Fuck, Like, Totally Random

These days, I cannot construct a sentence. Even a whole poem, which doesn't have to be sentences, eludes me. The f-word has become an interjection like er or um, like like.

Just a couple weeks ago, school (I am both student and teacher) ended. I submitted my final twelve manuscript pages and three book and magazine reviews. I graded my last 30 papers and some straggling rewrites. I've not entered my grades yet, so I'm feeling no sense of closure. Still, my former skills having to do with assembling words in a thoughtful order have vanished.

My part-time job, which is good, requires proofreading. Though I could—and should—I rarely rewrite the sentences. I fix them. I change utilize to use and feel that's half the battle won, even if I can't eliminate functionality; I recognize that my own functionality as a software training-course editor requires I keep some of the tech-speak. I discovered that I enjoy sitting with other human beings in a big room for long periods of time. I don't know if I like working outside the home because it's actually enjoyable or because it's temporary. But I like the dirty-joke-telling aspect of it. I laugh a lot at work. I sense it annoys some people, who think I must not be working hard if I'm cackling. I am. That's one thing I can promise you: If I commit, I will do it with all I have.

Today is Christmas, and I'm thinking about writing. Every sentence starts and ends with fuck. It's like adding "in bed" to the fortune cookies; fuck isn't written down, but it's implied.

I probably don't write lately because much of what I say these days lacks insight. "Is 12:00 too early for a beer?" I asked a friend on the white top. (He went home and told his wife—in a concerned way, though I think he wouldn't admit it.)

"Awesome," I say when I respond to someone's work, particularly a photograph. (Fortunately I haven't lapsed into "nice capture" yet.) "Dude!" I've taken to calling people. "This doesn't sing to me," I say when I can't get into a poem.

My body is sitting here, at this desk, getting older and more decrepit by the second. My hands are asleep. My feet are on top of my desk. I'm typing with my right hand between my legs. I have a hot pack wrapped around my lower back. I'm squinting.

But my brain is a teenager's. I'm jonesing for the next Bahhhhhhhb (Bob Schneider for the uninitiated) show (I already have tickets, though it's four months away). I've even decided that my spelling of his name, Bahhhhhhhb, must be consistent, assigning him seven Hs. Seven is lucky.

My husband knows about my mental regression; maybe that explains his Christmas gift to me: U2 by U2 and Garden State. (I got some grownup movies, too.) But what no one knows is that I covet the pirate flag Santa left for my daughter.

I recently took a self-portrait in tall black boots and a velvet mini-dress, colored lights wrapped around my torso. I have absconded with my daughter's skull necklace and earrings. I've bought a tye-dyed skull shirt for myself.

It's OK to get a little younger as your daughter gets older. Isn't it? I mean, maybe when she's twelve, we'll be doing up our dark eyeliner together and heading out to the Metallica show together. I know that's not likely, of course. Twelve-year-old girls hate their mothers even more when they look and behave like absolute idiots than when they wear house dresses and mess up slang.

I started writing at 6:00. It's 7:20 now, and I haven't said much. But, like, I guess I wanted to explain to myself why there's been no muse on my porch these past weeks and why, when I think about a word to describe myself, it has mojo in it. Have I resurrected my inner teen? If so, am I doomed to one-syllable interjections and loud music? (My other Christmas gift was a set of mind-blasting, adrenaline pumping speakers for my iMac.)

Wait! The insightful moral of this essay just popped into my head! There's hope!

Fuck. I lost it.