Straight No Chaser

Zephyr of Death

that title was written two or three hours ago, when "gentle breeze of death" seemed like an appropriate summation of the state of things. some of the edge has come off, since. a good listener is priceless. this entry was going to be entirely different.

as sundays go, this one has been sedentary. besides going to the vending machine, where i didn't get anything, i've moved from this spot exactly twice in the last six hours: once to dig the ringing phone out from under my bedspread; once to retrieve it from behind the bed, where it fell after i hurled it at the wall. there was supposed to be more; we were all supposed to go to the twisted taco to watch standup, and then i was supposed to see marcus, after. twisted taco fell apart because it turned out oduduwa wasn't performing; marcus called soon after to cancel in his pitiful voice. i hate the idea of having been in front of this computer all day. i showered and changed clothes and took my hair down, just so i could feel like life hadn't been at a complete standstill since i woke up. i have gotten no work done, except for sort of reviewing my government notes. i am a slacker, a bum.

i tried calling home a few minutes ago, thinking my parents might be mad that i didn't call earlier. (it's sunday.) nobody answered, because chad has a girlfriend, and the cordless phone sleeps in his room, meaning it doesn't ring where anyone can hear it. i have to say, i'm feeling less and less instrumental to the workings of that household. at this time two years ago, my mom freaked out completely whenever i forgot to call home on a sunday. lately, she takes this tone every time she answers the phone and it's me, like it irks her for me to call off-schedule, and her first question is "so what did marcus do now?" when, damn it, i almost never talk to her about marcus, she just intuits when something's wrong. that is not my fault.

sean's womb fixation is obviously because of his mother, who died when he was sixteen. he found her in the shower one day after school; she had mixed pills with alcohol, not because she was suicidal but because she was a drug abuser and an alcoholic, and just like that sean was an orphan. and i guess their relationship had sucked beforehand, when she was too cranked up to finish raising him, and just, no closure. that was one of the first things i noticed about him, when we met, was that, with him, greeting a girl always involved a full frontal embrace and a significant amount of tummy rubbing. with treesje, before they ever had a physical relationship, he wanted to rub all the time and make weird jokes, ask people for licorice to satisfy her "cravings" (she never ate it, just looked at him weirdly), he wanted to pull the front of her sweater over his head and camp out there like a shy kindergartener, he wanted to do the protective splay and talk about "the baby" like it was an actual, nonimaginary entity. totally weird, but it made sense once we got closer and found out about his mother. treesje is his well-placed surrogate; she's fleshy and a nurturer and she lets him indulge in that, that weird perpetuation of his own severed umbilicus. they are perfect for each other.

me, who knows. i promise i don't want to mother marcus, which couldn't happen even if i did; he's too independent. he likes to be cared for, but he resists flooding. he wants understanding and affection, but he wants them constantly, not responsively. the worst thing to do, when he's having a bad day, is to offer him a treat; he'll take it, but glower from behind it, so you might as well save it till he's smiling again. we've come to certain understandings, and that's one of them. it's hard to reconcile, though, because i'm a womb child too, but the difference is i'm not seeking the womb, i have it, and it's just too too gratifying when he lets it be that way. too gratifying to try not to want that.

and, not to get tooooo karen carpenter, though that is the only explanation i can find, looking down on creation is ten thousand times better when i'm singing the only lullaby i know; ten million times worse when there's that awful shortness of breath. if i "sing," he listens; his eyes get wide, get these tiny dots of light, and he notices things like key changes. still metaphorically. "you're speeding up," he says, almost every time, probably knowing that it's for him, probably just teasing. that is a small thing, a very small thing, but a huge one too, because it's one of the few things i can actually do for him. another is to listen, something i do very well, and usually, more often than not, that's all he wants. he doesn't want answers; those show up on their own. he wants silence, the occasional nod and a sense that "this is important to me, even if it isn't, because it's important to you."

okay. i have that. i can do that.

since the heat came on, the air has been too dry. and honestly, they've got it up too high, but it feels dangerous to complain, considering how frigid it was, before, and for how long.

i will again be upset tomorrow morning, when it's time to go to work and i'm exhausted. post-midterms, things have finally picked up; there aren't too many lulls, anymore, to the point where i can get away with showing up, just me, no homework and no way to otherwise entertain myself during downtime. because no such downtime exists, anymore. except for tracey, who, even amid the chaos, finds abundant time to take care of necessities like filing her nails.

darlene connor is about to give her "why i'm keeping my baby" speech.

and i'm reentering that phase where, tragically, i find a way, to insert, one, comma, for approximately, every, other, word.