"You took my joy; I want it back."

I'm feeling frequently fucked with -- and fat. And forgetful.

Actually, it's weird mind meld and worry, worry, anxiety. But I'm lucky. I developed the following side effect to my MS medication:

progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), an opportunistic viral infection of the brain that usually leads to death or severe disability

***

But I didn't die and I'm not severely disabled although I am a long way from myself still. And I've gained massive amounts of weight thanks to the treatment meds -- which are saving my brain but nobody's tried to pick me up lately; not even on the down low. I guess living and thinking but being chastely fat are way superior to death or permanent retardation... but it doesn't make me enjoy all of the fat fucking chastity and the b.s. from my bosses cuz my memory and efficiency are not up to par and losing my job means losing money and my health insurance. And I had to let my cat move in with a friend (who is one of the best pet owners in the city -- but I'm sad about my kitty being gone). Damn, I am irritable, crabby and whiny. Buh!

***

Also, I became a mom when I was 20 and unmarried. I don't know really how to be an adult without a kid at home to take care of and he's moving to New York tomorrow. And I can't even cry. I can't remember the last time I cried. I think it's when he & I got in an arguement at 11:30 p.m. on a corner in Manhattan last February when we were there visiting colleges.

***

But if I'm dumb, broke, fat and all alone, I'll probably actually attract my soul mate or whatever.

hahahahahahahahahahahah

This image was created by Veronica Pearson & posted on her blog. The title of this post is a quote from a Lucinda Williams' song called "Joy".

Naiad

Today is a breathtaking gift of Nature all rolling green with her azure cap and puffy cumulus feathers. Wandering away from my house, I encounter brick-painted, huddling homes from two centuries ago built by immigrant Irish who saved a few pennies and built a new community in a triangle a couple miles removed from the death-stench stockyards of their employment. Today there still exists a few Irish and Poles but now it is mostly comprised of upwardly-moblie Mexican nationals who have yard sales on Saturdays and fiestas on Sundays.

The triangle is bordered by Archer Avenue (formerly the Road to Widow Brown's) which reaches out from Chinatown into the wandering desires of Resurrection Mary. This is the southern border of Mount Pleasant, which settles along the river. The Chicago River is now the home of haunted steel mills and scarred ports. Most of it is vacant although the passing trains graon on their tracks day and night like a grandfather on the porch warning against the transcience of our values.

Here, the river itself is spanned by several suspension bridges still studied today by rapt mechanical engineers. The river, far below me, appears in the sunlight as a chunk of amber hiding in its depths some winged prehistoric creature. With its ornaments of railroad ties and ordered train cars and abandoned factories and graffittied granaries it stands in stark contrast to the lake it flows from -- divorced from natural union by dynamite. Once I visited her here among the broken factories and prarie flowers and I came back with a baby. Once I led a parade to meet her at her contrived lake source and dyed her the color of envy.

I am never far from her for long.

Move It On Over...

I'm moving to a new place (in the real world, not the blogworld.). I'll holler at you in a few.

By the way -- this Sirena Frame was created by Kenny Chavez.

A Little Advice....

If you are an employed, housed American white man over the age of 30 and below the age of retirement and you have your health and your freedom and at least 3 people who love you and you aren't clinically depressed:

Quit yer bellyaching!!!

Nobody wants to hear about how sad or unhappy you are all of the time -- or about your miniscule little problems (which really aren't problems) like paying off your credit cards or the price of tea in China.

Cultivating your garden of angst is no longer fashionable. If you don't have a lover or a partner or a child, it is probably because you are an egocentric fool.

Quit complaining. At your age this pessimistic ennui is very unattractive. You sound like a wimp. You probably are a wimp. You are probably damaged goods, as well, so you should try to be a little more cheerful -- or at the very least, try to grow a sense of humor about yourself.

"Waiting For My Man"

In case you hadn't noticed yet, I have a very intense and admittedly bizarre crush on John Leguizamo. (He's sexy, smart, an author, a playwright and he chooses interesting roles -- for example he played Toulouse-Lautrec and an MD who snorted lines off his married mistress' ass on primetime network TV while brandishing a gun and admonishing his residents to stay abreast of the latest medical research. Also he was in a Romero zombie movie and I can really only love a man who knows what to do in case of zombie pandemic.)

