the time is out of joint
Aug. 27th, 2001 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aslanti'm half-convinced i'm still sleeping. my eyesight swims. it's like the world has stopped responding normally.
friday watched 'the limey' with j. by that point i was pretty much convinced that thursday night was a viscious blip to be disregarded for sanity's sake. her friend mike was over, a sweet slip of a boy who we are sending out with carrie sometime soon.
saturday i spent the day packing things into boxes, and worked on the photo project feverishly, until 2:30, and finished it. it will be difficult to send it away. i don't know if i feel up to the task quite yet. a. had called around midnight and we chatted only briefly. he was exhausted and out of sorts and i was restless when we hung up.
but sunday: sunday was the day to avoid. i slept in, hovering on the edge of awake on the chance that a might call in the morning, which he didn't. i was restless for not having spoken with him, not counting the 15 minutes the night previous, since wednesday. in the empty house at noon i had my darjeeling tea with crackers, and began delving into even more boxes, and wrapping breakable things in bubble wrap and tissue paper. i was listening to a bunch of old cds, singing, putting a card together for sally. spoke to kate briefly.
then at some point i looked down and realized my hands were shaking. i had a funny feeling in my stomach. limbs and sensations dulled. this is what i wrote about fifteen minutes later:
"4:45pm sunday
that old adage: smoke follows beauty. at the campfire. on the porch with a cigarette smoking in the 81 degree blue-sky day. today is the feast of st antony and his remains are visiting from italy. i cannot stop shaking. thought a cigarette would help. made it worse. am manic, listless, incomplete. helpless. hopeless. where is antony? i await his call. frantic, discombobulated."
and this was barely legible, a crabbed and spastic handwriting. i was talking out loud, babbling incoherently to my image in the mirror. i cleared everything off the bed except the telephone and the journal and lay there listening to loud, loud radiohead. waiting for the phone to ring and bring the voice like a drug to the blood.
and that's what it felt like. it took a while, but he did call, and eventually the trembling jittery feeling went away. i breathed a little easier. later j and i went to the slam at ryles, and enjoyed ourselves despite the poor showing, poet-wise. back home i tried to feel normal. j called it an anxiety attack. i don't know what to think. i don't know, i don't know, i kept saying to a. on the phone. but you do know, he kept saying. do i? what is it that i know so well that even my blood hides it from me?
copper taste in the mouth. knees unstrung. it's supposed to rain tonight and i crave it. this morning i sneered at the radio man who narrated the weather as if he was apologizing to the city. fucking boston. this town needs the proverbial forty days and forty nights. i need to return to the territory of rain. the country of low-pressure clouds. the city of drizzle.
friday watched 'the limey' with j. by that point i was pretty much convinced that thursday night was a viscious blip to be disregarded for sanity's sake. her friend mike was over, a sweet slip of a boy who we are sending out with carrie sometime soon.
saturday i spent the day packing things into boxes, and worked on the photo project feverishly, until 2:30, and finished it. it will be difficult to send it away. i don't know if i feel up to the task quite yet. a. had called around midnight and we chatted only briefly. he was exhausted and out of sorts and i was restless when we hung up.
but sunday: sunday was the day to avoid. i slept in, hovering on the edge of awake on the chance that a might call in the morning, which he didn't. i was restless for not having spoken with him, not counting the 15 minutes the night previous, since wednesday. in the empty house at noon i had my darjeeling tea with crackers, and began delving into even more boxes, and wrapping breakable things in bubble wrap and tissue paper. i was listening to a bunch of old cds, singing, putting a card together for sally. spoke to kate briefly.
then at some point i looked down and realized my hands were shaking. i had a funny feeling in my stomach. limbs and sensations dulled. this is what i wrote about fifteen minutes later:
"4:45pm sunday
that old adage: smoke follows beauty. at the campfire. on the porch with a cigarette smoking in the 81 degree blue-sky day. today is the feast of st antony and his remains are visiting from italy. i cannot stop shaking. thought a cigarette would help. made it worse. am manic, listless, incomplete. helpless. hopeless. where is antony? i await his call. frantic, discombobulated."
and this was barely legible, a crabbed and spastic handwriting. i was talking out loud, babbling incoherently to my image in the mirror. i cleared everything off the bed except the telephone and the journal and lay there listening to loud, loud radiohead. waiting for the phone to ring and bring the voice like a drug to the blood.
and that's what it felt like. it took a while, but he did call, and eventually the trembling jittery feeling went away. i breathed a little easier. later j and i went to the slam at ryles, and enjoyed ourselves despite the poor showing, poet-wise. back home i tried to feel normal. j called it an anxiety attack. i don't know what to think. i don't know, i don't know, i kept saying to a. on the phone. but you do know, he kept saying. do i? what is it that i know so well that even my blood hides it from me?
copper taste in the mouth. knees unstrung. it's supposed to rain tonight and i crave it. this morning i sneered at the radio man who narrated the weather as if he was apologizing to the city. fucking boston. this town needs the proverbial forty days and forty nights. i need to return to the territory of rain. the country of low-pressure clouds. the city of drizzle.
