I've Left Out Strange Details.

Somehow these voices are perfect.

 

The plan I can't quit making is the same plan that feels so comfortable, so relaxing and I fall asleep thinking of it.

 

Divinely yours,

BETH

(Finally!  I have monday off!)

Loose Socket

I'm just working too many hours.  That's the story.  I can't get enough sleep.  I do four and six hour sleep shifts and then work again and again and again. 

I have ten thousand stories to tell and no mouth. 

I have ten thousand mouths and no stories to tell.

Either way, I find myself speechless, lonely and astounded at how lonely this really is.

 

(Famous quote--Who'll see this:

"I'll give you all my money not to have that baby.  Will $12,000 convince you?")

We're celebrating Jen's thirty-fourth birthday tonight.  Honestly, it'll be the best meal I've eaten in weeks. 

Divinely yours,

BETH

Careful Reconsideration

Really enjoying my Wolfmother CD, my terribly over priced Wolfmother CD.  I couldn't get it at Plan 9, they didn't have it in stock--I just HAD to have it that day.  You know, that craving for music, that want-need-love-passion for music... so I payed $18 for it.  I don't regret it. 

Here, I could draw a picture for you, of this man I met with his hair and his beard and his broken apartment.  I'd rather express my sincere appreciation for this man who, through all his experience in life, is still overyjoyed about buying a mediocre stereo system for $15 from a friend of a friend.

Weakness echoes through her skin.

 

Divinely yours,
BETH

Headphones Around Your Neck

Molfmother - a new band I'm getting into.  I saw them perform some of "Woman" on LIVEearth tonight.  I was immediately attracted to their sound.   It's an more "classic" rock sound, yet with that extremely modern edge on drums.  The guitar got me though, I was sold two seconds into it.  That doesn't happen often.

I was driving home, doing about 75 on the country roads (...that sounds a lot like Arlo Guthrie in the Significance of the Pickle Song) and I looked to my left and saw the sun resting on the crest of the mountains.  It was just SITTING there!  So beautiful and bold and so hard to explain.  My words are just words.  Anything that I explain will not pluck any sincere emotions in the reader.  Life is experiential--I can not explain it.  My words are just words.  I slowed Stella to about 55 and drove slowly watching the gold (literally, gold) settle on the valley.  The fields I passed had been worked that day; exhausted as the farmers and farm hands.

 (Oh, Kanye West!)

 A teenage boy was still mowing hay in the fields while the sun was dipping below the mountains--he had to finish his job, the gold was frosting his body, he wore a straw brimmed hat. 

It was too picturesque--I feel the things I felt while I drove through that countryside and think, "Maybe I've died and this is my heaven."  I literally consider the fact that maybe I've died and had no idea... and just slipped into my HeavenReality.  This evening that was such a realistic possibility.

I am content.

Divinely yours,

BETH

This Is The First Week.

While Tony Danza danced, I felt ashamed.  I thought, "Who is this man, and why is he tap dancing and talking?  I mean, this man is REALLY opening his mouth and that. is. bad." 

There were pictures of soliders and their sacrifice.  I felt my first pangs of patriotism.  Everything is life is something to grow into, we are born with nothing.  I might be growing in a small cast of pride.  There is more to be seen about America than our obsession with over-indulgence, grotesque sexuality and the media. 

One picture was a young man, maybe early twenties, behind a sand-bag wall.  He was staring out with absolutely no emotion in his eyes at all.  Empty eyes allow us to see the innocence (or lack thereof) that we do not see regularly.  He still had wonder, curiousity.

I can hear the explosions in the sky and I am secure enough in my home to know they are only fireworks. 

Fury in the sky.

 

Divinely yours,

BETH

Folded In My Pocket

I'm curious as to the significance of my "situation".  I am here, alone -- standing in the water fall's atomic explosion.  There are no tracks to tell how I got here, no maps with lines traced for miles and miles.  Where is my mother, my womb, my sky?  I am only temporary in each spot, yes -- but how did I get here?  I am my own physical mystery.

-----

 Today, my day off, I spent enjoying random children that I met once and may never see again.  I loved them all instantly, and in a flash I saw them going back to their apartments, back to their malnutrition and parents too obsessed with themselves to see the rotting teeth of their children. 

 Hannah and I went to the Artful Dodger.  We talked and talked and then decided to go on a jaunt through the country.  What beautiful country side there is.  And there was a man urinating beside bulldozing equipment, a cheap store and the stench that follows the cow.  Still, what beautiful country side.

 I went to the "lake" (oversized pond) with my parents after dinner.  Mom fed ducks and then a small boy chased the ducks away with a net.  Mom muttered something along the lines of, "I wish I had a really big net to chase HIM with.  Rotten little boy..."  I saw the rotten boy fall in the pond and, like the baby ducklings in the middle, he went completely under.  Children sink like stones, small stones, that tumble to the water by accident. 

