Monthly Archives: October 2011

I am the wreck Titanic.

Posted on October 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Did you know that one of the first human responses in an emergency is to pretend that there isn’t one? So much could have been done to prevent the staggering loss of life in the wreck Titanic if only those in charge had been scared enough.

They kick around ice chunks on deck. They are not properly alarmed. They send the first few lifeboats barely half filled with drowsy women, because this is not a serious situation. This is merely a safety precaution. Go back to bed, the rest of you.

Sinking for hours, sinking for miles, the American scientist in the submersible sighs when the Russian asks him for the piss bottle again. When the light finally breaks through the silted darkness and shines on what he has been looking for, the American cannot breathe for joy. The wreck Titanic is broken in two just like he has surmised in his conjectures.

It must have been the moonless night that made it so the lookout did not see the iceberg in time. It would have been better had he not seen it at all. Had they hit it head on and only breached the very front of the hull, the water could have been contained by specially designed floodgates and the vessel would have stalled, but not sunk. It was the ship’s desperate turn at the last moment that made that long, lethal gash.

In the lifeboats, they hear the terrible sound of the ship rending itself. They hear the screams but do not row towards them, though they have room for more. Do you think that if they had been forced by the sun to see the faces of the dying bobbing in that frigid water, do you think it would have been different?

The American beams with pride that he is such a canny reader of the behavior of shattering structures. The Russian cannot contain his excitement at this new find, and asks for the piss bottle again. Then for a moment, they are quiet. They think of the invisible life that is eating the wreck Titanic. They know that one day, it will be digested away. Except for the propellers and the steering column—they are made of bronze, you see. Nothing down there eats bronze. And so the wreck Titanic will never quite finish dying.

I am the wreck Titanic, and I am telling you: listen to the sound of tearing metal. Do not go back to sleep. Do not send the first class passengers back to their plush rooms. Do not lock the third class passengers down below to maintain order. Let them save themselves if they can. I am the wreck Titanic sinking for hours, sinking for miles, and I am telling you: know when to be urgent. Know when to get your life jacket. Know when to brace yourself for a long wait in cold, cold water. Do not tell yourself you are built too well to be destroyed. But do—but do, on the way down—allow the violinists to fill the black night with music until the very last moment.

a tiny nibble from the loving teeth of history

Posted on October 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

I went to San Francisco today, and wrote the following sitting at an outdoor table at a Market Street café.

It’s been a while, 20th century. Have you forgotten me? I guess the question should be–have I forgotten you? It’s a plausible question, given how uncomfortable my hand feels holding a pen, how I stumble over myself without the aid of spell check or the glow of a screen which suggests a luminous sentience watching over me as I boil away in the crucible of my own head. I know it’s been a while, 20th century, that I had to clumsily ask a lad at the coffee shop where one gets a pen and paper, these days. How inexorably we move from the artifact to the aether. The library at Alexandria has burned; now we have Akashic records, knowledge that only exists if we believe in it. If we have the proper equipment to receive it. Otherwise, there’s only air.

Barely a page and I am already getting painful twinges in my palm. But you should not feel as obsolete as all that, 20th century. Here you still are: a pen with a soft nib whose ink calls itself “amethyst” and a notebook with a red cover that asks, “Name? Date? Subject/title?” I thought it would be clever to title you “Artifact.” I’m sorry, darling. I can’t help myself. You know how I am. It is a beautiful Fall day in San Francisco and I just had lunch with a lovely young Frenchman who, like me, learned to write with a fountain pen–and now he seldom writes by hand at all. Talk about a direct leap from 19 to 21! And yet you are far from a negligible century. Your body count alone is impressive.

I had a vivid dream last night. In the dream I purchased a small white stuffed dog, a poodle I think, about life-sized. Of course life-sized, as it started to come to life. In the eyes first: a glimmering awareness that flickered on and off. Then in the whole head, movement in the face and neck, a hardness and definition within suggesting the formation of a skull. Then slowly, from front to back: limbs, ribcage, ass, tail–all were fleshed and boned. All the cotton batting inside the animal was turning into live, pulsing organic matter. I knew the dog was finished, that he was finally a real dog, when he began to take real shits as opposed to stuffed shits–squelchy, warm, stinky feces instead of small, scentless, fuzzy logs.

“Here you are, you little fucker!” I said to my new dog with great joy. He had teeth that he used to bite. He barked viciously at other dogs. He took an evil delight at tangling his leash on everything, binding my legs to trip me up whenever possible. In short, he was a total asshole, but I loved him anyway because he was alive.

