A change in the routine swing of things

Listen folks,

For the next while, I'm going to devote my time to getting back into the way life was intended to be. This transitory period will be your closest friend, if you're in my position, and have had to kick television. I'll discuss the pains of a world without normal broadcasts of public television. Maybe you're out there reading this, thinking to yourself, I didn't take the time to apply for coupons to purchase a DTV converter box. Then again, maybe you're somebody who hasn't turned on their television in months. Someone who has had it unplugged for months with photographs of dead presidents with bullets in their foreheads taped to the screen. Someone who decided to thoroughly kick television. Someone with anarchistic traits and a crappy haircut.

I've lived in a world with television my entire life. Most of what I know is based upon the fact that I grew up in front of a television; that a television taught me more about myself than anything parental guidance might have. I never thought I'd have this much in common with all of the amish/mormon/jehovah witness population, but alas, we have a common thread. I'm going to ride it out. I would like to encourage all of you readers out there to follow along through the upcoming days--weeks--however long it takes. Maybe find an old hunting knife and start to widdle a piece of wood into a chair that you can give to your father for father's day. I've never been happier. Like wild animals housed in cages, we're finally set free. 

Inspection Day

About a month ago, I posted messages to everyone I knew regarding the City of Mankato doing an inspection of my house. This is to make sure everything's up to code. As soon as they came over this morning, I ducked out of the house, past both the landlord and the inspector, so as to avoid any questions as to why the window on the staircase is broken, and has been, and finally covered up with a plastic sheet of insulation; or to ask why the banister at the bottom of the staircase is completely missing; or why the front door has a broken frame.

I am hoping that today goes well.

Recap. Monday.

I would consider this moment at 11:50pm on Monday just as good of an opportunity as any to recap.

Ten and a half hours earlier, you grappled with your mother over the telephone and inevitably made her cry. This was the first time in your life that you ever stood up to her and didn't allow her to walk all over you. Don't try and lie to anyone who might be listening or reading, because you cried too. But you asked her every question that you'd been internalizing, as Midwesterners do, over the course of the last three years you've been in College. You asked her if she resented you for never majoring in something where you might make her money. You asked her if she was mad that you moved out of her house when, her other children stayed home, and never thought twice about it. It was at this point which, you put on your copy of Springsteen's "Nebraska" and sang songs about dying and knew that someday you would too. You never liked Springsteen until the day before when you got yourself a record of his that wasn't "Born to Run," but rather, the Springsteen that nobody ever cared for. You moved on, from the questions and comments about your lack of self-esteem or the emptiness of your self-gratification and what's really wrong. You told her you needed to move out of town. That you didn't want to die in the Midwest, but knew you needed to move in with your girlfriend, work for a little while, and inevitably take off to somewhere unfamiliar with her. No one will be surprised, and that's gratification in itself. It's fine to not have a cut-out plan. It's fine to carry a map around with you, even if you fold it the wrong way. As long as the roads and interstates line up. As long as there's a song playing that you don't know every word to, but would like to.

Then, four hours later, you went for a long run. A vicious run. A youthful run. A chase. You showered and shaved your face. You made spaghetti--enough for five people--but just for you. Chased it with two cups of coffee, and then decided that the coffee was goddamned, because it made your legs shake again. Switched to Rolling Rock.

"I'm working on drawing a straight line / and I'll draw until I get one right" - Frightened Rabbit

The wind's coming in from the southeast today, which is unusual if you know anything about this town. It's a swift wind. The kind that puts things that aren't strong enough to hold up with the wind's presence on the ground, and keeps the things strong enough to hold up, up. I've learned that it's simply a windy city, generally speaking, and in the last three years (or nine semesters) I haven't noticed this until now.

