The Kind of Girl Who Laughs and Says Get Up Off Your Knees

All day long, it's been Monday. Perhaps you know this, perhaps calenders are an important part of your life. Chances are, you have been aware of Monday. Like the song "Manic Monday." Well, now it is 5:37 A.M. on Tuesday, so it's not Monday anymore. The point is that yesterday WAS Monday. But you wouldn't know that by speaking to me --

Me: "You can take 8th avenue, it won't be rush hour 'cause it's the weekend,"
Person on street asking for directions: "It's Monday."

Me: "You have class tonight, right?"
Alex: "No, it's Monday."

Natalie: "Do you wanna work out tomorrow?"
Me: "Oh, I can't do that tomorrow, I have therapy on Wednesdays."
Natalie: "It's Monday."

Alex: "Sooooo ... when do I see you again?"
Me: "Wednesday? Is that tomorrow?"
Alex: "Tomorrow is Tuesday."
Me: "Wednesday?"
Alex: "Okay!'

**
I was thinking about my book today. Memoirs usually have two parts -- the title intended to carry great import and capture your attention; Wasted, Smashed, A Million Little Pieces, Night, Prozac Nation, Now, More, Again, An Unquiet Mind, the Boy Soldier, The Mistresses' Daughter, Microthrills ... and these are always eye-catching titles used to lead into the SUB title which explains that the book isn't, as I wished it had been, about smashing people with giant pumpkins until their heads got good and wasted into a million little pieces and then we all took Prozac to forget. Rather, they explain what the book's about.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

"An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness"
"Flock: The Autobiography of a Multiple Personality"
"The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness"
"The Day the Voices Stopped: A Schizophrenic's Journey from Madness to Hope"
"Madness: A Bipolar Life"
"Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bullimia"
"Girlbomb: A Halfway-Homeless Memoir"
"Now, More, Again: A Memoir of Addiction"
"Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive"
"Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness "
"Get Me Out of Here: My Recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder"
"Pain in the Arms of Joy: Thoughts of a Borderline Personality"

I don't know my title yet but we've decided my subtitle will for sure be "A Memoir of Other People's Madness." Possible Title-Titles include "The Autobiography of Sancho Panza," among others.

Once they did a typo in this Stephen Dunn review I wrote, where they said "among other homes" instead of "among other awards," and so I always want to write "among other homes," as a joke on everything, but no one would get it besides me, like most of my jokes.

Speaking of, I think that's one of the funniest ideas I had today. I might wake up and think it's actually tacky. I dunno right now. Whatevs.

**

One time at band camp, I mean, at the Olive Garden, I was eating my stolen Tour of Italy (lasanga, fettucine alfredo, chicken parm, about enough calories to send Lance Armstrong into immediate cardiac arrest and to send me into a stomach ailment I found mysterious rather than consequential) and Layna, this compulsive liar who always talked about going to Harvard even though she didn't, was looking out the window with her little salad and its mediocre Italian dressing and she goes, Marie, have you ever seen that movie, Magnolia?

Yeah, I said. I loved that movie, actually. Magnolia.

Marie, she said. Do you remember the part in the bar, where he's sitting at the end of it -- Quiz Kid Donnie Smith? What he says?

I don't, I said. I don't remember what he said, not exactly.

It's how I feel right now, she said, cigarette in hand, smoke like ghost-hands in greasy air. I ate more lasanga, not 'cause I like lasanga really, but 'cause I was hungry.

Well, she said, this is what he said: "I really do have love to give, I just don't know where to put it."

**
Promise me you'll never go away
Promise me you'll always stay