To remember

The look he gave me when I left the house. Pursed lips like an asshole, facetious smile. Then arms around me, a strangling embrace. 

Her hairy legs inside mismatched wool socks, inside combat boots. The hurt I discover after dreaming she was there when she wasn’t. 

The smell of dried saliva on a masticated number two pencil, shoved in front of my nose with a boogery boy hand.

You told me not to eat the onions. Then you probed my mouth with your tongue. 

Her dead eyes after a forth session of shock-therapy treatment. 

His fixation on an abandoned spiderweb hanging from the underside of a table. 

On Christmas your dogs chased my cat up the walls. Claws bleeding and nubby. Tail shaking, covered in fearful shit. 

Standing in the shower watching you comb your long, thinning hair. Conditioning with jojoba. JOJOBA! I ask for more. 

Summertime in Fraser. A trailer park porch. The policeman handcuffs you. The sun makes you disappear for the last time. I love you honey bunny.  

The stack of hats on the top shelf of your closet. Silk scarves tucked in jacket pockets. Drawings folded gently inside books. The soft smell of tobacco rests in the insoles of your shoes. A salud!

Pieces of grandpa

Ordinary Lives

I'm reading this book right now and enjoying it very much.

"How does everyday life feel to you? Do the habits and routines of the day-to-day press down on you like a dull weight? Do they comfort you with their worn and tender familiarity, or do they pull irritably at you, rubbing your face in their lack of spontaneity and event? When cleaning or cooking does time ricochet past in the half-light of the daydream or stutter and collapse in the stupor of drudgery? Can domestic routines become precious moments snatched from more thoroughly exhaustive work practices, or do their rhythms constantly signal their lack of value? And how, supposing we wanted to, would we call attention to such "non-events", without betraying them, without disloyalty to the particularity of their experience, without simply turning them into "events"?

Gimpy Thoughts

When you have a bang-up knee... 

strangers will unabashedly approach you and tell you about their own former injuries. They will also give you pitiful looks and say things like "that's a bummer" or "that must suck" or "that looks terrible" and other not-so-consoling remarks that often leave you feeling worse than you may have felt before they chose to comment on your gimpy situation. 

it takes you over a minute to walk down 10 little stairs.

chair fitness videos like this one become sanity staples. 

you furrow your brow and sigh every time your crutches fall over and make that hollow clangy sound.

and you are out for a "walk" in a wheelchair on your own, sidewalks with large gaps become terrifying obstacle courses.

getting a glass of water or cup of tea from the kitchen to the couch involves a series of shuffling, sliding, placing and huffing. 

you want to gnaw off your leg like a trapped animal.