The Racket of Sauces and Junk

The following was written in my journal on July 15th of this year. Only Chundwicka's name has been changed.

I saw what I can honestly describe as an angel last night. Her name is Chundwicka Thurbersmite and I've known her for many years. Or really, I've known of her. She and my buddy Nick used to be really good friends, and I've hung out with her once or twice over the last 15 years, but I've never really gotten to know her that well. However, I remember the very first thing I ever said to her.
I was 14 at the time, so I guess she was 16. A gang of us Grovesters was hanging out at Round Table Pizza (god rest its overly merry soul), and I don't remember who all was there, but my friend Krliss turned to me on the bench and handed me his empty soda cup. "Hey man, I'll suck your dick if you go refill this."
It was a funny thing to say, but I didn't want to refill it and thereby create an impression of both my lackey and homo qualities, so I passed the buck.
Chundwicka Thurbersmite was sitting across the table from me. I only knew her by name, and not even really that, but I handed her the glass and said, "I'll lick your twat if you refill this."
You might have been shocked to hear that out of context, god knows Chundwicka was, but anyone who knows me well is aware that a 14 year old Dr. Frank wouldn't have thought twice about it until it was already said (not much has changed). Of course, Chundwicka simply blinked once and laughed incredulously, "What?!"
As I recall, her boyfriend was sitting right next to her but caught only that she was laughing at something I said. Still, he was pissed. Nick, though, rescued the conversation from progressing by grabbing the soda cup with a hasty, "I'll get it." Thereby becoming my lackey and a homo.

But last night, while cleaning off tables 15 and 22 at work (because I'm good enough to clean a 4-top and an 8-top simutaneously), I hear her say, "Dr. Frank?" right next to me. That's right: first name and last name. Her voice didn't identify her, so I turned and wow! I am rarely left totally speechless, and never just by the sight of someone, but this woman... I swear my mind cleared instantly, as though by solar pulse, the magnetics wiping my memory and the light blinding my peripherals, leaving only this stunning beauty in view. And the only past I had was the few instances in which she had appeared, my only future that which she might offer. This all smacks of poetic embellishment, but let me assure you, this is exactly what it felt like.
Her name was pinging around my beautifully clear mind, the only thought I was capable of, for many seconds before I finally said it aloud. That smile!
My impulse to hug her was checked at the last second and I swung my hand down for a handshake, explaining, "I'd give you a hug, but, well," looking down at my Saturday night uniform, "y'know. Sauces and junk."
"I'm in the same racket," she laughed. "I understand."
I wish she understood more. I wish she understood that her beige dress heightened her beauty even as her beauty degraded it. I wish she understood that all the pieces I've ever admired in others are complete in her face, the creation of a whole. My pen wants to talk about "awe" and "blessings" and "gratitude", but I know that these words are designed to impart majesty. Majesty had nothing to do with it. She was not the Glory of God or the Unicorn and Lion. She was more like a letter from home. In those moments, all I felt really was a kind of joyful clarity and a near desperation to see her again as soon as possible.

I keep thinking about her, about last night. My chest reacts very physically, tightly expanding, as though finally seeing a glimmer of real truth in the world.

3.41pm
7-15-07

After writing this, I had to call to Nick. After hearing me gush, he agreed with me.
"She was a beautiful girl back then and I always said so. I told everybody that she'd be stunning when she grew up, and 'no, no,no' they said. But she just kept getting more and more good looking."
But then he got tired of me gushing and said, "Yeah, but she's got issues."
"I'm sure she does," I quipped, "but who doesn't?"
"Yeah. But she's got issues." He refused to elaborate.

A week or two went by. I stopped thinking about it really. Working an ever-fluctuating schedule at a restaurant in the mall has a tendency to alter memory retention. The vivid thoughts and feelings of the 24 hours after seeing Chundwicka quickly became aged and darkened around the edges. Odd how my heart beats.
Anyway, two weeks ago, I went to see another friend, Yown, at a bar. He's a Grovester, so I mentioned seeing Chundwicka a few weeks back.
"How'd she look?" he asked his beer.
"Phenomenal." I told mine.
"Yeah," he sighed. "But she's got issues."
"Fuck! Dude!" I swivelled on my stool and took one hand from my beer to wave it at him. "That's all Nick says, but he won't say how! What are her issues?"
"She's a fucking coke whore."
"What? No fucking way." Chundwicka? Huh?
"Yeah."
"But. But she told me she was in the same racket as me." My hands went a little limp on the glass.
"Heh. Racket. Yeah, pretty much." He glanced up at the Mariners game.
"She said she was in restaurants."
"Fuck, the last real job she had, she got fired from." He was smiling now, enjoying telling me. "Found her passed out behind the bar during hours."
"Jesus."
He laughed at the bottles behind the bar. "Yeah. Fucking coke whore. Sucked some guy off a couple weeks ago downtown to get a ride home."
"Holy christ!" Now I'm laughing, too, holding a hand over my mouth. "For real?"
"Yeah. It was a cop, too."
"Bullshit!" I lowered my hand and slapped the bar, triumphant. Yown's story had just passed into being too obviously ridiculous.
Spurred by the force of my exclamation, Yown started giggling hysterically. "It's true! I swear. Ask Nick!"
"I will, you fucker."
And I did.
And I don't ever wanna hear about it again.

