i am a grrl (a prose poem)
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> 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
