new year's eve
to and from family everyone is going or with LovedOnes for better and worse separated by the ubiquitous could by now be called body art cell phones and further buffered by an US magazine she could have been no further from her young husband sitting beside him with his newly healing burns in not well managed pain wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into agreeing to go visit her family&friends
and the PA system the newest in the long line of airport proselytes...we are on homeland security threatlevel orange and what you must do is...

concentric
as suspected OurFather is afterall has afterall reneged on our presumption of his predictability having given it up of course when his menti lapsed and I walk into his life into where he lives and feel at home there and no less so with his meanderings and even on this gray day cannot say I find it depressing infact no one is suffering save erstwhile family now interlopers who arrive unannounced wanting something else and factis it is more honest than the airport where no one was home meanwhile I wait at my mother's kitchen table for my brothers

life in his eyes the trajectory for the moment has changed again it's no longer a death march a swan song the fat lady getting ready to sing eachone asks the question of their own measure and all have only imperfect answers yes he knew who I was but has no idea what that means those who live with him now and care for him now know a man we never can never did never will and the proprietary wars are ill waged of course
he is more than anything a fine impressionistic painting, a jazz riff he couldn't understand

he was annoyed impatient and soperfectly temporal lobish with that hallmark telegraphed few words full and put off by being bumped his ass too sore to manage being jostled the trip down the hall too long too amorphous too as if hijacked by he wasn't sure who and once at the table thirsty now with the egocentricity of an elder or a babe take your pick

present and participative but the drummer is his own take it or leave it and we all stand in different spots as if around a tree being felled believing it will fall that way

as if in a great good morning greeting his picture popped up on the screen a flash from the past in the present and feelings of good will&continuity of forgiveness of life is short why waste a thing of the lesson to be learned over and over and yet again it is the sum of self respect to speak up to walk with at once hubris and the courage of ones convictions cause honey when it comes to riches that's about all there is with a twist of pleasure at day's end for the knowing it was time well spent

the visit the accounting the awareness the metabolizing is less often now mediated through in the pit of my stomach ha! it's no wonder I woke up every morning puking my guts out the lining of my stomach testament to the pervasive but unseen anxiety lurking in the shadows given shape in the end named when he killed himself but she's no less overwrought now carrying the leftovers locked into her unalterable patterns and suggesting what needs to happen next as if it might be your want as opposed to simply making her own demands known straightup like a fine scotch

my brother's daughter 15 going on 29 some poor bastard's jailbait having given over sullen this week for sultry and sneaking up on a wife's venue chatty and solicitous not to mention dressed to use her own words like some fine street ho which is not to suggest by any stretch it's her mother's style and of course I can't help but remember nevermind point out that in the olden days at that age our revolution was to take the damn thing off and burn it not use the brassiere asif it was some fine silver offering plate you know

again I'm taken by the rollover&die mantra of there's no point it doesn't make a difference so one abdicates gives up her voice his vote her value and one is leftonly with worth his weight in whine&whimper and they the adminosphere generic they chalkup the win in their column and now I know wherefrom are born all the grayfaces and of&for&by the people slips another notch
and speaking up nevermind freedom of will be a lost art no longer a responsibility of the commoner and reality will be mediated and arbitrated by the absolute despot no longer of our chosing

so he came in explaining apologizing obfuscating by any other name doing a jig the point lost in the too many words the homophobia glossed over by what was paraded as his good intention and it annoyed the hell out of me not that I haven't been on the queenforaday runway myself central figure in melodramas spun from ill matched threads long since worn out by hapless souls knowing all the while about sticks&stones and words but wishing just the same people weren't so mean but I still was most taken by how his gutless friend had fucked him over

so the how am I story goes on a pace I can carry wood up the stairs but can't yet with certainty put my luggage in the overhead bins I can stoke the fire but not reach sideways and up into the closet nor without a twinge reach across my chest and over my shoulder or too well back behind my head nor when lying on my back lay my arm flush on the ground but I can punch you in the nose and fold the sheets do without MyPhyscialTherapist and ThetodieforDoctor is no longer as handsome as My Husband

