1/14/05

 

i am taking a class again this semester. At first i almost didn’t take it because i am poor and one damn class is $700.00, but my mom helped me out, and so i ended up going. 

 

i went to class after working a full day, with a Franken-toe, a yeast infection, and feeling fat.  i gimped into class kind of dreading the “civil war” literature we were reading. 

 

i left inspired. Invigorated. A little intimidated. So very glad i decided to take it.  This is school again. i am excited but scared, and i think if i do well in this class that i am smart and capable. And i had almost forgotten how in love with words i really am.

 

As Charles Bukowski said “these words I write keep me from total madness.”

 

Ari is leaving. i think i will say this every time i write.  Just so that i actually deal with it.  Last time i thought he was leaving, he didn’t. This time, he will. He is going to pack his car and drive away into the ever stretching expanse of America. He is going to leave me, neigh, us, behind to go on about our lives. The past two years will seem like a vivid dream i couldn’t quite control.  So, i have to get used to it. To keep repeating it. Ari is leaving.

 

“The words i write keep me from total madness.”

 

And i am going to join Curves Gym.  i am ready to treat myself right. i want to be ugly but smart and skinny. Well, okay, not skinny: but not, not… this.  i am ready to at least try.

 

And i have to read two articles and a whole book by Wednesday. And i am convinced no one will want me after Ari leaves. i feel old and useless. Who needs 25 when there is 18 and 21 to pick from? Who needs me when there are pretty girls, and good girls, and smart girls?

 

But if nothing else, and if no one else comes along, i will have school and writing and reading. Chuck’s new book and all of Hemingway’s old ones. That d runk misogynist will get me through this. If nothing else, i will always have a pen and something to write on. Be it paper or my own skin.

 

“These words I write keep me from total madness.”