so it’s just me, here, and my watch ticking.
my watch is small and gold and beautiful, and it ticks so loud. it’s my mother’s watch, which she has given to me on permanent loan since i borrowed it once and fell in love with it. i’m not sure exactly how old it is, but she wore it when she was in nursing school. i like wearing it because of that. i like knowing that the watch i’m wearing is the same one my mom used as a brand-new nursing student, taking care of patients for the first time.
but wearing the watch has also given me another nervous habit. no, knuckle-cracking, foot-shaking, hair-twirling and lip-chewing were not enough. to that list i have now added taking off my watch and winding it about every five seconds. and honestly, i don’t know what i have to be nervous about. i’m not sticking people in the arm with needles or watching surgery or breaking bad news to women with breast cancer. and yet i wind and crack and shake and chew and twirl over nothing. every tick of this watch reminds me that i am a wuss.
tick.
tick.
oh. and a mosquito just fizzled up and died in the halogen lamp behind me.
at artiste:
me: well, i’ll remain forthright. stalwart, even.
phil: stalwart?
me: yeah. only i can use words like that and get away with it.
phil: i know, even when you’re joking.
thomas: yeah, like yesterday you said “is there a moratorium on music in this place?”
phil: ha!
thomas: and then the day before that you said that the movie snatch was bombast.
me: what are you, making a list?
at dinner:
phil: you work hard, alison, i’ll give you that. i commend you, and laugh at you.
me: well, thank you. and fuck you!
phil: appropriate responses, both.
phil is good. thomas is good. i feel better.
my O poem was well received in class this afternoon, although i don’t think they understood that it was just a fun poem and not a heavy-handed diatribe on the state of the world. their suggestions for other words with O that i could add included honor, god, blood, ozone, and loneliness. i was thinking more along the lines of roller coasters and coca-cola. but whatever.
i think that my consecutive reading of the age of innocence, long day’s journey into night, death of a salesman, hard times, and wuthering heights is dampening my general outlook. next up are the great gatsby and a streetcar named desire, so that i can have loads of fun thinking about the idealization of broken dreams. yay.
at four this morning, as i lay awake in bed listening to the wind smack rain against the window in short, erratic bursts, it occurred to me that i’d forgotten to do an assignment. i was supposed to write an ode to some inanimate object, and it’s due today at one. so i’ve written an ode to the O key on my keyboard, but i’ve taken out all of the O’s. and boy, does it ever suck.
h, little key
resting happily in my keyb ard
sandwiched between the i and the p
just like the thers, and yet
s r und and perfect, essential
with ut y u, there w uld be n l ve
n c kies, n m vies with p pc rn
n new n teb ks in c ffeeh uses
n cl uds r sn wst rms
h, little key
life with ut y ur square plastic self
w uld be n g d
h, little key
y u are n t superflu us
chocolate milk, peanut butter cookie, cleaning, decorating, , leftover salad.
being careful and easygoing, with superhuman effort.
the what bowl?
i was home for a few minutes at ten forty-five this evening when blogger was down, and i didn’t have a chance to post this…
“you know what? the real reason that those brief, shining moments of true connection with another person are so important to us is that they prevent us from remembering that, in reality, we are completely and utterly alone.”
…before i had to go to phil’s, where we drank loads of wine and bitched and moaned for awhile, then watched blood simple. i fell asleep during the middle, but the parts of it i did see were both horribly gruesome and breathtakingly beautiful. as i walked out to my car, a middle-aged balding guy with the goofiest glitter blouse and leather vest ensemble i have ever seen walked past me on his way in. my car radio managed to eek out the “too-rah, too-rah tah-loo-rah lay” part of “come on eileen” and the first strains of “” before i arrived home.
i maintain that everything is hilarious.
