yeah

[whorella mundane]

yeah ... that's all i want now. all i have. it's the one thing i can
thing
k about and feel that ... yeah ... i'm moving into a new life. of
growing older and aloner.

and you think death teaches you to appreciate the living
so you don't ever feel again like you feel now

but what-you-feel-now ... it's like my world blew open
like a flower dipped in nitrogen
so cold that white smoke rises from it
and to touch it is to become frozen all over

to wake up on her bed and put on her clothes
to kiss her driver's license photo
before kissing jesus' knees
thanking him for the gentle death
that my sister ... maybe she always knew
how excellent it is to die

to meet again the ones you have lost
and age brings enough dreams and fevers
that your body breaks down
and your soul opens up

and maybe we can only take the horror of real love
once we understand that none of us are, at the same moment,
are ever gone. real gone. true gone.

i can't even think about posting without breaking into tears.
6 month anniversary was yesterday.
i only realized that today so maybe i'm um healing
feels more like sealing.

there is one thing still left

my ability to pretend with tunes.

i think everything will lessen the parade of tears that pops up in the
bathroom at work. the parking lot of work. my cube. my drawers.

notepads with pages filled with horrible hello kitty attempts to draw
- so i scribble - all the words i'd written before she died -
i'd rub my fingers over the ink as if it could take me back.
even for a second, you know?

river. river of tears. i guess i should use the poetic value of living
here. and it is truly a gift from my sister.

it's a combination of everything i love
except the landlord calls you four times in a row
and days later, when i'm forced to talk to him (rent)
i ask "i thought we were here to relax. you sure get mad at me in a
hurry if i don't get your call."

and he says "oh, i wasn't mad at all!"

okay and yes, let's thank god for texting.
i'm not supposed to slip the rent under his door anymore.
i put it in there a week in advance and figure he'll see it.
and he does. and he immediately picks up the phone
to tell me not to put the rent under the door.

but um ... i only have one place to go.
back to sit under your tree
doomed forever to watch your life unfold
without me.

and i'm looking through the warmest windows
as the chaos of having children
echos each time a door slams
and it's so beautiful you don't want to move
no matter how much it hurts.

trapped.

sometimes when the moon casts shadows
and reaches through the leaves to rest
on the red-golden waves of my hair
and the moon blue hues of my face
looking up to you

you will get busted squinting to the distance
you can have any woman
but me ... oh the sorrow of that
and yet i don't even care

because you never know what may redeem
or destroy and it's always a little of both.
it has to be.

i stand on the deck over the river
drawn to the sky. i find you in the sky

but

even the smallest breeze down here
is defied by the speed of the clouds
that takes you away.

and you fucking know how stupid it is
to imagine me there. what a fool to think
she loves you for surely her perfect eye
for poetry would have found you out.

you don't know what i've been through.
it was too much too fast.
my dad dies ... tim falls out of love with me.
bear, the dog, dies.

i thought i'd live in tim's house for the rest of my life.
and it was such an amazing feeling ... to have back-up.
a home of our own in farm country.

to loose that ... anyway then betty died
and i got my job and had to deal with lolo
and the jail - going there all the time.
and working so many hours under brutal conditions.

then i bust a gut and things looked great!
health problems but still ... husband, dear friend, sister/spouse -
death. yeah. you don't know ... this kind of fear and confusion.

how lost i've been ... i mean ... morning, noon, and night - not an
hour goes by that i don't cry. that i keep mumbling, "i want her back"
and how i'd give anything to have her back. anything.

and i think, "when she was alive, she drove you crazy!" and i think
hard to think about how things would be if she was still alive and try
to think of something she did that drove me crazy and ... i know they
were there, but they're gone. i ... just want her back.

and you can't read email because you have to avoid contact with others
because your aching heart won't let you think about anything else
except her ... and there's nothing you can do. so you cry.

and people avoid you at work because you never smile and they can hear
you sniffle in your cube ... and i can't put a picture of her in the
cube. i don't have any pictures on my desk or cube walls. nothing that
wasn't already there. i don't know ... seems weird to do that to me
but what do i know?

sorrow ... that's the only word for it. it's not sad ... it's
hopeless. it's death. she's not coming back and she's not in your
cat.

oh you can't imagine the things i've done, seriously thinking about
time travel and being able to go back and save her. so my baby sister
would be back with me.