I'm in a fine cranky mood this morning I recognize it for the already not enough time it is and took some time in the face of that to stretch metaphorically and literally
and the annoyance of yet again needing to deal with ohmygod whatif the generic they read that
and the anticipatory anxiety of showing up to write the last scene of maggie going bad sotospeak
not to mention the aggravation of having to make a special trip downtown to deal with TheHealthServiceSystem because Payroll fuckedup and I'm on the runway to lose my benefits if I do't payup

so it's not that she is angry or that she wants to end her relationship her marriage or that because of what happened that she doesn't know him, it's that all of a sudden given just a little bit of breathing room she for lack of a less clumsy way of saying it doesn't know herself, and by that she means she no longer is predictable no longer knows what the defaults are, and more to the point is no longer able or willing to live by them just because
and now there's the pull of possibility of anti gravity

girltalk
how fitting is it god tiff it's just like the damnribbons how fitting that the first time I'd be wearing a damn peignoir it'd be not only with you but yours! no self respecting woman in my family would be caught dead in one of these and why not it's not like clothes make the woman–oh god is that offensive? honey as johnnE would say you're a mess and for my money a little thinskinned, factis I guess we all play dress up in one form or another I put on 34C's & a wig and you wear a husband

I guess I'm counting on the fact that girltalk is not by default between girls but rather a type of exchange or that gender just like anything else is not unmutable and that maggie is no less a real woman than tiffany who is more woman than mags ever thought of being or could be

and I think how J hated that people were talking about her and the worst part is they were only using her to talk about themselves, we only intheend talk about ourselves it's soall about I would just die if that ever happened to me

it was a nice visit we had, like litter mates as G said, and My Brother's Daughter smart enough to have been not only a participant but a witness to it all, an incredible part of her his story

and our story was rewritten just like our birth certificates had been
they didn't know, their names hadn't changed

I remember finding that out, so long ago, when I got mine and I hated that worse ithink than being able to eat fish on Friday all of a sudden

easy come easy go
it is never clear who what gets erased

and what I wanted to say was you have a perfect right to be wrong and the most unequal thing is the equal treatment of the unequal and what stopped me was subordination but I found your impersonal ohbytheway from now on you will only get a halfhour lunch memo at the last minute of something long in the works equally provacative and a wanton&frivolous use and assumption of the right to be discourteous based simply on power–and that constitutes harrassment, you are forewarned

and the issue of respect in the context of the value of teamwork is obviously begged

he wanted to know if I thought she would sit with him while he was dying in the context of discussing whether or not she really wanted someone out there with her and I said at that point I thought we needed to do for ourselves what it was we thought was fitting and proper and to do for ourselves what we needed rather than ask that of someone else given that no matter the all for one and one for all in the moments metabolizing the death of a fatherhusbandbrother is each manwomanchild for herself
never mind the dying

truth be told I had a twinge driving home yesterday thinking of him of MyPhysicalTherapist that I'd never see again who dropped out of my life in just the same way he dropped in as a matter of course even though when he asked at my last appointment what now what do you want to do now I said well you know there was a time I didn't think I could survive without you and now I can there you are he said knowing our work was done, and there I am already missing him like I would an arm

so we're going over My Novel I am reading it aloud and it's odd I feel protective rather than defensive the better part of it being that the protective perimeter I've erected as opposed to a rather narrower defensive armor allows me room and since I'm not so busy thrusting and parrying repelling and ducking I can look listen and watch and it dawns on me all of a sudden that maybe in the flesh, therefore it's me they're not connecting with rather than the characters since others left to their own devices have not had difficulty entering the realm

counterpoint

do you remember me she asked you were an angel you saved my life

I believe you I'd said when you say thisminute I want to die & I believe you when you say the verynextminute no I don't

I hate that I'd decide to kill myself she said &then not do it

I said that was the wrong deciding paradigm, it's not like being afraid to fly and finally deciding to buy a ticket to Rome and chickening out, it's more like being afraid of not making the right decision, afterall there's no room for mistakes

oh, she said

sense of self not the same as self centered as if all things are equidistant beginning with you with her she's not warm I'm not sure I like her too much work for too little in return for not quite enough in return too much chin not enough heart but as he'd pointed out tough is good maybe better than the neverending whine of too thin skinned yet I think of the other 15 just the same with the arabisraeli conflict as the backdrop and tough as nails make no mistake she tenders it all with the hope of kindness

her impatience is showing her pursed lips I shouldn't have to say it don't ask I won't have to to tell her disapproving I'm disappointed in you tell is showing but if you blithely don't read it aloud and roll right along past it it's easily bypassed as an anomaly as a wrong response or set up as a brain fart on her part as impolite or impolitic or as her slip is showing and then she's the orphan and a step behind
she doesn't even do it well and simply countson us being good little boys&girls to play along

