that Sandra Day O’ Connor has submitted her retirement to the Prez.

Let the games begin.

although i did get some sleep…and will get more.

i played the guitar tonight for a bit! first time in a while. granted, it was my Backpacker as opposed to any of the regular lot — weight considerations, you know– but it was still something.

tomorrow I may break out the Portuguese guitar…mandolin sized twelve string from 1908 used in fado music. light and resonant…do me some good.

staying away from here a bit today — triggers too much introspection right now

anyone got any information on vicodin triggering depressive episodes?

although i’ve got some legitimate personal stuff going on, this seemed to hit more swiftly than was warranted. i’m a little concerned — not for my safety, just from the information point of view.

slept late. went to batman (drove for first time). batman rocked. came home very sore. slept. worked on poem.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Adolescence

overnight elroy
learns to turn his duke cap
to the right
and becomes another wannabe.
mom and dad fall out over this
and go to pieces especially when
little man drops his first
“nigga” in front of company
they point at will smith
and scream at their boy
“the fresh prince never says that”
elroy turns his hip away and shrugs
“that’s why he ain’t one of mine”
no one understands the conversation anymore
no one knows how to talk each other
elroy turns his duke cap all the way around
his parents slump against the kerry posters
no one sleeps much that night

overnight elroy
lines his eyes and becomes a goth
his family bugs like an egyptian plague
especially when the little man
bisects his chest with daddy’s razor
they wring their hands and point at each other
screaming “what did we do wrong by you”
elroy turns black back on them and sniffs
“sins of omission are still sins”
no one understand the conversation anymore
everyone bites off more label than they can chew
elroy tattoos his arm
with a pattern he got off the local parlor wall
his parents slump against their own sunny dispositions
and no one gets much sleep that night

overnight elroy
takes off his hands like gloves
steps out of his skin and agrees to be a problem
his parents cannot matter enough to be a solution
and they fall apart when the man
blows off their fingerprints with a goodbye kiss
they point at a picture frame and whisper
“we miss your head between our own”
elroy cannot take his eyes off the mirror
as he says “mother, father, blister, bother”
and the conversation is the same one everyone has
every time another rebel without a trace disappears
elroy begins to pretend he has been here all along
his parents shimmer and cross each other
as their boy sheds his fads and leaves home
making room for sleep to come back to its nest

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

good luck tonight, delawhere…

1.
fuck me, this hurts. tonight it’s really bugging me. one side in particular. i shall take some more pain medication and sleep, dammit.

2.
where, pray tell, are jeff and tonie these days??

3.
god, i hate summer. any day where the temperature rises above 70 degrees makes me sociopathic.

1 paper done.

Onto “Women Race and Class” by Angela Davis. Then, “The Queer Sixties” by Patricia Juliana Smith. I’m a critique machine, baby.

Got some light reading to do too, which I’ll address under separate cover.

Writing this paper:

Kim E. Nielsen’s “Un-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism, and the First Red Scare” is a detailed look at how two coalitions of women’s organizations faced off over a variety of social issues in the 1920s. The author’s argument is that the tactics and principles of antiradical and antifeminist organizations not only helped to derail the progressive momentum that the suffrage movement had developed leading up to the establishment of women’s suffrage in 1920, but that those tactics have served as a blueprint for the methods of today’s socially conservative activism.

Well, that and juggling fire.

i need to take another vicodin.

for all my joking about it presurgery, i really hate to take pain meds. i did it recreationally for so long that i find myself needing far more than is usually prescribed, and thus I end up perpetuating the pain longer than necessary.

but this is different, and i have to get used to that.

i hate not being in control of yet another aspect of how i feel.

required that I be…um…shaved. Chest down to, um, yeah.

I am unhappy. Itchiness is beginning. In all affected quarters.

In other news, I am ready to have this all be over now. Anytime.

going without Vicodin today, I’ve decided. I take enough drugs already.

cannot WAIT to take a shower later (after 48 hours).

removed bandages this AM. four little bullet holes in a cross shape on me belly.

i’m restless as hell. might try driving later. or power lifting.

ETA: Vicodin was ingested, but only once so far. Even I am not immune to pain relief.