i didn't mind taking care of her ... but she minded. she didn't want
to owe anything to anyone. and i told her that is not the way a family
acts and by the time she died, we had most of our petty bullshit
worked out. so the last day of her life was, what we would call
"perfect."

stuff for me to make my special quacamole
pepsi, milk, ice cream ... and cable tv.

we watching a looney tunes movie and laughed.
and see ... when i watched a movie with her ... we would bust out
laughing at something that wasn't supposed to be funny and drop a
joke. and her last day ... she wasn't talking much because of the
breathing problems, which was horrible. the week after her death, i
was heaving for breath. i thought i was going to die. and i couldn't
die because my mother was devastated.

my dad never had to go through the death of a child.
but cindy ... her and betty were both 49 when they bought it.
and they both died of the same thing - even though betty's version of
it was brought on by various cancers ... there's a buffer around your
heart - it's enclosed in a sack. and if you retain fluids, the sack
grows and it squeezes your heart ... so slowly, that you don't even
feel it.

both of them were out of pain ... betty had her family there - i am so
glad i was with cindy - even though i had no idea ... that she didn't
reach the hospital. that when the paramedic said, "her vitals are
falling" meant "she was dying"

so i thought it was kind of bad and that it was a little more serious
than we thought - as we thought that once she had some oxygen, she'd
be okay - but once we get to the hospital, they'd fix her up!

and i thought that, if her heart was stopping, the paddles would come
out and they'd jolt her back to life, and she'd have an excellent
story about her near death experience. i may have even looked up at
her just to check. but i never ... never thought i'd be going home
without her. ever. ever.

so this whole time ... i've felt the walls close around me.
i asked leo to come and stay with me.
i couldn't do it ... i couldn't live here alone.

i can't tell you how many times i truly felt like i couldn't take
it ... and my body was in full-panic and yet there was no where to go.
nothing i could do and yet all this adrenaline so you hit and punch
your stomach and you don't even know you're doing it.

to have one thought overtake everything ... i want her back ...

i miss her so much that ... oh sorrow ...
there's no anger on the other side of sorrow.
sorrow is full acceptance of a loss.

and one day i asked myself "what do you want?" and of course i
answered "my sister" and then i thought "what do you want that you can
actually have?" and i thought ... "i need to dream about gordon
downie" ... and i swear to god that set something off in me. i can't
leave it be. i can't.

i should be ashamed of leaning on you
and maybe i'll feel you more profoundly
when you have died.

oh a whole world of mourning for you.
so much good will be gathered by your passing.
scholarships and auctioned guitars
a new canadian holiday
on your birthday, of course.

i can only have you in the dimensions of punctuation
and perfect letters. typed, not written.
secretarial quality. when i was 'the wrangler'
in my mud wrestling days, i secretly envied
the secretaries. it's all i wanted to be.
by the looks of them at the bar, it couldn't be hard.

but i digress

i want to write a grim but whimsacle story
about two sisters. and you'd think this would be
like ... so hard to do.

i mean death = flood of memories

and i'm sorrying i'm imagining that you have died
but oh what long sorrow waits me there
and no one will grant me the grieving i'd need

and to have connected into entanglement
her words, his music.
whorella and her little sister

it will have a kind of a child-like quality
describing the indignities the innocent
endure and how it slices them in half.

one part love
one part hate

love perfect mommy love
but what about daddy?
his belt smacking
with threats of even-worse
if you cry

but nothing can stop the screaming
the yelps and your amygula moves
your hands to your thighs
as if hands hurt less.

you watch your sister's charm
bracelet hit the floor. maybe he'll step on it
like a lost lego block or jack.
at least that would be funny.

and there was nothing to gather from god's word
except that i had to have done something
to deserve it. i'd show god.

dipping my fingers in my father's change box
so i could turn coins into candy
without getting caught.

it was hate that healed welts
and turned bruises into stories
as i invented a father so evil
that they'd pity me and invite me to parties
so i could entertain them with the horror of it all
so they could be appalled and walk away.

i started showing up where i wasn't wanted
knowing they couldn't turn me away
until they had a hit of what i was smoking,
until they were choking and teary blind.

and somehow the hate is what saves you
from the hate of those who abuse you

and you pretend you're going willingly
to make a last stand. defiance dance
of the desperate impulse to belong.

i claimed a corner of the playground
that i would defend with fists.

