the road from hell is paved with carpet

i walked out during a poem

from the front row where my interpreter sat

i say, with confidence:

go back to ASL 1:1, pilar. they're looking for a teacher's aide.

and don't try anything too difficult.

bright young woman, really nice sweater, but i have never spent so much time picking apart the knitting method of a sweater (see: learning to knit but also see: fury and see: boredom)! she was just mangling and mangling and i had to sit on y figurative difgers rather than tell her how little she understands ASL and english. she's so bright her candle wanes. never once does she question her understanding of ASL, english and the her assigned definition of each sign and word.

she MANGLED 2/3 of the poems and the ones she saved fared no better. mine are meant to be signed next to a display of text. theirs are pretty but her word choice was sometimes so discordant she's crazy confident she has it all right. maybe she didn't understand the poignancy of each word.

she got three or four dark enough poems right by the end and is by no means dumb. bonus points for figuring out the tone and changing her concept of a poem for the last stanza or few.

stay on as a teacher's aide and don't start interpreting professionally again until you're so bored your only alternative to finding a better sign or signed sentence to express intent is death, like poems are inevitably about.

extinguishing.

seriously, i can't remember all the words i know the key to, all the words i wonder about and unlock three more definitions to on top of the four i already learned. always keep looking up everything you thought you knew as you brush up on what to know.

knowledge is best serviceable when it's useful. "knowledge" in the 1860s-1980s is the "what to know" post-wikipedia. i unplugged in 2006 to focus on the real world. i'm not sorry yet.

when a word means soaring and another means coasting along you damn well sign the difference. SHE AIN'T KNOW THE VOCABULARY BUT SHE KNOW DAMN NMS LIKE SHE AIN'T FAILIN'!  her ASL vocabulary is "kill in a hospital setting" shitty.

chris owens  is, like, interpreter of a FUCKING COUNTRY. of many twenty-thousand years.

he needs an office because he's a once-in-a-lifetime experience. sign up just to have a day interpreted by chris owens.

sophia  (CODA, need last name, shit) is actually the only one who could kick his ass. cannot.express. my. LOVE. she always, always figures out a word as she goes along. she is a GENIUS. she needs her law degree STAT.  supreme court , here comes sophia.

the girl will RUIN your dresses. and you'll never realize all the slithers she trails as she turns are your own robe shreds.

rachel. smart as the bunch and a total DODD. DAUGHTER OF DADAIST DANCER.

jessicah and michelle steele. the only jehovah's witnesses you ever want over for thanksgiving. super brilliant.

LOL SHE WILL NEVER BELIEVE ME  debbie whatsitnow? she is awesome.totally does not let your snippy opinion change her career or careen it smashed. she never made me mad outside of creative writing class. so

many

more

to name. dave coyne has really jerky movements and i can't recommend him unless it's more important to have a terp you can really hang out with. he is smart smart smart, shrewd in the goodest, bestest way, and he is on the opposite end: chris owens here. dave coyne there flip side of the coin, and the dark side of the moon if ever you ask. casually. i love them both.

dawn cartwright  is now dawn caudill. despite her despotic ways and sneaky evils to kill careers she is the reason cincinnati interpreters have a fairly ethic approach to Deaf people. put simply: most people can tell more of the bad ones from the good ones.

pilar totally passes for a good one to us all but i caught her out. i chose to lipread along.

SHE IS SHIT ON PRETZEL STRAWS.

SHE WILL WEAK HER SAUCE.

then, before his poem about crucifixion...which i walked out on

i was going to VOICE my poem at the end. FUMP.

the dipshit goes on and on about

AWW ASL IS SO SPECIAL WOW SPECIAL NEEDS PEOPLE CAN APPRECIATE POETRY

i will institute my rule from now on

i will make an announcement to read all poems in writing myself to see where ASL could not cover the english

i did not want my other BFF ASL to take a beating cuz ASL has more awesome storytelling power

than english

so next week i want to tell a poem in SEE, then three ASL versions to show how vastly different the interpretation has to literally be to  expand on one theory.

it's just not a written language with root words based on the first few letters.

it's got shapes and slopes.

i wish i were more me. i didn't mean to stay quiet. i shouldn't have. i woke up at 5:30 boiling.

