Cognizant

I call "Dad, dad," but Dad doesn't answer and I feel strange. I know it's his hearing, I see him, he's right there watching TV, cognizant, cognizant. If I'd screamed, "Dad," he'd turn my way, cognizant, as if I'd whispered and would ask what I wanted, cognizant. These are the shortest, coldest days.

I watched the original Walking Tall with Dad last night and couldn't tell if the film was taking itself seriously, until the end. The bitter end: how could an ending not be tragic? How could it not be unrelentingly cruel? The credits rolled. I felt sick. Dad's eyes were open, wide open, and cognizant, but he was so quiet and still; I hoped he was breathing. What else could we do? There was a strong, cheesy smell coming up from the carpet. We were cognizant of it all.

If I hadn't killed Tony, would I remember him now?
What if I hurt him a thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times, but he was alive and well, would I remember him now?
Would I think about him, in flashes, whenever the world got quiet?
Would I remember him now, after having watched Walking Tall , sitting beside Dad, would I?
Would Tony say, "Curt, Curt." Would he say, "Curt, Curt," if I hadn't killed him?
Would I have noticed something different about him, on the inside, somehow less magical, colder and less hopeful, meaner.
He was so full of hope when I killed him.
Would he be full of hope now?
Would I grow tired of him?
Would he grow tired of me?
Would he try a little less to be a friend?
Would I try a little more?
Would we be cognizant of these changes?
Would I say, "Tony, Tony," and would I say "Tony, Tony," and would he say, "You're killing me, Curt."

I spotted two owls a few days ago before the sun set. They were large and beautiful. I stood below them, moved. One owl took off, flapped wildly to another tree.

The other struggled to keep up.

2 Years!

Guy and I used to try and watch movies together. Watching movies isn't necessarily a very hard thing to do, but Guy and I could never make it through a whole movie for some reason. We would always get a ways into something, and then he would fall asleep and I would go home, or he would decide that he didn't want to finish for whatever reason. He used to say he knew whether a movie was great or not by whether he could make it through a second sitting without being bored, and if he could, that meant it was exceptional. But he rarely could sit through any movies a second time, and he never wanted to watch anything new because he would get angry if a movie was really bad and lots of movies are very bad and he always said it wasn't worth the stress to find something good. So we rewatched lots of movies he remembered being okay in the 80's that I probably missed and then quitting and starting all over on something else. That happened two hours into Amadeus. And some part of the way through Broadcast News. And that was how I got into Breaking Away, but I had to finish it at home. Zelig, too.

Sometimes, it's nice to start things. And it's also good to finish what you start. Some things have a natural ending, some things you have to work hard to stop them, and some things just keep going because whoever started it is stubborn or stupid or both. Two years ago, on this day, I started writing about butter. I don't write so much anymore--not on this blog, anyway--but the Betterbutterblog still exists, and that's something.

Happy anniversary, Betterbutterblog.

Euonym

In the olden days, way back when, people were given last names because of their occupation. Woodman was a man who worked with wood. Wheelman was a man who worked with wheels. Goodman, well, he was just a good man. If I lived back then, I wonder if my name would have been Curt Buttermacher. Except, I haven't been making too much butter lately. Maybe, my name would have been Curt Sitzmann. Or, Curt Nada. Or, Curt Houndlessmann.

I had a dream the other night, where Warden was biting me, but I still loved him. Can you believe that nearly two years have passed since I began blogging? I can't. Nothing really changes in prison. You wake up, you walk around, you do some things, you go to sleep, and then you wake up again. But outside of prison...it's almost too much. Even my handwriting is different! Can you believe that!

I just wish, sometimes, that I knew, without a doubt, I was a winner. I wish I could walk around knowing that I won. Just sometimes though because if you win all the time, winning doesn't mean a thing. I almost pity Curt Winner, but not too much, because Curt Winner is still a notch above Curt Jimenez. Like this post. It isn't great, but if all my posts were great, what kind of blog would this be? Boring, imho.

But it would be nice, for once, to feel like this:

Some Other Person

Here, I went back and looked at what I posted last year on this day. 10/28/2010. Can you believe that was the same person who is writing this post now? It is the same person, it must be, and you can probably believe that without too much effort, but I am not so sure sometimes. That Curt had so much vim and vigor, blogging daily--or almost daily--and working two jobs, and caring for two large dogs, and paying bills and living on his own.

