Sunday, November 16, 2014

A Whole Katy

You. You stole away my breath. Robbed me.

Little by little, scooch by scooch, you brought in the walls ‘til they’re so close I can hardly even breathe anymore and I can hardly even move anymore. I cannot maneuver these hallways and I bump my head on the doorframe when I go to try and leave.  

At night, I wake up and lying there in the dark, I can feel the ceiling just inches above my face. It’s way too close and there’s not enough air and it’s all closing in on me.

You shrank the van to where it looks like a toy. Kids on skateboards tower over me. Dogs tailgate me. Grandmas laugh at me.

At work now, my office is like a cardboard box and it’s all closing in on me.

You. You stole away my time. Robbed me. Don’t think that I don’t know this. A moment at a go adds up. Ever so slowly drained.

You redrew the minute hash marks around all my clocks ‘til an hour is what twenty-one minutes used to be. You bled hours out of days and then days out of August so I can’t finish what it was that I came here for.

I’m not even sure 2010 ever happened.

You. You stole away my sight. Robbed me.

Now the greens aren’t green anymore and the blues aren’t blue. The reds just sort of sit there pink-like and the yellows? Well, the yellows’ve faded away completely.

You. You scrambled my mind. You murdered my sanity. You took it slowly, drip by little drip, but now I cannot find my car keys and I go around blaming others for the well-documented symptoms of simply getting old.

You numbed all my feelings. Scraped the taste buds – bud by bud by bud – right off of the tip of my tongue. Sliced the nerve cells from my sex. Now I can only love or hate on every other day and even panic’s getting tough for me to reach.

You did this. Very sneaky-like. Don’t think that I don’t know.

You see, I’ve been paying close attention all along. From the start. Laying low and making plans. Oh, yes. I have been awake in the night and I have listened to the grinding as the walls were moving in. I’ve heard them.

I’ve measured the length of hours against well-known prog rock tunes. I have committed true mauve to memory.

I know.

You are sitting there so comfortably right now. Confident. Happy. You think you have committed what must be the perfect crime. Breathing in all that breath which is my breath. Living in all that space which is my space. Wasting away all those hours which are my hours to waste away.

But you know what?

I’m coming for them.

My air. My time. My greens and my blues. My reds and my yellows and my mind and my feelings. Mine.

They will be mine again. I will be like I was before.

I will reach down inside you and I will reclaim what is mine. I will hear the sick wet snap as I break them loose.

And it is going to hurt.

You. I mean it’s going to hurt you.  

I’m going to make sure of it.

47 comments:

  1. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

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    1. I'm trying to figure out if that old saying is still politically correct or not. I'll get back to you later, once I decide whether I am offended. I might have to make some calls.

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. I can't believe I'm about to quote "The Avengers," but I am.

      "That's my secret, Captain: I'm always angry."

      Delete
  3. Time is on my side, yes it is
    Now you all would say, that you wanna be free
    But you'll come running back to me

    My summation of this concept
    One spends the first 20 years preparing for work
    A long 47 years working for the man and caring for the nuclear units
    The reward of a such a boring existence will get you a handful of retirement years

    I SAY TO YOU!
    Re-construct the multiple genome alignments in the presence of large-scale evolutionary events and declare "DAMMIT! THIS IS MY LIFE!"

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Obviously, running your life tape like Benjamin Button would make a lot more sense than the way we do it.

      I'm also not comfortable with these demands that I eat and breathe and sleep.

      One of these days, I am going to revolt.

      Delete
    2. I was born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
      I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
      I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
      And the straw boss said "Well, a-bless my soul"

      You load sixteen tons, what do you get
      Another day older and deeper in debt
      Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
      I owe my soul to the company store

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfu2A0ezq0

      Delete
    3. That song must have been in a cartoon when I was a kid. There's no other explanation for why I'd have it memorized, is there?

      Delete
  4. The red nose is a good touch.

    You may need to figure out who you really are.

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    1. Hi, benni. Any year now, it's all going top come together!

      Delete
  5. Was the blog addressed to me? And how much of it is real?

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    1. Is Life commenting on my blog?

      If so, I have quite a few complaints I'd like to share with you about the way you've been running things. Some of them are mentioned in the post, some of them are mentioned in my comment to GOODSTUFF, and I'd also like to lodge a complaint about the status of my breasts.