THE INTERPRETERS MAKE IT SO WONDERFUL IT IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL THING TO SEE THIS IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE IT FEELS AMAZING TO KNOW OUR WORK IS BEING SHARED IN A BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE

THEY LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL

and pilar looked so elegant and her NMS are excellent

but she is wrong and she will get YOI wrong mister

she got all flattered and fluttery and then she GOT EGO

and pulled out her drama school abs!?

no, do not act out the crucifixion with increasing smugness because some old scruffy white guy

FINGERBLASTED YOU.

that's when i turned instead of

you. suck. you need to go back to dumbass 101: open a dictionary!

you would kill so please don't work at a hospital or in a courthouse

man, you never thought poetry could be so awesome, huh?

your native tongue fares no better than the one you paid for!

and left. there were people i had wanted to stay to support. i was gonna ask to read their stuff afterward.

BUT I GREW UP AROUND HUNDREDS OF KIDS WHO NEEDED ASL

when i was two at most, maybe still 1 1/2, bob my husband xxx teacher mmmm 40s? but so HANDSOME  mmm my husband okay told mom to stop using ASL with me, as it would rot my brain.  this was serious grown-up conversation time. they tried to break her week after day.

she's really smart! she'll be dumb faster than you can make the switch when it's too late.

he pressed her to use SEE, what was that? i asked in the car. she explained.

that is how i came to hate SEE. and that is the school system that forced it on us.

dad never quite got on board. he stayed mostly ASL.

the kids i grew up with--

pilar could never get how to work this ASL thing.

they couldn't get their language until it was too late to fully grasp--

they i grew up with.

i walked out.

if you can't tell, don't.

titles on a megaphone

piercing is by far.

ryu draws me in like manga but in a web manga never could deliver. i like ryu better than "no, the other murakami!" haruki still delivers on the wind-up bird chronicle. i never knew i could tolerate a book in that plodding style. the worst part was when i was so enthtralled I was leaving all my other books strewn by my bed and on my bookshelf by the door for on-the-fly fabulousness. i was translating into the rich descriptive because surely his style wasn't to plod but to shift from description to description. so i took what seemed to be missing and it peaked mossy with everything. stark to dripping. after a while you're waking up here and there. bundled by the silence. hunting within the bunting, so to speak.

page 378 segued into 479.

i was loading the furnace with logs of fury. stoking and stewing. i love that it was the zenith of my reading experiences ever. i had to argue and argue that throwing away a receipt for a book is totally normal after 3 months because the book's gonna be done with. but when you get to page 378 after months of dreading the worst prose and finally getting sucked in. the manager was totally like, shit, get her another copy!

so i was promptly embarrassed yesterday upon reading the first page of one flew over the cuckoo's nest. it was unbelievably racist and even if it's to prove insanity or exaggerate it...let me just say

IRREGARDLESS!

that is the only version stronger than regardless. despite its clear reversibility and irreversible irreverence for strong stances, it's hung on with diamond-tipped claws. gonna sell for blood and deals in nothing else. so, with every ounce of indignance:

regardless!

it is just the worst thing to read for me (django was easier to unchain. totally, i was in the ring. leo dicaprio is honestly a believable modern racist but he played a perfect parody of a blue-blooded true-bred dick. it didn't feel real as the actor but as the character.

that's a true sociopath right there. that is the mark of smarm.

buy it it as it comes, bye it as it goes.

reading it next to a cute guy who made it very clear after page two was just as rude and racist and I closed the book and shoved it...that he'd been reading over my shoulder! i. could've. died. this is not me! but oh, well, life saunters on.

so django was not so uncomfortable because if we all compared our seventh-grade fantasies they would not be grounded in reality and would dream up new ways to deal with adversaries. nobody's true fantasy would win hero of the year.

it's like, well. the oppressors must die. there must be as much bloodshed as possible.

the oppressors must be at their worst. violent, shitty, dumb and smart, and for all their own sets of insecurities, or (down the chain) even needs. my death or yours is always ultimate.

then, and only then, do we daydream that we must say that fatal

well, yes

i must reach the end of the world
unleash two barrels of absurdity and roll
out the streamers.

writers are the ultimate day dreamers.

burnt offerings

after twenty minutes he was all "yes
i own you mmm"
and i took him out "you
get me back to really having fun
and you'll get it again."

the halfheartedness
huh, no.
a brat reprimanded
a "you liar" meanness
and i was yet unimpressed.

