Tuesday, May 04, 2004
4.02.04--12:19 a.m.
(really 4.01.04)
I did the least amount of work I have ever done at a job today
Erica, who was at a grammar-thon and missed work today,
asked me how that was possible.
I had no answer.
The Zyprexa my psychopharmacologist had me stop taking
three days ago
is still in my system
give it a week he says.
I felt better I told Nathaniel,
today was the first day I didn't need to take a nap in a week,
and then i remembered i got to the gallery two hours before the event
and crashed on the co-owner's sofa
since he's away in Morocco.
4.03.04--12:06 a.m.
(really 4.02.04)
Crystal Light is free at work.
Crystal Light is free at work.
It may have been the happiest discovery of my adult life.
Crystal Light is free at work.
That's all.
4.4.04--12:32 a.m.
(really 4.3.04)
it was a year ago
and everything was fine right after
but it was a year ago
and that's really all that's on my mind right now
after i date this and place this
that it was a year ago
and we did
and then we didn't
and it was a year ago
and i still love you
a year later.
4.04.04--11:15 p.m.
my mother had me go the store to get bialys
for my uncle murray and my cousin barry
coming in from san diego.
i returned and my parents' driveway is being blocked by, in order,
a cop car, the fire chief's SUV, a cop car, an emt vehicle, and a fire truck,
13 people gathered to extricate my parents' ill tenant from his apartment.
my uncle calls a few minutes later,
they're lost.
so my father drives to where they are in freeport,
two towns away,
to escort them home.
By this time my mom and I were eating bialys,
as we'd waited three and half hours
and were hungry.
And then
bam
a loud noise and i yell to my mom,
while runnning to the front door,
there's been an accident,
and it was my uncle murray,
84-year-old uncle murray
in an accident,
and soon two cop cars
averted traffic from the middle of my parents street,
an an ambulance was taking my uncle to the emergency room
as a precaution,
and three and a half more hours later we'd all be having bialys together.
4.6.04--1:47 a.m.
(really 4.5.04)
if you fuck up, own up
grow up, please
4.07.04--1:25 a.m.
(really 4.06.04)
i'm about to brush my teeth with salt
it's what i do each passover
instead of buying a kosher for passover toothpaste
and using it for the holiday's eight days,
or saying i'll save it for next passover
and never finding it come then,
i use one of toothpaste's key ingredients, NaCl,
its abrasive powers all i need.
4.08.04--12:12 a.m.
(really 4.07.04)
I took the coastal highway to my sister today,
to watch my youngest niece for a few hours,
same route, in reverse,
i travelled 10 years ago tomorrow
to feel the ocean breeze and listen to nirvana
to hear kurt on day they discovered him.
My eldest niece had just turned five,
and now, at 15,
she's discovered his music,
has started learning how to play the electric guitar,
is trying to play along to his hits.
She tells me she dropped her Teen Spirit deodorant stick a few weeks ago on the bathroom floor
and it shattered.
4.09.04--12:15 a.m.
(really 4.08.04)
it's what's about to happen
for the first time after a week
at folks for passover
it's me in my bed and
i'm so happy.
for erica
4.09.04--11:20 p.m.
they've taken american idol reject william hung
and gussied him up
he's got a record deal
the album out this week
with appearances on the tonight show and the today show
he's got two sexy women and two men as his back up dancers
he's been taught some choreography
now when the lyric in She Bangs hits the word crazy
he twirls his finger by his ear
his voice doesn't sound as bad anymore
it's the full backing band
and the probable voice lessons.
talk to me william, tell me your name.
4.11.04--5:32 a.m.
(really 4.10.04)
This is a poem about me not having had sex
in a long time
Making love's been even longer
as long as being in love
it's been a long time
this is a poem about that
4.12.04--12:19 a.m.
(really 4.11.04)
the zyprexa still in my system is killing me
knocking me out
where i'm tired from the time i wake
until the time i sleep
i need a nap everyday
and when i don't take one
i know i didn't take one.
my psychopharmacologist said
two weeks ago
that it would go through my body in one week
after he had me stop taking it
one week later when i was still walking dead
he said give it time, it will go through you,
give it time,
oh, really? thanks doc.
