Stationary Unicycle

Thanks to Misha, a talented costume designer and seamstress whom I met a few years back (like 22 years or so) when we were babies…at Penobscot theater. She was the sweetest kindest most generous funniest smartest most kickass person then and she still is now. Also talented. And married to a talented wonderful good fellow, too. Thanks for the blog material. These are great questions!  What to you eat for dinner when no one else is home ? pop corn, also eaten for breakfast What is the one piece of clothing you still hang on to even though you know you should have tossed it long ago? I still wear this old blue plaid shirt from kmart that belonged to brad but I stole it and it’s missing all the buttons (I was so mad one day many years ago, I did a Hulk move, and ripped all the buttons off that sucker because it was that or break a wall with my fist and that seemed like too much work) anyway, the blue shirt has paint splatters on it and sometimes I keep it closed with s...

“So, what’s so awesome about being a girl?” My daughter can’t think of a thing. And frankly, I’m coming up empty, too. My dear son is just lying on the floor listening to his sis and me talking, he pretends not to hear but I know he hears us. He is very quiet, intent, he’s got those listening ears ON. First, my daughter says something about how it sucks to have a period. I have to concur. But because I’m a mom and my daughter is my daughter, I must also try to spin the whole period thing into something grand and beautiful. Moms have to say that shit. It’s in the Mom Rules, so I add that bit about the awe and how amazeballs it is to be able to have babies.  “But women can bring new life into the world!” And my daughter says, “So you’re saying that women are special because they can have babies? What about women who don’t want to have babies? Are they worthless? If you define what’s good about being a woman in terms of reproduction, then women who choose not to...

Happy Wednesday, good readers. I was feeling so super good there for a while. But all things pass, the good and the bad. The bad seem to linger though, while the good stuff evaporates like Isopropyl alcohol on your skin, leaves you feeling a little chilled tensely anticipating the needle prick that inevitably comes next. Yeah, so there's that. I guess I'm reluctant to unload completely here. I'm depressed. This is my default setting. But I don't want to make other people feel bad. I want to offer other people a hand, some comfort. I don't want to suck all the life out of the room even though I'm feeling completely shit. It's sort of like finding a dress a certain shade of green that would make me look like something out of The Walking Dead, but knowing it would fit someone else and be just the right color to complement their hair or their eyes. Hope is like that for me today. It's going to look great on you. You can do anything....

Yesterday I was talking to a person who doesn't know me very well. We were talking about the upcoming election.  The name Donald Trump came up, as you can imagine it would. I mean, how could it not? And we briefly talked about the Trumpster's obvious pathology. I mean, really, how can some people not see the dude is a classic narcissist? It's so clear.  But maybe not everyone had a narcissist for a father, those lucky assholes.   Narcissists are charismatic.  People are drawn to the persona.  Narcissists spend an inordinate amount of time cultivating this image of themselves as special, bigger than life, smarter, more capable.  Some people are drawn to the narcissist because on some level, they think the narcissist's magic will rub off on them.  It won't, but I can understand the desire to associate with the gregarious bold bombast and bask in the glow of their accepting gaze.  But, the narcissist always turn...

Wednesday was supposed to be blog day, but I’m a slacker by nature and I let my self-imposed deadline pass, as usual. Or have I? Because I’m just writing some bullshit down right now, so maybe this is the blog post. Maybe things are unfolding as they should. Or whatever the fuck. I’m sitting here in a pool of my own sweat, which frankly is better than sitting in a pool of someone else’s sweat, so that’s good. I’m stuck in a place where my chest feels like it’s going to explode, sort of like that scene in Alien , you know the one. Maybe my heart is an alien. I’ve been working on a series of self-indulgent poems and I think I have a title, My Heart and Other Winged Insects …I like the title, at least for now. Who knows. Yeah, no. I hate it now. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter …etc etc, my heart crap, it’s been done better by better and it’s been done to death. But how else do we explain that horrible amazing feeling? That feeling that life is just too too much, ...

