As always, I am kidding. (And pay steeply for my jokes)
It's the full moon, the time of my period, is this phantom PMS I feel?
Like J, I've been (albeit, very noncommittally/pessimistically ) trying to think of a way to make money writing. I have this idea that I could be rather original. I have a desire to be able to stay home with the baby. (I do want to keep the baby, I just don't know, how to stop repeating myself.) Vague ideas regarding sending poems to magazines. I did enter a magazine essay contest once. For Real & Simple, $3000 cash prize. The topic was to describe the most important day of your life, and I alluded to my gunshot injury in the most discursive, rambling, and anticlimactic fashion possible. I wrote until I reached 1500 words, and stopped. I think I've lost it in the shuffle.
The blogosphere seems beyond my comprehension, and I'm too stubborn to honor themes. I feel like if I'm freelancing on assigned topics, it's not really writing, but perhaps that is a symptom of immaturity. Of course if I actually found a way to make money, I'd probably feel different. The truth is that focus can sharpen and enhance the process of writing; I found a certain energy in writing literary analysis. Narrowing my approach to the defense of a thesis actually seemed to make me more creative, because I have a tendency to string words together rather thoughtlessly, to write as though (I always use this unremarkable metaphor) paddling idly in a canoe. (Do I need a sugar-daddy to support my child's need for recreation, for the great outdoors?)
I've never been so pregnant before, and it's barely started. The past couple weeks have been an astounding exercise in isolation, mostly because I push people away, as the saying goes. I haven't conversed with anyone in my family or had any social interactions except poor El, with whom I'm keeping it clean and honestly have no romantic interest in. What his motives are, only God can say- but he is engaging and sympathetic company. I haven't talked to D in a few days, though I received a very apologetic email (which I wrote back to as diplomatically as possible; I see the benefit in leaving the lines open) and a couple phone calls. He gives up so easily though, and I need my space. Yes, I secretly wish he would fight to “win” my affection back, but I know the way he is, and the way we've been, and those are the fantasies of a young girl, and I have bigger fish to fry.
(I wasn't the first and I won't be the last, but at the end of the day I'm alone. / It might have been curse or a veritable blast, if I'dve just let it grown.)
The high points in my week were- besides eating, of course- babysitting a ten year old and visiting my mentee at the Boys and Girl's Club. I had a couple appointments in the morning which knocked me out for the rest of the day-- I've been sleeping 10 + hours a night -- reduced me in fatigue to a screaming, sobbing toddler. As I contemplate the last few days, my eyes get wet.
And sometimes the only thing that makes it feel better is realizing that it's not really a big deal. Instead of touting a ruined life like a mantra, realize that there are many paths. You took a certain path, big deal. It is never too late to be forgiven by God, to become enlightened, and to act responsibly. And though no power on earth, no brush with death or fantastic heartbreak, has ever shaped me up, that too- that being inured to change*- is a common enough plight. Nothing is new under the sun, and no mistake I'm making has not been made, and anything can happen. What I fear most of all is my aversion to social contact, when I need it the most. I already feel heavy and awkward. The dragging laziness of a day in which I force myself to go for a brief walk to get a little sunshine and exercise, only to obliterate any benefit with huge meals and laying in bed the rest of the day, and to wash the dishes, looking upon the dirty walls and dirty floor and really cursing the day I was born; where was I?
As if this is redeemed or transformed by communicating. This isn't communicating/ the story has no moral. I am no victim.
And life comes from the wretchedest places, slips through the booze shaped cracks, and mean people spring the loveliest faces, Don't turn back & just relax.
The writing, well, that's another story. I just want to be not depressed and not a fucking bitch.
(*A single mother I admire listed as one of her interests on her Myspace profile "being forced into change kicking and screaming." She is one of many young mothers with little support who thrives despite not being particularly maternal, not being totally overjoyed at motherhood. You don't have to feel it's the best thing to ever happen to you to do a good job, it's okay even to think you should have waited. You just protect your child from these feelings as is age appropriate, and are committed and loving, and grow into your role. <- Best case scenario. I'm very afraid)
We'd do anything to laugh, man. The father of my child, the father of my child, is not meek or kind or wild, The father of my child, the father of my child … Someday I will write a babydaddy poem.
It's 7:40 and I'm boiling eggs. I will eat several of them with multiple bowls of cereal, keefer, and hopefully not too much else. I have been ravenous, the old wives' tales point to a boy. I'm almost at the point where I think if it's a boy I'll have it put up for adoption. I know that's flippant and evil but where are all those babydaddies? Sure, the tide is shifting, incrementally, but seriously, where are all the baby daddies? Why do we blame the women? (Do you think your the fucking prime minister, you shoot out a wad of embargo. / The priests tell you fornication is sinister, but women they carry the cargo. )
Although in many ways I am grateful to be in America and am almost positive I will be fed and sheltered, I am angry at this culture for contributing to my impulsivity and isolation. While in the final count, my blame rests on me, our society is hysterical, the fucking tabloids man, the baby mania and the in vitro and the push-pull of finding a man or saving yourself. Sometimes it really is better to be alone, I've never felt more certain. Anyway, someday I will tell you all my opinions about how we attract people who seem like tyrants for good reason, how none of us are more wrong than anyone else, etc. But I walk in a fog of hunger. The only thing that seems pegged down is when I am perched on my stool (I've developed an aversion to the chair I usually sit in) hovered over a plate of food, devouring it without the interruption of silverware or other human beings.
(Nobody once asked me, would you like to be born. / There was no invitation*, no allegiance was sworn. )
*Or was there?
The "Scarlett Letter" stood for Adultery. A. Abortion. Adoption. And and and and and
