I like to think I’m funny.

But maybe I’m not. Maybe I am just loud, and swear, and people only laugh at me because they are so uncomfortable, and are afraid if they don’t laugh, I’ll beat them. Which is very likely true. Nevertheless, at one point I had this misguided idea that I could be a comedian [or comedienne, whatever], so I wrote some jokes a few years back. I stumbled across them tonight. They are worth posting for the sheer awfulness of them.

Although those of you who know me could probably see me saying these and seriously believing that I am, in fact, kind of hilarious…

Well, you be the judge.

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Crappy Jokes About “Things I Never Understood”:

I never understood those people who feel the need to remind you of everything, even obvious shit. I was going out west last year and EVERYONE I told said, “Ooh, don’t forget to take pictures!” I thought, “Oh wow! What a great idea! I never even thought of that. I was planning on bringing my easel and painting a watercolor landscape of the Grand Canyon while I was there, but photographs! That makes more sense. More portable. Thanks for the tip.”

I never understood those people who think everything is a competition. “My birthday is March 31st.” “Oh yeah? My half-sister’s neighbor’s best friend is a doctor and HIS is the 29th.” What, so is he better because he’s a doctor or because he beat me coming out of his mom’s vagina? Or sometimes you talk to someone and you might mention how you were sick, and they just HAVE to one-up you. “Oh man, I was so sick yesterday.” “Oh yeah? I was throwing up while simultaneously having explosive diarrhea and THEN my plant died.” What can you say to top that? Nothing beats bodily fluids coming out of two orifices at the same time.

I never understood the saying, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” Well, you can’t eat cake if you don’t have it, but if you have it but don’t eat it, what’s the point? It’s just gonna sit there and mold. The shelf life of cake isn’t that long. Why is being an adult so HARD?!

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Sorry for that. I hope you realize you’ll never get back that five minutes of life you just wasted reading those.

Mental Detour.

Wow…I was just rereading that last post from December…I am one depressing fucker!!

OK, hiatus OVER! Here’s some new shit. For the 4 of you who keep up with this site, this is an example of a typical hour inside my brain:

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I have a lot to say. So perhaps a list will be the most effective means to conveying all this pent-up emotional information:

1) I’m warm – too warm – and would like to take my fleece off. However, I am still wearing my neon green work shirt and am unsure how I feel about rocking that outside of the Garden. [pause] I can’t take it – the fleece must be removed.

1a) Much better.

2) This caramel coffee latte is fantastic and just what I wanted.

However, this thought is a diversion from what I intended to be #2 on my list.

3) Walking down Congress Street, words started swirling in my head – letters, sounds, forming themselves into spontaneous thoughts, describing sensations, feelings, my view on the world.

4) These words overpowered me, clogged my mental processes like cholesterol in an artery. So much so, that the only thing I could do is rid my brain of these thoughts – via a pen in my hand.

5) Having no paper (or scrap of anything, save a receipt, which I knew would not be big enough to accommodate the amount of words swirling in my ead), I decided to buy a new journal. I saw a bookstore. Jackpot.

6) There were many options – spiral-bound, colorful ones with designs, big ones, small ones, leather ones. At three dollars, I picked the cheapest one. Pliable brown leather – pleather?

7) The one I wanted was hot pink and only six dollars, which I thought was very reasonable. It, too, had a soft, pliable pleather cover. But it also had the word “LOVE” embossed in silver on the front. I picked it up, and immediately set it back down. Instead of being a word of hope, I knew it would only (and consistently) remind me of what my life was lacking. No dice.

8) Why is it that, out of all the wonderful things about my life, I constantly focus on the one thing that is “missing”?

8a) “Missing” is in quotes. It does exist – love, that is – for me, in my life. It just takes a different shape than what I expect. Different form than I am used to.

8b) I must remind myself of this.

9) Why do I feel that the fact that I was wearing a fleece and wanted to take it off is worth writing about?

10) I think I have sufficiently set the scene and waded through the current state of affairs (coffee; location – bookstore; purpose – new journal; activity – writing, thinking) to get to those pesky little words that originally brought me here…emotionally and physically.

10a) Wow, what a detour.

10b) Hmm….now I am concerned that the next thought will not be worth all these mental detours…

10c) Another distraction: phone. Texts. I turned the volume off – no vibrate – and set it face down on the table.

