a season behind

shoppers under 30

the sides of my thighs are drying up and i’m reminded of the many creams the helpful worker at shoppers told me about. her commission was significantly lessoned as she said, well you’re not over thirty these can’t help you. but really i just want to be rid of these semi-permanant goosebumps on the sides of my thighs & they really have nothing to do w/ weight gain or laughing too much or, god forbide ageing. it’s not as tho, i’m an unmarketable audience. i was looking for face cream, under $20, which seems unrealistic to most ppl, but too me, all i could say was... i rarely get pimples. just need something to ease the bumps on my thighs and hopefully smooth the flakes of winter on my forehead... immediately after she showed me a jar the size of my big toe, for $40 only, to clear up this abomination. i opted for one half the price when she told me i wouldn’t have to worry about any of it till i was in the over thirty range/ over $60 for a container the size of my big toe, so that my laugh lines will be semi-reduced to wavering crevices along my face.

who has a foto of me in an apron?

according to numerous sources on the meanings of names, carly means: "little and womanly" and stewart means: "caretaker." seems like i'm screwed.

i wish the folks that make up this shit could at least explain what womanly means.

january blizzards

her life in the north is
comfort of an explorer
w/ all season tires
and no 4 X 4

taut

and taut bellies recede into the
darkness producing nothing
but a shrunken skeleton
of memories.

the floor, an empty floor
directed
knows to be silent
in the face
of no/any/thing.

can’t find the body, the body.
the radio journalist reports.
he is homegrown northern
knows nothing of his effect
on the audience.

a few weeks later, they find it.
the body, the body.
he saved the lives of his passengers
--in flight turbulence gone terribly terribly wrong--
before his boots weighed him
down.
all at the ripe age of 19.

eight years later, the poignancy
has faded for acquaintances
--dozens of teenage faces in pews can’t believe
they actually met a person, at a party, who died--
the fact, not a daily remainder.
his mother still wonders why.
prays to his photo over the
faucet as she does the dishes.

her. oh, her taut belly heaves, tightens just a bit more
as she makes love to yet another reincarnation
of her 1st/only.

the floor, an empty floor
breathes traces of water
as she slips into slumber,
his face, the only one
to tell her that disco’s shit
while ripping out her rhythms
and replacing them w/ beck.

taut belly manoevers to photo sessions
in nyc and limousines, then back to reality
where she marries a local dj
at the country station.
she imagines that his ownership of her body
is actually his swollen frame
pressing against
her taut belly.

i) bitter waitress

he derived a sick sort of pleasure out of collecting lunch cards. so much so that he would often opt to purchase six companions steak lunches. he always went for the bbq ribs on fridays. a wide toothed grin spread across his sauce smeared face when i firmly placed stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp onto his card. for a $70 tab, he gets $8.5 off.

(h) bitter waitress

i had a pretty fucked up day. the thing w/ training a new waitress is that you can't really be bitter. or at all. i gave fair warning tho. "you need to prepare yourself for... uncomfortable situations. and if someone touches you, and you don't want to be touched... you say something, like don't touch the waitress. and try not to cry, really, it won't help anything." she was terrified. they keep hiring girls w/ no serving experience, girls that are so fucking innocent and nice... i looked at this alix today and thot, my god you're gonna be broken. poor girl. most of the regulars were laughing at me, b/c i was finally forced to be nice and kinda accommodating... they all loved it. i guess i'm not the only person that sees myself as a bitter waitress. the funniest thing was after my little speech about what she had to prepare herself for, she asked me how long i've worked there... i told her. then -'you must have fun here, or else you wouldn't be here anymore' to which i replied, hesitantly, the moneys really great. then! i thot to myself, it really was one of those days, that i was so tempted to just quit. and the reality is, i'm sitting on a little money right now so i could totally do it and secure something else later. as if i will but it's so comforting. week 3 of full time is on the better side of grim. really. i must have fortitude! in any case i'll be cushioned for when i go postal.

f) bitter waitress

her name’s adrian. she’s five foot even maybe 100 pounds. her hair is an perpetual coif, you know it i’m sure, frozen in the eighties, pouffed in the front in quasi-bangs. the style you usually see blowing in the wind behind the wheel of a trans-am complete w/ a t-roof. today she had the audacity to comment that if i spent a little more time on my do, then maybe i’d have a boyfriend. or several. “really girl” a voice that has been blessed with thirty plus years of smoking “we should do something about it.” granted, i again rolled out of bed, dragged myself into the shower then bundled my ass long locks into a bun on the top of my head. fine. i’m just being sensitive. the bartender laughs at me, saying “don’t take it too personally, i’m sure she just had too many bottles of chardonnay for breakfast.”

(g) bitter waittress

had to serve busiest section a u.f.c fight tonight. i’ve no clue what that stands for, but it was some paid-per-view wrestling extravaganza that garnered too much rye, and too much testosterone. it was awkward, b/c in the throes of its most intimate moments—strangle holds and strutting—i basically had to duck down so that the fifty people watching the thing could still see/scream at the tv. it wasn’t mayhem. i’ve served worse. definitely interesting. from a purely passivist’s perspective, i prepared myself before hand, i ought to accept that w/o such an occasion, i wouldn’t be able to make loads of money. [spain here i come.] i had this realization tho, that took me beyond it.
having many, many men, screaming and pounding their fists on the table actually turned me on. we walk around in society as tho we aren’t apes, as tho primal behaviour is extinct. but herein lies the beauty of any wrestling match. stagey, fine. barbaric, definitely. but perhaps, it's the one occasion when men finally let their emotions go. well maybe that’s an over generalization. tho, i can’t deny, it makes me feel like this little woman when i witnessed it all. not belittled, or w/o power, but rather, accepting of this dominant emotional repression of men, and that they need to get it out in some form, which more often than not is concretated in some sporting event. i’ve never condoned fighting or have ever really wanted to see it, but i must admit, that when a fight did break out at the end of the night, i was soooo intrigued and half way in it, that my most rational thots were more directed in watching it. sure, it’s primal. uncivilized, awful. but goddamn. seeing men displaying such intense emotions and wanting to play them out. well that’s just hot.