2006-06-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

07.01.06
(written 07.02.06--3:42 a.m.)

fresca 12 pack on my parents' steps
carried it up to refrigerate
took two cans out
put them in the freezer
set the timer for 34 minutes,
filled my cup with ice,
took one can out of the fridge
poured it over the ice,
ate two pieces of kosher fried chicken
from ben's last night.

(written 07.04.06--1:27 a.m.)

saw ferris bueller's day off on channel 11
20 summers after risa and i first saw it in roosevelt field
(or was it east meadow?)
us sticking around for all the credits
until matthew broderick as ferris
popped up telling us all to go home.

07.02.06
(written 07.04.06--1:40 a.m.)

i still don't want to go to the lodge
and go and get me a funeral plot
i guess it's the responsible thing to do
to not burden my survivors
my parents think that i'm killing myself
but it all seems a bit too boring to me
bury me
break me
any way you shake me
bake me
take me.

07.03.06
(written 07.04.06--1:51 a.m.)

mom's retired
dad's at work
so mom and me watch the view
then I work on my paper
as she watches her soaps
(it's hard to copy edit when you're on three hours sleep)

07.04.06
(written 07.06.06--2:11 a.m.)

if we square dance at the waldorf once more
will you take my blood pressure?

07.05.06
(written 07.06.06--12:10 a.m.)

sitting at the end of my parents' bed
us eating pudding,
mom and me chocolate, dad tapioca.

07.06.06
(written 07.26.06--5:49 p.m.)

i stayed an extra day
after the five-day fourth of july weekend
so I could help dad
swap his new barbecue for his old
carrying them up the high-ranch steps
then onto the deck
so after five full days
and part of another
i had to go home
because i had to go home
and my mom was my ride
and she begged me to stay there
and i know she just retired
and she's not used to being home yet
but i have to go home
so we go and get bagels and whitefish
and some coffee, hers hot and mine cold,
before she drops me at the baldwin lirr station
and i go up to the platform
and see her waiting
and wave a temporary goodbye.

07.07.06
(written 07.26.06--5:54 p.m.)

POST/EDIT/DELETE
that's what craig's list tells me
if i want to
have my large room for rent ad posted

but you can only post yr ad once a week
no longer reposting it
so it will move up the page,
that is unless you use multiple email addresses
this one, is my boogcity e-dress

POST/EDIT/DELETE
that's what craig's list tells me
if i want to
have my large room for rent ad posted

PLEASE KEEP THIS EMAIL - you will need it to publish and manage your posting!

Your posting will expire off the site 7 days after it was created.

Thanks for using craigslist!

07.08.06
(written 07.26.06--5:58 p.m.)

when the girl you know and you wanna have phone sex with
im's her grandpa is in the hospital and not doing good,
there's really no way to maneuver from there
to you two having phone sex
so instead, you take the good guy route
but you're a good guy, so it's not like it's a route,
and you say what you shd say,
or a variant of it,
"u shd go relax. i'm here if you need someone to talk to"
and then you go into another chat room
and sort through the bots in hopes

07.09.06
(written 07.10.06--1:16 a.m.)

(sing)

arielle kebbel i love you
in the fourth american pie
(in the trilogy)

as dean's wife in the Gilmore girls
they wrote you in as a short-term plot point
but the thing arielle
is that they were all wrong

arielle kebbel i love you
in the fourth american pie
(in the trilogy)

07.10.06
(written 07.26.06--6:03 p.m.)

did i tell you yet
how my feet and hands hurt
how swollen they are
how i can't really close my hands
i wanna thank jon who came around with me
took me to the clinic
then took me to the other clinic
before i wanted to save some money
so i went to the other clinic
which is half-named for the poet audre lorde
and that seems like some sign

07.11.06
(written 07.26.06--6:09 p.m.)

i walked to the gay men's health crisis clinic
a half a mile away
and such a nice waiting room
and such a nice office i was in
and the doctor
she was a bit younger than me
reminded me of the poet betsy andrews
(and that probably doesn't
mean anything to you,
but it does mean something to me,
and i hope that's cool)
and throughout her office
she had figurines of the robot bender from futurama
and they were labeled gender bender
and i didn't know that was the robot's full name,
i just knew it as bender.

07.12.06
(written 07.26.06--6:16 p.m.)

a phone call
to get the last funds
so we can print the paper.
"can you email another invoice?"
not a problem i say.
"ok, then we'll send you the payment today."

07.13.06
(written 07.26.06--6:25 p.m.)

called my big brother yesterday
to give him a heads-up
while he was vacationing with his family in l.a.
tomorrow, i tell him, 20 years ago,
is when you and Debbie got engaged,
i thought you might wanna know
so you could do something nice,
do something special
and look like you remembered on your own.

