chapter 2 of how I got elected prez of my dorm

Waldo to Jola, 2 April 1980 [factcheck year]

56 Cummings Rd. #4
Brookline, MA 02146

Jola, 4th Floor
Freeman Hall, Wellesley College
Wellesley, MA 02181

Dear Jola & 4th floor people, Due to the fact that people at the house all contributed to buying the refreshments - that is they reimbursed me - I would make a profit were I to accept this check. The alternative is for me to turn this over to various people. That would involve too much work, though.

You all provided the space, food, music, and most importantly, the concept. The least we could do was provide beer and wine.

Having been in an overly relaxed state, I think I forgot to thank you for inviting us. In any case, thank-you so much for a fine evening. I'm sure the π guys would be (very) amenable to any similar events in the future. Gratefully, Waldo

***

Dear Reader,
I dated him for a delightful year. Hugs & kisses. He was a bebop-o spirit all the way, and I'm sure it informed his future practice. I have a packet of his poetic love confetti. Not a g. or n. at all, in my book. And as I go through my special reserved manila envelope of his leaves, I see that he was a secret santa, too.

Re: a birthday, perhaps

Where do we sleep? Check under the head of the ______.

I was very bad at math & algebra. Waldo was helpful.

Why don't you look in the x .
x = what we read

But I need
two of them"
thinx Jola
bella.
"All (real) answers are
complete and only
real answers can be found
in Windows"
thinks Waldo

***
(okay, this post is a mess
but I know it can be fixed later)

personal evolution

Belle to Katya, 23 June 1981

Dear Katya, I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to get in touch with you when I was in Connecticut; I was there for only a few days, and worked about twelve hours a day for most of them (at Playtex International in Stamford). I had really wanted to talk to you or see you before I left… for California!

Yes, indeed, I’ve made the move, and right now I’m writing this letter to you from a rather boring temporary secretarial job in San Francisco. I moved out here two weeks ago, to Oakland, and I’m living with B. Co-existing is probably the way to put it, for there is no romantic or amorous entanglement between us. Not that he wasn’t expecting any; he was, but I’d put my foot down against it months ago, and he’s slowly coming round to appreciate the joys of platonic living.

***
oh brother, just a little pit stop on the wild phantasmagoric journey of missteps after

how long, dear reader, do you suppose the platonic living lasted?
he was a really good guy (hugs & kisses) - but so not The One
ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES
yeah, but life is rough that way

***

"Like, you need to have them be able to go toe-to-toe with you intellectually. But don't they also have to have a vagina you could pitch a tent on and just camp out on for, like, a weekend? Doesn't that have to be there, too? The Joshua Tree of vaginas? ...I'll be happy when I close out this life-partner thing. Think of how much mental capacity I'm using to meet the right person so I can stop giving a fuck about it."

I don't know, what John Mayer said - makes sense to me.

And memo to Arianna - douchiest? WTF is that supposed to mean? Haven't we evolved past such baroque sequestered terms?

Ash Wednesday

a dove flew overhead
light reddish-orange drops on snow by my car
a man in parking lot says "slippery"
I sign my name (first name only) in the
book and write "slippery"
I have taken care not to fall on my walk
though it was slippery and a couple of times
I slipped
Keep to the path
I thought of that poor luger who died
He looked frightened, in the photo I saw of him.
He was frightened.
Dominoes.
Cross-country ski tracks in snow.
I felt as though someone had laid out the
path for me, made it safe. The mail has come.
D says the whole universe has arranged itself
around me. He says this sarcastically.
Seems so, I laugh. Seems I have the mojo. Who knew?
It's like a Philip K. Dick novel, he says.
If you say so. I never read one. You did.
You and I plays on the radio.
Was that you in the window across the way
that night the pines were dancing?
I saw a man - you - in the window looking
back at me. I stepped back into the shadows
of the kitchen and continued to watch the
trees dance, reach and dance.
I wasn't frightened - not that time.
Interdependence.
On my way out of the parking lot
trying to get out the car lost traction.
Slippery. I don't know what to do, I said.
The man with the skis and his companion came to my aid.
Just don't give it too much gas, she said - we'll push.
They set me free. Thanks, I said.
Thank you, passing strangers.

I'm no saint

... cc: Kirsten Gillebrand (memo to a.m. Rick on KZE: hello, she's the freakin United States Senator from the Empire State of NY - so pronounce her last name right, already...

Gillibrand.

Keersten.

sky is still blue

my camera's busted - figures
I would have preferred to post the image of a journal page, undated, last year sometime

***
"yearning"
idea of the "sacred"
yearning is dangerous
we usually hide our yearnings
to offer people a glimpse you
can get labeled as, say, needy
we are meant to show ourselves as
self-sufficient
one week I missed catechism
I asked Sister Dolores what I had missed
she said, we talked about interdependence
what's that, I said? I tried to understand.
But I just couldn't. I had no frame of ref.
And I was a great student.
I asked my mother, and she scoffed at the word.
My family is all alienated from one another
They scoff at interdependence - their boundaries
are moats, high walls, and iron gates
I'm the needy, yearning one
Longing for interdependence - family, tribe, clan, kin.

***
not me, and a different Sister Dolores - but the same spirit

Sister Dolores

There's a small fragment that's been kicking around my mind for decades, my journal for a few months, and maybe now the day's arrived to set it down here. I'll do it poetry quicktime style, though I'm not really aiming for poetry, more like a b.m. And I mean that in the best sense ever. Anyway, I was never much of a churchgoer, or catechism attender. I lived next door to a convent. That was to the north of our house. To the west, up a steep hill was a church. To the south, the sun. Sometimes too much. To the east, railroad lines - no but first neighbors across the street - including an elderly woman who liked to drive a red car - then the Amtrak & Conrail lines (then) - and on the other side of that some very mysterious factory building with neon letters that at night in winter, leaves off the trees, read FAG, I kid you not. I remember one of the first times, if not the first time, you drove me back home and kissed me goodnight - and there were those horrible letters staring us in the face! I winced with embarrassment, but you didn't care, and I suppose we both laughed and kissed and that was that.

That so wasn't where I was going when I first started out but I haven't had coffee yet. I'm going to hit Send even though Dear Editor is probably like, gawd, why does she insist on giving it away for free all the time? Yeah, Babcia was right.

Dearest John

je comprends, dearest
memo to scott murphy: my mind is so much way quicker than the f***** slow connections I can do these days on the f****** unacceptably slow & unreliable internet connections

back to darling

oh f***
I forgot my original point

cc: Kirsten Gillebrand (memo to a.m. Rick on KZE: hello, she's the freakin United States Senator from the Empire State of NY - so pronounce her last name right, already, and she's no longer just from "greenport, ny" not that there's anything wrong with that

Dearest John, I completely forgot what the "je comprends," where I started out from, refers to.

Kisses, my darling dearest, wherever you are, this county, the next county, county lines, gardens, sky, parades, oh my goodness,

wherever you are - there I am

ow!