acetaminophen

there are so many other words I'd have used

let's get real

it's still thanksgiving

you know thanksgiving, the whole day you're thinking how you want to break up with your boyfriend. do you ever look at yourself

and not out of self depreciation, or self pity

you look and you think, now honestly

let's be real

how do you like me? what have I for you? and there truly is something, then, isn't there. isn't that something. so driving around new orleans on a cold day, and tearing up with headcold, and disgust and fear and hate for someone to love, and the streets are bare and cold. I like that everyone seems to have a place. too many places for us. it took hours to finish the cranberries, the green bean casserole. aunt sue always calls them greenie beanies, which I'd forgotten all day. 

I'm going to wake up tomorrow    a  new   woman   I think

I can be so mean, I can be so very ugly

  you're right about that

a year ago today

we weren't yet listening to born to die by lana del rey, but I am now, and we did soonafter. it was right before christmas, days before and I was making screenprints in my room and it was 17 degrees outside in december. I remember walking from Gayulz Club down state st. to the hardware store where I purchased painters rags and who knows. I was almost crying, but it was sunny. this song really makes me remember that feeling. I had just been abandoned, the heart was sagging in my chest with loss. I remember that so much. but one year ago today (it's thanksgiving today, but a year ago it wasn't, but say last thanksgiving is a year ago today) I was too hungover, I think I threw up. I think andy left Gayulz Club to go to thanksgiving dinner with sun blood stories and I was left huddled on the couch. nickey made me scrambled eggs in coconut oil which is all I wanted, but I didn't tell her that the brown part of the eggs made me feel sick. I hugged andy around his waist and I urged him to come back soon. I wanted him to just hold onto me forever, thanks. 

we had gone last night one year ago today to brittany's SAD party, which was pretty fun, andy & I played piano and I danced with brett and nickey & brett & andy & I all walked home to Gayulz Club in the 17 degrees and we separated and remet at home upstairs. then it was the next day and I was too drunk for thanksgiving and honestly, I feel just about the same right now as I felt one year ago today. well?

what now

what did I do today. I went to westwego, la to the department of motor vehicles, it's in the smallest building and you have to walk around to the back where you're surprised to find it isn't at all the david lynchian experience you'd hoped for but a quiet smalltown city hall experience, endless waiting room all quiet with one or two voices on a cellphone and then the waves of murmur, people getting up to go because their ticket says J85 when we're only at J16, let's be honest. I was trying to read this ernest hemingway story called up in michigan when dan came traipsing through to say it wasn't going to happen today. or any other day, I didn't say. Let's go get a thanksgiving po boy, he sighed. and then he got on the phone with his folks and said he'd need a new birth certificate. this is the first time I heard the voice of his father. he had a nice florida drawl I could tell. sometimes I can taste it on dan, and it's like beach and it quicksands one in. sometimes I don't trust it, which shouldn't be, in fact I distrust that I distrust. no matter. but we didn't, we went to his house, we had to, he's getting $ in the mail and his peacoat, its 49 degrees outside, it's like burgeoning wintertime, louisiana style. it's alright with me, it really is... but for some reason I can't fathom it. I am a hard-to-please. I am like the version of me I regretted years ago. I watch myself with the hands on the wheel, no traffic to speak of. how hungry am I, will there be a second chance for a thanksgiving po boy? is it thanksgiving yet? 

I took some offbrand nyquil about 15 minutes ago. My left nasal cavity cleared itself. 

I went to the thansksgiving po boy place, I thought I'd get us one. I even made danny call them to order it ahead of time but guess what, me & everyone else. so I drove on over. I realized as I got on orleans avenue that I knew where I was, connected the 7th ward to treme to bayou st. john to mid-city to uptown. I keep blowing my nose against this hawaiianprint skirt I've been meaning to dye olive green. a sexy beyonce knowles song called speechless comes on the headspeakers.

The line for thanksgiving po boys snaked through the restaurant. way more people in line, reading menus, applying lipgloss, smartphoning than those eating po boys at tables. it felt almost empty of spectators, just mad paraders. I left. I wasn't even mad, but I did leave, it was like the dmv all over again but without numbers. this is a terrible lovesong but it's straight r&b '93 style but who wants it like that right now?

I went to rouses. I liked it immediately because no one cared about parking places anymore, everyone was shoved together against the yellow lined drive and I knew it was not the legal place to park but that no one would do a thing. it was a small triumph, the first of this holiday season. it's strange to think that I might have moved to nebraska. I almost never think about that anymore

In rouses I got cranberries which were floating in a red pool, scooped them up with a slotted spoon. some satsumas, couldn't find a fucking orange! save for a bag from- get this- california! can you imagine? with florida just around the corner? 

The drungs are starting to kick in. left nostril totally clear, right, hmmm... I lit the end of my hippie smoke and another shitty beyonce knowles song comes on- rather die young

Then I went back to dan's and I drank tea and we talked, I laid on his couch actually and we ate all these cookies his mom sent to him. I'm sorry I'm such a sobby I mean snobby person sometimes.

Anyway I hadn't had anything to drink since I had this one beer on sunday when we saw the puppet show about the history of the red light district of new orleans, which was amazing. and I only had a la 31 roasted dark ale and so tonight I dropped aja at her place with the firepit for tomorrow's feastparty. she made me a hottoddy and it was great... I only worry I might not be able to taste thanksgiving. but there are worse things.