Sunday, July 16, 2006

Fake Your Own Death


When I was going through a difficult break (as opposed to all those easy ones, you know, the ones where you fake your own death), I rented a one bedroom apartment in a complex that I came to refer to as the Misery. Each building had four apartments in it with the mandatory beige renter carpet and peeling fake linoleum kitchen floor. It wasn't much but it was here that I would resurrect myself, phoenix from the ash, etc. You can see where I'm going with this line of thought.

My apartment was surrounded by three women's apartments. The women were all over 70 (one was 97!) and one of them had the worst luck in the entire world. The oldest of her six children had died, all her teeth had fallen out because of some medicine she'd taken, she was allergic to the adhesive for her dentures which caused her gums to swell and bleed, and she'd managed to bloody her own eyes with the end of a broom while sweeping her storage cage. I did not feel like a phoenix. She'd wait all day for checks that never came and cry on the steps of her apartment when she got tired of crying inside her apartment. I could hear her when I had my window open, an echo, I suppose, of all the grief I didn't want to acknowledge, much less express, like the taste of ashes in your mouth.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Kris Kristofferson

Song to drink to for the day:

"Ball and Chain" Janis Joplin

Benedictions and Maledictions

Honeymoon

I had one once, in San Francisco,
that mystical city that demands
you love it. My wedding ring felt
so heavy I’d hide it at night, buried
in a hotel drawer, looking at my
sleeping husband, wondering what
I had done. For a week, we wandered
the city, so different from Texas,
the only place I’d ever really lived.
On the last day, I saw a poster of two
beautiful men kissing. Underneath,
a caption cautioned everyone to practice
safe sex. You’d never see that in Texas,
I thought, and smiled. The world seemed
a little bigger. On the way back to the hotel
that night, I noticed someone had scrawled
faggots in blood red across the poster. The hell
everyone talked about had followed me, with no
hope of any rapture except the kind where
the blood ran from the faucets, a brief marriage.

9 comments:

John Ricci said...

Dear Michelle,

Remind me to never cross you. You look quite deft with a knife. Also, I see you've added some new things to your website. A lovely compilation, to be sure. Bravo! I hope that if you honeymoon again it would be better than the first go round. I for one would whisk you away to somewhere besides Frisco. Theoretically speaking, with Moet and Chandon aplenty.

Anonymous said...

Count Chocula? Puhleeeeeez. That is such kid stuff. Use of box cutter, not a knife. Much more efficient. Voodoo will hoodoo you.

JR's Thumbprints said...

Sounds like a nursing home to me with no caregivers. Strictly on your own, reassessing, getting it together. Nothing wrong with that; it's what we all need once in awhile. --Jim

Anonymous said...

Today's triple-header "Quote of the Day": #1:Clothes DO make the person. Clothed with the history of our lives, we stand before each other in economic finery, in biological array. We fear. We hate....Climate, lanquage, glands, and Egg McMuffin--we are all of these. They determine who we are. Together we determine ourselves by the clothes we wear, the ideas we put on.--Richard Wentz.; #2: How we choose to dress allows us to forestall a would-be encroachment upon the private part of ourselves.--Joe Wolf; #3: Why don't you come up and see me some time, big boy?--Mae West.

Anonymous said...

Michelle, that San Fran Honeymoon persona is a real downer. She should start over by getting a red hair job. And then, she should change her name to something rouge, e.g., Michelle Merlot or, better yet, Michelle Marmalade. The alliteration alone would be worth the change.

Anonymous said...

Great post, M, and the photo is too much! Love the box of Count Chocula! Stab away; it could be highly therapeutic! lol --R

Anonymous said...

Sprinkle on strawberry ice cream. Get your tootsie, frootsie, ice-a-cream. (See Chico Marx in "A Day at the Races.)

Anonymous said...

Michelle,
Sweet post; to fake one's own death is sometimes neccesary. The poem is perfect! Boys, beware!
I'm so happy to be going to Gig Harbor for a couple weeks. I send you all good energies and sister-power and am thinking of starting my own blog upon returning. I will be in touch as possible. Maybe Anon will have bored himself to death by then, or learned something helpful. Miracles are possible if he prays to the Mother Goddess.
xoxoxo;) Cindy C.

ZZZZZZZ said...

Love the post today michelle! Count Chocula is an awesome cereal "anonymous" I don't care how old you are! hehe