07.14.06
(written 07.26.06--6:30 p.m.)

did i tell you that my boyfriend
just bought a car here
even though he lives two thousand miles away
it's crazy
but it's a two-seater,
very cute
he wanted one
he's moving soon

07.15.06
(written 07.26.06--5:16 p.m.)

yre really beautiful
i tell the 37 year old
in our im after our picture exchange
which i would say even if she wasn't
in the hopes of potential phone sex
and that's always a hope,
almost always a hope

07.16.06
(written 07.26.06--5:16 p.m.)

on the poetics list
came this post today:

Subject: Poets in the Park, July 22, Albany, NY

"Poets in the Park" has been celebrating poetry in July at the Robert Burns statue in Washington Park, Albany, NY since 1989. The series, formerly run by the late Tom Nattell and now hosted by Dan Wilcox, will continue with readings through July 29.

and you couldn't believe how warm it made me feel
i miss those readings
i really miss this readings
1992 was when I read there
it was a great month that july
my first trip to naropa
10 days or so on jon weiler's couch
his car, a little jukebox on wheels,
with his cassette of lou reed's new york album
stuck in the tape player,
so any ride was all lou, all the time,
reading in the poets in the park series
accompanied by kurt and john, the musician guys,
and jen wanting to take my reborn cherry
and doing so.

07.17.06
(written 07.20.06--11:46 p.m.)

on the way to give blood and urine last week
found myself, as usual, unable to pee
and i asked to do it at home
where i pee up a storm
she said come back in,
we like to do it here
so a few days later
walked a half of a mile there
drank 32 ounces of water on the way
and then 32 ounces more
but i couldn't pee again
asked the nurse again
if i could do this at home
and she was telling me no again
and i told i'm never able to
and after some more pleading on my part
she gives me the specimen cup
and a sealable plastic bag for the lab
and monday at six a.m.
first morning pee fills up and then
before a dawson's creek breakfast
and then that half a mile walk.

07.18.06
(written 07.26.06--5:16 p.m.)

i've always thought it was o.k.
to solicit based on your libido
just not to accept that way
as that's wrong
so i hope it's ok that i
solicited you with my libido
and i accepted to
because without my libido
i would have to
so i think that that's ok

07.19.06
(written 07.26.06--5:24 p.m.)

lauren had to write
a line for her baseball poem
that i assigned her

she said she needed to go to a baseball game
to find the line
and i brushed her off
until she called a week later
and said the same thing
and i realized it was on me
to get her to a baseball game
to get us to a baseball game

and i picked the staten island yankees
'cause you get to take a ferry to the game
and who doesn't like to take a ferry
and to a game
and because almost every inning in minor league baseball
there's some sort of promotional contest,
like the two little kids
about one or so,
crawling from one end of a bed to the other
or how the s.i. yankees have three different mascots
three!

and we sat in the press box,
with all the free 20 ounce pepsi products we wanted
i went for the diet pepsi
until i wanted to chill my caffeine intake
and alternated it with aquafina water.
lauren was strictly aquafina.
and they had a big tray with individually wrapped hamburgers
none of which this kosher boy
and that vegetarian girl could touch
and two trays of french fries,
which i decided were cooked alone in their oil
and they probably were
this being the ballpark where, unlike a diner,
not too many things are fried,
and i ate three platefuls during the game.

the writing press box is directly behind home plate
on the second level
offering the most amazing view of the pristine playing field
minor leaguers in those familiar pinstripes,
and then the water
and the new york city skyline
and the statue of liberty
hell, even brooklyn's tallest building,
the williamsburg savings bank building,
which magic johnson now partially owns

around the sixth inning lauren asks me
"which one is the second baseman?"
and i point to the player to the right of second base
she then says, "who's that?"
pointing to the player to the left of second base.
"that's the shortstop," i say.
and now i find out she's wasted six poem-line gathering innings
as her player was mainly a second baseman
and she wanted to see some action at second base she could describe.
she'd ask me what's he doing
as the second baseman readied himself to field a ball
that might come his way.
and i said readying himself
and she said that wasn't good enough
and the guy next to her in the press box said
that's what he was doing, readying himself.

with an inning left
if the s.i. yankees lost in nine
as it looked like this game was headed,
lauren took off to find that line
coming back 20 minutes later
when the game was over.
"so'd you get it," i asked her.
"yeah," she said, "i had to get away from you
and the constant babbling in here."

07.20.06
(written 07.21.06--1:15 a.m.)

read my hand this morning
it said to call my printer
make sure the paper was ready
then to get my credit card form
fax them the credit card info
then make sure they received it
before calling jon to distribute it
and in the middle of these steps
it's jon on my phone
i tell him the paper's ready
that i was
waiting to call him until i ran through all of this
i wonder if i thank him enough
for what he's doing for free
i don't think i have.

