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I've secretly been enjoying Ingrid Michaelson, for the last nine months or so. She's on the NPR music page, right now. Today. And today has been a wonderful day so far. I've been listening to NPR all morning, drinking coffee and looking at the bountiful books of next semester. Contemplating reading Are You There God? It's me, Margaret early, just for the sake of it. The J said that she read it growing up and for some reason, and why I can't figure out, I envy her for that. The first thing ever that I envy her of and it sort of fits this coming-of-age-twelve-year-old-girl frame of thought I've had going on. Now, I could blame the playlist I've set up, but I'm sure it'll all pass in about twenty minutes when IM's set is up.
For now, my teeth are unbrushed and brazed with yesterday and I'll now post the list of books I've purchased for next semester and paid a mere $75 to get all of them. They're not all here yet, but that's all I paid. Later on after work, I plan on doing some poeting in a poem-off Boots challenged me to. We've agreed on the first line reading Tommy was the shit in High School. Probably in a nice font. Iambic Pentameter. We've also agreed that we're both writing two songs before the end of January to have a song-off. Anyway, it reads:
*Are You There God? It's me, Margaret.
*The Bluest Eye
*Handmaid's Tale
*Vision Quest
*Slaughterhouse-Five (had it.)
*Harry Potter (this one I'm more confused about than anything. Damn you, Gwen Griffin, there better be good reasoning behind this, or I'll have the Native Americans curse you. They really don't like you. And yes, as long as we're reading High School books, I'll adopt a High School mentality though I'm sure I never had one. The only reason I'd ever read a story about wizards and closets would be because it were mildly sexual, but this one isn't, so I'm probably going to have a difficult time.)
*And Tango Makes Three
*The Things They Carried
*The Triggering Town
*At The Drive-in Volcano (And I am Jazzed.)
*Pax Atomica
*Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
*Mystery+Manners
*Two or Three Things I Know For Sure
*Wise Blood
*Bastard Out of Carolina
*The Color Purple
*In Love+Trouble
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
Damnit, I have to shower now.
Construction workers have been adding on to the Trafton building since Bean and I were on Spring Break last March, and I don't think any of their work will ever be conclusive. Olsen and I were walking out in 20 degrees of freezing rain and snow, from the cheapest parking lot on campus this morning, and while we were walking, we found ourselves making observatory statements. Well, at least he was, while I was making masturbatory statements.
See, he thinks that the workers are merely ordering supplies to fit their desires instead of adhering to the blueprints. I don't think they have any blueprints anymore. I think they lost the building plans and the structural layouts; I think they're sucking money out of week-to-week paychecks and adding on to the building until President Davenport decides that he likes what they've done, or until they decide they're done.
This kind of hypothesis could be proven correct and accepted by the community of MSU students if Trafton weren't a science building, but, instead a Liberal Arts building. However, when looking at the building's exterior, they progressively lay out the walls so that they look complete and then add further out. The whole mess seems to puzzle me, because at one point in the fall I looked at the of the building and noticed they had attached what looks like the steam pipes from a large ship one of the workers found in the Pacific ocean, ported and polished them, and conned the foreman into utilizing them. If there is a foreman. I realize what I'm saying sounds stupid, but it looks even worse.
Oh, the buildings on campus I've never been in and likely won't ever have to.
*
On a much smaller scale subject, I have exactly two shifts left at the Pizza place, as a manager, then my step-down is official. However, the only reason I'm staying on the payroll is to reap the benefit of 50% off any time I want a greasy, flavorless pizza or any other menu item (wings excluded), and back to the hustle of a dull restaurant. It's not that I need the money, but that the coffee's free and it's something better to do on a Sunday morning than lay in bed mildly hungover watching reruns of Barefoot Contessa because I can't find the remote.
All it really ever takes is an old/bad Alan Parsons twelve-inch record (or a seven-inch), preferably I Am Robot. A cookie sheet and a cereal bowl. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees, but depending on how your week's going it might be 200 degrees already. Center the vinyl on top of the bowl tipped over on the cookie sheet for five minutes. It seems to suffice. And, Behold, an ashtray made of vinyl. It's a way to separate old tastes from those anew when the first snow comes crashing down. While it's warm for five seconds and droopy, bend it with the cups of your hands. Epoxy the bottom hole in it, so everything stays in. Or, any variation of stiff glue. Have at it.
By Their Works -- Bob Hicok
Who cleaned up the Last Supper?
These would be my people.
Maybe hung over, wanting
desperately a better job,
standing with rags
in hand as the window
beckons with hills
of yellow grass. In Da Vinci,
the blue robed apostle
gesturing at Christ
is saying, give Him the check.
What a mess they've made
of their faith. My God
would put a busboy
on earth to roam
among the waiters
and remind them to share
their tips. The woman
who finished one
half eaten olive
and scooped the rest
into her pockets,
walked her tiny pride home
to children who looked
at her smile and saw
the salvation of a meal.
All that week
at work she ignored
customers who talked
of Rome and silk
and crucifixions,
though she couldn't stop
thinking of this man
who said thank you
each time she filled
His glass.
It came on Monday, after I'd ordered it Thursday over a sixer of Snow Storm. The chalk board in the photo hangs next to my bed at about 3'x5' for a measly three bucks. I've been satisfied with it. Shit, above all things, it's practical. How else am I able to explain the entire Iliad to someone who's never read it.
Some days I draw pictures of Ray Charles doing Heroin; if Ray Charles would've asked myself and Olsen to do some with him, I'm fairly sure our answer would be yes. Though, we'd be those awkward first-timers all caught up in a sing song. Other days, I draw pictures of the Wu-Tang Clan and render myself into the equation, all scarfed and un-Carharted and, un-black.
Otherwise, the week's been reciprocating for the first time this semester. I hand in research papers, and my palette is empty for the rest of the week.
glancing out over the roof down to the street from my desk, and there's a car that's been trying to park for the last fifteen minutes. Backing in and pulling out and backing in again. There's a man in the car wearing light blue flannel and I imagine the look on his face is like looking at a deer in headlights. This fucker doesn't know what he's doing and it's a perfect example of a Mankato neighborhood.
Fruit of a Loom
--
Walking behind some pitiful son courting his father speaking on the losses
and the winnings of his basketball team, I grasp the emptiness
in their combination. And this one time we played there
and won against the second string. He speaks arms cocked
ready to fire out the next cartridge, but the barrel’s holed and crooked,
his fingers lacking calluses, trigger cradled at the bend.
About to go off with a pound of propelled lead shrapnel into his forearm.
A sulfuric blast to handle, We won our first game in two weeks last night.
The breath of the congratulatory father sinks back into a lung—or both.
I don’t know. I grow tired of hearing the blasts come from Highland
living rooms on Sundays when athletes return to campus,
fearing the signature groan over the telephone receiver. Dad, we lost it.
And then the pomp on the trampled carpet alerts the clueless duplex
entertainers. Blame the color of the walls and assume the sand-tone should’ve been
a brighter shade. The restructuring ensues. Another wraps a cotton scarf
middle around his neck, tied tight to the shower curtain bar. Fruit of a Loom.
They’ll install something else, an apartment’s worth of faulty hooks
that, when pressured, break. Snap off, thud. Why compete when
the exit door is a bulletproofed one way mirror? The soulless
at the opposing side pointing their glowing cigarettes in assumption.
I wait tables and dish out shortcomings ill-fit for customers
and have concluded that the extremity in competition is enough to cut
off both arms in failure, Paraplegic. No one has to play then, and at least
there’s an attainable success there, in the art of loss.
*
The text here is apologetic. Sorry folks. I had to accommodate for the line breaks.