i could stand against any clique
and tell ravishing stories starring
my self-destructive, life-affirming
mind. the stories told themselves
and they were starting to believe me.

call me a slut and i'll show you one.
talk about how bad i am
and teach me how to be worse.
as long as i never acted like them.

i didn't know people could use your wounds
as weapons hurled
staring into my suffering
and lifting lips, bearing teeth
hiding their eyes under lashes
they walk all over you, surveying
the extend of the damage

smiling a signal to the others
and they all laugh but the worst
was watching your friends succumb.

i'd see her in the hall - taller than the other kids.
my hair, still wet from swimming class
signaled the locker room slaughter
and ignited a smile, "i'm coming."

and as we walked down the hall,
the bell about to ring at any minute,
i couldn't tell her what happened.
i couldn't even look at her
without crying

she understood in a look
and our eyes agreed. daddy must die.
and the mean girls bruised so easily.
ever-the-athlete she gracefully threw elbows
and basketballs to the gut of the girls
who disgraced her sister, herself.

and it would stop long enough
to make you think it'd stop forever
until next time. you pretend to forgive your friends
by never mentioning it. and the evil girls sporting
cindy's bruises go looking for new prey
and you vow to never defend your friends

but somebody has to. there's nothing worse
than going along. And I was always as strong
as my sister. When we were together,
I'd beat up boys despite the mandatory dresses
we wore to school. scuffed mary jane's and lacy anklets
kicking hard from under a ruffled skirt

until the offender was pinned beneath me,
pressing his wrists into the glass,
"SAY I WIN" while Cindy held back his friends
until he'd say the words. and he did.
they all did.

and then, "i let you win"
which was not entirely false
and something about it
made me want to fight again.

and then there was the boy in my corner
kicking twigs and waiting. irish shy
with tricky blue eyes and specks of freckles
on his strange face.

i dropped him in my pocket
to play with when i got home,
no longer afraid to walk on my own.

and so i pondered what i wanted and all i could think of was you.

i'm on my way even
even though you are the one to be moved.

my greatest blessings to the next album.
it's the most important one you've ever done

ever since i realized what i really wanted ... my life has suddenly
changed and it is wild.

i'm writing a book about a girl named kathy jo and her sister. and
kathy jo is totally good looking and famous and rich and talented and
wretched. and she dates rock stars and i can't tell you too much but
the blend of real and unreal is the real story.

i realized i wanted you and since then, i got a new boss - a girl -
and she's so cool. funny. excellent. i have a friend at work!

and i can't stop writing and have figured out how to use software to
write a book - fiction - it's crazy how it's coming to me.
constantly.

yeah ... i'm coming back. i still cry all of the time but the other
day, i felt like there was still something to look forward to in this
life.

i haven't felt that way in so long ... even when she was alive.
see - with the email came the end of dreaming. it was too real.

i started writing in a journal - pen and paper.
started writing to my sister and then this whole book spilled out.
i can bring her back to life but only in a book.

and that's what i'm going to do.
her ghost is a character!

so that's it ... that's all i can write out here.
it's just been ... well. i even think of writing out here and i'd
start crying. so i couldn't write. i couldn't ... too sorrowful.

will power doesn't exist.
just thought i'd let you know that i've finally figured it out and
will be able to show it, not just tell it.

fiction is so amazingly fun! i can beat up the characters and see what
they do. it's all possible in a book.

no one will think i'll actually finish. i don't care if i do or
don't.
all i know is that for five days, i've been better.
better than i thought i'd ever be again.

good night ...

[Incontinentia]

I'm so glad you're back and with news that you're writing.

Always thinking of you

Linda aka hoopy

[whorella mundane]

linda in australia, thank you ... and jim, i always think about you and your dad. and what it would be like to think death is the end. i don't know how i could survive this if i thought this.

yeah ... i have to write off an outline. and i can't do it out here. and i don't know how long this will last. i had a horrible dream that my mom died and so today is wobbly. i can't even talk about it.

i'm so very, very tired. like i got beat up from the inside.

but wow - it is so easy to write a book if you approach it like a software spec. it's amazingly easy. and i never run out of ideas.

i know that i'm setting myself for a horrible fall with all my GD dreaming but ... i have to do what i have to do and suddenly there are endless ideas and when i think about all the layers in this - and how easy it is ... yeah. can't explain.