Anyway... Leguizamo is in town -- actually, he and Freddy Rodriguez (another man with a zombie pandemic plan) are filming a movie in my neighborhood and like my neighborhood, it's called Humboldt Park. (I am not afraid to tell you where I live because you are way too much of a wimpy crybaby to come here and find me.)

I know he's married, but I figure since we'll be in the same neighborhood, I'll have him over for some barbeque and beer... that's all, because I'm actually a lady even if I am occasionally lascivious and often way too tough for you.

Romance Challenge 2008

A couple of weeks ago I told my friend Dennis I was tired of working in an office and I wanted to stay home and crank out several romance novels every year instead. I chose this particular genre because I find it formulaic, popular (read lucrative) and intellectually simple. I also imagined that by injecting the occasional period setting, I could happily spend hours and hours learning the details of certain historic and cultural eras.

Sometimes, I'm a snotty bitch.

Dennis is a good soul. He said I needed to set a deadline, show him my first five pages, and in the spirit of good sportspersonship he would play, too. And so was born Romance Challenge 2008. On Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at high noon we are meeting at Street Side in the back horseshoe booth with the first 5 pages of our original romance novels. The idea is catching on like wildfire among the drunky, boho neighborhoodies -- after all, we have to find something else to do with our hands and mouths now that we can no longer smoke anywhere -- and we're expecting a small crowd.

An unexpected treat is all of the fun we're having pointing out some of the flotsam and jetsam of random conversations that should be used as first lines or titles like, "Sweaty Breasts and Cigarettes" or "I felt like I was riding a very erotic horse" or "I realized she was probably a man, but we had a good time so I asked her out again." (By the way, those are all copyrighted snippets, so no plagery, please.)

But therein lies the crux of Romance Challenge 2008 for me. I want to write a pure, sweet -- hopefully highly readable and intellectually stimulating -- romance novel. I want to be pure to the genre. I realize I've spent this lifetime smothering nearly every romantic sentiment or impulse I've ever had and I think I would be cheating myself if I didn't give in to that strange, stereotypically soft and feminine and foreign mood, at least once. Even if I only do it on paper.

And it's difficult. Everything I've come up with so far smacks of cynical satire. But I will not give in to my monkey mind's desire to protect me from flowering into a silly, vulnerable fool. I will write a fucking love story even if it makes me weep.

Wanna play?

I Have Bad Gas

OK, would someone please explain a couple of things to me???

1. Why is it that socialized medicine is reputed to be bad because it eliminates consumer choice and the free market laissez-faire economy will sort itself out, with the best competitors/ companies rising to the top like cream or whatever BUT private utility companies are given government subsidies and monopolies in different municipalities? In other words, the government closes the free market to favor for-profit natural gas companies such as People's Energy or oil companies such as Halliburton or mercenary companies like Blackwater-- but that's okay and not threatening to undermine all that capitalism purports to stand for? Why and how?


2. Why is it that now that our Democratic Republic has been converted to a Corporatocracy -- primary product oil -- half the people I know no longer can afford luxuries like natural gas for hot water and heat?


3. Is it true that People's Energy can now turn off your heat in the winter if you haven't paid you bill? If so, why should they get government subsidies within a non-competitive market?


4. Among other things, are our tax dollars now going to be used to:

• Steal oil from the Iraqis for American-owned private corporations?


• Fight wars for oil companies -- who have made record profits the last 3 years running.


• Give no-bid government contracts to oil companies, who make record profits, disappear billions of dollars and then move to Dubai?


• Build warming centers (read homeless shelters) for people who have homes, but who have had their heat shut off in the dead of winter because of the astronomical increases in the cost of energy and 6 years of economic depression?*** With all of this oil our government is killing for, we can't even get some heat?

