quiet time

So I definitely know that I need time alone. I know this.
Just sometimes everything gets a bit overwhelming and I run out of time and I'm in such a good mood that I forget that in order to stay in a good mood I need time by myself. I need to chill the eff out and lie around on the floor a bit and read a book and stuff.

I'm kind of at the end of my line tonight and even knowing that I was on the verge of just randomly weeping, I almost went out tonight. I didn't though. I came home at 11 and didn't go out afterwards. I watched a tiny bit of internet TV and read some the 100s of unreads in my google reader. I ate some frozen berries and remembered to drink some water for once.


Two jobs today was too many for me. My legs feel bruised in the bones from the concrete floors and I'm stressed out by how ridiculous huge corporations are and how poorly employees get treated a lot of the time. Same old, same old.


One of my very favourite co-workers, from both the ACC and the dome, is a funny lady in her 50s whose daughters work with us and is very kind and gets the cakes for people on their birthdays, but she also swears like a sailor and thinks my jokes are pretty funny.
She told me about how she used to sell pot and go to concerts and stuff. She laughs at my babe stories.

Anyway, she just found out that she has cancer all over her body. Like all over. Real bad.
Right after she was diagnosed she asked to work with me most days at ACC. I don't really know why, to be honest. Maybe because I'm good at pretending everything is fine. Last time I saw her it was the day before her appointment where they were going to decide her treatment course and tell her her chances and all that. As she was leaving, I said "I'll talk to you soon, let me know how it goes" and she burst into tears.

I saw her daughter at the dome but I haven't seen her, she's not working now that she's in treatment, I guess. I've avoided her daughter because I don't want to have to ask how it's going because it can't be good.
Our bosses and co-workers got her a private box at the Jays' game this weekend and I knew that she was up there but I didn't go up to say hi.
I couldn't.


My mum is a single parent (obviously) and back in 1983 maternity leave wasn't was it is now and Mum put me (tiny baby) in daycare. She didn't mean for me to go to Bev's house as Bev wasn't that similar of a type of person plus she smoked but Mum was waiting on a space at another place so I went to Bev's. But then I was happy there, so I stayed. I went to Bev's and my brother went to Bev's. I went to Bev's until I didn't need childcare anymore. And even after I went back to visit. Basically we were family.
She died of lung cancer when I was in 12th grade. But I started distancing myself from her a long time before she actually died. I loved her so, so much.
She had three large sons but no daughters and I was the closest she had.
I was a mess at the funeral and I spoke to her pastor and she told me Bev had talked about me to her. Broke my heart.

Anyway, so this situation has shades of Bev to it and I'm not in the mood for this sort of sadness then extra sadness. It's just hard, ya know..


I wonder if my one of my favourite poets, Bob Hicok, will be very angry if I write out one of his poems on here. I recommend reading it out loud quietly to yourself to feel the almost-rhymes and how it runs smooth-like and nice, and maybe it'll be a bit soothing.


Talk more of the dream of your hips
on a clothesline, of plugging your hair
into light sockets.
Talk more of your mother's last cigarette
curling the white smoke of popes
outside the hospital, of holding it to her lips,
how she passed you
the final drag, the filter wet, disgusting,
essential.
Talk more of stopping short
of Nags Head, dead pelicans on the bridge,
your car door open, the dome light broken,
trees and trees beyond your vision, the chanting
of frogs, the world reduced
to blindness and throb, of knowing the sound
would eat you if you stayed.
Talk more of Duane on the second floor
burned by sterno, no heat in the apartment,
who played backgammon with you on the roof,
who shot arrows at the river, who named kaleidoscopes
after presidents, who pierced your ears
and licked the blood.
Talk more of going away from things
and coming to things,
of touching the yo-yo in your pocket
during the sales meeting, of killing slugs
with beer, of folding sheets, of moving sprinklers,
of tip-toeing away from beds with sex
dripping down your legs, of knowing the sky is closer,
of living under water, of dragging anvils,
of decapitating yourself with wine, of eloping
with highways, of that scar
under your chin, the one from a buttercup,
the one you touch when the sound
you need to make is everything that can't be said.

-Bob Hicok


Hmm. I meant to be asleep an hour ago. One more day of working and then I am freespirit freetimes all the time. I'm going to need to go for a picnic. Just reminding.