sisu for supper

March is the Longest Month

2011-03-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

My sandals are broken in by the door I am that ready for spring.
For April showers to bring May flowers,
for the uselessness of March to subside.
For the lion-like snowstorms to turn to wooly lambs
over-sized bells hung from satin ribbons
extending their cloven hooves and
welcoming me to the beginning of daylight savings,
the reopening of the lilac scented sidestreets of my mind
intersecting with the yellow brick road of my impending wedded bliss.

I have been sitting in the shade of the tree of knowledge for too long.
I am ready to transplant myself to a new forest.
One with cleaner rains, one with higher waterfalls,
one with taller trees, one with gentler breezes.

I am ready for foreign languages like complex mathematical equations.
I am ready for trade winds and westerlies.
I am ready for mountains of cumulonimbus clouds
stacked from here to the mesosphere
where we'll go to finally get rid of that ringing in your ears
and my heart palpitations.
We'll dance our mismatached salsa
and finally begin the mapping of my muscles
the unique cartography of my over indulged anatomy.

I am 100 plus pounds of bloody meat,
neural tissue and vital organs
clinging to a bird-boned skeleton.
I am ready to be more than head and shoulders,
knees and toes.

I am ready for the metamorphosis.
To wake up Gregor Samsa,
with you next to me.
manbug and ladybeetle.

March 2007

I work odd hours.

2010-12-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

I like walking quietly down long hallways
in tall buildings during business hours.
When everyone is shut away in their offices
or trying to stay awake in lecture halls
looking at powerpoints and projections
I am creeping past doorways without making a sound
catching bits of conversations
portions of solutions
nodding in agreement

I think about pulling fire alarms
and sending everyone out onto the sidewalks
standing in the ante meridiem sunlight
in their nice shoes and trousers
crossing their arms
in business casual button ups
looking at their watches
sigh and roll their eyes
small talk with coworkers
about weekend plans and
heading home for the holidays.

But me, I work odd hours,
putting my hands on people
convincing children to keep breathing
Sliding needles under skin
to puncture veins and gain access
to the network of vasculature
which will receive my metered medications
and reveal its diseased secrets
in collected and labeled vials.

Your body can't hide behind itself
and your blood will tell the stories
your mind has tried to hide.

Dreamt

2010-11-04T23:03:00.001-07:00

Cycling an anxious road
in a mind where day turns to night in an instant.
Where dead ends are marked as through streets,
unfinished bridges left unmarked
over endless ravines.

My body feels small as it falls asleep,
yet limitless as it dreams of flight and kitchen fires.
My mind haunted by dreams of reality
clinging to me well into the afternoon.

Asking my husband if that was a dream-
when I was wearing the purple sweater
despite the sweltering heat
and we talked about getting Thai food for dinner
but went to the taco stand instead.

He raises his eyebrows.
"Ok, that was a dream,
but do you want Thai food now?"

So we ride our bikes out for dinner.
He takes the lead,
sailing through stoplights
down named boulevards,
crossing well lit streets
and finished bridges.
So unlike the ones I ride in my mind
tunneled through my own thoughts
and into the frightening dreamt reality
of my own wakeful sleeping self.

strength

2010-10-28T09:22:00.000-07:00

My brain is a beast of burden that I will never understand.
It carries around far too much on its back
lashes down the old hurts instead of letting them fall to the wayside
My brain is prepared for anything...
as long as it's the worst case scenario.
As long as it's the impending plague,
the coming famine, the doubtless drought
that may never appear.
Why can't it be prepared for the endless goodness
the forever and ever endeavor?

My brain is a beast of burden that I may never understand
and this discipline in small doses is doing me no good
when what I need is a two-hour tongue lashing,
a good brow beating.

But strength is hard to see
when muscles are covered by skin
but I have peeled the skin back before
I have seen the form
and known in my muscular heart the function

But strength is hard to see
when the muscle you need most for it
is no muscle at all
as formless as the feelings
it longs to express
and about as functional
as your vermiform appendix
buried deep in your abdomen

So I will use this beast of a brain of mine
let my mouth speak the words that
give form and function
to every unspent second
to every ounce of hidden strength
that I have squirreled away
for just such an occasion...

blame it on the weather

2010-08-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

It's a gift and a curse that I live in this reactive body of mine.
So perfectly, predictably responsive.
Stimulus input, response output
and nothing left to blame.

