Thursday, August 26, 2010

gouge my eyes with platitudes of sentiment

Togetherness was strange the way it always is, those raw feelings that occasionally surface without warning or reason and my everlasting inability to say what I mean. My mother asks me questions as though she is not my mother, as though we are acquainted well enough to make weird personal inquiries but not well enough to be invested in the answers.

A coroner phoned me last night, also with weird personal questions though it was easier to discern the relevance of these. He is trying to determine a cause of death. The toxicology report reveals which drugs were at lethal doses but his question is about her intentions. He did not ask me anything I had not already asked myself but it was strange to be discussing these thoughts with a disembodied voice.

I went to a second funeral for a high school friend while home on the prairies. The fact I chose to attend this funeral may be indicative of how desperately I needed some time away from Togetherness, but going was good in a number of ways... More practice with goodbye, more ways to say I'm sorry.


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A text message from Jesse today:

" I went back to that sushi place and had the same platter we shared all to myself. Took an IQ test right after and scored way high. Took it again three hours later and I'm an idiot again."

I took Jesse for sushi for lunch on Wednesday. He hasn't had much exposure to sushi in Smalltown, Winter Prairie and I need someone who will eat it with me. Apparently he likes it and thinks it gives him (temporary) super powers. Perfect.


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8 comments:

heartinsanfrancisco said...

I am particularly taken with the way you describe your mother's questions. And everyone knows that sushi bestows superpowers.

I'm glad you're back, and can begin to climb out of the family tragedy and heal a bit. I believe that there are always answers, but that sometimes we are not able to discern them and have to live with that. I'm sorry.

mischief said...

Thank you S, being home is a huge relief to me with or without answers. I can live without them and I do not share my speculations with anyone who could by hurt by them. I don't need to.

My mother's questions are inexplicable to me. It is almost as though she is a stranger or amnesiac. She asks me things she *knows*. Or should know. I don't understand why. It's like we are playing a game of which I do not know the object.

Does sushi really bestow superpowers? I thought I was the one with the powers, managing to convince a boy from one of the beef capitals of the world to consider eating raw fish. I am suspicious of his IQ test results.

secret agent woman said...

Good to be out of it, and have the space to re-collect, re-center.

And I did read an article about sushi's temporary brain boosting powers. Seriously. I don't know about IQ, but it suggested sushi if you needed to be more alert.

mischief said...

It is good to be out of it, to deal with these things my own way. But I do wish I could be comforted by the family gatherings the way the rest of them seem to be. Well, maybe I am in my own way. But not so much that I would have chosen it if there were choices.

So sushi really does have something magical in it? What is it, I wonder. I always depend on caffeine for alertness and I'm sure that's not really a good idea but there's no way I'm eating raw fish for breakfast.

Jerry said...

Thanks for visiting -- and thank you most of all for being the only visitor to suggest that a movie review should be a regular feature. Of course, this is indicative of your extraordinary intelligence....okay, I'm pushing it a bit.

I've roamed through your entries for the past couple of months to try to get a glimpse of who you are. I still don't have a clue but I do know that I would like to return. My only true negative comment would be your affinity for sushi...but I'll try to look past that.

Again thanks.

Warmest wishes.

mischief said...

You are not pushing it a bit, I am brilliant. Well, not really, but I certainly do talk a lot. What an unfortunate place for you to arrive and look backward at the mess the last couple of months have been; I hope I have not damaged you. I might have known a Texan wouldn't think much of sushi, but I am willing to overlook it because of your fine movie reviewing skills. I rarely watch movies because I usually find them impossible to sit through - but if you can start a regular feature and offer me some guidance I might be willing to try and change.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

As for sushi, much of it contains fish, which is known to be brain food. It has never empowered me to fly or to waft through walls, though, so maybe "moderate powers" would have been a better choice of words.

mischief said...

I wouldn't mind having moderate powers either. It's still an improvement.