If we're going to have a mixed economy -- and you have to if your nation can be found anywhere on a map of reality -- why can't we face the fact that social welfare will ALWAYS have to exist to prevent rioting and starvation and maintain social stability. (Oh, and it's also THE RIGHT THING TO DO, but I digress.) We justify and allow corporate welfare at a much greater cost. And with corporate welfare -- such as government grants and subsidies or when the feds let corporations off the hook for things like taxes or environmental, health and safety regulations -- the citizenry has to foot the bill at least twice.

• Once, to provide government contracts to large, for-profit companies. (example: Halliburton's multi-billion dollar contracts in Iraq)
• Twice, to clean up the fall out. (Another 150 billion dollars to prolong this endless quagmire -- a quagmire that was exacerbated by poor policy planning after the invasion in 2003, policy enacted by companies like Halliburton, for example.)
• If -- for example -- Halliburton makes record profits from this invasion which just keeps going, will Halliburton be footing the bill for the health care of the vets who come home with chronic and severe health problems while fighting this war for oil profits? Perhaps when hell freezes over?

I don't think that capitalism is the healthiest way to run and sustain a society as large and as heterogeneous as ours, however since that is the system we are using, shouldn't we stick to its basic principles -- like a free market, no corporate subsidies, tariffs on goods manufactured in other countries, etc., etc.? Or if we are going to support a system of corporate welfare, why can't we also support a system of civic welfare and institute socialized medicine, support for sustainable (and affordable) energy sources, childcare programs, etc., atc., etc.?

Am I missing something?

***(This is the City of Chicago's current solution to the disconnected heat situation -- send those without heat to warming centers. How about, cut off all contracts for People's Energy if they can't use their exclusive regional contract to help heat the community?)

Borrinquen!

Today is Puerto Rican heritage day in Chicago. They have a regular parade in the Loop with floats, beauty queens, bands and whatnot. Then everybody heads to Humboldt Park for the real action.

In Humboldt Park, they have a neighborhood-wide party, complete with drinking, sex, violence, a carnival with centrifugal rides and vendors, and a whole lot of cars. Everyone gets their Puerto Rican flags and drives around the park -- as seen in the photo. When I say everyone, what I mean is A WHOLE FREAKING TON OF PEOPLE IN CARS! Everyone drives around and around and around -- drinking, shouting flag-waving. Generally, a good time is had by all.

I live a block from the park. This means I must spend the day one of two ways:

1. Find a good, safe parking spot, stay put, drink and enjoy the festivities

OR

2. Get out of dodge early in the morning and stay gone until Sunday.

I tend to vary my pattern, but this year I'm choosing option 1. So I need to grab a cold one and head for the porch right now.
Cheers! Salud!

Accidental Tourists

I was going to write about spring in the city -- but then I found all of these really cool old postcards of Humboldt Park posted by Pat Sabin. Of course, as I was digging around on the internet I picked up some more interesting details about my neighborhood. (I live about a block from the park and enjoy spending time there. I posted pictures after a snowstorm in December.)

Currently, with the recent thaw and rain, much of Humboldt Park is under about 6 inches of water -- but soon the gardens will be lush again. The air has that fresh bite to it, the sun is shining, the mermaids in the lagoon are getting frisky. Well at least, I am. Below is a picture called "City Residents Relaxing in Humboldt Park" circa 1910. Jens Jensen was a landscape architect and he really did some brilliant work preserving space for nature throughout Chicago, including Humboldt Park ---- which was named for Alexander Von Humboldt. He was a Prussian explorer and naturalist who seems to have visited almost everywhere EXCEPT Chicago.

Here is another old postcard. I don't know what that building is. If anyone can figure it out, please let me know. (An old picture of the boathouse follows.) It turns out the boathouse is a national landmark.

According to the folks at Jazz Age Chicago, this train station near my work once connected the western sections of the city. If they routed the trains that way, more people could take them, alleviating some of our traffic problems. Also, I wouldn't have to drive AND I could get to work in less than half an hour. Below the post card you'll see a picture of the el line I really need -- it used to run through the neighborhood from Bucktown/ Wicker Park. It's now defunct because the CTA deemed it unprofitable back in the Fifties. I found the info and image on Chicago-L.org. Those people have collected tons of history and photos.