I've grown weary of this equal and opposite reaction routine.
I'm ready for one direction, ready to make a little headway,
instead of holding the steady hand of homeostasis.

I'll blame it on the weather.

I'll blame it on dead relatives.
Coffins solemnly wheeled out of churches into the rain
past the outside edge of your peripheral vision
through the blind spot you know is there but never see
as your aunt and cousins close their bodies in on each other-
Thanksgiving was too long ago
when he was always just down the back steps.

(And you wonder who will be next,
someone in your family will have to be next)

I'll blame it on too much time in hospitals.
Surrounded by the fetal monitoring strips,
mapping out the early and variable decelerations
of a tiny heartbeat inside a body that is only potential
that has never felt the air on a hot day
or left a carbon footprint
or sat under a tree for shade, looking up at the faces of family

I'll blame it on this eternally two-sided coin
one side the sterile, slow slipping away
of a life timed out in alarms at the nurses' station.
The other the bursting, flowering fullness
of the woman about to bear fruit,
the sweaty scream and push
that accompanies our entrance into this world
this one world we must eventually exit.

I'll blame it on the feeling that I'm stealing.
Ripping out an essential life force
as I grip this central line,
take hold of these pacer wires
and feel their resistance,
tugging at the ventricles
and pull what feels like miles of tubing
out from the insides of a 10 pound kid.

I'll blame it on 12 hour shifts
in these 24 hour days.

I'll blame it on regular sex,
leaving nothing left to yearn for.

I'll blame it on these slivers I keep getting,
reaching up from railings and floorboards
like little daggers
from a vengeful enemy,
bent on taking me by surprise.

Require

2010-08-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

A plane trip through this pre-dawn - back in time and time zones- is all it would really require...

For long, lazy walks and movies every night and mass transit rides through tunnels and across the interstate overpass.
For hours of conversation in dimly lit bars with $2 well drink happy hours, stirring my drink until the ice melts and leaving it watered down. For a blush that extends from my chin to my cheeks, hidden behind my glass. A sly smile where I bite my bottom lip to keep myself from talking,

there are things I need to tell you.

All it would take. For a chance. For pitchers of beer next to the pool table, picking stray cat hairs off your shirt. Sitting on the front stoop.
Leaning in, laughing quietly.

I can see myself on the sidewalks, reflected in the stoplights clicking red to green, waiting for the crosswalk. It's all stop and go with me these days.

I miss you. I'm tired. There's things I need to tell you. There are places we need to find.
I tire of this mindfulness. This minding of manners, of marbles, of business, of p's and q's.
I tire of this wakefulness. Of midnight, of 1 am, of last call and bar close, of staring at the ceiling trying to sleep.
I tire of this loud music, these same familiar strangers, these dead-end cul-de-sac streets, this creeping weight gain, this elusive sunshine.
Of this ineffectual screaming. These wasted warnings.

I miss you. There are things I need to tell you.

before I got home

2010-07-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've been wishing today on necklace clasps and eleven eleven

The wrong latitude has left me with a perspective even I don't recognize as my own

not to mention a terrible cold and

an empty bank account

Grown tired of light until 22:30, damn 24 hour time,

and twisting my ankle on cobblestone streets

looking the wrong way when I step out into the street.

Tired of different colored currency

menu items I can't pronounce

and wading through conversations

muddled with accents I love.

The people here are shrapnel

from an exploded dream I wandered out of

I wake unexpectedly every morning

to pick them from my teeth

and shake them from my hair

bleary eyed. sleep stunned.

Unsure of how to wander back,

less sure of my desire,

when every map is a wasted weather map

that failed to predict these atmospheric changes

in time to make any difference.

And any direction is every direction

leading north of my gut and

south of my sore throat

to a tiny four chambered room

prickly with daggers and thorns.

