i am a grrl (a prose poem) ---------------------------------------------------------- > katja ketzle@cyberspace.com wrote : >> >> while trying to instill >> some order on my unruly cd collection, Ruswa wrote: > > During a discussion among friends regarding our > own habits and those of wives and girlfriends, it > turned out that in our sample of 5 participants > and 4 partners, the men religiously keep CDs & > records in alphabetical order, where as the > filing system for the women tends to be, shall we > say - haphazard. > > Has anyone else come across this phenomenon? Clearly I am a grrl. At the present time, less so a grrl than the one who so vivaciously performed a combined Cherokee/Amish/Mormon religious/ceremonial/astronomical/civic rite in her living room -- that's where CDs are being kept disorganized in her house, within an imaginary box within the larger cube that is the living room. This rite was presaged with the long-brewing need for vacuuming, acted upon with the purchase of a microfiltering Hoover, and a thorough and enjoyable vacuuming. It was then calculated with Tycho Brahe's precision, though the calculations are at this point unclear as to their purpose, using the position of the Sun, the ray it cast through the break in the miniblinds, the calendar time as kept by a very precise Mondaine Swiss Timing watch, and the known facts about the local (Chicago) architecture and street layout. Even the magnetic field diversion from true north was noted and recorded. By the way, it's different now. Then, with manic intuition and finesse of recall thrown in for good measure, fortified with reading up on the Pima Indians in the Southwest Volume 10, Encyclopedia of the American Indian, published by Smithsonian in large format in cloth and obtained at the Chaco Canyon gift shop together with Volume 11 (the others were not of interest then; *regret*), the rite commenced and proceeded to be titrated through the cold abandon of completely impervious to damage self-esteem and gripped in the precise euphoria of freely casting about -- this way and that -- up and about (but not around the penny altar or the Choctaw, or the Canyonlands postcard, or the dried roses, et cetera) only the best naturally brewed soy souce, aged one year, President's Choice, though not my truly best stuff, which remained still sealed in the fridge, from People's Republic of China, bought in the Chicago Chinatown -- then pulling down all my bookshelves, all of them, yes, all 6 down. Down. CD's down. More soy sauce? Yes! That's all there was to that. The bookshelves needed replacement anyway; the wall, patching and repainting. And everything was too much same for too long, and too much paper. So... besides, I forgot where I put certain CDs and they needed reorganizing. So I am wiping them off and thinking of places where I can get replacements for broken plastic or do without plastic boxes altogether. Tonight I will do more wiping. Tomorrow is for laundry, just because one may meet a nice grrl in the laundry room. I have more clean laundry my ancestors bestowed upon me when I was sick than bushel-bucket capacity to carry when it is soiled. On Friday they are bringing in the Baldwin Acrosonic upright, built in Cincinnati in 1966, reconditioned here (good year, says the master reconditioner), which I picked out and paid for and arranged to have brought in on my way to work, the work I do not have to be at for two weeks. The piano has a dazzling sound. I will play it. I demand to have a piano any pianist will like. Yes. Clearly I am a grrl. The fuck out of my face unless I ask for it. Marek Lugowski in 1998, quiescent, after an acute mania Chicago, Illinois