10d) Better yet…

10e) …it’s back in my bag.

11) Original thought [FINALLY!]:

(Error Message: Reconstruction of though failed. Need hard drive reboot.)

[pause]

Twenty-eight degrees and snowing doesn’t bother me any more. A light breeze doesn’t, either. Strong gusts of freezing cold wind that cuts through gloves and stings the delicate skin underneath pants – you never get used to that. But a little light, flaky snow and sub-freezing temperatures – well, I’m used to it now. Each person is different. Sure, it would be nice to wear flip-flops and skirts, but that time will come. Soon enough. It’s worth waiting for. And on those days of heat waves in July, the people of Boston will complain, and be irritated, and wish for snow. And standing thigh-deep in the snow in February, the people of Boston wish for a heat wave.

We should just be happy with today.

And I was. Walking around Faneuil Hall, a light dusting of powdery precipitation on the sidewalks, the sky a steel grey, casting a dimness on the world, I was actually…enjoying it. It was quiet. Quieter than my own mind has been in recent weeks. It’s Sunday afternoon. The streets are not crowded with cars or pedestrians.

I’m deep in my own head now. I picture it like a set of hands, poking and prodding the cerebral cortex – peeling it away to find the structures underneath – the thalamus, the amygdala, the cerebellum. Poking it. My hand twitches. Squeezing the amygdala. I become afraid. Flicking the hippocampus. I can’t remember my name.

When I’m in my head, no one else is allowed in. And I don’t want to talk to you. No offense – it’s just the way things are. The effect of the mood down swing. Later, when the pendulum brings me back up, I’ll look up and wonder where everyone went. They left while I was busy, distracted by my own grey matter.

Then it’s all gone, and I feel used up.

Kind of like I do right now.

Whatever neurons were firing, whatever synapses were in action…they’re quiet. Like it is outside. Finally.

It’s like exercising your body. It makes you stronger, better able to do physical tasks, in better shape, and it wears you out.

Sifting through this mental junk, it’s like mental exercise. It makes my mind stronger. It makes me better equipped to do mental tasks – like dealing with the fact that I am in this body and this mind all the time. And can’t get out.

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Mental Detour

Caught a glimpse of a woman who is exceedingly unfortunate-looking. And she is with a man – the ring on her hand makes me assume he is her husband. And she’s pregnant – again, assuming – though she could just be fat. Her companion is far more attractive. Makes me curious.

But also…it gives me a little hope. If she can land a man with that face…there is hope for me yet!

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Maybe I’m done now. Finally.

Maybe I can rest.

Maybe the words will cease forming and swirling…at least for a little while…

Maybe…

30 Lines (I Didn’t Write)

I can’t take this anymore.
It’s easier not to be wise.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I will never bother you.
Load up on guns, bring your friends.
Oh, please don’t go out on me.
Where I come from isn’t all that great.
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain.
Have you been to the carnival?
Just a small-town girl.
You’ve got your ball, you’ve got your chain,
I’ve used hammers made out of wood.
I used to be crustacean in an underwater nation.
You’ve got to trust your instincts.
He wakes up in the morning
Too alarming now to talk about.
Forward yesterday, makes me want to stay.
Remember Rio and get down.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.
Don’t feel like home, he’s a little out…
You say you wander your own land.
I’m ahead, I’m a man.
I woke the same as any other day.
I’m a one-way motorway.
I’ve got another confession to make.
Trying to hard to speak and fighting with my weak hand.
Can you see it’s full of lightning?
We’re like crystal, we break easy.
Free, free…set them free.
Monday, back from the dead.

*** Points if you can figure out what this is.

Poem #1

Yesterday I was thinking about how I acted when my ex and I broke up, and I got mad at myself for being so outwardly distraught. I thought, ‘I wish I could take back those things I said and did from that night.’ And then from that thought, a poem emerged. Here it is, in blank verse [15 unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter].

Untitled. 10-23-08

I wish I could take back behaviors from

that night when we broke up. While you, in bed,

just resting, sleeping, dreaming, I, in stealth,

was checking emails, conversations with

a certain girl you met the prior week.

I savored every morsel, all the talk,

the witty banters, questions of your self

and us and did you really love me? Then

my heart was beating, pounding, racing, so

I woke you, asked you, what the fuck is this?

