Me and Mr. Jones

What do you do if one of your favorite current music-makers has an album dedicated to your new home state? Well, in my case you sleep in because Pulaski Day is a real thing and we don’t have school! Thanks Sufjan, here’s to you and your obscure realism:

“Golden rod and the 4-H stone
The things I brought you
When I found out you had cancer of the bone

Your father cried on the telephone
And he drove his car to the Navy yard
Just to prove that he was sorry

In the morning through the window shade
When the light pressed up against your shoulder blade
I could see what you were reading

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications you could do without
When I kissed you on the mouth

Tuesday night at the bible study
We lift our hands and pray over your body
But nothing ever happens

I remember at Michael’s house
In the living room when you kissed my neck
And I almost touched your blouse

In the morning at the top of the stairs
When your father found out what we did that night
And you told me you were scared

Oh the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

Sunday night when I cleaned the house
I find the card where you wrote it out
With the pictures of your mother

On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes”

When I moved to New York I brought with me a corncob pipe. Carl wore a cowboy hat and rolled his own cigarettes. We two sat outside on the 8th floor fire-escape, musing and humming along as the city moved on with apathetic glances.

Harmony always grabs me by my oft-sleeping soul and forces me to consider the real things in life.

Folks music is often the only thing I have to keep me balanced. Without Patty, Dolly, and Emmylou I’m not exactly sure where I would end up. Probably leaping off of fire-escapes for one.

Sometimes it is good to get back to your roots.

You know that song from that movie? Bang Bang–He shot me down… Well, it would appear that I am “He” and Tony is on the floor bleeding.

We do not yet know if this is a good thing or tragedy.

I lose at Scrabble regularly. It is beginning to affect my happiness. Not because I lose, no, that is not it at all. But because I lose after justly challenging letter combinations which simply should not be words. Mo? Os? Xu? Jee? This then allows me to feel that any combination of letters might count as a word. However, when I posit my own–av–it is rejected. It is causing me to think that the world is a cold, uncaring, and completely unfair place.

Or maybe I’m just jealous…

“I had such plans,” I thought to myself. “That’s all for naught, now.”

This is the truth, as I am aware of it at this very moment. I had just plugged in my iPod, chosing to listen to the “Hip Hop” playlist, when I took out the ‘ol laptop to check my e-mail. And I actually found some when I arrived in the oft-neglected inbox. A song sent to me by a boy who once made out with my sister in a cornfield. Yes, yes, there’s more to tell, but for the moment that’s where it needs to relax.

Two years ago my house burned down. This morning I shaved entirely a few places I had only meant to trim. And I accomplished this by taking the day off from work. Yes, I didn’t go to school today. But I went to the doctor and the hair salon.

Henry Miller once wrote, “We are all alone here, and we are dead.” Perhaps, I say, perhaps…

First I voted for Ralph Nader.

Then I voted for John Kerry.

And tonight I would do either again, 100 times over.

Fuck you, Mr. Bush, for your call to stop “activist courts that try to redefine marriage.” And for your bullshit claims that we are making good progress with your No Child Left Behind act. It fucks over myself and my students (who are poor, black, and marginalized) every single day.

In conclusion, as Eamon would say, “Fuck you, you ho, I don’t want you [to be president anymore].”

When left alone, as I am right now, I am overcome with angst. Non-specific, acute, and thoroughly evolved angst which leads me to desire drink or just a bit of self-destruction. I am not in a position to resist, nor can I allow it to over-take me. Happiness is so easily compromised by worry and neglect. If a cage is not considered to be a weapon, why do I feel so defeated?

My very first date with my boyfriend found me in a metaphysical argument about whether or not there were such things as facts. It was my position that there were, in fact, not.

Time and human memory have great powers of distortion. Upon this, my claim rested.

Today I don’t know if I could sustain such beliefs with the same enthusiasm. However, I am still dubious about some things we hold to be true. In the past 24 hours, I have heard the following: “Humans and dolphins are the only two species that masturbate for pleasure.” “It is impossible to die in your own dreams.” “The ugly lumps upon their head are attractive and encourage prospective mates.”

I invite you to draw your own conclusions.

I thought you weren’t supposed to die in your own dreams? Because I did. Last night.

As far as shooting deaths go it wasn’t all that unpleasant, but it still happened and I would like to know why.

An old friend from college, Abby, and a teacher at my school, Ms. Tomko, were involved in a chase which resulted in my death. They each had guns, and they pursued me up stairs, into coffee shops, and finally on some raft which was how I met my maker.

Under water, after having somehow taken one of their weapons, I hid in ambush hoping to shoot before I was shot at. Well, Abby shot me, dead in my tracks (or waves…it was under water after all). I lay there at the bottom of the river, talking to her about how unfair it was that I had died. And I also shot her, but then decided to undo the damage before it was permanent because I would have felt bad having killed her.

I recognize that my death wasn’t severe, because it didn’t affect my ability to navigate within my dream. But still I sat there staring at myself, bullet-holed and bloodied, not really sure why I had been pursued in the first place, wishing that I wasn’t dead.

What does this mean?