i am a grrl (a prose poem)
       ----------------------------------------------------------

       > katja [email protected] wrote :
       >>
       >> while trying to instill
       >> some order on my unruly cd collection,

       Ruswa <[email protected]> wrote:
       >
       > During a discussion among friends regarding our
       > own habits and those of wives and girlfriends, it
       > turned out that in our sample of 5 participants
       > and 4 partners, the men religiously keep CDs &
       > records in alphabetical order, where as the
       > filing system for the women tends to be, shall we
       > say - haphazard.
       >
       > Has anyone else come across this phenomenon?

       Clearly I am a grrl.  At the present time, less so
       a grrl than the one who so vivaciously performed a
       combined Cherokee/Amish/Mormon
       religious/ceremonial/astronomical/civic rite in
       her living room -- that's where CDs are being kept
       disorganized in her house, within an imaginary box
       within the larger cube that is the living room.

       This rite was presaged with the long-brewing need
       for vacuuming, acted upon with the purchase of a
       microfiltering Hoover, and a thorough and
       enjoyable vacuuming.  It was then calculated with
       Tycho Brahe's precision, though the calculations are
       at this point unclear as to their purpose, using
       the position of the Sun, the ray it cast through
       the break in the miniblinds, the calendar time as
       kept by a very precise Mondaine Swiss Timing watch,
       and the known facts about the local (Chicago)
       architecture and street layout.  Even the
       magnetic field diversion from true north was
       noted and recorded.  By the way, it's different now.

       Then, with manic intuition and finesse of recall
       thrown in for good measure, fortified with reading
       up on the Pima Indians in the Southwest Volume 10,
       Encyclopedia of the American Indian, published by
       Smithsonian in large format in cloth and obtained
       at the Chaco Canyon gift shop together with Volume
       11 (the others were not of interest then; *regret*),
       the rite commenced and proceeded to be titrated
       through the cold abandon of completely impervious
       to damage self-esteem and gripped in the precise
       euphoria of freely casting about -- this way and
       that -- up and about (but not around the penny
       altar or the choctaw, or the canyonlands postcard,
       or the dried roses, et cetera) only the best
       naturally brewed soy souce, aged one year,
       President's Choice, though not my truly best
       stuff, which remained still sealed in the fridge,
       from People's Republic of China, bought in the
       Chicago Chinatown -- then pulling down all my
       bookshelves, all of them, yes, all 6 down.  Down.
       CD's down.  More soy sauce?  Yes!

       That's all there was to that.  The bookshelves
       needed replacement anyway; the wall, patching and
       repainting.  And everything was too much same for
       too long, and too much paper.  So... besides, I
       forgot where I put certain CDs and they needed
       reorganizing.  So I am wiping them off and
       thinking of places where I can get replacements
       for broken plastic or do without polyesterene
       altogether.

       Tonight I will do more wiping.  Tomorrow is for
       laundry, just becaue one may meet a nice grrl in
       the laundry room.  I have more clean laundry my
       ancestors bestowed upon me when I was sick than
       bushel-bucket capacity to carry when it is soiled.

       On Friday they are bringing in the Baldwin
       Acrosonic upright, built in Cincinnati in 1966,
       reconditioned here (good year, says the master
       reconditioner), which I picked out and paid for
       and aranged to have brought in on my way to work,
       the work I do not have to be at for two weeks.
       The piano has a dazzling sound.  I will play it.
       I demand to have a piano any pianist will like.

       Yes.  Clearly I am a grrl.  The fuck out of my
       face unless I ask for it.


               Marek Lugowski
               in 1998, quiescent, after an acute mania
               Chicago, Illinois