Friday, January 26, 2007

scents


I don't get the whole scented thing. I've bought perfume twice in my life; once, because the Rite Aid across from gay safeway was going out of business, and they were practically giving it away, and I felt in a girly mood and it seemed like a girly thing to have. The other time it was for someone who collected perfumes. But when you put it on, it just evaporates and dissipates after a few hours, and honestly, I just prefer people to have no scent al all. If given the choice, I buy the unscented version of everything. We had a few scent-challenged patients back in T or C, and more than once I had to drop what I was doing and go draw them because our phlebotomist was too scented. They generally are fussy people in general, the perfume-sensitive folk. What I don't understand is how we allowed smokers to get away with fouling public air for so long. If my mom had just been more considerate about her smoking when I was growing up, I wouldn't have been so cloistered and socially stunted. Those were my constant battles with her-- the length of my hair and her smoking around me. It just amazes me out here that I can come home after going to a club and not have my clothes reek of cigarette smoke.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

standing on the ave maria shrine


i love religious artifacts
but i hate religion
here i slip
around some universal corner
of varnished emblems and seals
the karmic, the cloistered
into an ave maria alcove
is there room in this
vagina?

Monday, January 08, 2007

crap out



everyone's a crapout
everyone's a fake
everyone takes the wiggle route
everyone uses boilerplate
everyone doles out short shrift
everyone pays up late
everyone says the check's in the mail
no one shows up for a date.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Which are less likeable, the Voortrekkers or the Sooners?


the camera may do justice to laughter
the child pornographer knows this as he poses his daughter
the yearbook photog assumes this, in fact it's practically his motto
puppies and kittens shall lead us to slaughter.

the camera may also degrade sorrow
the actress blubs on command, her emotions are borrowed
the photojournalist risks life and limb for pulitzer grist
while all photos are by nature sad, because we grow old.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

nosocomial


Where it comes from
nobody knows
Broken knee caps
busted toes
Flowing IVs
TKO
Deadly dirt
I don't know
I sing the body septic
pus, your favorite quaff
Scraps of precision
lease one new
Lines of scarlet
veins of blue
I don't know
moaning from the hall
Stupid fucking medicine
nosocomial

your


YOUR SCHOOLNAME HERE: ELBOW DIRT
YOUR SHAMEFUL SCHOOL NICKNAME HERE: KURT COBAIN JR.
YOUR TATTOO PARLOR MISTEP, YOUR BABOON-ASSED BEACON
YOU'RE DEEDING ME AN ELLIPSIS, YOU'RE LETTING ME HANG.

Monday, January 01, 2007

ghosts of a trip 15 years ago


Wednesday night I was tooling around Manhattan and Brooklyn in a tour van with the rest of my laboratory instrument instruction class. Again, the Bay Area dominated, not just in numbers but also yakkiness; there were Doreen and I or course, and a guy who came independently who lives in SF but works in Burlingame, down the peninsula, at another Sutter hospital. So out of 12 attendees 3 were Bay Areans. But not Bay Aryans. Add to that The Primate Guy from Everett WA (runs the lab at an evil military-industrial-academial primate research facility) and we made up The West Coast Contingent. The tour guide basically let us direct the tour, and of course we all wanted to go to Ground Zero. He let us out and we all walked around for a while. Pretty spooky at night. A lot bigger that I thought it would be. We also made stops in a little park under the Brooklyn Bridge in Brooklyn, at the Jersey Shore State Park (to look at the Statue of Liberty from afar) and Little Italy, where I wandered into this bizarre little trattoria where I got a cheese slice, authentic NY pizza pie. I'm sorry, but my local North Beach Pizza beats it hands down. And of course we drove through Times Square, Central Park, and all the other typical places. We were all falling asleep on the ride back to Parsippany (including the driver-- I was sitting next to him and saw him nodding, and poised myself to grab the steering wheel if he crossed the center line). I was surprised how much I remembered of NYC from my trip there 15 years ago.