Rollback

So today's my second to last day at work (it would be my third to last if I weren't a lazy bastard taking tomorrow off.)

In times like this, little things take on meaning.  Little things like deleting stuff off my desktop.  You know, both my digital desktop and my analog desktop.  I look at the files I have scattered around and unearth months of work.  I dig out the roots I've set in and I want to watch the gap I leave heal itself.  Watch the machinery turn on regardless.

These things happen.
And they happen without ceremony.

We are always accelerating, entrenching ourselves and digging ourselves out.  My files are scattered all over the hard drive now.  It's the last days work to pack them into bundles, zip them up and copy them over.  What needs to be saved is saved.  The surplus spills out, gets lost in trashcans.  Somewhere there is a pile of shredded paper with bits of my name on it.

The B of a research credentialing document.
The E of a IRB memo.
The N of an unfinished poem.

Our paper trails are our threads of Fate,
We spool them out until our packet runs dry.
The printer beeps beeps beeps.
Waits to be reloaded.  Restart.  Renew.

How a Republican deals with obvious public disapproval

So there was this.  Where Republicans (And at least one Democrat) proposed a bill that would only allow funding for abortion in cases of "forcible rape".  Meaning that a woman would only be able to get health care funding for abortion if they were raped forcibly.  So no funding for any of that friendly rape, where someone playfully has sex with a woman against her will.

Of course, women in general rose up against that bullshit and it got removed.  One of the Democrats sponsoring the bill said: "The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so."

Which is the political equivalent of "Oh, well, we didn't really want it anyway."

Now, having faced a powerful public outcry, you'd think the Republicans would back down from this issue and try and go another route towards turning women into chattel.  But then you'd be overestimating Republican resourcefulness (and intelligence).

Yesterday, Republicans (and 16 anti-choice Democrats) passed a bill that redefines rape coverage for "forcible rape", imposes higher taxes on women, creates "abortion audits" in the IRS and bans DC-funded abortions.

I'm trying to think of a way I can write the sound that this made come out of me.  It was a combination of "Whaaaaat?!" and "AGH!!" and "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"

Something like WhaaaarggghhARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!

I'm not exactly sure what Republicans (and 16 Democrats) are trying to do with this.  I feel the need, by the way, to add the Democrats part, because these 16 should be immediately impeached and chased out of their state with fire and pitchforks.  That may sound extreme, but SO IS THIS FUCKING BILL.

It's just confusing.  Republicans have shown a strange dedication to doing exactly what the majority of people are against.  Not that this is surprising, but they seem so focused on digging themselves a hole it's surprising that they even bothered getting elected.

These people?
They are the enemy of women.
Ever since they came out of one,
They've been divided,
Raised in households where MAN WAS KING
WOMAN COOK DINNER
MAKE SEX
RAISE BABIES.
It's a tragedy
Watching them get educated
Watching them get jobs
Do them better
And make more money,
What a twisted world we live in.

These succubi shred our moral fabric
As they shatter glass ceilings,
They wear the tattered fragments as bikinis
Show a body they are no longer ashamed of,
While these men fashion legislative burqas,
Yearn for the days when women processed anxiety disorders
Into delicious homemade pies.
Left them cooling on windowsills
So they could check on Billy and Sally,
Who play house in the backyard,
Billy beats Sally silly,
While she collects the broken fragments of what used to make her human.

No, Sally,
You are no human
You are woman.

These people?
They are afraid of women.
They see vaginas with fangs,
Framed by unshaven legs,
Unbound breasts.
They create perfumes to mask that humanity,
The smell that, yes,
They're human.
More than human, they are mothers.
They hold within them the spark of all life,
And for all mankind's Parliaments and Presidencies,
Man will always just be seed
A woman is the Earth.

So they flounder,
Throw law when it works,
Punches when it doesn't,
But the Earth is a hard thing to escape.

Besides.  Liberated women are better in bed.

Valentines: Why happiness is like being depressed and Hallmark sucks

So it's Valentine's Day.

Fuck Valentine's Day.

If you need Hallmark to tell you when it's okay to give your one-in-a-million a once-in-a-lifetime night:

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

I was very happy yesterday, so much so that I wondered what the hell was wrong with me.  I took my temperature, nope, normal.  I checked my eyesight, nope, I wasn't going blind.  I pinched myself, nope, I wasn't dreaming.  I pinched someone else and they punched me, so yes, I'm still living in the real world.