4.13.04--12:42 a.m.
(really 4.12.04)
i got rained on a bit in the upper deck at shea stadium today,
sitting behind the plate for the mets home opener.
Mets 10 Braves 6
if the score were reversed i still would be happy.
4.14.04--12:29 a.m.
(realy 4.13.04)
passover ended at 8:46 p.m.
at 8:20 i called Ray's Pizza and
ordered dinner for Nathaniel and me.
30 minutes later it arrived
and we sat in kitchen
televised jazz bleating from my bedroom
and i had first chametz in eight days,
first food i couldn't eat during passover,
first bread, garlic.
4.14.04--11:05 p.m.
tomorrow's tax day
and it looks like a large
(for a piss-poor poet like me)
federal tax return,
large enough where i'm planning a trip
to oakland and san francisco
to see sleater-kinney and quasi,
maybe give a reading,
see families, blood and poet.
my return is more than my tax paid.
it's due to the redistribution of wealth
my roommate tells me.
i'm going to california i tell him.
4.16.04--12:44 a.m.
(really 4.15.04)
the first time i took meds i went off them
three months of depakote to treat the manic-d
treatment from a psychopharmacologist i never connected with
and one day i just quit and blamed her.
five years later
two of them spent housebound
two of them spent eating haagen-dazs by the pint
two of them spent throwing garbage on my floor
two of them spent cutting myself off from my family and friends
i went back on meds
taking lithium to treat the manic-d this time
going old school to adjust my chemistry.
and now i've got a psychopharmacologist who's cool
who monitors me like mad
who makes me feel that he cares
(and it seems that he really does).
and we talk about my treatment
and he listens to what i say
and i take my meds when he instructs
and my healing continues.
4.17.04--6:25 a.m.
(really 4.16.04)
my friend matt,
a musician who's played many of my events,
had a mellow birthday house party
and i realized that all the antifolk musician girls
are pretty
and taken.
and if u don't know if they're taken
you can't really hit on them
because the scene isn't that way
and you don't wanna be that guy.
4.18.04--1:35 a.m.
(really 4.17.04)
what kind of parenting is involved
when 10 yr old girls at the lakers first playoff game
are dancing around in kobe bryant jerseys.
4.19.04--1:15 a.m.
(really 4.18.04)
slept one rem cycle last night
four hours
after cybering all night with different people
waking up to roommate's voice
after i failed to snooze my alarm
us hurrying to catch bating practice
before the Mets game.
4.19.04--11:58 p.m.
woke up at 5:30
and on way to pee
turn on computer
and after peeing
work on it for two hours
before back bed.
alarm wakes half-sleep me at 10:20
& I realize it's Patriot's Day in Massachusetts
and Yankees-Red Sox game starts at 11 a.m.,
so I skip work for game,
and blip of depression,
but don't blow off therapy,
because it's not good practice to lie to your therapist
and I need to steady me up.
Back home
Brenda Iijima calls to ask me to read
says maybe this will make me feel better
& it does,
as does Gina hangout to chat/work on Feb. Project stuff
for Cat's May Day celeb,
and then dinner,
and then she splits,
and all alone
alone is all i am right now,
but not always,
right?
4.20.04--11:52 p.m.
down to water and milk
i freeze a can of pineapple
and half an hour later
put one ice cube in a plastic cup
and pour myself
a cup of pineapple juice
4.22.04--1:11 a.m.
(really 4.21.04)
layed out my newspaper tonight
even though I didn't want to
but kept doing it
while half-watching tv all night
& then it was done
and I liked my paper again,
somewhat.
4.22.04--11:32 p.m.
i didn't buy a bottle of soda on the way home from work
but i didn't want to cook tonight as usual
and wanted a two-liter bottle of diet pepsi
so i ordered italian food for dinner
as i had for lunch
just so i could get a two-liter bottle of diet pepsi
as only the pizza place offers anything bigger than cans
and the delivery came
and i ate some baked ziti,
and it was good,
but all i wanted to do was what i did
drink the two-liter bottle of diet pepsi from the bottle
4.24.04--10:07 a.m.
