I'm not new

and I freakin miss this place. <3 I hope everyone has been well.

(900th post? cool.)

Poertry. Yep.

I want constructive criticism. Penis.

Ashtray

"It's not easy" she would say,
putting her fingers into the ashtray,
"It's not easy to erase your blood."
- Metric, “Rock Me Now”

Your older brother put cigarettes out on my chest

while you were sleeping

he licked the wounds with his pointed tongue

He pulled my hair while you were in the shower

bit my neck and made it bleed

his eyes like dwarf stars

Floors that left sticky grit on the black bottoms

of our feet in the smoky kitchen

ashing our cigarettes in the sink

We watched frozen green squares rotate

your arms around my waist, sharing cancer

listening to the cockroaches dance behind the fridge

On the banks of the Old Yocona River

shards of glass masquerading beneath our feet

watching the algae swirl in the current

Wading to the waist

I held you in the hurried water

while you cried.

And smoked a cigarette.






Beneath The Ice

Not even Shakespeare could sing to us that night,

the wind frisking our shivering bodies
strip searching our souls, shattering us into billions of brilliant
shards of memories spread on the pavement like shreds of a negligee
on a satin coverlet

We were waiting for a savior

or, if not that, at least some inspiration in the heavy metal
chains that we clutch like blankets from the cradle,
rooted as surely as an onion in the moist ground.

Jesus!

we call into our plastic coffins
only surprised
when nothing happens
the first time

What passed

five years, a fuming joint, all the constellations in the sky
what passed that night, whirling sirens
we followed to a house in the country where an old woman
her mouth a pink black hole

lived beneath a roof with eyes

The fire burned as blue as a morning glory

as blue as the tattoo on your hipbone
where I stopped to smell the snow one cold Nebraska night.
as blue as your face the morning you died.

“God is dead” said Nietzsche
if none had argued
none would remember
that grizzled old German
that notzi, philosopher king,
except for you, my communist manifesto
my Marxist Terrorist





Swamp Foetus

hot smell of asphalt
glittering in the July sun
glass from a Heineken green as algae
lying on the gritty blacktop of a back county road
yellow line faded to grey cracks
Soybeans sprouting brown to the left
newcut corn, like rotten molasses
sweat crawling on her face like flies

remembering the Great Dismal Swamp
rattlesnakes coiled on tree stumps
big around as a tractor tire
bare toes sinking into the mud banks
of a Potomac estuary
rotten leaves sticking to bitten ankles
deerflies swarming around a blue Ford pickup truck
the river like veins around a womb
cradling the house with the oak tree
weeping Spanish moss, slowly strangling
in the front yard

Saa is coming to London!

So. How's everyone doing, first off?

I suppose I should start by explaining the topic title - I am (provided I can get the student loans for the trip, which should be no problem) coming to London March 12-20 (tentative dates, I think) i.e. for spring break. I'm coming with students from the English dept. of my school, so I'll be busy during the week, but we WILL have free time (I don't know when yet though).


... So yeah, it's like six months till then but I was really excited! I had a choice of Ireland or London and I jumped at the latter because it would give me the opportunity to harass in-person certain members of this forum and do other neat things like visit Canterbury (because I'm a nerd) and the other nerdy English-major stuff that I'll get to do.


ANYWAY! I hope there's still a few people here that would like to meet and have a few drinks with an old friend.


On another topic, since I'll cover a long period of time with a broad sweep of examples, I got my eigth tattoo this weekend (morning glories on my foot, never ever get a foot tattoo, it's the worst pain I've ever felt. I almost fainted, and I have a rather high tolerance for tattoos...) and some new piercings. I met Ralph Nader and Brooke Smith at the Democratic National Convention. I'm in a wonderful relationship, almost a year now. And I never ever use the internet for social purposes anymore, as working on the newspaper and school have sucked the life out of me (plus, by the time I get onto the computer for non school-related purposes, I have to feed my SIMS 2 addiction... =_=). Spore sucks a bit, by the way, if anyone was wondering.

I miss you guys. Heart hug.


ps.
If anyone has advice on weird/interesting/perverted/fun stuff I can do, see, and eat in London, pray tell. ^.~

Newspapers!

So I'm the entertainment editor for my school's newspaper, and as a huge journalism nerd, I'm curious: who else writes for a paper?

Our paper: The Delta Statement

We wanna change the name to "The Okra Times" because our unofficial school mascot is the Fighting Okra (our official one is the Statesman).

ps. Our online editor isn't the most timely updater. :/ He's the advisor's son, which I HIGHLY disapprove of, but there's no one else that applied, and with my 20-hour class schedule plus being ENT editor, I just don't have the time or inclination to do it myself (plus they wouldn't pay me any more for it).

Dr. Strange

So. I feel a little weird talking about this since I've been gone so long - three years ago, I'm sure I would have started this topic a lot sooner, but ya know. I'm SHY. Or not.

I found an abnormal mass in my, uh, chest. Ya know. So I tried to make an appointment with my regular doctor, who is female. She couldn't fit me in until January, so I opted to go to a more local (but male) gyno.

So I go to the office Friday, make an appointment with one of the doctors there, we'll call him Dr. B. I specifically chose Dr. B because my roommate had gone to the other doctor at the clinic, call him Dr. G, and she told me that he had a really flirty bedside manner, and I'm sorry, I don't wanna be flirted with by the person that's going to be feeling up my chest and sticking probes into my ladyparts.

So I had my appointment with Dr. B, but today, after I told the nurse what I was there for, I was examined by Dr. G.

The only reason I can think of for them to swap doctors would be if one specialised in gynecology and one in obsterics. But when I made the appointment, the receptionist was told clearly that I was a new patient and that I didn't know either doctor, so I think she would have clarified the matter for me.

My roommate had been telling the truth - not only was a female nurse present for the examination (I am curious as to whether that is typical in Mississippi, possibly a law?) but he was indeed "flirty." I am a tall woman, and I'm not used to looking up at anyone. Dr. G probably my height, and sitting as I was on the end of the examination table, he was perhaps three inches taller than me. He stood close enough that it was uncomfortable for me to look him in the face - within a foot of me, probably about four inches from my knees if not closer. Anyone who's studied psychology knows about the personal space boundaries.

Other than that, I think the examination was routine, however, I've never had a thorough breast exam - my usual doctor does a cursory check that rarely takes more than ten seconds per side.

All in all, it freaked me out a little, and I'm not sure if I should look into switching doctors or not. This is, after all, the first time I've seen a gyn for anything besides the yearly checkup.

... ._. helps?