 He surfaced.

Will I?

 Divinely yours,

BETH

Is This A Night?

I really love my job. It's not so horrific.

Tonight I talked to my managers and picked up two extra days of work. It really helps when you need to work more if you actually like your job. Now I can honestly say that I was willing to agree to work twelve days in a row. I mean, other than exhaustion, it means so much more.

I met four great people tonight. They came in sets of two. All with the same company, but two sets of two. The first two were halarious but distant. The second two brought me ice cream--yes, ice cream. Then while everything was calm they brought me entertainment. They stood and talked to me for the last forty-five minutes of my shift--otherwise I would've been sitting there bored out of my mind. We had fun and laughed... and laughed and laughed. Luckily they will be there tomorrow night.

We were at 100% occupancy tonight. People were either surprised or infuriated to be turned down. Hey, it's not my fault.

I took many "over the phone" registrations and did them CORRECTLY! I'm so happy with myself over that.

Ah, well--I'm tired.

Divinely yours,
BETH

Wailing Trees


Magnificent relief comes on the wind and I could fly, I think.

Divinely yours,
BETH

I've Betrayed More Than The Crowd.

I saw the sunset over an Indiana cornfield. I wasn't sitting on the side of the road with a cigarette and my pant legs rolled up, I was driving by going 80 mph. It was the first time that I remember thinking, "I've got to get the hell out of here."

It's a strange feeling to dislike your home so much. It's like hating the mother that only loved you, that only embraced you, that only fed you sweet and sticky candy. Yet, I hate Indiana now.

How long until I heal from the disappointment of family? The wound just won't close--the incision is puffy and pink but just won't seal and the stitches are overgrown with skin. Taking the stitches out will be painful; misery that's unforgettable.

Yeah, it's dramatic. But it's life and it's family (or the loss of one); it's regrouping and assessing the complex outcome of dysfunctional relationships. It's just life. And life is just dramatic.

I'm happy to be home. The house had that stale smell; Stella was happy to be driven again.

Oh Stella. Stella, my 1996 Toyota Corolla, fire engine red with a spoiler. She's the diner waitress, 36 years old with good legs but bad lungs. Her hands smell of cigarettes and hash browns but she has a lot of charm and could sell milk to a lactose-intolerant blind man.

I read On The Road by Kerouac. The writing style doesn't please me. (At least not in the way that Ginsberg's's style does [if we're comparing Beat writers]). The content fascinated me; so simple and complete. It really modified my search for the group dynamic.

I told my dad today that I wanted to be a traveling salesperson. "It's not fun after a while, Beth." You see, my father traveled and sold many things. After I said that we drove in silence. The back of his head was transparent and I could see the memories of stark hotel rooms and lonely restaurants searching for conversation with anyone. "I just want to travel, dad." He was still quiet and switched hands on the steering wheel, "You can get something better than that, Beth."

We stayed in an empty 1940's style house. Tiny, with no furniture. It had the luxuries of electricity and central air. I've forgotten what it's like to be in an air-conditioned home. The bathroom was my favorite, the most run down room in the house. An old sink hung from the wall and there was a window in the shower. I opened it while I showered to watch the sky while the scalding hot water trickled over my hair, barely saturating the surface. There were piles of ants in the tub and underneath the sink. They swarmed but really made no progress in migration. I felt sorry interrupting them for the middle of the night bathroom breaks. There are a million ant bites on my legs.

Divinely yours,
BETH

In Fashion Or Falling From The Trees.


Yo tengo celos. There was a reason I learned how to say that. I didn't realize I would be using it so soon.

I have such jealousy that I almost forget why I left you and I'm left panting, asking the most obscene questions: What about our son? The one we talked about! Or that home in Michigan? You promised we could go there. You're a liar. No. I'm a liar. I told you again and again to quit that "filthy talk." The "F" word (future) made me angry, you made me angry. Ugh, I'm infuriated with you. But I'm still the liar. I told you I hated it when you talked about marriage and other permanent mistakes and I left you! But now that you're gone, I want all those things that I hated so much.

So how do I keep yanking you back and forth at my convenience without breaking you? If I can answer that question, then I'd be content. Unfortunately, I don't want to break you.

And maybe in not breaking YOU, I'm breaking me just the littlest bit.

But what about your son? I hope you don't talk that way with HER, in that garden where you'll harvest the vegitables that will feed HER.

When did I become a jealous woman? When did I give in to that disgusting idea?

I am sick from lack of variation. I am fevered and sweating.


LOST POEM
Sometimes I wish,
but there are no shooting stars.
This is why I'm broke, with no lover,
with no million dollar boat,
with no motorcycle.
But I've got rice.
Enough to feed the children,
And the flowers.
Sometimes I wish,
And even though there is no shooting star,
I keep getting rice. I am rich.
In rice, I am rich.


Divinely yours,
BETH