaning a counter or a small electric appliance. She had convinced herself that the migraine was subsiding, that the heavy metallic pain behind her left eye and creeping in an arch across the left side of her skull was gone, that the left and right sides were the same again, that she could pull her hair back again, pin it back, look normal, get back to the day.

But she was wrong. A sudden move, no matter how slight, brings it all back again, a paper cut, a smashed finger in a car door, a bruised knee from a fall on the steps, a too-tight girdle pinching at her waist, all these things could pull her apart, expose her gristle, lay her bare, wasted and useless, but none more so than a headache.

The room is lit with green-gray light seeping lazily through the drapes. A storm is coming, the pressure was what had likely caused the headache. It happens more and more lately. If she could get the cloth back to her head she would feel better. Her hand trembles and her head strains, as if all the muscles in her body were attached to that point in the left side of her head, tightly wound, pinched nerves, pinched muscles, pinched flesh, bones pulled tight against one another; "tightly wound," that's what she is, that's what her husband had called her and the image comes to her clearly all of a sudden in this moment.

The gleeful children outside run past the window, hers and some others. A jet airplane flies through her, cuts open her flesh and muscles, burns through her and for a split second she hates her children, hates her husband, hates herself. A self-pitying tear pools up at the corner of her eye, halted by the bridge of her nose until it is big enough, heavy enough to spill out, run down the side of her nose, across her cheek, into her ear. It is hot.

There is only the one tear. She isn't often in the habit of feeling sorry for herself. Who has the time?!

Marta notices something under the coffee table, next to one of its legs. A dark glob-- a tarantula spider readying to jump her dangling hand! She forgets herself for a moment, leans with the throbbing, closer until the shadows move enough to reveal it to be a dried up flower, just the head, its petals crippled and crinkled like dirty lace around a bobbin. A flower from the last arrangement given to her by her husband, months ago on her birthday. Quite a surprise. She didn't expect anything of the sort from him. Her love for him deepened and solidified by that simple gesture.

She rallies herself to move further, reaches out and catches the dead flower head between two fingertips, awkwardly carries it back, shaking, perspiring, to her right hand resting on her chest. She hands it over then lets her left hand fall back hard on its knuckles against the brightly polished wooden floor. The flower crackles in her hand, against her breast. She falls asleep and dreams of her husband as a boy, before she knew him, before the headaches started their regular visits.

June 2: on a roll (15 minutes)

roll,
rolling,
coal,
coiling,
everybody soiling,
side by side.

fix,
fixing,
sick and twisted,
blistered,
blustery,
kilt and sold.

sing-song,
rhythmic chants,
tip-top of the periwinkle pants.

laughs and laughter,
before and after,
sorry sod who sulks and moans.

signature on the furniture will make the value rise,
rise,
rise.

held up,
swelled up,
got another tea cup,
pick pocket,
mother fucker,
sin city sausalito.

figure out what is clout,
stinker stout for a swollen snout.

piggly-wiggly,
faggoty,
fey,
horses eat grass and horses eat hay.

spelling bee with acrimoniosity,
children singing in harmony.

fight or flight,
delight just might send it up,
put it up,
shut up,
spill the cup with the meal ticket not a hip hopscotch dancer on the sidewalk.

go to the head of the class she said,
kiss ass,
give head,
my friend is dead.

chill out,
take a pill,
break the seal,
sealed over with wax and rubber,
slobber-dobber is a robber not a gangster,
just a painster in the ass,
sir.

high on a horse got your source worked out.

I'm seeing six figures and they all drink jiggers of rum and coke,
does anybody have a smoke?

I'm on a roll,
got no soul,
kick a hole in the joe,
cup of coffee,
tell her off,
he isn't gonna put up with that.

tit for tat is the way if you got nothing better to say but I say what I want to and I say what's on my mind and I leave courteous behind.

stand in line,
wait your time,
got a rhyme?

that's fine.

help out,
help me,
go south,
go see.