Ah, So: Man Plans, God Laughs

From my journal:

Sitting at Sesame Donut at 1.52am, technically Tuesday morning. A warm breeze is coming off of the hills to the north, and it's supposed to reach 100 degrees before the sun next sets. The hum of the roadside donut sign almost matches pitch with the buzzing flutter of the night insects. On the table, I have one chocolate creme, one twist stick, and one-minus-a-bite chocolate old fashioned, as well as a 16 oz cup of coffee. I have already eaten the chocolate raised and the old fashioned will obviously be joining it soon. The other two are for my friend, who is currently out of town.
In fact, I'm house-sitting her apartment, and have been since Friday night. It's a welcome escape from living with Mum, who's a good person and a good roommate, but who lives too differently from myself to really, y'know... live with. It's a blessing to live in another space, another's space, a small apartment 15 minutes' walk to Sesame Donut.
Saturday night, the night before my friend was due home, I got this great Idea to welcome her back with a treasure hunt, the prize of which was to be a sesame donut. What a cool way to come home!
So.

Upon returning home, she'll be met by a small note taped over the keyhole on the front door that, on the outside, reads in mohagoney colored pencil "Welcome Home! Want to play a game?" On the inside, above some badly rendered light blue snowflake/ice crystals, it says:
"In where it's cold,
enough to make frost,
a considered wise choice
is the shortest of straws."

Well, there's nowhere in her apartment that fits the frosty part of that description except for the freezer. So off she'll go, hopefully just dumping her bags inside the door. And, of course, she'll be skipping to the freezer, because, wow, how exciting, right?
In the freezer, in front of the ice cube tray, is a little card which simply states, "Choose Wisely" and in front of which are three plastic straws, all with pieces of paper rolled up inside. As the previous clue alluded, one of these straws is noticeably shorter than the others. She'll clap in delight and, to prolong the anticipation, immediately grab one of the longer straws. Removing the paper, she'll giggle a bit as she reads "GAME OVER" or "Turn to page 32", depending on which straw she got. But the short straw provides a real clue:
"The snarling beast upon my brow
is rather fond of Pahd Ga Prow."
If you know my friend as I do, you'd know that this is a reference to a filipino dragon mask that I brought back from Hawaii, and which hangs on her wall, near the bedroom and bathroom. (Just in case she's confused, or tempted to open the doors to these two rooms, I've posted warnings on the doorknobs which say "This door is temporarily LOCKED. We're sorry for the inconvenience.") It's a grisly, sharp visage, and although in the above link you can't see the dragon on the forehead very well, it's pretty gnarly and I love it so very, very much. Anyway, trapped in it's snarling mouth is a note which has on the outside a bad colored pencil "image" of a plate of pahd ga prow. Inside, the note reads:
"Here there was light
from a lamp like the sun
where plants grew to full height,
but now there are none."

About a year ago, my friend took her indoor planting to the next level and attempted to grow some tropical plants which required retarded amounts of sunlight and humidity. Since such conditions cannot be created throughout the entire apartment without forfeiting the security deposit, she devised a small sunroom/humidor in her coat closet to get them good and healthy. But that experiment was shut down by an unnamed government agency, fearful of what my friend was learning about subverting so-called "natural laws". Anyway, she'll remember this episode and, putting two and two together, she'll squeal and dance over to that closet. The cards in her hand are beginning to stack up, beginning to gain a little more heft.
On the doorknob of the closet is a card that says simply "YAY!" in coloured pencils. Inside, next to a "drawing" of a sewing pin:
"A ripe tomato
and a strawberry:
That's where to stick 'em
so they don't stick me."

Obviously, this is pointing towards the pin-cushion next to her sewing machine. Need I even elaborate to say that the pin-cushion is a red fabric tomato with a fabric strawberry dangling off of it? Of course I don't. With this latest clue in her hand, she flits over to the pin-cushion, upon which is pinned another note, reading "'RAY!" (which is how crowds cheer in old Disney cartoons). Inside, the following "poem" is presented:
"Dermalogica
Multi-Active Toner:
When you hold it in your hand
it feels kind of like a boner."