(really 4.23.04)
in bed
lights out
at 11 p.m.
no alarm set
so to let my body decide my waking time
preparing for good night's sleep
to wake into big small press morning
and my phone rings.
"This better be important," I answer.
And I hear laughter.
It's Ela calling from Chicago.
04.24.04--11:49 a.m.
my day
nfl draft
while proofing
and redesigning
boog city on computer
three-hour nap
interrupted by gina call
"are you going to shanna's rdg?"
and i woulda had i known she was
"no," i said.
and interrupted by nathaniel call
"are we still on?"
"yes"
"see you in an hour"
and we try three restaurants
until we find one i can eat at
and he treats me for dinner
but i don't order soda
because i've been trained by folks not to
and i offer to buy him ice cream on way home
but he had ice cream earlier
so i buy me pint of baskin robbins
peanut butter and chocolate
and eat it from the pint
while we watch the last half hour of almost famous.
4.25.04--11:16 p.m.
boog
nap
tv
4.26.04--11:33 p.m.
at the diner you order eggs benedict
and that's okay for now
but if we ever live together
no cooking pork in our home, ok?
4.27.04--10:00 p.m.
You paid for dinner
because I paid for the concert.
You bought me water during the show
because you did.
04.28.04--11:20 p.m.
last night four hours sleep
after late night finishing newspaper
so it could be distributed today
and my bones still ache
even after a 90-minute nap.
04.29.04--11:53 p.m.
eventually i will cook again
i haven't had the energy each night as i return home
so after working on the computer
i turn to ordering food around 10 p.m.
and go to bed maybe an hour after finishing
but eventually i will cook again
05.01.04--3:31 p.m.
(really 04.30.04)
I didn't want to go to my show tonight
the disconnect real
but a nap, and a shower,
and a bus and a cab
and there now i'm happy.
(really 4.01.04)
I did the least amount of work I have ever done at a job today
Erica, who was at a grammar-thon and missed work today,
asked me how that was possible.
I had no answer.
The Zyprexa my psychopharmacologist had me stop taking
three days ago
is still in my system
give it a week he says.
I felt better I told Nathaniel,
today was the first day I didn't need to take a nap in a week,
and then i remembered i got to the gallery two hours before the event
and crashed on the co-owner's sofa
since he's away in Morocco.
4.03.04--12:06 a.m.
(really 4.02.04)
Crystal Light is free at work.
Crystal Light is free at work.
It may have been the happiest discovery of my adult life.
Crystal Light is free at work.
That's all.
4.4.04--12:32 a.m.
(really 4.3.04)
it was a year ago
and everything was fine right after
but it was a year ago
and that's really all that's on my mind right now
after i date this and place this
that it was a year ago
and we did
and then we didn't
and it was a year ago
and i still love you
a year later.
4.04.04--11:15 p.m.
my mother had me go the store to get bialys
for my uncle murray and my cousin barry
coming in from san diego.
i returned and my parents' driveway is being blocked by, in order,
a cop car, the fire chief's SUV, a cop car, an emt vehicle, and a fire truck,
13 people gathered to extricate my parents' ill tenant from his apartment.
my uncle calls a few minutes later,
they're lost.
so my father drives to where they are in freeport,
two towns away,
to escort them home.
By this time my mom and I were eating bialys,
as we'd waited three and half hours
and were hungry.
And then
bam
a loud noise and i yell to my mom,
while runnning to the front door,
there's been an accident,
and it was my uncle murray,
84-year-old uncle murray
in an accident,
and soon two cop cars
averted traffic from the middle of my parents street,
an an ambulance was taking my uncle to the emergency room
as a precaution,
and three and a half more hours later we'd all be having bialys together.
4.6.04--1:47 a.m.
(really 4.5.04)
if you fuck up, own up
grow up, please
4.07.04--1:25 a.m.