Where have I wandered to, 20th century? Am I still talking about you? I have lunched with your remnants occasionally, 20th century. Gray-haired men in suits who keep themselves fit and never take a young woman to a fine restaurant without knowing the exact location of the nearest hotel. They call me “doll” and ask me what is in my “pretty little head.” I smile pleasantly and seldom answer. It is so charming. Like dating antiques. One day soon they’ll be gone, and I will be gone soon after. One day soon I’ll be gone, and this paper will have rotted away in some landfill somewhere. But if I transcribe this on my computer and post it on the internet, I can make these words not really exist forever.

After writing this, I walked to the Embarcadero to check out Tom Morello’s appearance at Occupy San Francisco. Given that he is the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, his presence was extremely apt. He gave us a few rousing words and then handed out a hundred free concert tickets for his performance tonight. I did not get a ticket because the ticket guy was immediately swallowed by the maw of the throng. Whether I abstained from the tussle because of my belief in civic order, or simply because I felt protective of my broken rib (yes, folks, it’s broken), the world may never know. I did a bit iphone photojournalism from the event, but wordpress is being an ass about letting me put together a slide show. So, I created a public facebook album of my little adventure. Check it out.

It ends in a maudlin display, as promised.

Posted on October 17, 2011 | 4 comments

Helloooooo fine people.

This here is the first blog post I am writing totally wasted. Let’s see what happens. I pulled a muscle in my chest, which I truly don’t advise, because it hurts when you breathe, which is, like, you know, most of the time. Anyway, the nice people at Kaiser put me on Vicodin. I have not been awake for more than 30 minutes at a time since Sunday morning. Even my cats are impressed at my newly found marathon sleeping abilities. Also, a warning: being high makes me maudlin. I apologize in advance for what may come out of me before the end of this post. (Yesterday I asked a friend, all dreamy-eyed, what he is like when he is in love. Seriously, I am dangerous.)

I had an awesome reading at Lit Crawl on Saturday night, before I was felled by the Gods. It was great fun; the room was packed and attentive, and they applauded me with gusto. An author’s dream, which contrasts beautifully with those readings one occasionally has to give at bookstores to like one employee and one old lady with a broken hearing aid.

AND… I have smashing news. Drum roll… The story I had performed at Sacramento’s Stories on Stage, “Commuting,” sold to Zyzzyva. Awesomepants, no? I do not yet know what issue it will be in, but will of course keep you posted so that you can all run out and buy it and then run through the streets proclaiming the transcendent benefits of my prose.

Damn, I am so wasted.

I have to go back to sleep momentarily. But, it seems unsportsmanlike to leave you without the maudlin display promised earlier. So, I will say, I very much like what is happening in this country right now.

I missed you, America. I love you, America. I believe in you, America. Be your promise. Rise.

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Tagged America, public speaking, vicodin, zyzzyva

reflections from a death bed

Posted on October 3, 2011 | 1 comment

One of my favorite fourth of July playthings has to be that bitty hockey-puck-looking firework which, when you put flame to it, twists and writhes into a long, convoluted black snake. Then when you try to touch said snake, it crumbles into nothing, leaving only smooth, faintly greasy ash on your fingertips.

One of my friends must have set one of those off in my brain when he mentioned the Pandora myth in an e-mail. My response was probably not what he expected:

Do you remember what was left cringing in the bottom of the box once all the world’s evils had come screeching and roaring out of it? Hope, I believe it was. Once upon a time, I used to think it was the last thing in that box because it was the most evil of all. Every morning I’d wake up from a horrid dream life into a waking nightmare, and wish I had it in me to put myself to sleep for good. All I would have had to do is grind up my morphine pills to break the time-release coating and eat them all at once. But it was fucking hope that kept me from doing that, the ridiculous hope that one day it would get better. Back then I was fifty pounds lighter than I am now (which, contrary to what they show you in beauty magazines, does not look good on my frame). One day I may tell you the story if you want, or I can let the tidy surgeon cuts on my body tell you if you prefer.

Death is not so bad at all. Death was actually a rather soothing presence. When I would wake up in the morning soaked in the sweat of my narcotic nightmares, it would be sitting right there at the foot of my bed reading a magazine. Waiting. It would look up at me ever so calmly and ask, “Today?”
“No, not today.”
“Well, if you need me, you know where I am.”
“I know. Maybe tomorrow.”
I grew to like Death so well that I actually still have a bunch of decade-old morphine in the recesses of my medicine cabinet. I like having that exit there should I need it–should I need it in case the thing I am really afraid of chooses to come back. That thing is extreme, sustained, physical suffering. You can be as clever and as strong as you want, suffering will collapse you in ways that you cannot anticipate.

Well, I’m here now; I guess hope was right after all. That one time.