the voices dying with a dying fall

Songs of the Hour: some Bjork business

Pretend for a moment that
you’re squeamish. Pretend that for the first couple decades of your
life you clung to Yoda’s philosophy of medicine– "luminous beings are
we". Pretend that when you were finally and irrevocable confronted with
the actual internal organs of a being, such as ferlinghetti marx your
personal pickled fetal pig, you fell into existential fits of
meaningless nihilism. Pretend that the surgery channel makes you faint.
Pretend, in essence, that you are me.

Then picture this: You’re
in a diner, and a nice man you kind of know but have mixed feeling
towards due to his unyielding conservative agenda and the 9 mm he keeps
on him at all times, picture this man calling you to his table to ask
you a favor. The favor is to escort his 16 year old daughter to the
bathroom, and help her switch out her 5 day old belly ring for another
one. You look at this belly ring, and see that the top part of the
piercing is red, slightly puffy and swollen. Picture the face of this
girl as desperate and scared. Of course you say you’ll help, being
certain to add that you have absolutely no idea what to do.  She says
you have to push one out with the other.

In the bathroom, she
tells you that the one in her belly is curved, and the one she’s
replacing it with  is straight. She’s concerned because the ball on the
one she’s wearing is small and sinking into the hole. Of course you’re
thinking "what she needs is some kind of washer to expand the surface
area of the pressure so as to keep it above her skin". Yet somehow,
this isn’t practical. Who ever heard of a washer for a belly button
ring? You start analyzing the physics of a straight rod following a
curved one without it deviating from the course. You get lost in
horribly vivid visuals of digging around in a subcutaneous layer with a
steel rod. You help her unscrew the ball off the one she’s wearing. You
can see the shiny inside of the piercing. You feel faint. You don’t
know what to do. You’re twice her age, and she’s looking to you for
guidance and courage.
You have a moment, where your life flashes
before your eyes, pausing at particularly special moments, every time
you’ve asked your self, "Why does this always happen to me?"  The list is long and defies your concepts of probability.

I have no answer. Do you have an answer?
To
make a long story short, I wrestled with unnecessarily grotesque
visuals of everything that could go wrong, always ending in Tarantino
amounts of bloodshed, until the waitress came in, looked, pulled it
out, put in the other one, washed her hands, and went back to work.
I am useless, and I acknowledge that. But why is it always me?

Anyway,
I’ve had a particularly monotonous week of school work, and then more
schoolwork, peppered with periods of freaking out over seemingly
impossible assignments. I got all my grades back, and  aced both my
English papers and both English midterms. I got an 80 on a lab report,
and I’m fairly certain I got a 60 on the one I turned in yesterday
(lateness didn’t help). But, well, what can I do.

Joss has
managed to stay out of trouble this week. We had a fun morning of lying
in bed watching Empire Strikes Back (he skipped church today) and we
spent at least 20 minutes comparing our ears because he thinks his are
bigger than mine. His ears, are indeed, bigger than mine, but just
barely. He says it’s because Brian pulls on them all the time. He may
be right.

The ear in question.

Spring Break.
It’s uncanny, really. Every
break I’ve had for the last two years– whether christian holiday, or a
seasonal break, by little angel has managed to get himself suspended.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was doing it on purpose. But he
doesn’t keep up with my schedule, so I doubt it’s premeditated. It is,
however, uncanny.

This latest deal is pretty sad. He was going
to the bathroom with all the other little boys, of course unsupervised
(what’s wrong with these people?) and a little boy blocked the door,
talking shit, and wouldn’t let Joss in. Joss argued for a minute and
then shoved him out of the way. Of course, a brawl broke out and they
were both suspended for 3 days.

I asked Joss why, (for the love of god, sweetheart, why why why)
didn’t he just go back to his classroom and grab his teacher and go
back? Well, first I asked him what he did  wrong, and what he should
have done instead. he answered correctly. I asked why he didn’t, and he
said sadly, "I really had to go." What are you gonna do, you know? He
goes back on Thursday.

My
father, gods bless him, was replacing a faucett and pipes for my 85
year old godparents. Laying on his back in the cabinets, his rib cage
was resting on a ledge 5 inches off the floor… of course he broke a
rib. Or maybe he cracked it, and it didn’t break until he sneezed
yesterday. Whatever the case, he fixed the sink on friday and I didn’t
get him to the hospital until yesterday. The man’s nuts. He couldn’t
get out of bed withoth groaning ( my dad is not a groaner) and it took
half an hour of him moving incredibly slow just to sit him up. Of
course when he got onto his feet, he said he was fine and didn’t need
to go anywhere. I dragged him anyway. It was kinda of funny, he told
all 3 nurses that interviewed him "something’s moving around in there–
I can feel it" and they all told him it was probably a torn muscle. He
nodded every time and gazed off into space. The doctor (I swear to god
a clone of chrissy kistler) came in some 4 hours later and he told her
the story again, and she look at it ribs and poked him a few times and
told him it was a torn muscle. My dad did the same nod and stare off
into space, quietly repeating there was something "moving around in
there". She went to check out the x-rays, and came back. She said it
was a clean break about 2 inches from the end, and there wasn’t much
they could do by give him some pain meds and something to help keep his
lungs open so he doesn’t get pnemonia. Of course he isn’t going to
worry about his lungs which makes me crazy and I’m probably be the
worst nag ever for the next 2 months or however long it takes to heal.
Pnemonia at his age isn’t cool.