I fall asleep to my own pulse in my ear

pulling a thread of a raveling memory

as it whispers names and dates

I can't forget but would rather not remember.

may eighteenth, may 18th, 5/18

I wake up in unknown rooms

my own rooms dark and deserted

with faces I can't recognize and voices I can't place

carrying out plans I don't remember making

not quite sure I want to change

unsure how a month away

has left me saying phrases

even I don't understand.

metronome

2010-07-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

metronome

If you're not supposed to bring liquids on the plane

then they shouldn't let me on,

not with these tears,

spilling from over active lacrimal ducts.

The entire economy class smiling sweetly at my sadness.

Late nights under the southwestern sky

leave you longing for the milky way and shooting stars

long after you've returned to streetlights and stop signs.

Clouds sit on a plate over the lake, showing their soft pink underbellies,
safe and out of reach from our claws,
who knows how many times my nails have scratched your back,
how many times can I climb your spine
in a week? in a year? in fifty?

Your pulse is the metronome of my mind,
your voice is my resonant frequency
every utterance creates a shudder
a shiver and a clatter in this loosely sutured heart,
bounding behind my rib cage.

sometimes simple questions [will you?]
with simple declarative answers [yes.]
are the only ones worth asking.

Strong emotions demand speechlessness
stunned simple words
four letter expressions
and three letter activities

It seems like yesterday,
like ages ago
since the oppressive heat of that day,
the escalator,
the asking...

september 2oo6

Fall Here

2009-08-20T21:35:00.001-07:00

Long time no blog. Summer is almost spent- doesn't really seem like summer winding down what with no classes to return to, no state fair to attend, no autumn weather to ease into.

Milder weather here on the West Coast, different subtler seasons. Summer starts heating up come August, September can still swelter. Fire season and Santa Anas brewing and building. The air so dry you can hardly swallow, skin crawling with electricity. Waiting for the news of the careless spark that hits the crackling, thirsty underbrush in the hills. Heavy brown ash choking out the blue sky. Sig alerts choking the freeway.

But for now July has lazed on into August. Breeze from the Pacific lazy over the coastal cities. Laying in wait for what fall brings to Southern California.

RN

2009-04-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been reading sad stories lately.
About dead moms and dying children.
Carrying these tragic tales with me
as I walk the hospital halls in my scrubs
my badge hanging next to my stethoscope
identifying me as "RN."

Perhaps it's only an attempt
to make these sick kids seem normal-
like everyone has a central line
taped to their chest
puncturing their subclavian
and a white blood cell count of one

or a CRP of fifty

But the need for IV ceftriaxone and clindamycin,
like clubbing of the fingernails or circumoral cyanosis,
is not normal.
Not everyone's tale is this tearful

not everyone is held together

with steri-strips and sutures.

Remembering Moving Day.

2009-03-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

Now that Orange County has begun to feel like home. Understanding the lay of the land from Seal Beach to South County. Having driven from San Diego and San Clemente up the coast through Ventura and on to Santa Barbara. Having seen the hot bodies at Malibu and the surfers at Huntington Beach. Drinking Fat Tire on the Newport pier as we watch the seals and dolphins in the waves offshore. Now that the West Coast has replaced the midwest as my home I can think back on moving day...

Goodness, now that I've left.

It was hard to leave my parents- standing in that gravel driveway that gave me so many skinned knees growing up.

And now I've grown. Driving along the clear, cold, rushing streams of the Rockies as we head up to the pass and then down the Western side. Farther and further away now. Farther as in physical distance away from. Further as in advancement, to a greater degree.

I've driven these mountain passes before, seen the San Juans in morning and twilight. Seen the Rockies ragged edges level off into the Colorado Plateau, invert into Utah's Canyonlands.

I've driven these distances but never before as a resident of nowhere but here. All my belongings behind me, packed in the back of this rented moving truck.

I have fulfilled this odd dream of moving out of Minnesota. I've left. You won't find me on afternoon runs along the Mississippi or at any of my old haunts. I won't be walking the Washington Avenue bridge between classes or cruising the 16 to my Midway apartment. Leaving friends behind with a lump in my throat knowing that we'll grow apart. I am on my way to palm tree dotted Southern California. Dive bars yet to be discovered, runs on the beach yet to be mapped out, friendships yet to be realized.

