so says the straw hat

I want to be a hand of some sort on a cattle farm. I want a small house. A converted garage with hardly anything in it. I want hardly anything in it. I feel small. I want to touch my hand to the bull, pat the dust off his coarse hair. I want to put my face up near his face and feel it breathe. Something big. The back part of the bull, the part I imagine patting, it becomes the Round steaks.

On my bicycle. Always I am on my bicycle. Sometimes I sing songs. Sometimes I find what I am singing is a song from a toddler cartoon and then I try and change my song but then it gets only more stuck. I am on my bicycle on the corner of 30th and West Avenue. This is where I see your ghost. You own a scooter now. It is silver. You still wear a full-face helmet, good for safety. You know, pretty faces and what not. Your pants are still just a little on the short side, just a little too cool. And even though it is 89 degrees outside, you are wearing a full jacket. Kevlar. With the tiny holes for breathing onto your white t-shirt. You always used to wear black t-shirts. And leather. Not Kevlar. And you had a motorcycle. Not a scooter. On the corner of 30th and West Avenue and I feel my heart do one perfect backflip while riding a bicycle. This is not an easy feat. Your license reads Illinois. You never told me that you left Bellingham. You never told me you bought a scooter, a kevlar jack...

creepy men that have recently hit on me: 1. the toy-joy boy 2. the bus driver 3. the homeless man by the movie theatre 4. fellow bus rider when the bus had broken down, also possibly homeless (this does not reflect well on me) creepy ways said creepy men hit on me(respectively) 1. "do you go to barton springs often? you have this very distinct earthy smell" 2. hands me a bus pass I did not pay for. It reads: Lunch? no (yes). when? where? 3. "god told me to come and tell you that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen" (me: who? god? neverheardofhim) 4. him: May I? I'll walk with you. me: I am going to ride my bike. reasons why today made me mad: 1. baby projectile vomiting 2. a two year old. just being two. 3. being a nanny for a family with a retired dad. 4. how i was 20 minutes early and the bus was 10 minutes late 5. The automated lady who is supposed to help me: "I'm sorry, I did not understand what you said. I'm sorry, I did not und...

I had this idea. Ok, listen. I had this idea because I do not feel like writing in a journal and I do not feel like writing in a word document because both of those things elicit no response, they have no purpose. And I do not feel like writing to a friend or a boyfriend where then I expect a response or have the possibility of disappointment, but I do feel like writing. So. I think I will try to put something on here every day. Here is the bad part--it has no theme, no drive, no purpose, no organization. This is not a tool for your (reader, if there is one) enjoyment, this has now become a tool for my own selfish gain. Like so many other things in my life. So, it may be no fun to read. But hopefully it will help me get back into the groove of writing and then it WILL be fun! OR I will realize that I should not be writing at all. I just want a way to get through this mud in my head and I think this might be the medium I need for now. I am sort of hoping that not very many people read ...

I am feeling restless and angry. This is not a poem. I am feeling not restless or angry. I am feeling a dragonfly sitting right on my left ventricle and every time blood pulses through those flaps in my heart, then his wings quiver. He is full. His wings are big and bigger. Yesterday I cut fresh mint from the garden, steeped it in warm water while the train-songs crept in from the open back door. There was a tone in them so they sounded like my phone ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing. You were not calling. Portland is so many boxcars away. Tonight I read an article about sea turtles in the Smithsonian. They are turtles washing up in Maine, and they have hypothermia and retired people wander the beach, scoop them up, and rehabilitate them in order to reintroduce them into the wild. The turtles spend weeks or even months sometimes in little turtle fridges, slowly warming their internal temperature. They are given daily doses of antibiotics and supplements to keep th...