Off and on

I wonder if this will ever get old. I think because we're rounding the three year mark, things are beginning to feel dated in a way that makes me sad. The impact of your death on my life is changing. I'm not as motivated to honor you in ways that now seem contrived or expected. In a sense, I'm critiquing the modes in which I operate under. This expectation to keep your memory alive is something I have placed on myself. I'm operating from places of guilt, bitterness, envy, and loneliness. What does it all mean? Is there an ending? How do I keep this going? I love you so very much. How will I continue to honor you? Will it always be public? Will you eventually just occupy a place in my private mind? I miss your energy. I miss your presence. You you you you you you.

Goose

It's the way I conduct myself,
A bit of a fool I suppose.

How being called altruistic makes me write about my Dad.

I was called altruistic today. I had to look it up. Coming from my property manager, I can't tell if he was complimenting me or mocking me. I think he'd rather call me naive, but that's rude. Our relationship is interesting. He's my property manager. He was my dad's property manager. That's how I know him. He was my dad's business-friend, and I've know him for years. He's probably known me since I was a baby. I hired him when I was 23 to manage my building so that I could move to Santa Fe. My beloved professor had hooked me up with an exciting internship at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Someone in Santa Fe was willing to pay me 1000 dollars a month to work for them. Who were these marvelous people? I wanted to kiss them.

It really could have been anywhere. I just wanted to get out of New York, and prove that I was capable of shaping my own destiny. That was nine years ago. It was a decision I made on my own, and was very secretive about. I didn't seek out the advice of my dad. At that point, I was actively keeping many life plans from him as past conversations about my aspirations had resulted in exasperation and heartache. His opinions intimidated me. His negativity hurt me. He disagreed with many of my schemes, and belittled my boho desire to be an artist. So as bank accounts and bills where being transferred over to my new, business-friend property manager, I kept my fingers crossed that word of my business dealings would reach him only after I had safely made it to Santa Fe and my belongings were being taken out of their boxes.

One thing I learned pretty early was that business-friends operate on a different set of values than friend-friends. Business-friends don't operate altruistically. Not that friend-friends always do, but in general, business-friends operate monetarily. It was very direct and simple. I called and hired him, and now he was my business-friend too. Thus, I was free to runaway from the responsibility of having to manage my building- which I had been managing since I was 19 (I treat the building like a teen pregnancy. I wasn't ready to raise this baby!) and cavort in the exciting and beguiling art world of Santa Fe or wherever. When my dad found out, he was pissed.

What does any of this have to do with anything? Everything. 




  

January Exposures

I think I know why I write you publicly. It humbles me. Keeps me honest.

It's a form of public penance. Like church. This is how I commune with you.

A sort of ancestor worship.

I like that I can go back and change what I write. It feels like you and I are working on a solution together. I like that I can go back in time and edit the past.

About the sun.

I am happiest when the sun shines against my face.
Right now, it is my only source of warmth.
When it goes away, its absence is profound.
The table gets dark.
It gets cold pretty quick.
Things feel a bit more bleak.
Then a cloud gets out of the way, and everything is bright again.
The muscles in my cheeks lift to a smile once more.
My body relaxes back into the warmth of the sun.
The cat likes the sun too.
Come back.
It gets so cold when you leave.
Your warmth is an antidote for my loneliness. 

Sometimes I am bat shit crazy.

Today, I composed a ridiculously strange email.

It's a long story...

I know why I feel like this and I hate the reasons. It's some woman DNA shit.

It's cold in Detroit.

It's cold in Detroit for obvious reasons. December being the most most obvious. Last week I had two wisdom teeth removed. I have stitches in my mouth, and a hole in my gums. Rice gets stuck in the latter. The hole makes my mouth smell like a sewer which in turn makes me feel like a swamp queen. My friend, who sometimes crawls into my bed to keep me company, often likes to tell me how awful my breath is. It's a good dynamic the two of us have. He makes fun of me, and I endure it because I believe I deserve to be punished. Laurel and Hardy eat your hearts out.