FRAGMENTS OF A TEXTUAL BODY

Last night I went to Bryce's party. The girls put on ties, and the guys wore lipstick; after midnight gender identities blurred so to speak. I heard them talk about a band called The Pixies, which i'm going to have to check out.

I realize that the most important thing to me about partying is that I am comfortable. I was also super paranoid, because I knew everything I did or said was a self defining moment to the people I hadn't been around much, though i also knew I could probably become a chair. Because of the intimacy of the setting it was more intimidating than not knowing the people at Cheyanne's very big party.

I guess things would've been more enjoyable if I'd known the people better, because most jokes and stunts are funny because you know the people, like I thought the things Cheyanne and Michelle did were funny because I know them regularly.

I just missed Pog's parties mostly. Someone said something about "Ulysses," and I wanted us to start talking about that the way we did at Pog's. We'd have the best conversations about aesthetics and literature, philosophy, all while drinking and making great jokes, and I just miss him, though I know I shouldn't. I was disappointed, because I'd anticipated great drunken debates about writers and literary criticism, or at least talking about our work.

I am sure if I get a chance to know the guys better I'll enjoy hanging out with them more. I know it takes a while to figure me out, too, though. I had the same experience at the first party I went to at Pog's apt. Everyone was acting crazy, and I wasn't ever sure what to do; (aside from Cheyanne and Michelle and Melissa before she left)

I felt neither welcome nor unwelcome last night. I guess unlike Angie I can't joke around the way they did it last night with people I don't know. SO I'll just have to work on knowing them. Carl said he's using acrylic paint to decorate some box springs, and I offered my acrylics since I have quite a bit and he's got 3 colors, and I also had a nice conversation with August, and when Brendan was really smashed i talked with him, so I guess what this tirade is really about is that I don't think Bryce was interested in me, which was a blow to my ego, but I am not letting it bother me, because he's not my type after all.

(aside note, today makes the seventh day of "being clean")

I've been editing chapter ten today, and by this point I can really see my voice emerging, and it's scary as hell to read things in my voice that I wrote a year ago and see that I feel them in the same ways, it's like seeing a video of yourself in virtual reality. I mean because all the book is my feelings fictionalized in events and with characters that aren't real, though they're probbly reality-based.

Then I felt poetic, so I wrote a poem.

right now

there's someone bleeding
from the wrists
lying in a bathtub
in a suburbian house
outside any city
with saving cream still on one leg,
and another bleeds alone
in an apartment
sitting on a green linoleum floor
by the kitchen sink
having realized peeling potato skins
wasn't going deep enough,
and someone's got a hose
attached to the exhaust of thier car
pouring Co2 into the cab
where they sit semi-conscious
or passed out drunk; a Florida state map
lies crumpled in the passenger seat,
while another's swimming out too far
from the beach at Dale Hollow Lake
when the tide's coming in
undercurrents are all the feel
even on dry land,
and there are pills spilled on the floor
by someone lying
ina pool of puked up Jim Beam and Valium
in a hotel, in a trailer park, ina na alley,
there's someone else with a needle
shooting up to the heart
5 g of heroine, more accurate
than a hand gun at close range,
and someone's falling forward
from a sky scraper
with pavement coming closer
heart rate racing
they feel life
aware now
they are dying
more quickly