I'd be surpised if she didn't know her own skin care products by name, and only a little less surprised if she didn't know where she keeps it. But, just in case, the note concludes with "The bathroom door is now unlocked." So, this clue being pretty straight forward, she'll just make her way to the bathroom. Oh, but she'll laugh at the word "boner" first.

She'll take the note off the door and enter to see, upon the counter where she left it, the bo(n)ttle(r) of Multi-Active Toner (this product will forever feel different when she smears it into her skin, the dirty pervert). Only now, there is a card next to it, which sports a Sharpie-art bald guy trying to look behind him and thinking "...like it's right behind me...hmm...". On the inside of the card, it says, "Just think for a moment".
So.
What would you do? Look behind you? Or maybe around the spot you found the card in? Perhaps you'd turn the card over. Aha! She now shouts once, a happy "Oh, hey!" There on the back is the next clue.
"Where your body sags
when a day's full done,
I left you my seed,
if you'll swallow the pun."
And then: "The bedroom door is now unlocked."

Honestly, what are you thinking right now? That I went into her bedroom, squeezed a good five-roper onto her bed, and hoped she'd find it and lick it up? Well, maybe so, but I didn't send her on this expedition for that.
After removing another "sorry for the inconvenience" sign and opening the bedroom door, she'll immediately notice a sesame seed donut on a red plate. Next to it is a note that says "FUCK YEAH!" and has a bad drawing of an archetypal donut (with pink frosting and coloured sprinkles). "FUCK YEAH!" she echoes.

Or echoed.

See, that would have happened had she come home when she originally planned to: Sunday night. But Sunday afternoon, she called to say that she would be home Tuesday, around noon. Well, fuck all if I'm going to let the prize for such clue-ish foolishness be a stale donut. That's a shitty reward no matter what the challenge. It's not like we're on a donut ration here in the States. So Sunday night, when I got "home" from work, I ate the donut.
I chewed slowly, savoringly ignoring that it was already kind of stale, washing it down with strong Russian tea. Besides, I figured, I'll just buy a fresh one Monday night.

So here I am at Sesame Donut. It's now 3.02am. I've got a second cup of coffee and still no sesame donut. They're out. No namesakes here at the Sesame Donut. Fuckin' stupid. I bought the chocolate creme and twist stick to fill the gap, thinking, "Hey, the last card's not a picture of a sesame donut particularly, it's all good." Ah, but I think now, "Fuck. What sense does the semen pun make now?"
None, dammit. There's no pun to swallow, no seed in the bedroom (that you know of), and all that's left is the bottle of Multi-Active Toner which she can't seem to let go of.
3.11am
7-10-07

After sitting at the damn donut shop for over two hours, waiting, writing and brooding, they finally produced half a tray of sesame donuts. I dashed inside, bought one and hiked back to the apartment, tired, strung out and feeling strangely justified.
It took a while to re-set the hunt, as my perfectionist streak required that a few of the cards be remade. But it was set perfectly and I got to bed around 4.45am.
So.
Now to sleep.

Right at noon, she busted through the door. I was sleeping on the couch and half-sat up, confused and clown-haired. She had the first note in her mouth as she hauled her bags back towards the bedroom.
"Don't put them in the bedroom," I mumbled as loud as I could (I'd been awake all of 15 seconds remember). I heard her tear the "inconvenience" sign from the doorknob and then the door open. Then the thud of her bags on the floor and a muted, kind of tired "Hey, cool."
She had just found the donut.

Ah, so.
From front door to donut, bypassing the freezer, dragon mask, closet, sewing machine, and Multi-Active Toner.
Ah, so.

Only One Man

So the most frequented page of American Mir is, and has been for a while, a picture of a whale's ding-dong. I'm not too keen about this blog becoming a zoological pornography site. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's a crime to put a dog in a sweater or a monkey in a fez, but just because I believe in the nakedness of the fauna does mean I condone wang watching. At least, not through this site. I'd much rather that American Mir function as the outlet for those thoughts which cannot be communicated orally. In fact, I find this blog to be a little too heavy on language and a bit thin on other communicative systems.
There's a lot of white on this screen, and a lot of black. The picture at the top of the page, while kind of neat, seems to communicate a tilt towards discussions of astronomy or earth sciences. And yes, Mir was the Russian manned space satellite, but this site is not named after that, but rather for what the satellite was named after: the local self-government of peasant communities. It is under the jurisdiction of those involved (both authors and commentators) and no one else. The comments are never edited (except for the interloping spammers, which I need not waste my breath to demonize as they do this themselves) and the blog posts are open to public judgement. However, I have no illusions that this blog is a community. My brother and I are in fact the autocratic rulers of this State, as is fitting, considering that the height of the Russian mirs was during the later days of Russian Imperialism.
But with that in mind, I'd like to offer to my fellow peasants the following stream of piss:

