I might be lying but it never got above 40 yesterday, 40 dark blustery, and that describes the weather for the entire Momotombo Press visit. It describes the weather now. I'm damn near pissed about it and blame myself or God for my pissiness, waffling, which is never a good state to be in. They--Francisco, Maria, Steven--left yesterday morning, so you can imagine I did nothing whatsoever after. The house is still in after-dinner state. You know what I'm up to this morning.
***
Okay, all but the kitchen. Which means I just moved everything that needs washing or dealing with in there. And now my laziness is kicking in again. Because the other thing needing doing is laundry and who wants to wash dishes or do laundry on a cold gray day? I'd rather prep for class. I'd rather tinker with poems. I have grading to do. I'm tempted by television, but then it's all over with. This is what boredom looks like after big events. I can hardly stand it.
***
I mean what's the difference between boredom and depression? It's not as if I can tell.
***
from the Annunciation notebook, Sunday May 11, 2003, Ithaca, NY, 7:20 a.m.
Hair all my life not a little thing, a self-consciousness a friend once said while probably drunk, "you really need to cut some of it off, it's like a fucking organ," and yes, startling and pure, his accuracy. Some people grow their livers day after day, nipping at grief, grieving at everything, the liver inside growing fat and heavy with all that fear, and my hair grows this way, to such excess, such decadence, thick and heavy. Slurring. In his voice: disgust.***
-----
My father and mother grew my hair, my father saying "the day you cut your hair, I'm going to burn the house down." I was not allowed to cut it, I think, because it grows and grows abundantly, deep auburn, red at the roots, fair against those laws of nature that should have made me darker haired and skinned. For my father: a sheer red mystery. The top of my head grows a veil.
-----
The hair organ, like any organ, running through me, through the inside of me breathing my blood and eating the stuff floating there and casting off the dead that pour out of the top of my head for all to see. I wore it dutifully, loved it dutifully, hated it dutifully, chopped it all off dutifully, and then, forgetting, finally, my purpose--having no purpose having lost my duty--I began to grow it again out of excessive grief and longing for home. My father's house, where I am not welcome.
Dishes done thanks to Suzanne who talked me through them on her Mother's Day. C is right. Bathtub and Dante, not laundry. The sun is not scheduled to come out until Thursday. I can't think straight without sunlight. I feel like making holes in things.
***