*

As it turns out, I might be an alright writer after all. I've never been one to give myself a whole lot of credit, and it's not as an esteem issue, but rather a matter that I prefer not to. Last night saw me at a workshop for screenwriting, workshopping a series of events and conflicts I had put together. Around ten pages of material. And it went over pretty well. Writing it, I had kept in my mind that I wasn't going to try to make anything special of it. At this point in my undergrad status, I'm just trying to make it out. But, the screenplay I've been working on, people are saying, is promising. "Like a Wes Anderson with even darker humor." "Everyone around the main character thinks he's a real piece of shit. A real likeable guy, to the eyes."

*

Class was cancelled this morning and it's been delightful. I fed myself breakfast and moved on to sip coffee, smoke a cigarette, and watch the film adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. I wasn't happy about it or sad about it--the movie that is. It was just okay. I was happy either way, as I haven't had class cancelled on me in quite some time. And even though I have a million things I ought to be doing today, I think I can justify that everything will be fine for a day without me. It has been a nice morning. An indulgent morning.

*

The landlord called to reveal to me that one of Mankato's Official House Inspectors would be by to make sure, in an event that apparently happens every three years, that our house is up to code. I have significant doubt that the house is. He seems to think we'll be fine. Either way, a scenery change couldn't hurt, if it comes to that. One more blow before the bomb explodes for good.

12/26. 1 AM.

Believe it or not, that poem in the previous posting has been quite the comfort to me in the passing days. I finished pressing ten copies of my chapbook tonight and am overcome with a sense of accomplishment. And, I suppose that means that I've officially been able to abandon the poems I've written to move on to the next poems I'm about to write. Something about this is gratifying, but in that gratification that seldom allows you to share it with anyone else. I have come to understand that the only successful time to be an artist is when you are comfortable with the loneliness it brings.

*

I have been locked in my office space for about five or six hours right now, and have lost track of time completely.

*

Craig and Carolyn are coming to my reading on Wednesday night, and I have this overwhelming feeling that something I will say during the reading will be too self-deprecating for my mother's sake, but too revealing for my father's sake. I am incredibly frightened by their ability to crush me into a pile of crackers without really knowing it. I look down the barrel of this week, and hope that I manage to get myself through it. Once I get over the wall, after Wednesday night, I'll be home-free. Another application to Graduate School needs to be sent out this week, too.

Since the semester began, I have yet to have a real couple of days off. As soon as I finish class for the week, it's off to work. Then, after the weekend of work is done, the exact time where I tell myself "You deserve a drink," I am shoved back into the pile of paperwork and syllabi assignments. I am complaining, I know. A real bag-full of complaints, I am.

At some point this week, I look forward to a nice happy hour at a bar five blocks from this soon-to-be-vacant bedroom with Jake, where I am allowed to comment with absurdity and say nothing intelligent. Sometimes, that kind of lack thereof is gratifying in itself. Thursday will see the Drevlow in his purest form, and the drinks will more than likely be paid for by the department. I will be pleased to welcome a dear friend home, and to liquor him up. That will be infinite.

Jim Wright

James Wright
"Saint Judas"


When I went out to kill myself, I caught
a pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
my name, my number, how my day began,
how soldiers milled around the garden stone
and sang amusing songs; how all that day
their javelins measured crows; how I alone
bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.

Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
the kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.

What you ought to be doing, but, aren't (Sunday Night)

1. Making fliers for the presentation of your poetry reading.

2. Reading Into the Wild, Monk, and Love's Labours Lost.

3. Writing a poem on the circumstance of winds, east.

4. Telling "the Man" that having a job is getting in the way of your priorities of existence.

5. Listening to "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" by Tom Waits, as an occasion of the season passing.

6. Getting your glasses fixed, so as to have a proper set of lenses to observe the world through.

7. Writing about resignation, in general.

8. Inscribing, somewhere on a part of one of the walls in your bedroom, nonchalantly, a letter written to the next resident to occupy the space.

9. Telling them you're ready for anything else, and not apologizing for it.

10. Finishing poem addressed to Man started on your chalkboard which reads:

"On the absurdity
of masculinity,
I have yet to
figure out who
I am, so I'll
sing my sad
songs loud
enough for us
to drown out
the noise of
one another."