"i'm SICK of it! it's been...(audibly counts on fingers)
...five months!"

and it is every bit as nice as seven months ago, but five sounded bad enough and seven was just upsetting for his ego. it was amazing again. probably part of why i started feeling like i was ugly and no good when i was caught off guard.

so it was good and fantastic and fabulous and outstanding and good again. he could not stand "no good sex for months and you know you can do better!" he just wasn't trying for me, but some other woman. not my anatomy. who ya been thinking i was?

he figured out the twists and turns. found the g-spot bend. so the difference between too deep and (breathily) too deep is now calibrated correctly.

we were not doing as much talking as usual. i cashed out morally when I started having flashbacks and things were just quietly happy and sexy. but the sex was largely deflated. i really scared him. i wouldn't look at him and was really just floody.

ah !but it was good

i need someone to draw with. homeboy

only draws what he's told.

the rosacea lens

i scared him yesterday. 

i got embarrassed and then started crying. it was the most wonderful sex ever, truly, and my eyes rolled up, so i thought he thought i was ugly and dissolved into tears. 

and remembered all the things david had done. david, my first true partner. who let all his insecurities turn into assaults. pretty soon i was wailing and would only let the most urgent shaking and poking rouse me to assure him that things are most certainly not okay. 

it was a long cry. bad cry. he could tell what kind of crying, like, distraught vs. embarrassed vs. hopeless vs. heartbroken. then i told him how awful it is to know that if i die before i get my life fixed mom will have the worst things to say about me. that they're so untrue and so heartbreaking to know. and that it's just so wrong to see her say it's my fault that things like men following me down the street at night are my fault. that I gave them permission, asked them to. that if someone rapes and kills me it'll be "poor beth, she trusted the wrong man because she was too slutty and stupid to know better. she was always giving it up to every man she met. if she'd just..."

i remarked that he's filled out. that it's over. his youth is gone. he looks like someone else and it's scary during sex but it's fine. that's normal for men. i just feel sad; he's not the sexy young thing i liked. he isn't someone i find irresistibly funny or unique. ubiquitous, and I feel cheated. but that's okay. he's all, what, i'm fat!? and he does have a paunch all of a sudden, he's too skinny for one but age has settled. no, 'thirties,' I reassure him, thinking back on niks and how she would laugh that that's the Deaf way to put it. his nose was broader last week and his hair shockingly gray. he was getting deeper devil's horns of hair with strays still boasting the old hairline. 

yesterday his face was that puffy old-man face to match his new nose. his hairline is sharply defined again. when he sits down his stomach looks like skinny grandpa. he still has an amazing ass. time will never take that away while he's still breathing. 

only--is it really enough, if someone divorces and wants to marry me, to marry for compassion and wonderful sex? is it? i worry that i need to end this because--well, she really doesn't know. and he is way too invested in his texting life with me. i feel like i'm not being fair if i let this evolve where I never want it to go, and have to say, you shoulda been more invested in your marriage. don't come crying to me.

is it? he makes me cringe with his jokes. most are recycled over generations and recycled over his own lifetime. others are just crass. few crack me up. how could we be happy together without this arrangement?

but i do love him and it is really confusing not to be able to control that. when did i lose that filter, that stopper? when did it stop mattering that i'm too ugly to want back, too unwanted within the Deaf community to be safely paired with, too smart to keep recognizing my feelings for someone and letting them destroy friendships? we fight because i'm allowed to ask about her and their life together and daily doings but he can't spontaneously bring that stuff to conversations. but I know when and how to create a safe space, a buffer, and leave that buffet when i've started feeling crampy. 

we keep finding out things about me. i keep letting him see things david and joe were far too dangerous for. too immature, too willing to hit me, mock me for "sluttiness," use against me. and it does seem like love. i'm far too old for new love and to let things fool me. 

but, hello, here i am. who are you again?

oh, carp! AKA: carp on

the past is real. do not deny it.