(at the ER)
Anyway,
I dont’ have a lot of other news. I’ll be spending the rest of my break
reading irritating books (erasmus, the great gatsby, 16th century
essays) and doing another irritating lab report for psych.  I’ve grown
so impatient with school. Speaking of which, the going to the UNCvsDuke
game didn’t work out very well. I couldn’t get him in, ewven with the
borrowed student ID that looked a lot like him. Security wanted a
drivers license to match. So we went to a bar off Duke campus and
watched Duke get chewed up there instead of live in person. My brother,
being a die hard Duke fan, was incredibly disappointed and in a rather
bad mood; but he didn’t take it out on me, which was rather shocking.
He said he wanted to spend the day with me, and he did. I even got him
to put a tarheel tatoo on his face in an effort to get him into the
game. Game aside, it was a pretty good day.

(on Franklin st.)
Oh,
cuteness. Or maybe sadness. The other night I took Joss out to eat and
he wanted to swing by his old school, the one he went to last year, on
our way home. I did, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t wax nostalgic in a
way to put me to shame.

it
was dark, and he stared out the window with his cheek resting on the
glass, and said "I had a lot of good times there. A lot of memroies. I
miss it… I wonder if they remember me…" My little mind was blown.
So melancholy, you know? He pointed at the feild and the bus circle,
telling me he played there, or waiter over there for the bus, like it
was 20 years ago or something. It’s been a year and a half. To chear
him up I drove on all the sidewalks and stopped about 5 feet from the
front door, praying to chance no cops drove by. He laughed, appalled
and made me get back on the road.  I’m suppose to stay between the
lines, you know.

He turns 10 in only 4 months. 10. can you believe it? it’s a good age, minus the stubborness… or maybe that’s just him.
In an effort to make this post even longer, I’m sharing the Billy Collins poem that seriously reminds me of my kid…

On Turning Ten                  
                  
                  
The whole idea of it makes me feel                  
like I’m coming down with something,                  
something worse than any stomach ache                  
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–                  
a kind of measles of the spirit,                  
a mumps of the psyche,                  
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.                  
                  
You tell me it is too early to be looking back,                  
but that is because you have forgotten                  
the perfect simplicity of being one                  
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.                  
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.                  
At four I was an Arabian wizard.                  
I could make myself invisible                  
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.                  
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.                  
                  
But now I am mostly at the window                  
watching the late afternoon light.                  
Back then it never fell so solemnly                  
against the side of my tree house,                  
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage                  
as it does today,                  
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.                  
                  
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,                  
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.                  
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,                  
time to turn the first big number.                  
                  
It seems only yesterday I used to believe                  
there was nothing under my skin but light.                  
If you cut me I could shine.                  
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,                  
I skin my knees. I bleed.        

I feel like a turtle.
All day, stumbling around shell-shocked with a shell-shaped book bag,
stuffed with unfinished books and less finished papers, maneuvering
sideways and stealthing backwards to keep from knocking things over
with the mountain on my back. I’m always off-center, off-balance, often
off-my-path. It’s with me everywhere I go.
Then later, exhausted, holding still, I don’t go home; I just crawl
into my backpackback and rifle around and hide… perhaps
accomplishing, perhaps not. This is all I do. Inch slowly forward under
the weight of books until exhausted I fall flat and curl up inside in a
corner.
I feel like a turtle.
Also, I am very green and somewhat salty.

I think I’m having a nervous breakdown. I was certain this morning, but
with my 17th century Lit midterm behind me now, perhaps I may pull
through. I can’t be certain– the line between whelmed and overwhelmed
is a little fuzzy. I am, however, breaking out like a traumatized 15
year old. I’m 30– doesn’t that go away? I mean the breakouts, not the
thirty. The thirty signed a ten year contract.
Perhaps indeed it is stress related. I am even more behind than usual
in school-related reading; I have papers and midterms the next 2 weeks;
2 oral reports coming up for my psych final project; Joss’ and/or his
teacher has called me every day this week complaining about something
or other; I’ve gotten two traffic tickets; and to top it off I’m going
to the UNC vs Duke game with my brother Sunday… if I can sneak him in
of course which involves borrowing a student ID from someone who looks
remotely like my brother… and I don’t know anyone who fits that
description and I think if this falls through he’ll cry. I can’t bare
the thought of disappointing him so much…

(meanwhile, as she writes, some 21 year old American who couldn’t turn
down the army’s offer to renew his contract is lying in the back of a
truck staring at the space where his leg use to be; and in MIsrael
another bus just blew up…)

Shut up floating head narrator, I have anxiety issues enough.

I have an exciting paper due tomorrow on the warp and woof of Moby Dick. I’ll quit my bitching now.
Just wanted to share that single interesting phenomenon that I do indeed,
feel like a turtle.

love.