I Slept

I was tired of snoring. I was tired of sleeping, but I know you can't avoid sleeping. When I slept, if I wasn't snoring, I was sweating. Thin or thick blankets produced sweat, hot or cold, it didn't make a difference. I would wake up from time to time, and I was scared I would see a ghostly figure in the door. I saw a ghostly figure by the closet, but this was a robe. Sleeping again, I didn't know where I was, in the house or the flat. I'd look for a window, and it was a wall, I'd look at for a chest of drawers with a painting on it, and see a television and a mirror. A voice told me quietly, never write with red ink, it is unlucky to do so. I agreed. I slept.

Young Groucho Marx

I dream Groucho Marx is young, not wearing his trademark greasepaint eyebrows & mustache. He's sitting in a expensive hotel room, drunk as a skunk. I think he wants the phone to ring. Harpo comes in, looking very debonair in a expensive suit, smoking a cigar. Groucho and Harpo start to talk, but this exchange evolves suddenly into an explosive, profanity-laden argument. A lamp is broken, a small table is upended, spilling silverware and china in a tinkling miniature avalanche. Harpo leaves with Groucho violently gesticulating, jumping up and down on the bed. Alone, Groucho collapses on the floor, but after holding still, and looking at the silverware from eye-level, he crawls to the window, where a bottle of booze is. While Groucho is taking a sip, Chico kicks the door open, and yells at Groucho for a few minutes. He leaves, and Groucho stays sitting on the floor with an open window right above his head. I can see a distant streetlight, as the drapes blow gently in and out. He crosses his legs, holding the bottle of whiskey wedged between his thighs. It is quiet for about 10 minutes, Groucho barely moving. Then the phone rings, thank God, the phone is ringing! It rings and rings, but he does not answer.

Hope

I go to the reading. I think I am too excited. Everyone is jaded. They think I am a rube. We eat dinner. I am too engaged. People get offended. I have no freinds. I have no "circle". I only mean well. They dismiss me. Oh, well. I am used to being alone. It could be a good thing. I'll never stop. What is the point of it all? To go on. And have hope.

Poem - tell me

tell me i am your santa to a christmas tree
or the atomic bomb in your heart

tell me i am better than peanut butter
with sliced bread

tell that without me soda has no fizz
and hell hath no fury

tell this attraction is illogical
beyond concepts or trivial words

give up please give up
and we can watch the moon

i'll sleep holding onto your arm
and you will know we are together

Do You Know How Much I Love You?

i.

I dream lucidly about books, about being a book, on how we are all books.

ii.

I take June to school, at the Loop. The Loop is quietly exciting, quietly impressive, quietly quiet. Oh blue sky, which I have described (didactically) too many times, as fine. But it is true. You are a fine blue sky.

iii.

I race back to Oak Park, for no apparent reason.

iv.

Is it iv or vi? No, it is iv.

V.

Sweet 5.

vi.

Is it vi, or iv -- terrible is the uncertainty. I could look it up on the "Internets".

vii.

I don't.

viii.

Do you know how much I love you?

ix.

Do not delay.

I Am an Idiot

I don't understand lots of stuff, but I know my capacity to be an idiot, is limitless. I am an educated polite buffoon, and you should never think I am more than that. For me, being a buffoon is enough. The education happened because I thought it would improve my buffoonery. Being polite keeps me out of jail.

Webpage - F*** My Life

I found this website today -- F*** My Life -- through the excellent pointers blog Look At This. People join and submit short anecdotes about terrible things that have happened to them. Many of the entries are quite hilarious, and tragic, in equal parts. I loved the one where a kid came back from college, and found out his family took a family trip to Thailand, without him. He thought the picture on the mantelpiece was photoshopped, of everyone but him, with a jungle and an elephant, but no, it was real.

About a year ago I made a horrendous faux pas, in front of all my new neighbors. We were having a Father's Day block party and I turned to the older gentleman sitting next to me and wished him a Happy Father's Day. I don't know what compelled me to do it, because I didn't know him. Everyone sitting at the table got quiet. The man asked me why I thought he was a father, but he had been a father. It turns out his grown up son had died very recently, and the family was coping with it difficultly.

Calling People

He calls people at random, and leaves short messages.

"Marmut's Revenge."

"Rubber dog poo."

"Glass Doornob."

"Forbidden Idol."

He calls the flower shop down the way, and pretends the flower shop and he are two Russian submariners, each sailor trapped in compartments on opposite ends of the boat. The girl who works at the shop knows who he is, and is secretly in love with him, though she thinks he is embarrassingly strange.

Many people who he phones at random, who have caller-ID, call back. He responds to their insults, or inquiries, while talking through a comb, wrapped in a piece of wax paper, over his lips.

The flower shop girl is 25, she has long blond hair. The kind of hair you want to touch. She is annoyed, and appreciative of this, all at once.

I'll Be Back Soon

i.

He does not ride the bus right. He is dancing, singing, roughhousing playfully with old ladies (some of whom, laugh at this) and he tries to look out of as many windows of the bus, as possible, in the shortest span of time. This can't last too long, but it lasts longer than it could. Back on the sidewalk, after he imitated a helicopter, he sees a big leftover lump of dirty snow and he picks it up. He finds a cop and shoves it down the back of the bullet-proof vest. He runs towards Grant Park, the peace officer waving a pistol in the air.

ii.