i look jeff in the face and the past is bruising, but i cannot hide from it

so i carry on. i make light

but it haunts me. 11 years ago i chose between the lightness of friends

and the lightness of truth

it taught me the worst but that it is my best.

jeff was picking out engagement rings and his his was mocking behind his back

and i was sure that protecting jeff from that knowledge was best.

until. bob started in on wendy. she is long gone...

bob was all oh ya she stupid LOL she think she some hot shit but lissen it's u n me oh yes it's u n me all the way she fuckin dumbo yes shh it's u n me all the way oh LOL like she sooooo literate pssssshhhhhhh

i was like, uh, she's one of my best friends. being annoyed with her for something she said wasn't an invitation to backstabbing. you can't do that, and for the record, none of us like what you're doing to jeff. he may not be the sharpest tack in the elementary school but he's in the best cork. he's so sweet and so delightful, we all love him to death anyway, and we really hate to see you say OMFG ISN'T HE DUMB LOL AND I JUST KEEP PUSHING HIM TO MARRY ME SO...

...i can't say the rest here. but. marci said:

choose. it is how life is. how people are. they probably can't handle the truth. tell them and recognize you will likely lose your friendships...

...or keep your friends.

it's amazing how people will watch someone literally sexually abuse someone in front of us--we saw this and i finally had to stop. i should have stopped before it got there, i didn't, and I rightfully got told off once this kid grew up a little and moved on because

i waited too long

and listen to someone verbally abuse others and try to skew/er friendships behind all our backs--but believe they are the

ONLY

the special

and that was my first lesson in life: loneliness is why we all pretend.

fear of rejection.

but fuck it. i wake up not feeling guilty for living a lie.

so marci and i are in a conspiracy. against mom. who is trying to twist it all. again. AGAIN!

danger danger danger so i must decide how to

CARP

the dream was that jeff forgave me. i ache every time I see him.

i remember how much i grew to love him. i remember how much I grew to despise all the hurtful things

and thinking i was a good friend but

LIVE STRONG AND CARPY ON.

so he forgave me and we are now BFF again. i wanted to go somewhere photogenic

he drove me to an idyllic rocky beach but it was really loads of rocks and boulders.

the beauty still strikes me two hours past waking

the shimmer of sun between light fringe, bobbing leaves of pale shadows on the ripply clear water

it really was the epitome of this jeff (it reflects one of our drives, down to the gargoyle condos, a talk about an ex of his from before he came out, and that was when i couldn't keep lying just because it was what we had been doing because OMFG HE WOULD DIE FOR A FRIEND): sparkly, transparent, dancing like leaves on the water, in the wind, endlessly joyful

and we walked onto bone-dry boulders like in tobermorey (google the flowerpot islands) and SUDDENLY way out in what we didn't know would become a danger zone

all that water started sluicing around our ankles and we weren't so stable

jeff turned into my brother terry

and i have been worrying about me and terry

about his ability to handle my need not to be a daughter

about missing him and his fear of dissension

which was my fear for so many silent years

so there he was, terry

and PLOP a 400-pound carp or so

from the sky and again sluicing water sucking at us

it had a huge red gouge in its side

an eagle was trying, so bald, to lift this carp could could make

seeing the light: of day

rustling a shroud (working title)

for joe

you make love to me like you've never heard a sound

you (shocking sound!)
ride (shocking sound!)
me (shocking sound!)
all (shocking sound!)
the way underground (shocking sound!)
where you feel (shocking sound!)
the dead scrabble around

to get to space
but you (shocking sound!)
can't (shocking sound!)
fly (shocking sound!)
into place

you wear your life
like a shroud
into a tomb of verisimilitude
so no one
can pin it on you
in time

in the catacombs you can't hear a sound

splitting hairs for continuity

doonesbury

i never read the funnies

but on an abandoned seat so i grabbed

for fun

and doonesbury is about exactly what i was saying

only i didn't have the energy to finish that they only talk to the babies semi-normally

by reading to them but always so dumbing-down

OVER

UNDER

RED

GREEN

it drove me mad because though they were delighted some nights

new material, please

and in doonesbury one brunette and one blond twin and

they need a new book so the words come

i wonder if they threw out all my gifts

the clothes

the books

all the rest

but the babies are always

babies to me

and they're walking and talking beyond me