So for now I am a resident of this UHaul 14' Thrifty Mover. A resident of four states in three days. I've seen the beautiful July rain and traffic snarls of summer road work in my Midwestern home state. I've heard the thunder rumble across the magnificently clouded sky above the Iowa plains. Trees dipping their roots into rivers like children touching their toes to cold creek beds. I've seen lightning bugs swirl and sparkle along the highway at dusk, misty morning lifting over barns and cornfields. The beauty of a summer sunrise in the middle west.

We've hurried through Nebraska and Eastern Colorado where the only radio stations are Christian country and herds of cows huddle in the shade of one lone tree. Where the interstate cuts through towns of $39 dollar a night motels and bars with only budweiser on tap. And now we are next to these streams after taking a wrong turn outside of Boulder. We will drive through Moab and Monument Valley, see Vegas rise from the desert in a flurry of sand and neon and billboards for adult superstores and Cirque du Soleil.

South through San Bernardino and into the mingle of smog and ocean air that forms the atmosphere over LA and Orange counties.

talking undergarment

2009-03-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

To the lady talking to the bras at Target...they neither speak nor understand English so your breath is wasted on them.

Also, you're creeping me out.

In other news I've exercised TWICE this week. But pretty much think that any good I've done for myself has been undone by the amount of thin mints I've consumed in the past couple days. Each box is two individually wrapped servings, right? A tube for me, a tube for you.

One day I'll write about those girl scout days. But for now, I'll keep those childhood stories to myself.

hard times for writers

2009-01-31T22:12:00.000-08:00

Kurt Vonnegut in April 07. David Foster Wallace in September 08.

And now John Updike too? ugh.

the edge

2009-01-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

"The edge- there is no honest way to explain it, because the only ones who know where it is are the ones who have gone over." Hunter S. Thompson

I've been thinking about the edge lately. Thinking about where it is within myself. For so long I was "about to be." About to be a nurse, about to be done with school, about to be a wife, about to own a dog, about to live in California.

Well...now I'm a married, working as a nurse in CA, no longer going to school and owning the hell out of one lucky pup. I'm not about to be anything (that I know of). I just am.

Wondering what the next edge will be. Will it be something within me? Will it be somewhere I go, somewhere I end up? Am I far from home or is home far from me? Running away or towards? I had all these big plans regarding traveling, working, volunteering abroad. And now here I am...thinking about trying to belong, thinking about making a home, thinking about what I thought I would've done.

All the while I try to be productive in my days off and do anything besides go to Disneyland, pet my dog, take baths, and go to work once in a while. Yoga, books, walks on the beach those are the goals. Starting with the yoga practice last night and those three pages per day of Infinite Jest (it will come as no surprise that I am already behind on that).

sittin' in the drafts pile...

2009-01-21T08:49:00.001-08:00

So today is the first full day of a democratic president since I've been out of my teens, since I've been able to vote. Goodness.

So now that we've got our guy in office what are we gonna do now??

1. Move all the terrorists in and make 'em comfy.
2. Take all the guns away from hard workin' Americans.
3. Abort all babies -mostly for sport (except for the ones we give to newly wedded gay couples)
4. Let all the crazy Mexicans take all our jobs (err, the ones that are left, that is....)
5. SOCIALIZED medicine...OH GOD NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
6. Stem cell research on our newly created army of fetuses.

Given that last one may be in bad taste.

Yoga

2008-08-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

whoa. Sucking at the blog posting huh??

Well, let me just say this for now- if there is indeed a God he is for divine love, unconditional kindness, limitless compassion. He or She is for acceptance, hope, and forgiveness. The kind that doesn't look back, only looks beyond.

This God is not for justifying your war and couldn't care less about abortion, gay marriage, or Marilyn Manson (frankly, nobody seems to care about him these days). This God believes in science and progress and we come closer to understanding the ways of this God by educating ourselves.

So when you pray shut your mouth. Listen instead and hear the voice of God, the voice of your inner self, the voice of higher consciousness speaking to you. Come into the palm of God's hand and understand that it's not about being divisive, it's not about difference- it's about sameness. It's not about being many, it's about being one.

