Seeing a week into the future

I had forgotten just how much I like this work- so m uch that I'm taking this lunch to tell you about it. The annoyances will start later but right now I'm dealing with a neat little system.

We deal with some specific types of plants: three kinds of canes, various aglos, a few types of spaths, raphis palms, two or three kinds of ficus, etc. Each requires some specific amount of food, water, and sun.

Each building had four sides, most of which are obscured to varying degrees by surrounding buildings except in many cases to the north or east to a lesser extent. There is also sometimes film on windows, and each building has an HVAC system which is sometimes on.

My job is to clean plants, treat pests, and water and feed based on my projection of the next week's weather, amount of sun exposure (varies with season as the sun's path changes), building temp (if the HVAC is off it can get up to 45 C or so, or down to 5 or 6), type of plant, etc. It's complicated enouh that a lot of what I do is intuition, but uncomplicated enough that after a year or two it can be done well. I like doing things well.

Two

Man, do I have some stuff to talk about. Man, do I ever not have time to write right now. Possibly tomorrow. Besides, writing about where my life intersects that of others is tricky stuff. I try to put down an accurate record of myself for myself, I don't purport to be bringin' the One Truth here, but it can still be weird.

Anyhow, on to someone else:


am very bothered when I think
of the bad things that I have done in my life.
Not least that time in the chemistry lab
when I held a pair of scissors by the blades
and played the handles
in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner;
then called your name, and handed them over.
O the unrivalled stench of branded skin
as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in,
then couldn't shake off the two burning rings. Marked,
the doctor said, for eternity.
Don't believe me, please, if I say
that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,
of asking you to marry me.

By Simon Armitage

***

For a Long Time I Have Wanted to Write a Happy Poem

Between two worlds life hovers like a star.
—Byron
for Tomaz

It is not so easy to live on the earth
as an angel, to imitate the insects that dance
around the moon, to return what air we borrow
every few seconds. I am going to enter
the hour when wind dreamt of a light dress
to stroke, when water dreamt of the lips it would meet.
The famous Pascalian worm will just have to find
another heart to eat.( Read more... )

I happen to side with the fanatics who believe
it is following the call of a mythic bird too distant to see,
but this is only poetry, like the old papers
the homeless use to stuff their clothes on cold nights,
the kind of poetry that says, Flowers, be happy,
trees, raise your drooping eyebrows,
sky, don't turn your back on us again,
my love, how wonderful to have lived while you lived,
which is not the sort of poetry you read anyplace anymore.

Richard Jackson

Saline

Cut for explicit weird body stuff:
( Read more... )

Hm. Who do I know who might be into topping this?

Body/Head

So I've spent the last two months in my head, more-or-less. There have been a couple reasons for this. Some of them have to do with work, especially doing graveyards when I had to deliberately disregard anything my body was telling me. Others have to do with sex, or more specifically with desire and the way that pulled me out of the here-and-now in this particular case. Some of it has to do with stress, and with the way power dynamics operate for me. I'd bet the new phone has something to do with it too.

Tonight I got put back in my body. I'm gonna describe it a bit under a cut, and then ramble on for awhile.( Read more... )

So there I am walking home and I am noticing the air particularly around my legs. It feels like rain. It's a little chilly. It's not quite cold enough to worry about, so my body is vibrating between being cold and comfortable, poised to do something-- either to settle or to be uncomfortable with the temperature --and I am particularly aware of the distinction between the inside of my body and the outside. My skin is, all over my body, a very particular sensing membrane that is the limit of my body. It's not just where my awareness ends; it's a thing in itself.

That was nice.

Here's a freewrite, fifteen mins, not supposed to make sense.
( Read more... )