After hiding in the bushes for several hours, near the Bean, he decides to go to a bar. He has no money. He pays for four drinks with a feather, bartender takes the feather. There is a cute girl who seems to like him. He reminds her of a friend of hers. She buys him a drink and they go back to her small apartment that is directly across from the El where they make love. Between lovemaking sessions, they talk about Cuba, Egyptian pyramid building techniques, ancient Chinese discoveries, and maps. They both get a bit frisky, drinking some wine from a small jug on the floor.

iii.

He wakes up in the late morning and finds that the girl is gone, she has handcuffed his left wrist to the bed. The trains rumbling by shake the whole apartment in an exciting way. A lovely note says, "I'll be back soon." There are cookies and big glass of water within reach.

Appreciation

The white cat noses around, suspiciously -- he's the cat that likes to chew on wires, and in the process, has ruined several very expensive pieces of electronic equipment. We're talking about that $500.00 Bang and Olufsen telephone, and a very high tech headset, two cell-phone chargers, a fax machine, and an all-in-one printer. All the cats are acting like they are starving, as white cat walks behind my laptop and thinks about nibbling on the edge of the screen. For me, a two-year-old is methodically disassembling the house as I sit through 6 hour phone meetings all week long. Important things need to get done, in a certain order, if I could only remember all of them and prioritize them, but I have little help in doing this from the very people it would benefit. I am tempted to write longer, more convoluted sentences, but I stop myself. On days like these, I almost become convinced that appreciation is something that decreases over time, the longer you know someone.

Poem - Hey Fritz

it snows and i really miss you
a damn cat

i'd give anything to have you back
and see how your stripes looked

i pine for you because you belonged here
quite perfectly

a southern californian cat
just ashes now

Tuesday

i.

One kid is awake at 6 AM. I ignore him until about a quarter to seven. He can't get out of his crib, but that might change by next week. Then I'll hear a giggle and a yell & have a hotwheel rammed into my face. I get up and we kick ourselves outta the flat. Breakfast at the house. Phoebe to school. Spongebob Squarepants, Spongebob Squarepants, Spongebob Squarepants. Meetings.

ii.

How I'd like to have a doughnut.

Poem - 13

burning my days down
as if they were free

& they are not
the cost is high

i am good
but i don't act good

bored in the churches
of reason

Proud Daniel

I want to go to the bathroom alone, privately, but for Daniel, who is 2, this would be like missing the Superbowl. So I'm going to the bathroom in the smallest bathroom of the house, a water closet, and Daniel is right there with me. Almost on top of me, really. Rolling his toy car over my toes, as I try to go. And I'm trying to read a story I like. But I can't concentrate, so I give up.

Outside, it is raining. When I'm done, I get up, and Daniel points at the water in the toilet, and he yells, "Poooooo!" "You're right!" I reply. Together, we flush the toilet. "Bye Bye!" yells Daniel as the toilet empties. "Thanks for the help, Daniel." I say. Daniel is very proud, and later, he squeezes the cat extra hard.

Flushing Toilets

I did it. I had every toilet in the bathroom flushing, all at once. The sound was glorious, a magnificent symphony of porcelain and vibrating plumbing. Once I got the timing right, I was able to get the stalls to fire off repeatedly, several times in a row -- filling the shining white restroom with a uninterrupted wall of sound. People came in and left, but I could see they absolutely approved of my activity, as any five-year-old assumes.

Too soon, it was over. My mother managed to get a nice, big man to go into the bathroom, and he escorted me out. When I was reunited with her, I realized I was so excited, that I forgot to go pee. I managed to hold it all the long way home.

Ants and Other Things

I dream I am trying to sleep, when an ant gets in my mouth....in the dream about trying to sleep. In the dream, I wake up, and I'm trying to figure out why I'm getting stray ants in my mouth, because it is disconcerting. I turn the covers over, and see there are 40 or 50 ants between the sheets. I shake out the bedding and wonder why my bed, or the sheets are attracting so many ants. The ants seem lethargic, and there is no food to attract them. It is a real mystery. I can't figure it out. I don't know what they want, or why the ants are there. All I want to do is to sleep in my dream, without being worried about ants getting in my mouth. And in worrying about this, I wake up for real, and I see a softly glowing series of numbers. It is the clock, showing 2.33 AM. I check the sheets, and there are no ants. After turning off the light, I lay back down, and I watch the ceiling. It isn't doing much. Just there, a white surface.

---

As I fall asleep, I believe I hear someone out on the sidewalk shoveling snow. Who shovels snow in the middle of the night?

The Bleebs

He had the "Bleebs". He thought it was a funny word, until the doctor explained what it was.

'Where did it come from, doc?" he said, his mouth suddenly quite dry.

"India, at first, we think." said the doctor, quietly, seriously.

"And the prognosis?"

"I'm sorry to say, but...the Bleebs..."

"Give it to me straight, doc."

"The Bleebs are fatal."

"How much time do I have?"

"Seconds -- hours, weeks, even years. There is no way of telling. But you have it. The Bleebs."

In the hallway, he could distinctly hear some kind of medical equipment, probably in another room, beeping softly, constantly, maddeningly...until it was shut off.