Sorry for the yogic interlude. But it's the truth. So sit still and feel the endless love of the divine.

One of these days I'll write about the canyon and moving to California. yep.

Quarter

2008-05-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

I turn 25 on Friday. I have previously poked fun at people for having trouble with their 25th birthday. However I find myself feeling unexpectedly upset as a quarter century stares me in the face. Maybe it's the long list of people I know who died this past year, let's see...

1. Uncle George

2. Mel

3. Stephanie

4. Joshua

5. Marcus

There were more too, but now I can't remember, either way, too much for 24. Each one fills me with a different sort of sadness. Depending on the relationship I had with them, how long since I had seen them last or heard from them, if they were a part of my genetic or chosen family.

My friendship with Joshua can be described as tumultuous, and even that is sort of a generous description. But hearing that now he's gone, though it doesn't surprise me, fills me with sadness, sadness, sadness. Sadness for him, for the paths that he traveled in his life, all dimly lit and gritty. Sadness that sometimes there are no second chances, that sometimes your whole life comes down to the worst choice you ever made. The fact that the dumbest decision ever made by your young mind has come to rule your life, dictate all your directions; that everything since was set into motion when you shrugged and said "why not?" to the peer pressure and let that lipsticked brunette shoot you up between the toes. I cringe at the thought.

Sadness for myself. That his too thin frame will never again darken my doorway by surprise on an autumn night, that his voice will never talk to me after the tone calling me beautiful before begging me for rides or money. Sadness that he is not waiting for me to run into him on often ridden afternoon bus lines. Sadness at memories of laughing in a St. Paul snow storm outside Carbone's or sneaking into movies all day at the Oakdale theater.

Sadness that memories and signed books and lurking reminders are all that remain. No one is all bad or all good. He was a crash course in the truth of that statement.

And that's just one of the people permanently removed from my life.

I stand on the cusp of other massive, mind-consuming life changes as well. Let's see I got married less than a year ago. And I graduated college a couple weeks ago, 2 degrees and 8 years of nose to the grindstone later. In a few months I will be starting my first new job in over five years. It will also be my first nursing job, the first job of a lifelong career.

And that job is in Southern California- half a continent away. In a state I have visited once before. Very far from the cold winters, humid summers and familiar streets and sights of Minnesota, the only state in which I've ever lived. Every time I drive down these streets now, every time I make that drive to my parents house, every time I see a familiar face at the coffee shop, every time we get pitchers at Tracks, every day I trek down University Avenue or frequent the fine business establishments of the Midway. Every time I am reminded that I won't be here much longer, no more Minneapolis skyline for me, no more familiarity in any form, except for the face of my husband. And my own self in the mirror. Which is rapidly becoming less familiar.

Of course though, so much of this is at least partially dependent on the NCLEX nursing boards. Ugh. That huge test, that last large looming question mark on the road to being a Registered Nurse. I better go study. Did you know that after a percutaneous liver biopsy you position the client in a right side lying position with a small pillow or rolled blanket under their right side? Yeah, that's what I learned. That and everything else that could possibly cross the minds of the sick freaks who run the NCSBN.

See you in California.

Deus sive Natura

2008-04-03T11:29:00.000-07:00

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." Albert Einstein

When I think of the spirituality of people like Einstein, Spinoza and Wittgenstein it is like coming home. For someone like me -who can't bear the bombasity, blindness, hypocrisy and judgmental ways of the religious right and yet can't stand the cold, stark, unimaginative world of the atheist, where there is no faith, only cool reason- these three together form a nice warm place that I can call home. Where I don't need to be yelled at and ridiculed by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins (both brilliant men whom I admire) by wanting something more or irritated by the stupidity of the Bill O'Reilly's and Pat Roberston's (whom I do not admire) for saying that there is no Grandfather God dead set on punishing "fags" and converting the "savages."

Similar to Einstein I do not believe in a personal grandpa God who is up there in his rocking chair listening to my problems and sending me guardian angels. Of course I do not accept the thinking of Einstein, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein as a substitute for my own. But it is nice to know that there have been others who have felt similarly.

