River of wine

There is a chair somewhere that you stripped and repainted
green
That we sat in when we were not yet broken
down
And I see it by that red 1950's chrome kitchen table with the rusted legs
we bought at circa
and in the living room there's the tragic civil war general lamp you surprised me with after
I passed over it as too dear
and the screen door that opens to the back porch that we opened every morning to let Maggie and Bird greet the day
and sniff out the groundhog that ate the neighbor's corn

You Keep On Keeping On

"be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it."

New Years

Listening to Perfume Genius' 'learning' and thinking about the coming of the new year.
The emotional wreckage. The heart's junkyard. Serene & Ashley & Anne and whoever else. And your picture's in my wallet with its cauliflower ears. I've seen the hunter and the wolf. The trial of a thousand years.

Ejector Seat/Trap Door

Last night I was running late for picking Serene up to go to practice with Patrick.
She texted me for an ETA. I said, "15 min?" She replied: "Well you need to call Patrick then."
I retorted: "I do huh?" And she said: "Considering we were supposed to be there 20 minutes ago I'd say yeah." And then I said, " 'we' did not say that. Unless you meant the royal we." That effectively ended our text message dialogue. When I picked her up at the house it was icey. I was feeling irritated because I had just hauled ass from Tyson's Corner to Alexandria to NW DC to pick her up and it seemed like she was doing an awful lot of complaining for someone who just has to wait to get picked up and because I was probably still harboring residual frustration from the night before when she decided not to meet me in Clarendon for the failed Whitlow's music biz conference. When she got in the car she said that I should have let her know I was running late because she bent over backwards to get out of work and now would have to go in early in the morning to finish for no good reason. And then I blew up and said I didn't want to practice anyway, that it wasn't fun and should be, that I didn't give a shit about playing after a kid's show in greenbelt md, that I didn't need someone to be domineering towards me when I'm the one driving all over hell's half acre to get from here to there, that I would call Patrick and let him know we weren't playing, that she was aggressive in her speech. And she just said, "please don't do this." and then I remembered that I was dealing with a person and I came to my senses. But she commented that she was worried that I always seem extreme in my reaction to conflict, that I disappear and pull away and that she doesn't want to have to worry about what she says for fear that I'll react in an extreme way. And after practice I felt so low and sorry for what i'd done and felt like i'd ruined everything. Becasue this is the type of knee jerk thing I would have done with Reveley and I thought I'd become more patient/less reactionary in my responses to stress. So what are the lessons of this exchange? That I need to be more upfront about what I'm feeling, that I need to be more conscientious about other people's schedules/timeframes, that when I begin to feel angry i need to address it before it escalates, that above all i need to take my hand of the ejector seat lever and board up that old familiar trap door. Running can't always be my first response. Distance can't be the default answer to every problem. I need to plant my feet and negotiate the thorns.

Sleeping City

The coffee shop clerk is dragging the sidewalk sign to the corner
I'm watching the digital clock in the dashboard of my car
waiting for it to flash 6:00 am so I can buy a large latte' and head to work
The Patrick street traffic is trickling north towards the city
It's lighter than it will be later, but I'll still have to wait for a gap in the cars to open my door and jog to the sidewalk
Inside there are jars of fruit biscotti, bagels, overpriced dog treats
I buy one for Lucy and later forget to take it inside to her
The board is written in multi-colored magnetic letters
and the letters are upper and lower case and arranged at a variety of tilts
like a kid did the placing
Yesterday evening the barista was wearing lucky brand jeans
She served me a Rt 66.
I asked her if it was darker and she said it was a French Roast
I didn't know what that meant
Aside from it must be darker
Now I've learned that it means the beans are roasted twice on a very oily surface and that the resulting coffee has none of the inherent flavors of the original bean
I think I'll choose a lighter roast in the future
There's was a woman taking oxygen from an oxygen tank at the table to my left
I chose a seat in the sun to enjoy the last warmth of the season
Eventually the beams were too hot and I moved to the next table over
There had been a gentleman in a wheelchair sitting their moments before and he left his empty espresso cup at the table
The residue of the liquid still coating the insides
Two thirty somethings took my old spot and engaged in a get to know you conversation
perhaps a first date
The guy talked about sushi and scuba diving and his fear of all aquatic life
The girl worked ten hour shifts at Fairfax hospital
An older gentleman with long stringy gray unkempt hair and a full beard arrives this morning at 6:00 and takes what I assume is his regular spot at the back table smokers
sit now and where the goths used to sit when I was in high school
I'm still trepidatious about entering that room
There's an oversized coffee bean grinder and a few stacked sacks of raw coffee beans