optimist installation dinner

it was pretty good. my friend is still a board member, secretary.  possibly I’llrun for treasurer myself next year.  I am wondering how you become a board member.   that might be cool.

I joined this group because of my friend, and am really grateful now.  I promised not to embarrass him at events, so I did not drink very much and honestly should not be drinking much, if at all, anyhow.  moderation is the key.  And I was moderate.  should I understand what moderate is.

personally I am at odds with the relationship I have developed with this friend.  He confuses and frustrate me very much.  Has proven himself to be a great friend, yet I can’t help but feel like there is more to come.  Don’t even know what that really means.  it’s just I feel something under the surface.

I did feel bad about one thing, he was clapping, this annoying clap that he and a friend do.  This clap is loud and drawn out and makes the hair on my neck stand up on ends.  Drives me literally batty.  he started that clap and without control over my own reflexes I grabbed his hand to stop him.  I really had no right.  It was completely out of line and I know better.  I do things before I think.  Later he called me mom about it, and that hurt even more.  I’m very hyper sensitive about being maternal to anyone, because I have no right.  And particularly not to a grown man who had every right to live his life however he please.

17 Days

 

17 Days

Since last we saw each other,

See here, what I have done

These are the strings I have attached

Like a fine puppeteer to my heart

Knotted the aorta to the blue line,

The pulmonary atrium to the green,

And the left ventricle to the red.

The blood rushes through smoothly

Then twist into tangled messes.

Floating around violently against the

Left atrium digging against the wall

Looking for exits that don’t exist.

I have so little control pulling at the strings,

As you well know.

All the valves working, but the rhythm is off.

A skipped beat, a forgotten moment,

Another lonely night.

I am a sloppy puppeteer, my dear.

I am not good at the slight tugs of the lines,

The sudden pulls to move right,

The operation of the emotion.

I want to be a master class

More agile and elegant

Moving like you do,

Nearly enchanting the strings to work on their own.

So I have this sad puppet of a heart

Which I hand over begrudgingly.

It belongs with someone that knows how to use it.

Entertain the women to come

With the way you can make it dance

And manipulate it to stop

On the Eve of 41

I wrote this the night before my birthday, and oddly enough the night before UCLA called with news  new kidney.

 

On the Eve of 41

 

1.

 

It’s not the new 21

Or even 31

It is the back of my hand

Tired, mocking me with intensified hand cream

Anti-wrinkle serum

A sign perched next to the roadway exit

That I refuse to take

A reminder that time has not

Pulled over to the shoulder

And allowed me to march by

Unscathed

 

2.

 

I tell myself this year is no different than 31

I am just as solitary

Lost in the comfort of pen and paper

Year after year, both my only real companions

Tucking me into sheets of rehashed love affairs

That were and weren’t

Of self destruction beneath the thighs

Of faceless men that always end here

Where counting an inferno of candles

Is less damaging than counting

Natural disasters of lovers’ exits

 

3.

 

40, 41-no matter-I am still dieing

The average life span of a dialysis patient: 5 years

I’ve wasted 4.

But I am young, can beat the odds, I’m told.

Some great reward

After my blood has been filtered for the third time this week

After I faint in my living room

Through tremors and convulsing

A seizure I welcome for it’s proof of life

Yet I cannot help but wish there was dialysis

For my broken down heart

4.

 

Saying goodbye to 40

Isn’t so difficult

Not like counting the threads in my pillow case

I’m resigned to the shifting of time

The movement of the clock that I can’t control

I accept

The tears I would have cried

Dancing in the hollow of my liver

Fermenting with vodka

And yesterday

Searching for tomorrow

New Kidney, New Blog

New Kidney, New Blog.