      I have to say, your co-worker, Death, is doing a much better job on his end than you're doing on yours. How incompetent can you be and still even keep your job?

      Delete
    2. Who died?

      As for your breasts, you can always do what your evil ice-queen boss did with hers. I'd bet that she will pay for it too. Why? Because keeping you wholesome is naturally against her character and beliefs.

      Delete
    3. About 144,000 people per day.

      Delete
    4. You haven't said if and how much of this blog was real.

      I, on the other hand, have just received something very real this evening, two lingerie photos in fact, of a petite blond, a dear friend of mine for years now, who apparently is still a size-two with zero body-fat. Both photos were of high resolution, in focus, not cropped, just like real people would do with real friends in real life, whom we trust and rely on, especially in life's darkest hours.

      Delete
    5. Would you like to see them?

      Your logical answer would be an "yes," isn't it?

      But are you strong enough and sane enough and passionate enough to have such real-life desires again?

      And isn't this question of mine the whole fucking point of this blog!

      Delete
  6. I am sorry. I take full responsibility. I didn't even know what a "scooch" is but when you lay it out like that, I can see how I stole those moments that added up to life-gone-by. On behalf of other scoochers, I hope you will accept our apologies. Though, I feel like I should apologize again for stealing another scooch by writing this drawn-out comment.

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    1. You seem to really be stepping up to the plate here.

      I accept your apology, but I must warn you: This has got to stop.

      If I find one grey hair on my head, one more wrinkle on my face, if I get one more ache or pain in my joints, then there will be consequences.

      Delete
  7. This is even better than that speech Liam Neesums gave in that movie where his daughter was taken and he called the kidnapper and told them he was gonna kill them all for her being taken.

    I think it was Speed 2.

    I feel sorry for whoever's on the other side of your wrath. Unless it's anonymous. Between his hateful comments, angry trolling, and advertisements for low quality penis pills, I think that little SOB's had it coming for a while now.

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    1. Yeah, I was going to add "Yippee ki-yay, mother fucker" at the end of it, but I thought it might end up cliched...

      Anonymous is one busy little dude. Most of the comments I see on blogs were written by him. Plus I see on the news he's been doing some hacking stuff, too. It almost makes me wonder how he can afford to spend so much time on my site.

      Delete
  8. "I’ve measured the length of hours against well-known prog rock tunes. I have committed true mauve to memory."

    I'm going to sing these two lines while playing a six-string bass solo just for you.

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    1. I used to work at this snack shop, and when it got close to time to close up, I'd start singing Genesis' "Supper's Ready," which is 23 minutes long. If I did it just right, it would be time to close up when I finished.

      I always sort of wanted to do the same thing with Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick," but it all gets sort of muddled at the start of Side 2.

      Delete
  9. While reading this, I got the image of the Sith Emperor encouraging to let the anger flow through.

    Once this ordeal, whatever may be plaguing you, ends, I hope that your colors come sharper into view.

    -Barb

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    1. Hi, Barb! It's just Life. I was feeling old the other day and I wanted someone to blame and this happened.

      So the ordeal will continue for another 35-55 years, depending on my genes and personal habits.

      Delete
  10. Katy. I'm having all the same sorts of feelings as you except my teenage angst is focused at my two-faced prostate gland. All I've ever done is love it and appreciate its role in my life, and bam!

    OK, whyinthefuck is Word telling me "bam" isn't a word? Fuck Word. Fuck Walmart too.

    I'd say "and fuck my prostate" as well, except, of course, it has curses more evil than those already visited upon my now-tender backsides.

    And your mention of Jethro McTully up above reminds me. I saw them both in Dallas and Houston maybe early 1970's (notice I didn't say "seventies" so as not to make younger readers think that I saw them when seventy-two and I'm now 118 in years) and their starter band in Houston was the brand new group, Yes. Yes stole the show. OK, I think Yes stole the show. Everybody said, "Yes stole the show."

    Me, I felt "Thick as a Brick" to be my personal anthem so, well you know.

    Fuck Walmart, once more, and again.