In Like a Lion or Kitty Porn

From the diary of a mad cat lady: Just now, as I was visiting the blogroll, there was a a godawful clattering on the back porch, followed by a horrific chorus of caterwauls.

A couple of days ago Lena, my cat's girlfriend (who upon closer inspection turned out not to be pregnant) popped out the back door with Kiddo while I was taking out the trash. Usually she waits by the door and comes right back inside. She'd been gone for 48 hours, so I figured Kiddo had kicked her to the curb.

But a few minutes ago when I opened the back door, there was Lena and Kiddo and about 4 other (presumably) male cats. They were all attempting to mount her, because evidently Lena had gone into heat. She must have been quite tired and famished from 2 days of copulating, however, and bolted through the crack in the door, running straight for the food dish. Kiddo and four strange cats attempted to follow, but I managed to slam the door closed after my cat crossed the threshold.

Kiddo then attempted to mount Lena while she was eating, biting into her shoulder blade. (Why do cats always bite into the shoulder blade before penetrating?) Lena managed to slip away and I threw Kiddo out the back door with a can of food and a bowl of water. This is probably akin to closing the barn door after the cows escape, but I really don't want her getting pregnant. I also didn't want to listen to the cats getting it on all night. They're very loud when they're doing it. But I feel guilty about Kiddo. He's banished outside, whining and and rattling the door knob.

Now I know that Bob Barker and some of my gentle readers are probably judging me right now for not having Kiddo fixed. But here's the thing: I find cuttting off someone's nutsack -- even under anastheisia -- to be a reprehensible and unconsionable act of violence.

(Please note that I consider myself a hardline feminist, therefore, the fact that I can't stomach having even my pets neutered completely unravels the stereotypic myth of the castrating feminist.)

So there you have it... another wild Saturday night at La Casa de Sirena.

It's Wednesday. Eat Your Poetry.

Sitting On The Back Porch With Oyá and Buk

Don’t ask her why the static in her hair
Makes cracklings that tell her where to
Lead the Boys of Wabansia Ave. I am
Leaning over the railing and the neighbor
Says, “Tell you what, that slut’s
Out of her mind, out of her tree
As she sways by, overhearing such phrases
Doesn’t faze her.

Hair so fine and electric.
Hat’s off and skirts up
As mambo music bougarabous
And the djembe waits for an answer
Resounding in the brass balls
Of an old bandleader gone
To the shadows of Oya’s yard
Clinging to all nine of her skirts
As the wind carries the eggy smell
Of Hell.

*********

"Don’t ask. Tell.
I tell you such fine music waits in the shadows of hell."

--Charles Bukowski

Night Window

for seven nights running she plays with a silver-handled challenge and bade him come into the crusty corners of chapped lips where dreams nest elevated and depressed by the wreath of water rings on the old pine coffee table and listless dustbunnies underneath the window where she gazes through warped glass at the black-eyed man who hunches in his coat, below the oversized hood is the home of trauma mamas and babydaddies while maple and oak in december make a damp and majestic arch over the laughter and tumbleweed trash of waxy cups and black plastic shopping bags and shards of 40 oz bottles up their love, but hate bursts in howls so close to tears you taste the salt of the old man's sweat inside a prism refracted, retracted, hollow and bent those rays of amber streetlamp filling up your eyes until you have to dream to escape so much gold

The apartment has become unbearable -- it's gone from flotsam and jetsam to the city's largest landfill.

In a suprising move, the kid suddenly got motivated to start sorting through all of the stuff. So not only is the place getting cleaned up, but he has been amusing me with The Bizarre Odds 'N Ends Fashion Show. So far this has included The Hip Rocker (his dark jeans, a ribbed sleeveless tee, topped with a black and brown pinstriped vest), Eighties Suburban Guy (a Girbaud tee, and really light/tight/high-waisted jeans), and my personal favorite -- Tried For 1970s Roger Daltry, Ended Up 1990s Mountain Lesbian (a plaid sleeveless button down shirt and the aforementioned light/tight jeans).

I better get back to work, since I'm the Mom and all.

A Girl and a Bar

We had an impromptu Streetside regular reunion on Saturday evening. It was big fun and I got lots of spine-aligning hugs and beery kisses.

