Scar Tissue

I've got a scar across my neck from recent surgery.  It isn't too extreme, but it is noticed by people.  I had lunch with a guy the other day, and he looked over at me after I undid my jacket, then said: "thyroid?"  He proceeded to lower his shirt to show me a very similar scar.  I quickly clarified that my surgery involved the parathyroid, but I'll admit that the scar looked very very close.  Thing was, his scar had been there for over 2 years.

Which made me start think about getting rid of this scar.  So I immediately bought some vitamin E oil.  And today I went to get some of that special scar treatment cream.  Except it was 20 dollars, so I bought the generic brand instead. Do scars "naturally" go away or is there something I can do about this??

And here we sit, editing.

Flanked on all sides.  Semicolon; Period.  Space.  Insert cuppa coffee number three.  Insert eye twitch.  Delete manufactured presence.  Delete systematic appraisal.  Insert: Glossy textured appeals, common touch.  Delete originality.  Delete possibility. Maintain: distinctions between us and them, between me and them.  Maintain: the ideal that compromise is pejorative. Be true to your half-formed beliefs. Sink feet deeper in mud.  Rotten socks are good for the soul.  Go on believing: in yourself.  Insert in garbage disposal: past mistakes, hit switch.  Watch: lights dim.  Ponder: the way the cool air from the fridge spills onto your feet when midnight snacking, the light touch of a lover's eyes on your neck.  Perambulate toward a statue of religiosity, ancient propensities. Fix your eyes: in hazy distance to avoid focusing in on the froth; concentrate on: negative space, flinched out via reactions, inaction.  Pretend: you're not part of it too. Go on.  Feeling rebellious.  Insert: headphones.

I can still see you.

Leafy

Today was a perfect autumnal slide into impending wintry excess.  Dogs barked out melodious herding calls, and birds answered back in formation inducing migratory premonitions.  Even the people were largely kind enough for a few words before moving on toward their destinations.  As I sit drinking my sizzling and refreshing non-alcoholic limonata, and pondering the mellifluous notes of a piano recording old but far from stale, I'll just say a silent toast to the capacity for harmonious intermingling and the synergistic possibilities of tomorrow. 

Wlasnie

Czasami, potrzebuje napisac po polsku nawet kiedy nie znam wszystko caly jesyk jeszcze.  Okay?  Kto bedzie to cytac zapytasz? Nie wiem.  Moze moja kolega od Polska i moja przyjaciel tez.  To jest dwie ludzi.  Teraz musze pije kawa, nigdy piwa.  Rozumiesz?  Do widzenia dla teraz.

Driven By Sex?

Tell me it ain't so, batman, that we're motivated only by our desires to have sex. 

It ain't so robin.  We're also driven by our desires of safety and peace.

Yeah, maybe you're right. But what if we want safety and peace just so that we survive, so that we have a safe place for our offspring?

Now your confusing two issues Robin.  Sex and sexual reproduction are distinct and separate.  I mean, look at me.

Oh Batman, I suppose that's right.  Maybe.  Then again, how would we know whether it was right or not?  Maybe when we act for sex, the sexual act, we're also, and always, acting in our reproductive capacity, one that links our concerns for general concepts like justice with our own ability to live and procreate.

Robin, you sly dog you.  Get on your knees and bark like the dog you are.

Ruff batman, ruff ruff.

Perfectionism

I could get up and fight back, or I could lay on the floor and watch the implosion of a man enter my sphere and take over.  I wouldn't have a lot of time, either, because he was making his way toward me, and, even if his intent was to go after the tidbit memories of Christmas on the mantle, his real objective was to go after me, to annihilate us.  I had one edge.  I knew that he wanted to do his deeds in secret, no matter how loud and angry he exhibited his immaturity to me with the flailing of arms and devices and punches.  I knew that it didn't matter what his girth moved, where his pelvis thrust, because it couldn't change the reality of the situation, and that was very basic: he couldn't cope.  I was successful for the first time in a long time, and definitely for the first time since we were together, and it was decidedly more recognized than he had imaged it could be.  The space existed where he wasn't the best.

I got up then, and moved toward the front door.  It was 22 degrees outside, and the crust of the snow would cut against my slippered by unsheathed ankles.  It didn't matter.  What mattered was that I break the consolidation that kept our reality between the two of us; what mattered was that I find a razor blade to slice open this industrial strength plastic of our mutual delusion.  His ego would wilt in the sunlight and fresh air, I was sure. Problem was, I was wrong.

Flock

He wrapped the thickness that was his inarticulate hand around the ceramic.  I could hear the friction between his fingers, his strength and aggression seething, his jaw working back and forth to grind out a rhythm that was achingly familiar.  When we had honeymooned at Niagara Falls in 1992 we took the boat ride--you know, the one that putts in under the falls--yeah, we were both just soaked afterward, and we laid down in the shimmering sun, our backs full of dried grass, drinking down chocolate milks and laughing at the tourists.  I remember the way his saliva looked on his white teeth, how soft his lips were then.  It is so close to my mind's eye that the smudge of a human in the kitchen hovers for a minute, a mirage.  That's before he threw the cup at me.  A white bullet smeared out across the room, me, sailing onto the floor, particles fragmented around the fireplace.  I could see a sliver of the diagram on one of them that I picked up slowly.  Outside, and I'll swear to this, were four grizzly bears, all fangs and claws, getting in one of the biggest bar room fights you can imagine.  Pool sticks cracking, queue balls sailing.  I had a decision to make.

Perfectionism

There are some advantages and disadvantages here, coming from a book about anxiety I've been reading (for various reasons).

Advantages:  I'll work hard to impress people; people will respect and admire me; I won't have to share my feelings; I can hide my feelings and present a polished image to the world; I can feel like a victim and secretly resent people for being so judgmental and not accepting me the way I am; I"ll appear calm and in control;

Disadvantages:  I'll feel like I have to be perfect to be loved; I won't be open to other people; I may get defensive whenever someone criticized me, because I'll feel like I have to be right.; People won't get to know the real me; I won't achieve the kind of intimacy that I want; It takes a lot of time to be so perfect;  people like me better when i'm not trying so hard

more?

Flames

The stereo clattered across my visual plane, getting caught only mid-flight by speaker wires vestigially attached to the rear.  He was going to leave soon, I hoped. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine him gone, tried to imagine myself in the apartment alone, some soft piano music, a cup of coffee, the sun light streaming through the bay window we had so easily imagined for two.  I had to vanquish those thoughts from my mind now, though, as much as I used to rely on them to survive, those piercingly idealistic meanderings.  I had to face a few facts, all of which were related to my survival.

The cd player came next, soaring in silence for a few seconds, before joining the receiver.  I shuddered and covered my eyes with my hands.  My palms were cold and the skin rough, my heart rate as if I'd been running in brisk weather.  He stormed to the kitchen, and the door of the dishwasher came down and bounced back up as he retrieved his precious mug. Why couldn't I have just left it alone?  How could I have been so nonchalant? 

Alcohol Screening

This is a handy little website to see how your drinking compares with the rest of the population--only 2 questions or so to answer.

Numerous Occassions to Lift Your Glass

These articles just make me itch all fucking over.  

Thoughts that don't apply to me.

I've minimized the extent to which certain events have impacted me (like my father's death, which, even written here as an aside, is odd: I don't own it, after all, so how can i so casually write it.).  Insert piece of dark chocolate into mouth.   Refresh browser.