fractured reality

I just got an e-mail with the subject “Ohio State prepares for 2005 football home games” and I immediately thought, “Holy shit, that’s a lot of football games!”

Onward!
E

The weekend was good. On Friday night I had a horrible dream that involved her hugging me, and all was right suddenly and then I woke.

We drove down Friday, and it was a long forever type of drive down. It is strange, but it seemed much longer driving down there than it did driving back. West Virginia was a constant haze of fog, cloud, and rain, regardless of traveling direction. We arrived outside Fort Stewart (“Rock of the Marne”) just before the sun disappeared entirely. My brother has aged beautifully, and I am reminded on sight that he will look distinguished with grey hair long before I ever shall. We talked and played Mario golf/tennis until 1 i nthe morning, and then slept.

We woke to find that the parents had plans to take us all to Savannah, and as beautiful as it was, it was raining, and my brother and I were sent through a time-warp back to the ages of 12 and 10, being dragged along on a tourist Hell. We survived it by becoming mockeries of tourism itself, taking pictures of ourselves with stamp kiosks and gift-shop novelties and telling tour-guide accounts of all the haunted houses about the town, including Fat Louie, who eats the eighth piece of chicken.

More games werre played, episodes of Invader Zim viewed, and foods eaten. Sunday night came all too soon and we said our goodbyes for we were to leave early the next morning. The trip back yesterday was uneventful except for the torrential downpours in West Virginia, where the dark lord Tamarack sits in his throne of evil, evidently.

And now it’s Tuesday and my heart is aching and the rain doesn’t help and goddamn you anyhow.

E

I can’t stand it when you tell our infant son
that he was born beneath a bad sign.
I can’t stand it when smiles up at you
just because you’re his mother.
I can’t stand the bitter thing that I’ve become
beneath the four walls that hold up our ceiling.
and I wonder when the house gets real quiet
who between us will be the first one to surrender to the feeling.
and I know you don’t want me to hurt you tonight.
and I, I don’t want you to hurt me the way you do.

I can’t stand it when you put the boy to bed and ya
sing him those songs I used to sing to you.
yeah I can’t stand to hear you sing those songs
when you know you don’t mean them.
and I cannot stand the way my body still remembers
how much we used to mean to one another way back when.
and I can’t stand going back to seek the shelter of your arms.
and then I can’t stand it again.
and I know you don’t want me to hurt you tonight.
and I, I don’t want you to hurt me the way you do.

It is also bad on gray mornings, before I should be at work, when all is quiet in the world except the key in the lock, the door opening quietly, the lock on the door pushing closed with a click, the shedding of bags, coats, and comforting smell of soap and sweat.

Tomorrow I will sit in a car with my parents for 14 hours or so. I am trying to imagine what all I need to bring. All I can think is “my new camera, my new camera, my new camera.”

I suppose clothing would be good too.

E

I am so tired this morning. I’m fairly certain I got plenty of sleep, too.

Grr.

Re-reading LoTR, and I’m at the Siege of Gondor and the Ride of the Rohirrim, and I just want to go home and read in bed and fall asleep and read some more.

Damnitall.
E