okay well ... thanks, guys.

you know this was the first year that i wasn't yearning for spring during february. i wanted it to stay winter. it's been the warmest, easiest winter that i can remember but still.

the river ... i moved here because the ohio river is my backyard and i love the trains and barges and the stars are so amazing. but i hated it here - i just wanted to go back to the basement. i just wanted to be in the house that she had built - but i moved. and that was a huge ordeal. still can't believe i was able to get that done. it was ... a huge job.

i'm so very tired but it doesn't take much to pick up a pen. see ... out here, i'm talking to you all.

but in my notebook, it's just her and me. and that's how it has to be - well. it is what it is.

it's gonna be so funny ... and sad. oh well.
so tired ... i still want her back.
such sorrow ...

[whorella mundane]

i hate the new google groups - it doesn't look right in my browser. the margins are too big. the buttons are huge and litter the page. arg ...

you should see the hell i'm going to put kathy jo through.
yeah - anyway.

[xx]

Relieved to hear from you. I was worried. I think this is the
weekend we change the clocks.

Mary

[D AndD]

In article
<31138658.769.1331299976144.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbbfw10>,

whorella mundane <whor...@gmail.com> wrote:

> linda in australia, thank you ... and jim, i always think about you and your
> dad. and what it would be like to think death is the end. i don't know how i
> could survive this if i thought this.

Thanks for thinking of us! Dad was 90 last week. The local Kiwanis Club,
of which he is a long time member, threw a party for him and made him
cry. He's now in what the doctors (dear hearts that they are) call
"terminal drop. "A rapid decline in cognitive function and coping
ability that occurs 1 to 5 years before death."

It's not fast and it's not comforting. His'll be one of those "Finally!"
deaths, especially for him. He's got a mean-spirited form of dementia
(Lewy Body) that makes Alzheimer's seem kind. At least Alzheimer's kills
off the sense of self pretty early in the process. With Lewy Body, the
dementia is added to what you've already got and mushes it all up so you
can't tell what's real and what's delusion. And it comes (in his case)
will horrible headaches. It's scary and confusing and a lot of times I
think I'm catching it. But in my case, it's just stress and
identification. Maybe in 30 years.

Fast death vs slow? I got no answer for that. Crazy vs lucid? Same. it
seems so black and white in theory. "Oh," he used to say, seeing others
in dementia, "just shoot me if I am ever that bad off." BUT, he doesn't
say it now. Now, he is happy with the time. Another tv show, another
newspaper (he can read), another visit, another meal, another oxycontin.
Like Henderson (and all of us), he WANTS.

I want an end to wanting. How Buddhist of me, eh? Not just for me,
either. I'm a Universalist Nihilist. Attachment is pain! Amiright? Can
I get an "ooo-rah?"

I checked around with your peeps on Facebook, figuring they'd say if
anything drastic had happened to you. A month is a long time for you not
to post, but I steeled myself against worry. I have so many lost sheep.
Jesus was right about them! They'll make you crazy.

Lots of nostalgia these days. Approaching 60. I used to say "kill me at
55! That's enough for anyone!" But I think I said that for 25, 35, and
45, too! 90% of my social contacts these days are in the nursing home
though. WW2 people and their caregivers. They have stories, pictures,
jokes. A whole culture is dying out. The war is the major event of their
lives, but there's so much more. They had unions and aren't afraid to
talk about socialism. They used to have all those ethnic clubs (Sons of
Italy, Ancient and Honorable Order of Hibernians, The Gedemino Club
(Lithuanian)) and others, like the VFW, the Eagles, the Moose. Places
where, before there were nursing homes, old men sat and nursed their
beers and watched the world pass by on the sidewalk outside the open
door or out on the balcony, or welcomed it in when a new person would
break the dark, smokey bar by opening the door and letting in the
setting sun.

Dad's former newspaper packed up and left town just this week. A paper
which had been in town since 1851. The paper that recorded all of our
births when they still did that and people would cut it out and press it
in a book. My mother used to say that you should be in the paper three
times in your life: when you're born, when you get married, and when you
die. Any more and you fucked up. And oh, I fucked up and it was splashed
across the pages! Arrests, disturbances, trials. I did have a few photos
and stories published, too, though. One about the 1918 flu epidemic
(killed more people than WW1, I screamed) and photos of various car
wrecks and fires and even a plane crash. One thing I learned from Dad
(long before the internet) is "pics or it didn't happen" and (OK, two
things) "if you don't go, you won't know." As for Pulitzer prizes for
photography, his formula was "f/8 and be there." He was never there for
his Pulitzer. He was part of a team that got one, but never got his own.
Got about everything else they were giving out though. Need an award? I
got a couple rooms (and a car) full.