I'm waiting on the train in the car with a sari and a woman inside with a dot on her head where her third eye goes,
she knows everything,
sees the world through her heart,
that's a good place to start if you ask someone like me and I'm the only one I see in the room right now.

mellow like a mellow cow,
mellow fellow drinking yellow on my pillow with the willow whispering in my ear,
shed not a tear,
your time will come you'll stick your tongue out at the demons and the rest will understand,
take a stand,
lend a hand,
compassionate can not wait,
have a date and make it great.

do your part,
go on and start,
open up your broken heart and let the pain flow out and saturate your dinner plate and overflow and make a show of what you got,
if cool or hot,
it matters not,
just show up and grow up and tell the world just what you know,
speak from deep within your soul and see the smiles that you can win in the 99-cent bin.

have a second for a friend.

give yourself and ever lend your weakest part,
do not hold on,
give it away and it will return to you some day and if it doesn't,
if it's gone and never makes its way back home,
then you can know it wasn't yours to have at all,
don't have such gall,
just swallow hard and let it go,
goodbye my piece of withered soul.
go do some good in the bigger world.

take what you can to make it swell,
and open up a deep,
deep well,
and watch the water gush up high and hear the peoples' relieving sigh as pain and sorrow wash away into the drain never to be seen again,
instead to help another being who is fleeing from the very thing you cling to,
let it go and do some good.

don't say you do it because you should,
just do it and do not think why or when or which or even how,
just see it go and wish it well,
there's other hearts to tell about this greatest mystery what we don't know and cannot see but which lives in each one of us,
the healing power and the trust that is what we need to rule the world.

but rule the with an open palm not an iron fist held tight like sand.

that will not do, it will not last, you'll open up and all will be past.

be open now!

don't wait till later,
there is nothing that could be greater.

June 1, part two: 11:54 (22 minutes)

I decided to give up on love. That word is so self-important. I have a friend who said he decided to give up on sex just about the same time I said it, but I didn't say sex and it wasn't for the same reason. It seemed like every time he got close to another person, like that, he would catch something. Nothing serious, just an annoying disease which requires antibiotics or, worse yet, crabs, which require all kinds of horrors. Half a dozen times in as many months. He said, "We can be celibate together." Initially, that sounded right, sounded like the right statement, but later I had my doubts, even though I said, "Okay." Or did I even say okay? Maybe I just thought it. That was my intention anyway.

My decision came from the realization that everybody I'm attracted to isn't attracted to me and everybody who is attracted to me I don't feel all that attracted to. Everybody. Or so it seems. It's frustrating; some of the people who are attracted to me are quite fine in their own way. Mostly these are women. And while I find them attractive, and am even perhaps attracted to them, there is no kind of physical chemical attraction when I am near them. That doesn't bode well for a relationship.

And really that's what I'm talking about, relationships. I have a friend who says there's all kinds of relationships, who refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific kind of relationship. But he has specific interests in terms of relationships, and those have mostly if not exclusively to do with sex. But he has decided to give that up, or so he has said, after his last visit to the STD clinic.

I find it a little disheartening, these matters of the heart, in my case. Maybe I could have a relationship with a woman (or any other person) which wasn't based on sex, and it's even possible that the physical side would flare up, so to speak, on occasion. And once a woman got a taste of my prowess (when I am on, I am really on!), har-har, then she would want more, more of what I wouldn't always be willing or able to provide, and that would be that. Sooner or later.

The reason this subject came to my mind this morning was because a man at the reception desk said something to me, something kind, nothing forward, just general, and it took all of my will power not to spend the rest of the afternoon going back downstairs in hopes of him noticing me again, saying something kind again, perhaps asking me if I would like to have a relationship with him. It's not so easy to let go of just because I have decided it's the best thing -- or at the very least that it's what I want.

I think my head wants one thing and my heart wants something altogether different. Or perhaps it's not that altogether different when you get right down to it.

12:16

June 1, part one: walk (3 & 4 minutes)

walk #1
How long does it take to walk around the pod? Support hose up above the knees, smiling faces as they pass, all kinds of hope and tragedy wrapped up in hospital clothes or pajamas from home, messed up hair, if there's any hair at all. Some of the nurses and other technicians just ignore you. It takes three minutes.

walk #2

It's 10:26. John and Artur, John's Filipino PT, are heading out for trip #3. I watch them disappear and see -- can't help but see -- a nurse in her tropical yellow-and-orange scrubs passing by, reflected in the linoleum. A young man walking with his dad -- the young man the patient, mask and support hose on -- looks into the room curiously as he passes. I smile as big as I always try to do, though it feels hopeful as much as it feels compassionate. Maybe even more so. Then I realize he's probably curious more about Dillon than me. Now it's 10:30.