Naturalization and Civics

so do you remember that:
it was the NativeAmericans who helped the pilgrims and that they came to the colonies for religious freedom

the basic belief of the declaration of independence was all men are created equal

the constitution which is the supreme law of the land was written in 1787 and protects everyone living in the US

it is the congress that can declare war and the president who is the commander in chief

the first ammendment guarantees the right to request a change of government

a citizen's most important right is the right to vote

I sit like a schoolgirl at the kitchentable writing out the answers preparing for TheTest and repeatedly, inspite of myself & the pacifist anti-nationalist bent I was raised with, I (get)know that the ideas, the freedoms, are worth fighting for and justthesame when I said now can I answer that the constitution protects everyone who lives here (even non-citizens) except those designated as enemy combatants my husband said ohno, and keep a straight face (asin I shouldn't roll my eyeballs) when you talk about PresidentBush, because you don't know who those people are, you don't know where they got them

FAQ's in the game of hearts: nothing to give

what suit is nothing to give
is it a raise or a trump
does it begin or end the bidding
does it win or lose the hand
does it shoot the moon or not
it is a pee & popcorn break or more
is it a hand worth betting on
what does it really mean
should you keep or pass the queen of hearts
is it a sucker's bet
is it much ado about nothing
should I fold
when should I fold
is it legitimate
what does it add to the game

I passed my initial interrogation (sic) interview at what used to be INS &isnow HomelandSecurity and if you think airports are secureornot nuts you ain't seen nothing and ohbythe way all of the screeners at the immigration&naturalization building were English as 2ndlanguageclass graduates

so they tell you to come 1/2hour before your appointment due to restricted waiting room but it takes you 3/4 of an hour just to get in the building & it's notpretty

my interrogator was alittle snarky at first wanting to enter into a tugofwar with me over my canadian passport but I won, I didn't bring it

we went right to you've been here for 23 years?! why now? as practiced I said flatly, to vote he said yeah canadians&people from UK hangout for a long time without doing anything until something comes along and they get mad or scared I uttered demurely have you ever been arrested cited lalala? I remembered allofasudden maybe I hadbeen and said nothing in the 70's he thought I was going to say when infact I was looking for language delicto to speak of rear entry, having been arrested for the same on the FillmoreSt bus, it was smooth sailing from there

anti-nationalism notwitstanding

all in all I was suprised at the poignancy of it realizing it was good I'd waited as long as I had for whatever the reason in as much as earlier it would have had no meaning when in fact it was full of meaning and ever moreso in the face of how free speech and freedom of religion and separation of church and state and the right to request a change of government nevermind a trial by jury are being transformed and co-opted at this very minute
I was diappointed not to recite the 13 original colonies

from immigrant to citizen

I was glad to have worn grownup cityclothes somuch the better to do wisewoman there I was standing OnTheLine in skirt&nylons realshoes and a blackleather jacket where do you work he asked at the end all conversationally, I looked askance, in the hospital...where in the hospital, you remind me of margaret atwood, you know her he asked in psych I said he smiled you're very calming

I thought of the manyways there were tobe a dilettante & for allofit wonder why it took me, mistress of standing OnTheLine I am, so long to cover the distance

in the background my father lays dying and again it is hard to imagine and just like canoeing in the living room made the flood no more real or the pretense of knowing where in the hell we were in the middle of that night on a freight train going the wrong direction would have made getting off at the next stop easier the calls the volleys the conversations to triangulate on the polestar of truth make no difference and are not helping me decide it is time to go still I wait as if it were not really happening

but since it is & I'm already there...on the runway with him ushering him inspite of the fact he like the rest of my family couldnot imagine doesnot imagine there's anywhere to be goingto...I might as well be there to be part of the goingto though there's nowhere to be gone andyet he, mister&master of How Do You Know, I'm betting would in the end ha not be surprised to find there might be a goingto to get to

one never is too old to be fatherless
I leave tomorrow
I know it's real the airline told me so