What rocks about Streetside:

1. Reasonably priced drinks, comparatively speaking.
2. All tall mixers are served in pint glasses.
3. Bartenders know how to pour.
4. Everybody knows my name.
5. Fantastic collection of drunken geeks.
6. Eclectic and interesting topics of conversation (examples listed below)

• Methods of surviving a long-term zombie infestation
• Naughty proclivities of individuals born under the sign of Virgo
• Spelunking adventures
• Advanced genetics
• Overlooked film directors
• Movies you never saw but should have
• “Can’t get enough of that funky stuff!” and the "Pusher Man."
• Who has been pulled over/ arrested most
• Military service and other sucky jobs
• Politics – municipal through national
• Fractiles – Musical expression or mathematical masturbation?
• Who got shot at the Ace of Fades this week?
• What is this, Deadwood ?
• Baseball
• Neurobiochemistry

What sucks about Streetside:

1. Incessant firing of excellent bartenders.
2. Shameless courtship of the Westward Ho Chads and Trixies.
3. Current patronage of Chads and Trixies visiting the neighborhood to buy up all of the real estate, screw up the local cost of living, and generally exhibit bad taste in music, fashion, politics and baseball.
4. Yo, DJ! Turn the treble down! The sound system is messed up.
5. Talking billboards in the "Girls Only" room
6. Why must all the beer specials involve PBR and 312 (local brew tasting of draft line smegma and stale cheerios)?

It is also one of the only bars open until 2 a.m. every night in Humblo Squark. (Don't forget Maria's Whirlaway Lounge.)

"Now I Wanna Be Your Dog"

If I live in cleanliness, purity and light, maybe I'll be reincarnated as one of my next-door neighbors' dogs. Then I'll be brushed, bathed, fed, walked and loved.

Actually, the next-door neighbors' dogs have much nicer lives than most people on our block. Almost everyone seems to be unemployed. This widespread unemployment in Humboldt Park doesn't get calculated in reports on the economy, because most of my neighbors have been unemployed for more than 6 months -- of course, the convicted felons will most likely never be hired by anyone -- not even Wal-Mart or McDonalds. And nobody does anything about it, because convicted felons can't vote.

So then you have a 15 year-old kid slinging crack and supplementing the whole family until he turns 18, gets his first conviction as an adult, and spends his entire manhood unemployed, voiceless and angry.

HOT AS HELL!!!

(I borrowed this image from whiskeysierragrafics for the selfish, aesthetic purpose of illustrating this blog)

I live in a ridiculously extreme climate. Example -- the heat index was 113 degrees farenheit yesterday and in December it will be minus 30 degrees farenheit and in each and every month the humidity hangs around 75% so that you're either cold and damp or hot and wet, but not in the pornstar sense...

I don't have AC and in the winter I try to keep the heat set between 60 and 65 to conserve energy and money and also because I don't want to be a weather wuss. I operate under the theory that if you allow your body to adapt to the season, you'll be healthier and generally more comfortable (kinda the old wives tale concept of thickening and thinning the blood.)

But every so often the shit just GETS to me. And yesterday it really got to me, I was puddling up and getting (literally and figuratively) steamed at every idiot in traffic and I had to keep counting to 10, breathe, repeat-- but the arrival of Aunt Flo reduced me to a shrill meltdown of hot messiness so finally I went to Streetside to drink High Life on sale and sit in the AC. Then all of the little Beer Baby Boys kept telling me how "fiesty" I was. (Who says that? Why do men like that word? It makes me think of extra spicy chicken wings.) I wanted to say, "I'm not fiesty, I'm a bloody, thirsty, hot mess" but I was afraid I would cry, so instead I said, "you really got screwed by your mechanic -- I can't believe you paid $280 for a fuel pump on a Ford!" (which was kind of a smug and unnecessary thing to point out to someone at that juncture) so then the little BBBs told me I was an emasculator -- but both of them had AC and were still whining about the heat -- so I'm pretty sure they had no balls to begin with. Anyway...I mostly just wanted to go home and be by myself, but I couldn't face the broiler that was my apartment.