(really 4.06.04)
i'm about to brush my teeth with salt
it's what i do each passover
instead of buying a kosher for passover toothpaste
and using it for the holiday's eight days,
or saying i'll save it for next passover
and never finding it come then,
i use one of toothpaste's key ingredients, NaCl,
its abrasive powers all i need.
4.08.04--12:12 a.m.
(really 4.07.04)
I took the coastal highway to my sister today,
to watch my youngest niece for a few hours,
same route, in reverse,
i travelled 10 years ago tomorrow
to feel the ocean breeze and listen to nirvana
to hear kurt on day they discovered him.
My eldest niece had just turned five,
and now, at 15,
she's discovered his music,
has started learning how to play the electric guitar,
is trying to play along to his hits.
She tells me she dropped her Teen Spirit deodorant stick a few weeks ago on the bathroom floor
and it shattered.
4.09.04--12:15 a.m.
(really 4.08.04)
it's what's about to happen
for the first time after a week
at folks for passover
it's me in my bed and
i'm so happy.
for erica
4.09.04--11:20 p.m.
they've taken american idol reject william hung
and gussied him up
he's got a record deal
the album out this week
with appearances on the tonight show and the today show
he's got two sexy women and two men as his back up dancers
he's been taught some choreography
now when the lyric in She Bangs hits the word crazy
he twirls his finger by his ear
his voice doesn't sound as bad anymore
it's the full backing band
and the probable voice lessons.
talk to me william, tell me your name.
4.11.04--5:32 a.m.
(really 4.10.04)
This is a poem about me not having had sex
in a long time
Making love's been even longer
as long as being in love
it's been a long time
this is a poem about that
4.12.04--12:19 a.m.
(really 4.11.04)
the zyprexa still in my system is killing me
knocking me out
where i'm tired from the time i wake
until the time i sleep
i need a nap everyday
and when i don't take one
i know i didn't take one.
my psychopharmacologist said
two weeks ago
that it would go through my body in one week
after he had me stop taking it
one week later when i was still walking dead
he said give it time, it will go through you,
give it time,
oh, really? thanks doc.
4.13.04--12:42 a.m.
(really 4.12.04)
i got rained on a bit in the upper deck at shea stadium today,
sitting behind the plate for the mets home opener.
Mets 10 Braves 6
if the score were reversed i still would be happy.
4.14.04--12:29 a.m.
(realy 4.13.04)
passover ended at 8:46 p.m.
at 8:20 i called Ray's Pizza and
ordered dinner for Nathaniel and me.
30 minutes later it arrived
and we sat in kitchen
televised jazz bleating from my bedroom
and i had first chametz in eight days,
first food i couldn't eat during passover,
first bread, garlic.
4.14.04--11:05 p.m.
tomorrow's tax day
and it looks like a large
(for a piss-poor poet like me)
federal tax return,
large enough where i'm planning a trip
to oakland and san francisco
to see sleater-kinney and quasi,
maybe give a reading,
see families, blood and poet.
my return is more than my tax paid.
it's due to the redistribution of wealth
my roommate tells me.
i'm going to california i tell him.
4.16.04--12:44 a.m.
(really 4.15.04)
the first time i took meds i went off them
three months of depakote to treat the manic-d
treatment from a psychopharmacologist i never connected with
and one day i just quit and blamed her.
five years later
two of them spent housebound
two of them spent eating haagen-dazs by the pint
two of them spent throwing garbage on my floor
two of them spent cutting myself off from my family and friends
i went back on meds
taking lithium to treat the manic-d this time
going old school to adjust my chemistry.
and now i've got a psychopharmacologist who's cool
who monitors me like mad
who makes me feel that he cares
(and it seems that he really does).
and we talk about my treatment
and he listens to what i say
and i take my meds when he instructs
and my healing continues.
4.17.04--6:25 a.m.
(really 4.16.04)
my friend matt,
a musician who's played many of my events,
had a mellow birthday house party
and i realized that all the antifolk musician girls
are pretty
and taken.
and if u don't know if they're taken
you can't really hit on them
because the scene isn't that way
and you don't wanna be that guy.
