Straight No Chaser

Lana

if you're interested:

"Arrival" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Blackbeard" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Change of Clothes" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Denouement" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Embryo" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Fetus" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Genius" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"How to Write a Compelling Story" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Inside" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Jeans, Sandblasted" 
"Invalid Entry" 
"Keiki" 
"Invalid Entry" 


thanks for reading.

do i remember how to do this?

i do.

lana is smiling cutely at me from her throne of empty cd cases, still wearing the red ribbon marcus tied around her neck for christmas, and the blue-and-yellow chevron bracelet i made her on the plane ride home for spring break. she is so goddamned beautiful, might cry.

i will, in fact.

starting...now.

i am lonely and in (physical) pain. i just emailed marcus, telling him as such. being sick, i said, puts me back in touch with myself as a physical being. i spend a lot of my unsick time covered up, hoodies and jeans and whatnot, but then on friday i got my blood pressure taken, and my heart listened to, and i saw, for the first time, skin that i normally only see in the shower, and it was weird.

also, i'm remembering, having had my first opportunity to break out my tims today (fresh fresh white trim, sullied by the rain), that tight jeans and tims make my butt look perfect. touchable, even. a man, a stranger, touched me today. i'm too chicken to cry sexual molestation. but i did stare at it in the mirror, for a while afterward; one of the first times in ages i've checked myself out like that. i don't understand, and i do. i don't because, what nerve, and then i do, because, see above; tight jeans and tims.

i might get a 4.0 this semester. i'm trying to be proud of myself for it. it's not what i want.

i wanted marcus's email to be beautiful, but my head is fuzzy. the decongestants have done exactly what they were supposed to do, in that now i have to blow my nose once every ten seconds, and my sinuses aren't backed up anymore. my head is fuzzy anyway. when it's like this, i forget things i know about what's okay and what isn't, like whether it's acceptable to flirt when sniffling; i think it isn't? i'm repulsive and gross, typing with my right hand, clutching a used tissue in my left, but also kind of tragically beautiful, maybe, and it could be a night to write a poem.

as fiction editor of the school's literary magazine, i am prohibited, by policy, from submitting any fiction submissions of my own. generally, i am not one to make waves. if the policies are reasonable, make a reasonable amount of sense, and accomplish a reasonably important purpose (i.e., giving the impressino that the acceptance process is fair and unbiased, rather than skewed to grant easier opportunities to staff members), then i don't really care. but i might contest this one, because i've decided that this is the year i'm going to (1) become a halfway decent writer of fiction, and (2) submit something to the magazine, and elsewhere. i already wrote a letter to the sponsor, detailing the reasons the policy doesn't make sense, like the fact that more than one set of eyes have to approve each submission, anyway, before it gains acceptance to the publication. she knows i care more personally, and less on principle, and she supports it, because she thinks i'm good. she's read a number of my stories, and she likes them. which warms my frozen cockles.

found out last week: the plural of penis is not penises, but, rather, penes. similarly, and even more fascinatingly, the plural of opus (as in "mr. holland's," as in "creative work, particularly of the musical or literary persuasion") is not opuses, nor opa, but, rather, opera. i think that is fascinating. i am dying to find an excuse to use it.

ms. tidwell, my boss, is and has always been vaguely suspicious of me, because she perceives that i'm smarter than she is, and has decided i'm going to use that fact to manipulate her. i think that's very weird, because anyone with whom i've spent as much time as i've spent with her knows how straightforward my motives are, workwise at least, and that the last thing i care about is doing the least amount of work for the most amount of money. because, please, it's ten dollars an hour, hardly enough to fund my someday tiffany's spree, and i think she'd be shocked if she knew how many times i've forgotten to pick up my paycheck, this year alone. i so clearly don't care about the money that it almost nauseates me, how much she thinks i care about the money.

i am a tightly stretched pomegranate, overripe with love. and a lot of it is for marcus.

i'm also laughing at myself out loud, even through the tears. but i do love him, intensely and tremendously. and (pomegranate) juic(e)ily.

and so does lana.