You said, It’s over. No discussion could

undo this pain you caused, betrayal I felt.

The crying, screaming, sobbing, rolling on

the floor, so unattractive, pitiful.

I’d take it back, but now it’s just too late.

Brain Explosion, Part I

Since I got home from Philadelphia on June 14, I’ve been working incessantly. Much to my chagrin, actually — I love having massive amounts of free time to doodle, dream, drink and craft [not necessarily in that order]. Oh, and sleep. But the money is nice, and I actually really enjoy my job — I was at the NBA finals game 6, and got paid to be there. Yeah. Amazing. Go Celtics!

Through all this, though, I’ve managed to bring my little orange notebook with me most of the time, and have made a conscious effort to write — since “writing” should be the necessary gerund of a writer wanna-be.

That’s right. I used the word “gerund.”

Anyway, I thought maybe it was time to get some of those thoughts out of the little orange notebook and into the Interwebs. Here goes.

From 6.11.08 Brain Explosion, Part I

What if I just sit here and write and don’t stop writing? Maybe something amazing will surface. Maybe I don’t need a prompt, or an idea, or even a start point — maybe all I need to do is form words with little strokes of this ink pen, until I form some that are pretty and make me sit back with delight and say, “Hmm, yes. This pleases me.” I know there are magical words floating around in my head. I can see them. I can feel them. I can even hear them. I think that means I am a little bit crazy — but like I said earlier, “I went crazy to avoid going crazy.” Sometimes all you can do is cope — and sometimes all you can do to cope to abandon that life you had before, abandon all hope of that future you wanted and gambled everything for, and lost — and just go running and screaming and jump into the arms and embrace this newness, this change, your new life. New direction. And tell yourself it’s OK — no, no. It’s good. It’s better. It’s an improvement over that unhappiness and self-doubt and holy shit, how did you do that for so long, and why, why did you squash yourself — let alone his squashing — why did you try to commit personality suicide?? Don’t do that, ever again! No one is worth giving up your you-ness. Don’t give up you! Don’t give up on you, either. And now, being armed and ready, I’m fighting for me now. Just me. And it is so, so great. I’m refocused. I see myself differently now, and do not want to go back into that fire — that sweltering, burning place that almost destroyed me before. I will only go into the fire for my dreams — I’m making them happen, one step at a time. One step at a time. One tiny step at a time…

Writing. Thinking. Putting it down.

THIS IS STEP 1.

Two Christmases of Board Games

I opened up Cranium tonight

and inside were the relics of our past and

of last Christmas with your mom.

I found the sheets of paper

where you drew a very good truck –

I think the clue was “mudflaps” –

and the lists of words describing the Superbowl.

Just when I thought I had swept all the memories away

and collected the bits and pieces in the dustpan,

which I immediately disposed of

in the garbage,

here are a few crumbs left behind –

ruins, vestiges, some pathetic leftovers –

in a box of a game I apparently

haven’t played in half a year.

The first Christmas, she bought me the original Cranium.

I was in St. Thomas with my mom,

but upon my return, you presened me a wrapped box,

the weight told me it was what I hoped it was –

the board game I had asked for and was so happy to receive.

We played with Rich and Kristin,

and we won. Every time.

We were a good team back then.

Before you got so into yourself

and forgot about me. Or so it seemed.

The second Christmas, you bought me crystal earrings

and the new Cranium.

We played on Christmas Eve with your entire family.

The dog stepped on the box and tore the lid.

I was irritated. And I still am, a little bit,

even now, six months later.

Tonight I found those sheets of paper, those drawings –

those memories –

tucked in the box,

like a fossil record of family fun.

I was with new friends when I discovered them.

Emotionless, I said, “Oh, wow. These are from the last time I played.

My ex drew this,” gesturing to your very good truck.

Immediately, I gathered up all the remains of our board game past,

and decisively tore up the papers in one, two, three…four pieces.

Into the trash.

Now part of me wishes I kept them

to bring them home

to put with the cards and letters I wrote for you

that are in the scrapbook I was making for you

with all the love I had inside for you

that was poured out onto those pages for you

to burn them all.

Then at least while I was cleaning up the ashes –

because, unfortunately, I guess I still am –

I wouldn’t have to see the evidence.