4.18.04--1:35 a.m.
(really 4.17.04)
what kind of parenting is involved
when 10 yr old girls at the lakers first playoff game
are dancing around in kobe bryant jerseys.
4.19.04--1:15 a.m.
(really 4.18.04)
slept one rem cycle last night
four hours
after cybering all night with different people
waking up to roommate's voice
after i failed to snooze my alarm
us hurrying to catch bating practice
before the Mets game.
4.19.04--11:58 p.m.
woke up at 5:30
and on way to pee
turn on computer
and after peeing
work on it for two hours
before back bed.
alarm wakes half-sleep me at 10:20
& I realize it's Patriot's Day in Massachusetts
and Yankees-Red Sox game starts at 11 a.m.,
so I skip work for game,
and blip of depression,
but don't blow off therapy,
because it's not good practice to lie to your therapist
and I need to steady me up.
Back home
Brenda Iijima calls to ask me to read
says maybe this will make me feel better
& it does,
as does Gina hangout to chat/work on Feb. Project stuff
for Cat's May Day celeb,
and then dinner,
and then she splits,
and all alone
alone is all i am right now,
but not always,
right?
4.20.04--11:52 p.m.
down to water and milk
i freeze a can of pineapple
and half an hour later
put one ice cube in a plastic cup
and pour myself
a cup of pineapple juice
4.22.04--1:11 a.m.
(really 4.21.04)
layed out my newspaper tonight
even though I didn't want to
but kept doing it
while half-watching tv all night
& then it was done
and I liked my paper again,
somewhat.
4.22.04--11:32 p.m.
i didn't buy a bottle of soda on the way home from work
but i didn't want to cook tonight as usual
and wanted a two-liter bottle of diet pepsi
so i ordered italian food for dinner
as i had for lunch
just so i could get a two-liter bottle of diet pepsi
as only the pizza place offers anything bigger than cans
and the delivery came
and i ate some baked ziti,
and it was good,
but all i wanted to do was what i did
drink the two-liter bottle of diet pepsi from the bottle
4.24.04--10:07 a.m.
(really 4.23.04)
in bed
lights out
at 11 p.m.
no alarm set
so to let my body decide my waking time
preparing for good night's sleep
to wake into big small press morning
and my phone rings.
"This better be important," I answer.
And I hear laughter.
It's Ela calling from Chicago.
04.24.04--11:49 a.m.
my day
nfl draft
while proofing
and redesigning
boog city on computer
three-hour nap
interrupted by gina call
"are you going to shanna's rdg?"
and i woulda had i known she was
"no," i said.
and interrupted by nathaniel call
"are we still on?"
"yes"
"see you in an hour"
and we try three restaurants
until we find one i can eat at
and he treats me for dinner
but i don't order soda
because i've been trained by folks not to
and i offer to buy him ice cream on way home
but he had ice cream earlier
so i buy me pint of baskin robbins
peanut butter and chocolate
and eat it from the pint
while we watch the last half hour of almost famous.
4.25.04--11:16 p.m.
boog
nap
tv
4.26.04--11:33 p.m.
at the diner you order eggs benedict
and that's okay for now
but if we ever live together
no cooking pork in our home, ok?
4.27.04--10:00 p.m.
You paid for dinner
because I paid for the concert.
You bought me water during the show
because you did.
04.28.04--11:20 p.m.
last night four hours sleep
after late night finishing newspaper
so it could be distributed today
and my bones still ache
even after a 90-minute nap.
04.29.04--11:53 p.m.
eventually i will cook again
i haven't had the energy each night as i return home
so after working on the computer
i turn to ordering food around 10 p.m.
and go to bed maybe an hour after finishing
but eventually i will cook again
05.01.04--3:31 p.m.
(really 04.30.04)
I didn't want to go to my show tonight
the disconnect real
but a nap, and a shower,
and a bus and a cab
and there now i'm happy.
