Ghost Pictures

Oh dear.

I did, in fact, enter the Commie Pinko Writing Contest.  And now that means I actually need to write something.  A nonfiction something about ghost pictures.  Or, tangentially about ghost pictures.  Or somehow occupying a place together in the Great Venn Diagram in the Sky with ghost pictures.  You get the idea.

I feel like I've been thinking about ghosts a lot, lately.  Or, I've been thinking about things that used to exist, which is kind of the same thing.  I think a ghost is anything that I can summon, behind my eyelids or inside my throat, even though I know it doesn't exist.

I am trying to brainstorm what I might say, so that I am better prepared when I try to say it.  But it's very hard to think about writing something without actually, you know, writing something.  It's the everything but, which I was never very good at maintaining once the clothes were off.  Everything but always just turned into anything goes, which turned into a vague sense of disappointment and lingering smell of cigarettes.

I turn everything into sex.  I could probably play "six degrees of sex" in which I take random thoughts and link them to sex, with no more than six connections. 

Or I could do something else.

112

Can I be rusty at a skill I've never really had in the first place?

Week 5, part 1: Monday

Weight this morning, 208 pounds.  Loss this week, 4 pounds.  Total loss, 9 pounds.

I was excited this weekend.  I was going to tell you.  Except that now it's gone.  It doesn't hold up to rational examination.  There is a boy.  He is friendly and good-looking and interested in dancing.  At the time, just having him pay attention to me was enough to make me giddy.  At the time, I could pretend that maybe it could mean something.  But I can't quite manage to pretend anymore.

Earthquake Prevention

When the sign says, Congratulations on a Safe Work Space-- 146 days since the last accident, we like to think that it's because we're doing something right.   We are keeping the bad things at bay.

But, most of the time, it's more like saying, Congratulations on a sturdy house!-- 3 years since it last fell down, when it's just that it's been three years since the last earthquake.   Congratulations, it's been 3 years since the last earthquake.  We're doing such a good job at stopping earthquakes.

My house is not sturdy.   I am not practicing earthquake prevention.   I am not any closer to the person I want to be, I just hadn't been shown otherwise.

This is not the letter I am going to write.

Where You Are Depends on Where You're From

One of many delightful things I have discovered in Iowa is 50° weather.   Here's the thing about 50° weather: On the first day it hits 50°, some time in the spring (or, sometimes, a freak day in the middle of January), it's a miracle. I walk outside in my short sleeves, and I'm not cold.  And when it's been months of cold, that feels like a miracle.

On the first day that it hits 50°, some time in autumn (or a freak day in August), it means I can finally wear my hoodie, or layer my shirts, or tall socks. I go outside and love the chill on my face, because it feels so good to feel cold.

And, yeah, I get those feelings sometimes at 45° or 55°, and when it's 50° and dreary outside I might not be so ecstatic.  But, to me, 50° means change, it means something new is coming.  Even when it's something I've seen before, by the time it comes around again, I feel like I've forgotten.

What's funny about all this is that I really do feel cold when it's 50° in Autumn, and I really do feel warm when it's 50° in spring.  I'm not actually thinking "comared to that, this is warm." I am simply warm. Or cold.

Last summer, I spent about 3-4 weeks working on losing weight.   I started at 212, and made it down to 200 before I stopped.  And when I started, 212 was monsterously fat.  I couldn't stand to wear anything but the baggiest of t-shirts.  At 200 I felt like I had made a difference, and I felt good showing off.

Today, I am only barely past 212, but because I started at 217, it doesn't seem so monsterous.  The way I look right now feels like an accomplishment, even though six months ago it was a failure.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: context.  It matters.

miscellaneous

Today, someone found my blog by googleing "i seldom kill people."

This morning, within the space of five minutes, my scale weighed me at (in order):

209.2
209.6
209.6
208.6
208.6

Apparently it was a very eventful five minutes.  This is unusual, and worries me, because even though I know my scale is cheap and therefore not entirely accurate, I don't like to think about it making mistakes.  And this is so clearly a mistake.  (I decided, of course, to write down 208.6 pounds.)

I have a sketch for my tattoo.  It brings me joy.  The layout and a lot of the decisions were taken from old Navy tattoos (not to be confused with Old Navy tattoos), and the tattoo artist has worked on nearly everyone I know in Iowa City.  I feel like this is my grounding tattoo, my connection to other things.  To history, of sorts, because there are traditions I am referencing, to my home in Iowa City, to my body, because I feel as if I am claiming it.  I am decorating, therefore I am moving in, for real, and not just passing through. 

I have decided against the Ansay quote.  It resonates with me, but isn't something I want to focus on.  On the other hand, I am quite pleased by the poem.  I like that it's odd, and it even feels a bit irreverent, although I'm not sure I could explain why.  I like the idea of it, celebrating unexpected beauty, celebrating the now.  I've never thought "this is my favorite poem," but I've remembered it for the 13 or so years since I first read it, and I always enjoy it when I go back to it. When I first thought, "hey, let's think about text, what poems do I like?"  It was the first that came to mind.  I mean, I like Plath, I like her a lot.  I think she does amazing things with language.  But I am not going to get a Sylvia Plath tattoo.

I think that I would put each stanza on a leg, starting at the back of my thigh and moving down.  It means that one leg will have more than the other, and I like that.  I think that one should have an illustration, something with an oval border, a tree in a meadow.  Something like a John R. Neill illustration.  (Oz wouldn't be the same without him.)

ouch

My mouth hurts because when I don't wear my tooth for a long time (like an entire weekend, oops), then my teeth start to shift, and the denture acts like a retainer and pushes my teeth back in place, which hurts, and by the end of the day I'm achy and grumpy.  And my toes hurt because I have new shoes, and they haven't stretched out yet and I have ridiculously wide feet.

Oh yeah, and I have a meeting with my tattoo artist tomorrow to look at a first draft of the tattoo.  And it just occurred to me that it might hurt.  I forget that, because the other one didn't hurt.  Not in a "oh I toughed it out" kind of way, in a "pain is not the right word for that slightly odd scratching feeling" kind of way.  I'm assuming that boob-area, being all fleshy, won't be that sensitive, but then I don't know how close to my clavicle it will go.  So, you know, there might actually be pain in my future.  And in case you missed it, I suck at pain.  I don't tough things out.  I scream and yell and cry. 

And while we're at it, it's time to start thinking about what I want to put on my legs.  I'm thinking about text.  I'm throwing up ideas on the walls of my brain and seeing what I'd like to live with.

Things like,

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.


But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.

"The Two-Headed Calf," by Laura Gilpin

and,

I was filled with what I'd felt as I crossed the tracks, just after that moment when I knew I wouldn't make it: the unexpected relief that I'd been wrong.

from "Read This and Tell Me What it Says," by A. Manette Ansay