The world is moving around me in serious paths, important to a lot of people and important to me, but what's important to me is quite different than what concerns others-as-a-whole. My world, which is me, is coming to terms with death and worth.
What is my life worth? What about it justifies the uncounted, uncountable deaths which must occur for me to continue living moment to moment?
Is it simply that because, upon death, I am eaten by uncounted, uncountable creatures that I in fact owe nothing to the world and to this thing I nebulously call "Life"?
That sounds right, but I know that I'd like to live a life proud of my experiences and of my accomplishments, that I'd be very unhappy and brooding to just hang through life, eating, paying bills, working, sleeping and being-without-sharing.
Lately, I've been rather serious about what it is I'll do with the time given me, how I'll achieve this sense of accomplishment, of helping more than hurting. What can I do, and do well, that excites me, that feels like revolution, that I believe helps the world, the universe, and aides those of the future? (I don't mean the distant future, or the immediately following moment, but both, either, and anything in between.)
I don't know what I'll end up doing, but I think I understand now that A) it will come to me when I stop fearing the reations of others, because B) it doesn't matter; my ego will die with me, if not before, and that the last laugh's on me anyway, so why not ham it up a bit every so often, unflinchingly (unwittingly?) make a fool of myself, pleasing perhaps only me? But go forth directly. Confidently. Iteratively.
Perhaps in hindsight, I will see the incremental, cummulative accomplishments which flowed and fought their way through me, aided in their passage by an acceptance of change in myself and world. This acceptance of myself (my Self, which is not subject to definition, as definitions are words and words describe only what was or could be, and never what is) is in the offing. And that's a pretty good start.
I'm learning better the difference between good and foolish choices before I make them, and that the two can often be the same. I know I'm clean in my essence, that many of my motives are altruistic or, at least, without blame. I recognize my creative genius as being so unconventional that only more creative genius can allow it to become communicable, and that creative genius is ultimately derived from an unrelenting "me-ness".

I may not have the words for the poetry, or the patience for its writing, but the poetry itself breathes with me, kicking like a baby in my body, squirming like a graveyard worm. I may write the poem in a deck of cards or a rule of the dice, or in 700 pages of prose or 30 minutes of stagetime, or as an entree description to my guests or the trailing of my finger's along a woman's skin. I will choose or discover my medium based on the project and its timing.
But I am only one man, I am God.
My right hand is lightning.
Thunder, my left.
My judgement is final, mutable
and true.
My paints level ranges,
my smile smoothes the seas,
and in my breast,
the fire, ashes, arrows
and impenetrable feathers
of the calm before the storm.
I am Power particulate.

Resurrection of the Mighty Mir

Last Saturday, after calling in sick to work, I hung out with a buddy whom I haven't really seen in a number of months. He came to a friend's birthday party last month, but I was all over the place socially, so it's really been while since we've actually, y'know, hung out. But on Saturday, while we were trying to hide the fact that we smoke from the resident 3 year old, he told me it was time to resurrect American Mir. "If for no other reason than to link to my blog," he added, glancing over his shoulder back at the house.

I have now done both, and may proceed to usher into the blackness of cybersapce a poem I wrote on the 24th of January at 3.12pm (wow. That's in the afternoon. Weird.). And, no surprise to some of you, it's about sex. And food.

Untitled for Good Reason

His taste in women was a relish
of the obscure, obscene, lean fat-free and
ofttimes hellish. Hot pepper face slaps,
skin burning love taps, raising oozy welts
beneath around her pelt, her mouth,
a braille warning to the next louse.
His taste in women, like women, drifted
to the pickle sifted backward, adhered
to the rear with a lifted touch of ass.
Though both, whether danglers and funnels,
fun holes and danger, together in one lay,
or together through ten, pushed up his crave
and last drop of mayonnaise.
Yet his boy toss leaves behind joy loss,
a knee to chest self-hug, imitating self-love
like a mug of soy sauce is coffee.
Naughty.
In the office, day life orifice, he let slip
the tale of his dip in the hot dog bin
at market where, seeking for dark meat,
he found only all beef, but licked his public lip
for thoughts of spilled ketchup.
But not mustard.
That's for retards and perverts.