I was thinking about our daily rituals, the things that keep us grounded, the things we do every day without thinking, the things we do in our own way to our own standard for our own pleasure. I was awakened early this morning by an ill family member who eventually settled down to rest so I was left awake again at stupid o'clock. I shuffled down stairs and the cats followed me. I took a detour into the "powder room" to "powder my nose" and one of the languid sisters pulled open the door with her perfect little clawed paw, because, what's privacy to a cat? Right? so she came in and she and I had a little chat, and then I washed my hands, just so you know I'm all about the hygiene, and I fed the cats, and filled their bowl with water, and then I set about to make the coffee which as I've gotten older has taken on a level of complexity that seems self indulgent. A thought dawned on me out of the blue,  that making coffee had turned into a ritual, ...

You know that awkward moment when you need to use a public restroom to take the first poo of the day, and you know it's going to be an earth shattering shit splattering mega event? And you're in there and trying to keep the noise down, sort of like that time when you were on xmas break in college and you brought your 'friend' home with you and you're trying (unsuccessfully) to have quiet sex in you childhood bed with your parents "sleeping" on the other side of  2 inches of drywall and an assortment of Nirvana and Peal Jam posters? You know what I'm saying here? So you're taking your morning crap, feeling a little self conscious, trying to keep the noise down to a dull squilch, and you flush that shit away and wash your hands really good and you check your teeth in the mirror before you go, and you're looking, eh, it's morning, and you just shat/shit/shitted, whatever, you look like you only without that haunted look of a person who des...

So recently I wrote vaguely about life coming unraveled and how we are constantly having to make and remake our  lives and how if we think about it, the process is elemental. Eventually we’ll all be released to our literal elemental selves and then be reconfigured into new life, which to me is the most holy and beautiful idea of all time. I get a lot of solace out of that thought. And so, while I was thinking about life and unraveling I was thinking, what lead to my decision to tear out all the stitches of my adult life? I mean, Huh? WTF? And so I’m gonna give you the straight story. Or at least the straightest story I can. I’m not really a straight person, I see the whole world as a whorl, spirals, loops, circles. Anyhoo. For my entire life, I was incongruous. I felt out of context. What? Wait. Let me try again.  I was fractured. I was broken into pieces. I never felt like I had context, I never felt like I was constant. Every day I’d wak...

There’s that old saying, you know the one, something about wearing your heart on your sleeve. I guess, you know, it’s supposed to describe a certain type of sad sack sentimentalist who advertises their most cringe-worthy feelings for all to see. Those feelings we’ve all been taught it’s common decency to stuff away and hide forever until we die alone taking our regrets and our unspoken declarations of love with us to the grave where they will decay along with our tangible bits. Those feelings. But some of us are even more pathetic than sleeve-heart wearers. Some of us wear our hearts all over our faces, like we’re babies just learning to feed ourselves. We wear our desires and tragedies all over our faces like mashed peas and pureed sweet potato and prune whip. This heart all over the face type is gauche and far more uncivilized and our dirty faces are so much more obvious to the beholder than heart shaped badges ironed or sewn on to a sleeve like a Girl Scout. I mean, that’s s...

So, if I've learned anything in the last forty-eight fucking years it's this: I haven't learned a fucking thing. No that's not exactly true.  Why, just yesterday I learned a valuable lesson: do not Nair your underarm hair.  Don't do it.  I did it so you don't have to.  There's an old cliche, you know the one, about how you don't appreciate stuff like your mom or skin in your armpits until she's/it's gone? Wow. So much truth there. Another piece of advice is, follow the directions on the deodorant label. Especially that part that says do not apply to broken or irritated skin.Yeah. That. Heed that advice.  I'm trying to think if I have any other nuggets of wisdom I can quickly rattle off to all y'all. I said something yesterday about being a fuck up, but that I'm shameless about it. I have found that there are two major emotional states that come with fucking-up. Shame is one. The other is humility.  So you can be ...

Hello and hey there to all who may stumble back toward the Unicycle. I've been away for a long time. Funny thing I've noticed: the older I get the more fucked time gets. Some things move way too fast, like say, the last two years since I posted on the blog. For all those hard to keep track of speeding away years, there is time that passes so slowly I can hardly endure, like say the current presidential campaign. November can't come fast enough and yet I wonder if it'll come at all. So yes, I've been away for a long time, and yet the time hasn't felt at all long but if I measure the time by other events in my life, time has dragged, and there it is. I guess, the problem with writing personal stuff is the fact that it's, you know...personal. I fear that this urge to overshare points to a flaw in my character; I worry that this desire to unload the details of my private experience publicly points to an underlying insecurity and pathological need for r...