07.21.06
(written 07.25.06--9:44 a.m.)

i like that risa works a block from my home
an advantage to hobo me
and when she calls
to meet me as she goes out for a quick lunch
i go and meet her, yeah
i go and meet her.

07.22.06
(written 07.25.06--9:28 a.m.)

dad writes down in my pad the list of things
mom wants in the hospital

robe
water
paper
scissors
umbrella
plastic container
flowers

(umbrella is for dad, so he doesn't forget his
as it's pouring daily in the city lately)

the plastic container
is so mom can put her paint brushes and water in
she likes to paint water colors when she's in the hospital
i find a 32 ounce one from ben's kosher deli
and put in it two pairs of scissors
so she can pick the one she likes best to cut in half the
white corrugated paper for her painting

we head to penn station
to get mom a robe in k-mart
pick her flowers from the stand at the foot of the escalator
before heading to the Hudson news stand
to get newsday and the post
before searching for photographs of flowers in the garden magazines
so mom might paint them

dad picks the green robe
of the four with the african-style borders
before we head up the block
to grab some poland spring water
and pistachios for me
honey roasted peanuts for dad
and a two-liter bottle of caffeine free diet pepsi for us.

07.23.06-6:27 p.m.

dear mom,

everyday with you is a good
even when it is a not so good one
a sit up and feel better one
a number two son one.

dear mom,

feel better, now.
if i issue a fiat it must be so,
yes?

dear mom,

siestas are nice
you are nice.

(written 07.25.06-9:05 a.m.)

i have a week or so
to find a new roommate
around my mom in the hospital
her visiting hours are from noon to 8:00 p.m.
so i'm scheduling appointments until 11 tomorrow morning
i'll even take any after 9:00 p.m., if need be
and now there's three for before 11 set up,
soon to be over,
i hope.

07.24.06
(written 07.25.06--8:53 a.m.)

it's the fourth night mom's in the hospital
the fourth night my dad's sleepin' with me in my queen-size bed
head-to-feet
the fourth night when talk comes of him and i dinnering
that when i suggest places
he mentions that big her he got
at the italian place on 10th avenue
and finally that's where we go for dinner
and dad had talked about how last time
he left over half and had lunch for the next day at school,
and this time he wasn't as hungry
and this time he ate some bread and butter from the basket
so this time he left over two-thirds
one-third for lunch
one-third for the drive from long island back to the hospital.

07.25.06--7:06 p.m.

the nouns are nouny.
--rodrigo Toscano

the walk from 31st and 1st
to 20th and 11th
has diabetic feet hurting,
not bleeding, bleeding
my diabetic hands swollen
so they don't close.
which way to diet,
the no exercise 350-pound way
or the walk
and lose my hands and feet way.

07.26.06
(written 07.28.06-3:09 p.m.)

this is probably the last night
that my dad stays at my place
mom'll be going home from
the hospital
so maybe dad and i could go and eat out again
but he's not hungry and he's tired
and has work in the a.m.
so i settle on mexican
to be delivered for me
show dad their menu online
does he want anything?
he doesn't want to look
at my laptop screen
says he wants a taco
i say soft shell or hard,
soft, he says.
i say bean, beef, or chicken.
chicken, he says.
and when the food arrives
20 minutes later
dad bits into his soft shell chicken taco
"this shell is so thin,
half as thin as others 've had,
what a great shell it is."

07.27.06
(written 07.28.06--3:18 p.m.)

with a huff and a puff
come and blow me down
we can show this picture in sensearound
but what is the ending going to be
can we see, can we see.

07.28.06
(written 07.31.06—5:14 p.m.)

i’m not used to seeing you everyday anymore
but got used to it for seven days
and now the eighth
and yre going home
you call me from there
say to call you later
and i do.

07.29.06
(written 07.31.06—5:05 p.m.)

(sing)

make a few friends
but they’re no help
powerbook and me
on my bed by ourselves

two hours later
wake in the middle of the night
make no friends again
go to bed by myself.

07.30.06
(written 07.31.06--4:52 p.m.)

(sing to that liz phair song off exile
that i can’t remember and don’t feel like googling right now)

tell me
will you come sing this song
tell me
where did you put yr sarong

and i don’t have to worry anymore
it’s done, it’s done, and now i know the score

so you can walk around like a little whore
i like you so, i like you so

07.31.06--4:47 p.m.

nathaniel hates leftovers
and i like nathaniel more and more
because nathaniel hates leftovers
and i eat his pizza and drink his lemonade throughout the day.

The July Project 2006