"If by eternity is understood not eternal temporal duration, but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present." Ludwig Wittgenstein.

I don't know that it's ever been said better. Is there hope for the future? Only if you have faith that a future exists for you, you never know what will happen or what will befall you tomorrow or even this evening. Do you want to toil for an eternity you can't grasp, hoping that grandfather god will have mercy on you? Or do you want to enjoy the timelessness of every present moment, of all you have been blessed with right now?

2008-03-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

"I'm the same as I was when I was six years old
and oh my god I feel so damn old
do I really feel anything?"

Alright, lists. Top Fives- all in no particular order

-Things that I like in my life right now (not including people)-
1. Potential
2. Selby
3. Being married
4. Impending spring
5. Omega fatty acids.

-Things that I don't like in my life right now
1. Looking for a job and the implied competition between friends.
2. Cancer
3. Lack of time
4. Lack of money
5. General negative feelings.

-Things that keep me going
1. Yoga
2. Oh, the Places You'll Go!
3. Music
4. Friends
5. Family

-Foods I wish I was eating right now
1. Spicy Peanut Noodles from Big Bowl
2. Guacamole
3. Buttered Popcorn
4. An Ames Gyro
5. State Fair Cheese Curds.

-Life Goals
1. Making a baby
2. RN
3. Going to Africa, India, South America, Australia
4. Driving a stick
5. Live somewhere other than MN

-Months of the Year
1. May
2. September
3. July
4. June
5. October

-Things in my fridge RIGHT NOW
1. Hansen's Cherry Vanilla Cream Soda
2. AVOCADOS
3. Chocolate Soymilk
4. Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
5. Butter (admittedly this would have to go on or with something to reach its full potential)

-Books I want to read
1. Love in the Time of the Cholera
2. Banker to the Poor
3. Guns Germs and Steel
4. Nursing Against the Odds
5. You Don't Love Me Yet

-Things I'm avoiding doing right now
1. Putting the clothes away
2. Packing for my weekend trip
3. Cleaning the cat box
4. Sweeping the apartment
5. Doing yoga.

I better go get these things done.

street cred

2008-02-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

Whenever I have to stop at a red light or idle for a bit the car begins to reek of burning oil. This is not something I like but that doesn't mean it's anything new. Sure this particular olfactory sensation is new (with this car) but in general crappy cars are something I'm used to.

We drive cruddy cars. Two of them, one of which is probably older than my baby sister. Who's in college. The other ain't much younger. They get us from home to work and back (usually) and I love that about them. But I am not about to romanticize it. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anyone who could afford it would buy a nicer car, that's what I think. Some people hate cars in general, which I think is pretty pretentious. I think hating anything just on principle is pretentious. And if anything leaves a bad taste in my mouth it's pretension. It's akin to self-righteousness. yuck.

Anyway, I digress. I drive an old car. And I won't romanticize and wax poetic about how much I've grown attached to it. My car doesn't have personality or character, it's got problems. Greasy, smelly unromantic problems. But then again so does my apartment, another thing I am not particularly attached to, another thing I would upgrade if I could afford it. Sure, living on the same block as an UN-Bank and across the street from an SA where they stand behind bulletproof glass and slide your purchase through a drawer gives me white girl street cred but I refuse to romanticize. That's how much street cred I have.

Lately

2008-02-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

I have been failing at life lately. I don't know what it is but I feel like it might just be an utter lack of good news. And this feeling of transition. Of being between. It's a push pull between anticipation and apprehension.

Classes are all about getting that first nursing job. Tinkering with the resume and cover letter until they are just right. Learning how to speak assertively to your new nurse manager so you can "get things done." I'm tired of things. Is that so wrong?

I think what I hate the most is the implied competition and aimless waiting. Reminds me of applying to nursing school. But now it's for jobs and we all want the same ones, especially us pediatric folks. Sending in that application, waiting to hear if you're good enough for what you know you're good enough for. And with so many qualified applicants it comes down to the little things, the little things that nobody knows about and nobody can articulate but not everyone has.

I would like to be a person that has those little things.

OH! and I've spilled the tea twice today and I've been eating incredibly poorly. go me.