mmmdclii

I Have Taken Notes

See here, my scribbles,
by fraud and divinity,
and indecipherability and
Mother, Mother, Mom!

I have taken this down,
these notes on MUNI
and fix boogie and
call the tax people.

All seem of the same
importance, like the
pink felt tipped list
on the clean-ripped

top of a sheaf of
elementary school
paper with, what,
a trilogy of pieces

yet to be written en
titled “The unamused
muse,” “The muse’s
abuse, and “The invoice

for Joyce.” There’s
the name in green,
“Brian,” over “July
11th,” then “$64.”

There’s “AL2044779.”
I’ve made long and
short lists of songs to
add to a master music

list (written on the
top is sometimes
“MORE MUSIC” or
“to add to the music”

or, just “songs”).
There’s “more
calls to make” and
a lot that start out

“payment issue.”
The cryptic stuff
verging on the
poetic, like “H is

time for Clarity
not War...Or
Revamp Ever
for Sanity.”

Which has some
interspersed boxes
like it’s a checklist –
most just have dashes –

almost all are checklists,
one might surmise, but
_bedbugs, _looking
endlessly & comatose,

_interacting with the
never cans, _hurry
to spend hours,
_clams not cams,

_buse, _spun for
hours alone, then
“_BUT CLOTHES
ALL HERE NO

CALAMITY” – clams
not cams nor calamity
doesn’t make for calm.
There are notes about 

xanax and klonopin, 

about jobs and jobs,
scribbles taken during 

interviews that can jar,

not a single ounce
of context, and then
those that bring me 

right back to the

interview (which

whelms me at pre

sent, having had 

three separate 

interviews today, 

alone).  There are

notes taken while

talking with Mom for

hours about photos
left by her mother, as 

we speak across the
many miles it’s as if

speaking with her,
with Granny Louise,
or Grandma Hazel,
who gives us their

old home address 

in Detroit (20816
Russell) or is it

actually rather in

Highland Park?
There’s Dad’s old

high school, John J. 

Pershing. And right

after, in the same

pen (green again),
“July 11, 1911” –
I want to call Mom,

so that is just what I
do. After her CAT
scan. When I called
earlier and Rick answered,

sounding just like her,
“But she’s having a CAT
scan, they’re going to do
surgery on her head in the

morning.”  He always

shouts.  Having just had
these three interviews
(really four), only one of

which had been sched

uled before I got up this 

morning, the first of

whom called me an

entire hour ahead of
schedule, I’d just woken
up. These piles of paper 
I need to go through 

just to find a needle 

in a haystack it seems,
a “writing sample,”
an interoffice memo,

random, I dunno, but
what I’m finding instead:
serial numbers of the

ghosts of electronics 

past, a draft of

a note to an ex’s
boyfriend, and a 

sheet ripped from

a tiny spiral note

book with just one

name on it:  “Karla

Milosevich.” And

another sheet seeming

ly from the same note

pad with the phrase 

“slow and clear.” There

are such places to visit

in the Bay Area that one

week I cajoled all of us 

sibs into getting together

here.  Such a wonderful

time – the only time
they’d ever visited me
together, the only time

two had ever visited me at
all since I left Arkansas – 
before Gary passed away
in Missouri (he’d already

had two experiences that
nearly got him there, each
time he’d convince the
doctors he hadn’t been

feeling suicidal, in that
sweet-talking, easy
way he had of just
coming across as

absolutely earnest).
And Mom, who’s
been living at
the hospital

for something
like a month now?
Having surgery
tomorrow on her

head – for a broken
neck. That’s what
she said. Her neck
is broken! No idea

how. The cellphone
reception horrible.
I asked her if she
had gotten any

odds from the
doctor, whom she
said was one of
only four in the

state who do
this sort of thing.
“It’s very serious,”
she said, maybe

three times, as I
asked her in that
many different
ways, the same

question. So I
asked if anyone
had even survived
this serious procedure.

“Yeah, a couple of
people,” she said.
A couple of people.
And so I focus on

the tasks at hand,
my list of priorities,
the homework I was
given during two of

the three (four) inter

views I had earlier:
interoffice memo;
resume template.

One’s due by 10
in the morning
(they hope to
make a decision

on a candidate
then), the other
on Monday (this
one would be

“a process” –
so I write that
down slowly, in 

blue: “a process”).