Anyway, hi! I'm getting drunk and listening to The Pretenders first
couple of albums. Nice. Looks like the Winter of no snow is broken.
Spring has sprung. The red wings and robins are back. The buds are
swelling. Another summer of our discontent is coming. Not sure what's
going to happen. I think I'll need to sell the house (or "Occupy" it)
for Dad to get the Medicaid to pay for the nursing home. But they told
him that they'd never thrown anyone out for lack of payment, so we'll
just see where the fuck it ends up. Will they sue me for it? Maybe! I
could just put it on the market but not move any of my shit out and not
clean it up or anything. Then just scrape up the money for the taxes
($700/quarter, $2,800/year) and see what the fuck happens. I mean, what
if you HAVE TO put a house on the market, but you refuse to do what it
takes to sell it? Can they force you to stage it and put out potpourri
and bake bread and vacuum and shit? I don't think so. I haven't mowed
the lawn in three years, the trees are all overgrown, the yard is torn
up, and the inside is like something out of hoarders. Come and get it.
On the other hand, maybe they can force me to take any offer over like
$50k, in which case, I would be fucked. I don't know. "Make me."

Sorry to go on and on about myself. But I know I can't do anything for
you. I had my horrible years in the early 90s when my mother died and I
got divorced and I felt pretty low. "On the Bus with Kathy Jo" was one
of the things I clung to then. One thing I learned from that is that
people already have their own stories. They want to hear other peoples'.

Best wishes to you, down by the river. I think about you all the time
and wonder how it would have been to be with you or if we'd been a
"thing," how that would have turned out. I think wondering is better
than knowing sometimes!

Love ya!

jim, laramie
--
x-no-archive: yes

[whorella mundane]

i'm so sorry ... the writing dies and sometimes it's so slow that you're too busy to notice. but you can't know what you know before you're supposed to know it. so we're helpless in some way.

and sometimes the news is so bad. me and my sister raised our kids together, you know? and yet we had been kids together so we had a great deal of understanding.

and misunderstandings. but ... if i hadn't busted a gut - aw. see - i had to have surgery and had a trip in the ambulance just six weeks before they were taking her to the hospital.

i had six weeks off of work to get lolo home, get her SSI appeal extension. and pay for everything. never complained about doing it. for once in her life, my sister knew what it felt like to have back-up. to be loved. even though she'd been "an ungracious giver" - her words - it only made more evident how much she was willing to do for us.

i had bought a refridgerator. leo had moved out and had a job. i was using the credit card for the best cherries and food from costco. pie and fruit salad. i'd actually been slicing and dicing since leo moved out and i had room. i'm still sitting in one long room - only this one overlooks the river on two sides. and my bedroom is right over my head - in this 40 foot loft with a walk-in closet.

there are windows in the roof and 8 windows in just the huge living room. and when the moon was as promising as last night, you can see the glowing blue light.

i'm supporting leo - 100%. all his bills - rent. i want lace curtains but - someday.

until then - i've emptied my brand new pen in a single week and filled half a journal. i can't explain it. just that ... i had to figure out what i wanted. and all i want is her. everything wraps round to that. no matter what i'd end up getting, she wouldn't be there.

so i thought "well. we wanted to have a magic old house. i can do that." so i started watching a movie set in a house i loved. and it just started me thinking.

and this book ... so many layers of self. GD is a character - one known only for his public self - and the music, which she knew didn't mean he really believed any of his own bullshit.

it's about a girl whose sister dies and she loses everything.

i realized that i never run out of ideas. and how you call-out certain props, habits, mannerisms, coicidences that keep happening, to keep the story moving. you establish a gesture during an event. so the next time the character uses the gesture, it takes you back to the Big Event.

i'm still working through it - deciding what characters to keep or not. if she should be good looking or not. she has to be.

a whole pen, empty. i start getting stressed about whether it will all just blow over. but i've never been able to so easily how easy it

[bort]

very glad to see this post i checked and checked and saw nothing new
till today