How wild is that? Where is that Curt now? Is he gone forever? Why are things so much more difficult now? Is it all just chemistry? Do I have a slow leak? Do I need therapy? Drugs?

But am I so different now? Is this way of thinking just revisionist history? Were things ever easy for Curt G. Jimenez?

I suppose not. For me, maybe there are just degrees of hardness. Sometimes things are hard like a diamond, and sometimes--if rarely--things are easy like Sunday morning.

Reboot. Reboot. Reboot. Reboot. For a day or two, I get it together, I have a plan, I execute. And then it is gone, and I reboot. Reboot. Sisyphus, bottom of the mountain, Present Curt, I have seen the future and it is just as s**tty as the past only your the back pain is more intense and you start drinking earlier in the day.

I am losing. I don't even notice my motivational posters anymore.

I should say something positive. I should take some fiery breaths. Here is something:

Perhaps I expect myself to be this, when I am really that. A lot of people have a difficult go of things at points in there lives. Think of Scott Fitzgerald! And R.P. McMurphy! And Dickinson! She shall lift us up:

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,	5
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

October

One October afternoon, Mom drove me and my sister to a field of pumpkins to choose pumpkins to carve. A man came up to Mom and said, "These aren't for picking," and my sister and I stopped searching the ground, and the man said, "You see, this is private property." Somewhere, a gunshot went off. Some birds flew up from a nearby tree and Mom held our hands as we crossed the field and got into the car. She drove to the grocery store and we picked white pumpkins on a shelf of straw because they were the only ones left. The seeds inside were large and when we baked them, they tasted like nothing. She was emptying , slowly, always crossing, it seemed, into private property.

Today, my sister stopped by while I was at the gas station. There were small, white pumpkins on top of the TV and on the radiator cover by the back door. There were pumpkins on the kitchen table, and two, one on each side of a vanilla scented candle with an image of a snowman in a blizzard on the glass that held it, and there was a pumpkin on my dresser with a note--

Hey Curt,

Stopped by. Hope you're well.
Dad kept talking about soup.
You remember when mom
took us to that pumpkin patch?
Call me sometime.

Love,
Sis

The Worst Betrayal

the poop

was lying there,

still and steaming.

when Stella,

with obvious intention,

kicked it.

all over the leg of the one,

who gave her so much.

but i guess it wasn't enough.

if she was trying

to cover something up,

she was unsuccessful.

Exterminator

I've never read Remembrance of Things Past. Things pass. Things are remembered. But it is the book I've used on the cockroaches in the house. Early mornings, there they are, lazy and unafraid, or maybe surfacing because they know I will drop the book on them. Vol. I. And they've committed to dying. I give them a chance. I say, "Run for it," and put my foot close by, to give it a reason it can see, maybe even feel. Can it feel the displaced air from my footfalls? Maybe I should read Remembrance of Things Past so that it is less of a weapon and more of a literary device, so that I do not crush the cockroaches with it, or I do, but with more of a purpose. That I've killed them with some device I despise. Vague pronouns, everywhere, I don't like them too much.

After I've done the deed, it looks like I've just dropped a book on the floor. It is there, on the floor, and I am looking at it. I lift it up, anticipating or hoping that the cockroach will run behind the refrigerator, but that is never the case. I turn the book over, and there it is, crushed and juicy, a leg dangling and certainly dead. I wipe it off with a paper towel but there is some remnant it leaves behind--it is a silvery patch on the navy blue cover. It is one of many.

The sound of a book falling in the morning and hitting the ground is louder than you'd think. But the sound is abbreviated. Then it is replaced with the sound of coffee brewing. But early in the morning, the sound sticks with you like a sore, when it is in that empty space before coffee it carves a notch in your skull.

Today, I returned Remembrance of Things Past to the library. I will never read that book. I look for a bigger book, one with a spine as thick as the width of the book. It is Atlas Shrugged. This book, when it lands on a bug, I bet it will open up to a gray page with closely knitted text and I bet it will sound less...heavy. Less...despairing. Then I can go on with my day. Then I can remember the page I read in Atlas Shrugged as I picked up the book. Then I can feel more productive and less guilty. Then I can feel less guilty. Yes.