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    1. I almost said I wanted to memorize Yes' "Tales from Topographic Oceans" up there, but I figured that would turn this into a sci-fi blog. No one can memorize "Tales from Topographic Oceans," whereas I really can play "Supper's Ready" in my head.

      I always sort of wished that Jethro Tull had better musicians like Yes and that yes had a better lyricist like Ian Anderson. But I guess then they'd just be classic-period Genesis.

      Delete
  11. Wait wait wait wait wait... for the fucking record, the musicians who played and toured with Ian Anderson and Tull were OUTSTANDING MUSICIANS ALL! Most were classic jazz musicians when they weren't with Tull, and almost to a man they'll tell you the music they played with Anderson was the most difficult and complex of their careers. Not to slight Rick Wakeman, by any means, because he was a god to a lot of keyboard players.

    But even if we're talking keyboard gods of that era, I'd have to go with Keith Emerson of EL&P.

    Jethro Tull was a tight band, ma'am. Considering the distractions and chemicals involved, one has to give them their props.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlE2DjOX2FE for an acoustic treat.

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    1. I guess Ian Anderson's lyrics just overshadow everything else for me when it comes to Tull - sort of like Roger Waters' astounding angry anti-establishment stuff overshadows everything else about Floyd.

      However, I actually stole my Ian Anderson/Yes line from something Ian Anderson himself says about Tull vs. Zeppelin in the interview portion of a "Thick as a Brick" remaster. I like Yes more than Zep, so I adapted it for my purposes.

      Never been able to do the ELP thing. Genesis, Floyd, Yes, Tull, and King Crimson are about my limit. I did get a Gentle Giant album earlier this year, though. I'll make it through the others eventually.

      Delete
  12. As good as the early Genesis stuff was (and folks have to admit, Peter Gabriel was breaking new ground with all the theatrics) I have a LOT more respect for Gabriel's solo work since.

    Wait... how did this end up being a comment thread about fossil rock'n'roll? Mea culpa. Do go on...

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    1. Eh, some posts get comments about their content, some get comments about Jethro Tull.

      Delete
  13. Hello? Did everyone forget what Billy Joe Shaver, Johnny Cash, Shel SIlverstein, and Waylon Jennings were doing at that time?
    Everyone was too busy dropping acid.
    No respect, I tell you, no respect...

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    1. What this whole little musical excursion has taught me is that my average reader is about a 66-year old white male, apparently.

      Delete
  14. Hey Katy, some of my Pagan friends are getting all hot and bothered over this new book on sleep paralysis - I thought you should know:
    http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/918.html

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    1. Cool, thanks. I try to read what i can on it, but hadn't seen that one. I'll see whether Tarab says it's okay for me to read it.

      Delete
  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. I had ZERO ideas for a new blog this week. None. I was frustrated about this until Saturday morning, when I decided I was going to enjoy my weekend and not worry about it. It was liberating!

      Delete
  16. You are such a good f*cking writer. I am very envious.

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    1. Thank you, flip! I need to be told that more often. My writing used to have a lot more swagger than it does now. What good is a writer if s/he's not an arrogant prick? No one wants a modest writer...

      People need to stroke my ego, damn it.

      Delete
  17. "...........my average reader is about a 66-year old white male, apparently."

    I take offense at that. I'm only 57. But otherwise you got me. And this is my first visit. And I'm not average. Nobody is. That's how average works

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    1. First visit? Woohoo!

      Not just a new visitor, but a potentially above average visitor!

      In about 9 years - by the time you hit 66 - this will feel just like a second home to you.

      Delete
    2. You are not fooling me one bit. I know where you were when you posted both of these comments.

      You could just get to writing your next blog, instead of wasting time faking comments, again.

      Oh, and, I know what you did last summer, too.

      Delete
    3. I have no idea what this comment means.

      This shouldn't be surprising: I rarely know what is going on.

      Delete
    4. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

      What are your plans today?

      Delete
  18. These things tend to go in cycles. I changed jobs 6 months ago. The work environment had progressed from being mildly absusive to overt soul annihilation. New job, so the honeymoon is underway. I am sure in a couple years I'll be ready to the home office to bash someone's head.

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    1. I lose perspective if I don't have time off of work. The little things start looking like big things and I start whining. I hate whiners.

      Delete

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