Out dancing at the End-up for around 30 minutes.
10:45pm to about 11:45pm. Worried all night about
enjambment. Gotcha! Do I look like a poem would dis
tract my evening so intently that it would provide me with
a night of insomnia? Mom calls, ~2am. I’m headed to the
corner store up Hyde for the 2nd time in 20 minutes; the
first time I couldn’t remember my PIN number on my EBT
card, and this particular stroke of midnight had been the 1st
of February. And on the 1st, the poor earthlings get $236 worth
of extra food. Which sounds like a lot until it is revealed that
what took two trips up Hyde was nearly $60 worth of snack
items (if you include mostlhy non-alcoholic beverages as snack
a night of insomnia? Mom calls, ~2am. I’m headed to the
corner store up Hyde for the 2nd time in 20 minutes; the
first time I couldn’t remember my PIN number on my EBT
card, and this particular stroke of midnight had been the 1st
of February. And on the 1st, the poor earthlings get $236 worth
of extra food. Which sounds like a lot until it is revealed that
what took two trips up Hyde was nearly $60 worth of snack
items (if you include mostlhy non-alcoholic beverages as snack
items). I call Mom back when I’m back home the second (third,
if you count getting home after dancing) time. Wearing the head
phones, I still can’t quite understand her. And she’s memorably
wearing a bit fluffy neck brace (so not a metallic brace, but what
are those things called that look like they’re the inflated neck
portions of turtle-neck tops that folks wear after having automobile
portions of turtle-neck tops that folks wear after having automobile
or ski accidents? A big inflated turtle-neck top – just the portion that
covers the neck without going all the way to the chin). It’s as if she’s
hopping up and down making decorations, but this has to be imagined?
I blather loudly and surely annoyingly about my financial woes. And
I’m not even bringing up the guy with what has to be a multiply
broken nose bridge, just bitching about money. To mom. Who
I’m not even bringing up the guy with what has to be a multiply
broken nose bridge, just bitching about money. To mom. Who
matter-of-factly, once a break is found in the airwaves, counters
her hyperactive decorating for a party in the kitchen (did she say
it was for Mikayla?), lets out an eye-rolling “Haven’t we all been
her hyperactive decorating for a party in the kitchen (did she say
it was for Mikayla?), lets out an eye-rolling “Haven’t we all been
there?” Totally dry. Not sardonic, even. Like she is telling me to
give up my pedantic woes. But I cannot, because I have such
important goals these next few years, which I do plan to live out.
I mean we all plan to persuasively live out our last years, do we not?
Even if we’ve had that serious conversation with a medical professional
about whatever time might actually (not) be left. Which I haven’t.
But Mom has. And yet experiencing the two of us together in this
moment, despite her clamorings on for well over a decade and a
half now over such possibilities, it doesn’t seem any more or less
ripe on her side for such nonsense than it does o her son’s, who
continues to blather on about the unfairness of his last decade or so.
Finally, I tell her I’d call her back tomorrow (meaning later today, which
is Sunday). After which I finished doing some filing. Then thought
irritatedly about getting back to the Microsoft and the Google issues.
So basic. So time-consuming. Such an affront to the notion of customer
loyalty and also another knife into the heart of general customer service.
During which I finish one book of poetry (Corbett & gang’s Wieners
anthology) by starting another one (diPrima’s Dinners and Nightmares).
Typing somewhere near the top of my head, almost not thinking of what
I’m even conveying, just doing it sort of as an aside. Still fine with not
having slept in the past 24+ hours.
