Slounge
Fucking knee is killing me. Have a pronounced limp dragging myself out to the slounge.
Solarium if you’re Cyd mom and Lois mom, my adoptive parents, lounge if you’re me. Compromise with slounge. Wasn’t designed to be a bedroom. But it’s mine. Windows jut out, a glass observatory, onto the glacial/sketchy world of Maple Street. Desk has the following items on it:
1. teal notebook;
2. ignored homework, Advanced Calc, do Monday on the way to school;
3. Victorian terrarium displaying Jade Queen & Belfry of Doom (will explain in due course);
4. Japanese manga Edition #1 of City, March 23, 2017, Keiichi Arawi, of course recommended by Horace; so far pretty good;
5. baseball signed by the 1992 World Series winning Blue Jays (gift from my dad when I took up the game at seven);
6. dragon pen; and
7. blue lighter.
Special-ordered black blinds atop every window. Capability of complete darkness or glare of the sun. Shut it all out, let it all in. Things are important. Desk in front of the angled windows - especially the small sliding window, the smoking window. Now wide open. Previously-stashed ashtray now unabashedly on my desk. Bit of a gale out there.
C&L are away at a seminar. Tell you about them later. Whoever “you” are?
BTW, what does an unpronounced limp look like? Regular walking with completely hidden pain? 100% that’s a thing, un-pronounced limping people. No one knows their pain. Yet limp they do, unseen/misunderstood.
When I was 14, Dr. Tzu exclaimed, “This notebook’s just for you, Jack.” She really did “exclaim.” No other word for it. “Said,” just wouldn’t cut it; sorry, Stephen King.
But what’s to write? Putting words together. I’m a ballplayer, not a writer like my dead dad. If I was, though, I’d write cool stuff. Magic worlds, shit like that. Definitely not poetic crap.
(*insert one of Horace Zézé’s slam poems for example of poetic crap. Actually, he’s a genius. Who hates me.)
MOVEMENT INTERLUDE: Enter bathroom, delicately slide off jeans. Take half a box of Kleenex to wipe up blood; spray antiseptic; bandage/tape knee; throw pissy/bloody jeans in wash cycle; return to slounge, don fresh jeans. Yeah, I used the word “don,” go fuck yourself, deal with it.
Explain about the piss later. If you’re lucky.
This notebook. Teal pseudo-leather cover. Thick. Probably cost $23.89 (with tax). Shrinks buy bulk from Costco. Dr. T has a storage locker of teal notebooks, couches, boxes of Kleenex for all the patients she makes cry. A theory of mine.
This godforsaken slounge is freezing. God has forsaken this slounge.
EXTRACT from Dear FIN by Andrea Layne Black
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