sorry – Livesay Writing

Hi.

Coffee: Fair Trade Five County Espresso Blend, Trader Joe’s Brand

I woke up at 4:45 am. The light outside my window had gotten brighter, or at least it seemed so. I tried to go back to sleep but the day had me already. I lay in bed for an hour. I got up and brewed coffee like I always do. It was still dark. It was still-dark. I saw the lights my roommates had left on, the empty cups on the dining table. I watched dawn fighting with itself over the pine trees. Eventually, the coffee got hot enough for me to pour some. I was still in my underwear, damn close to naked, vulnerable.

When I put the white shirt on I thought there was lint inside. I reached in, grabbed it, and took it out. But the lint was softer than it should be, a little cool, and bits came off like dried sweat. My blood shot. I threw something on the carpet and took the shirt off. My hands were shaking, lips a desert, I padded in white sock circles until I calmed down. Finally, I turned the overheads on. I crept toward the closet on hands and knees. There was lint there, fuzz there, everything bushy and brown, and then I saw the spider.

Your body is a mottled thing like that cats that come visit me some mornings. Your head is tucked, legs balled, abdomen split where I bit you with my sharp fingers. You were dead, of course, but some of you was still moving, bio-electric magic, shocks god gave to salt-mud a billion years ago. I took some white tissue and lifted you like a flower petal. You could have been a dancer. You could have weaved webs through my dark-bare closet. You are the first thing I’ve killed knowingly since I stopped eating animals. I didn’t mean to kill you, but your yellow-sweat blood has my blame.

Sorry spider. I guess there wasn’t room for the both of us.

Currently Reading: LaRose, Louise Erdrich; I’m liking this more. I’ve been reading slow, a few pages here and there. It’s definitely contemporary literature, but the characters are grabbing me. Two sisters giving vocab lessons in a perfume parlor. A balding dumpster thief.

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

“In general, a common house spider is harmless to humans. However, the mere sight of a spider is enough to startle most people and cause unease. Their messy webs also create the need for extra cleaning.” – Ad on the Orkin Website for Spider Removal

Hi.

Coffee: Organic Sumatra Blend, Trader Joe’s Brand

I walked into my apartment last night and the TV was on, the kitchen cooking, a friend on the couch. “Hey,” I said.

“Well hello,” he said.

A couple months ago, I’d clapped for his wedding. Today, though, L was laid-off.

We sprung for Chinese and I bought brandy. I was the only one who had any, but I needed a drink. It had been a hard week for all of us. We watched shows, played games, lived loosely, I was happy L was over. In between the happy, he told me how they sent him home early, wouldn’t pay out his scheduled shifts. He told me that just two days ago his dad was also laid-off, and we don’t know if it was the stress or other demons but his father was admitted to the ER after the news. Diabetes; a family thing; I watch L and think of my own father, my own health, his health, the Southern tan that men get on their bellies and women on their forearms, we’ve got to eat – a lot – to love ourselves.

Night grew on and I kept drinking. It was cheap, warm, mellow. I thought about four months ago when I lost my bookstore job. I thought about three months ago when I finished the best draft of my first novel. I thought about two months ago when I asked a woman to marry me right before she moved out of the state, knowing she’d say no, loving her all the same. I thought about one month ago when I was inducted to a strange financial world that’s got one foot in small-town community, one foot in digital predation.

I thought about a lot of things. One thing I didn’t think about, though, was this blog. I didn’t post.

Sometimes I feel like sugar tacky. A rolling pin, a marble table, I’m spread four corners thin. For the first time since February, I missed a day posting my Coffee Log. This morning, that’s been a bit of a wake-up, even though I got up late. It’s easy to let the mechanics of life get in front of your dreams.

So what does that mean for Livesay Writing? Well, probably not much. I’m dropping my current reads. I’m going to commit myself to a schedule of reading the best regarded, best selling, award winning fiction books published last year. If I’m going to join that market someday, I need to know it. Besides that, we’ll see.

L spread his big arms on our couch. He spat breath at the ceiling fan. “What’s that look for?”

“I’ve been through a lot this week,” he said.

I felt that like it was my own marrow. I gotta remember to remind him to keep his dreams in focus when everything else is falling apart.

Currently Reading:

History of Wolves, Emily Fridlund (2017 Man Booker Prize Shortlist)

Fund the Coffee Log 🙂 – https://ko-fi.com/livesaywriting

“Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?” – George Bernard Shaw

Tag: sorry

Coffee Log, Day 165

Coffee Log, Day 115