But yes, I was happy.  This kind of happy:

It was just a bit like being on drugs.

It's also a bit like being depressed.

Sometimes you get sad, it's a natural consequence of being alive.

And maybe happiness is just like that sometimes.  The confluence of starlight, the alignment of Mercury in rising and Libra in your pocket, your blood sugar up and your electric potentials evoked.

Sometimes you just feel good.  It's as reliable as death and taxes.  As inexplicable as...death and taxes.  But unlike death and taxes, it happens more than people realize.  Drugs operate in the bizarre landscape that is our mind and play by the rules of our biology.  Anything they can do, we can do.  And better.

So do drugs.  I mean.  Be happy.  And when you are, it's not worth questioning it, honestly.  It won't answer.

Being kid-friendly

Let's talk more about poetry and not about this:

Or the whole blacking out Al-Jazeera in the US so people watching the news can focus on something trashy.

America: Making the world safe for Democracy, unless that democracy might lead to decisions that we don't like.  Then we're totally behind ruthless dictators.

But who needs politics! I'm a writer! I'm supposed to remove myself entirely from the petty squabbles of everyday life and produce high prose about pastoral settings where everyone's happy, even the slaves.

In that vein, I've decided to participate as a performer here.  It's a poetry contest for kids where they write about love and get judged by jaded yuppies.  That was sarcastic, but it does sound really cool.  And literacy is important, blah blah blah.

So I need to take the curse words out of my poems.  But there's a problem with that:

 In order to make a poignant, lasting statement, one needs liberal use of the words "fuck", "shit" and, in gender-conscious poetry, "bitch".  This is the case with my poetry and, I dare say, all poetry.

So, as such, I decided to start writing a more kid-friendly poem.  Behold:

Sometimes…

Sometimes I am Superman

Taking on problems bigger than me

And with a quick one-two

Show them why they don’t make comics about bad guys.

I can span wide frowns with these arms

And X-ray vision?

Pssh

These eyes uncover lies

And surprise

I see right through you.

But sometimes I’m a supervillain.

Hatching master schemes

And working on my evil laugh-

(Try a few laughs)

Just give me a Sharpie and a sleeping face

A shoelace worth tying together

Or a salt shaker to unscrew

And I am an evil mastermind.

Sometimes, I’m a lover.

Telling the girl I love her

Steal stars from the sky for her

Lasso the moon for her

Tell her she’s brighter than gold

And sweeter than sugar.

But sometimes.  I’m a playa.

Letting the phone ring when they call

Seeing Monica on Mondays

And Tonia on Tuesdays,

Girl, the week is only so long.

Then, sometimes, I’m a beggar

Saying “Wait, wait, don’t leave me”

“The week’s so long

And I need you with me!”

Sometimes I’m a master of deception

(Hoarse) Making my voice hoarse

Because I’m much too sick for work today.

Insisting I never got that email

And what five-page essay?

Not only did my dog eat my homework

A crocodile ate my dog!

Fortunately, sometimes I’m the crocodile hunter

And I wrestled that monster to the ground.

So really, I should get an A for effort.

It's a work in progress, i.e., the contest was postponed so I'm going to wait until last minute to get it done.

The Joy of being Self-Absorbed

Yes.

For some reason, every picture of me slamming has me doing the exact same hand motion.  Like "Okay, listen guys, this is important, okay?"

NERD!

Anyway, I lost the slam yesterday.  No biggie, the people who won were powerhouses of poetic awesome.  Definitely excellent showmen.  They showed me I should probably step up my performance, that I should maybe get a little more emphatic.

In that vein, I'm writing a poem for this week's writing group where the prompt was to not write a poem about sex.

Behold:

This is a list

Of things I think of when I’m with you.

Baseball.

Hairy men in tight pants

And closely trimmed green fields.

Baseballs with smooth white skins

Pulled taught

That I can wrap my hands-

Hm.

Math.

Fractions and decimals

Equations that are irrational.

Building more and more unreal

Growing exponentially

Higher and higher

Until finally you have a solution for sex-

X!! I mean, a solution for X!!

And lying tangent to your curves-

Argh.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

NERD!!