2005-05-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

06.01.05
(written 06.02.05--12:13 a.m.)

the 34th street bus to the medicaid office
took longer than i thought
walked seven blocks down first avenue
showed up half an hour before close
and they almost didn't see me
the supervisor was going to tell me come back
but we talked about my case
and she took all my information
and said i'll know in four to six weeks
and i said thank you
then bought some street grapes
and caught the 23rd street bus home
and the display said transfer.

06.02.05
(written 06.03.05--2:11 a.m.)

late at night
so i make decaffeinated lipton ice tea
to accompany a boy meets world rerun on the disney channel
(i've recently discovered that the lipton ice tea mix i'd been buying of late is caffeinated).
the first 64 oz container is almost done,
in a minute i'll pee
then grab the other 32 oz container i made for late nite drinking.

06.03.05
(written 06.04.05--2:46 a.m.)

the met game was rained out tonight
and as it's the only time the giants visit shea stadium all season
they've rescheduled the game as part of a doubleheader on sunday
so now the 8 o'clock game i was thinking of blowing off on sunday
because i didn't feal like shlepping out to queens
and i still hadn't sold my other ticket
becomes a 4 o'clock doubleheader
so i can catch the first game and skip the second game
and still get home in almost daylight.

06.04.05
(written 06.11.05--1:00 p.m.)

during a pledge drive on pbs this afternoon
interspersed throughout a show featuring performances
by musical acts from 1960s,
cousing brucie,
as john kay and steppenwolf
were about to take the stage
said that steppenwolf was the first artist
to use the term "heavy metal" in a song
and a minute later i hear the familiar opening to Born to Be Wild
and a few seconds later comes
"heavy metal thunder"
i have to call ian and tell him.

06.05.05--8:27 p.m.
(Shea Stadium)

i couldn't leave a baseball game early
if anything

wouldn't want to maybe, you know,
miss something

but everything is something
so i can't leave ’til the end

and now i'm gonna go watch my mets
at shea stadium

06.06.05
(written 06.11.05--2:06 p.m.)

it's hard to enforce deadlines when you don't pay your editors
says the free newspaper editor
who's taken off his hourly-wage job today
to ready the paper for the printer

06.07.05
(written 06.11.05--2:09 p.m.)

i'm starting to leave work early
so i can catch gilmore girls reruns
on the abc family channel
each afternoon at five,
i just thought you'd like to know that
that's all.

06.08.05
(written 06.11.05--2:14 p.m.)

i left my apartment after work today
(it's not easy leaving my apartment once i'm home from work,
so i usually try to go out straight from work)
but i left my apartment after work today
to go see chris stroffolino read at the church
but only ’cause he's in from california.

06.09.05
(written 06.11.05--2:21 p.m.)

i've been using the same printer for my paper for three years
and for almost all of that time been sending them my computer files the same way
so at 4:30 in the morning i do it again
and then call up to let the computer late shift guy know that they're there
and within 10 minutes i normally get told they're ok
and i go to bed
this time it's an hour with this computer room guy
and i realize it isn't going to work
ask the production floor head what time that guy is being relieved,
and he tells me 9, 930,
so i make some diet lipton iced tea,
listen to some mike and mike on espn radio
and get to bed at 6
to wake up at about 10
and hope the new computer guy can help
and he can't
and he asks me to try many different things
and now it's 4:30 p.m.
a half a day later
and i say, this time a bit louder than a few hours earlier,
"i'm sending these files to you the same way that i have for three years.
"it's not on my end, it has to be on yours."
two minutes later he tells me that everything is alright,
and i go watch another gilmore girls rerun.

06.10.05
(written 06.11.05--2:39 p.m.)

free food at work
to make the meeting palatable
the new secretary ordered 12 drinks for 15 people
he said he wanted to save money
but he ordered olive cream cheese
which he said he didn't order
but i don't believe him at all.

06.11.05
(written 06.14.05--11:53 a.m.)

four-day weekend
’cause i work at a jewish organization
but today's the only day i'll be in my apartment
when i don't have to leave it
so i don't
making lipton decaffeinated ice tea
nonstop
staying up late to watch west wing
and er reruns
as always
ordering eggplant parmigiana and ziti and a large greek salad
at midnight
the greek salad planned for sunday brunch
call oakland for some late night fun
before crashing at 5.

06.12.05
(written 06.14.05--11:59 a.m.)

if the terrorists were to have launched another attack
today, between the hours of four and 10,
and missed the area around ground zero
slightly,
and hit the wedding reception of
karen weiser and anselm berrigan instead,
it would have had the same effect upon the ny poetry community
as the plane crash that killed the 1961 u.s. figure skating team
had upon their world

06.13.05
(written 06.14.05--12:04 p.m.)

this show
a little shop of horrors production
put on by 8-13 yr olds
was the first time one of my nieces has had a meaty part
as my niece michelle did tonight as part of the chorus
but not like regular choruses
as those of you who have seen the show know
but a small chorus of girls
orchestrated in ’60s girl group style
and onstage singing in almost every scene
it's neat to see this little kid
who's been doing shows since she was even littler
stick with it,
really enjoy it,
and get better at it, too.

06.14.05
(written 06.19.05--3:24 a.m.)

i go to the movies with my folks whever i visit
these trips with them being almost the only times i'll go to a movie theater all year
and we see crash
which was ok,
though i wanted to see the sisterhood of the traveling pants,
which was in the same theater.

06.15.05
(written 06.19.05--3:31 a.m.)

our bookkeeper marge comes into the office today at 9:45 a.m.
entering our back-of-the-office area.
"You were in Long Island," she tells me,
knowing my dad drops me off at the railroad when i visit l.i.
and i end up at work 90 minutes earlier than usual.

06.16.05
(written 06.19.05--3:36 a.m.)

there's little kids everywhere
at the reading for jill stengel's new journal mem
whose author's are only poets who are mothers,
and one goes behind the reader, lisa lubasch,
"i think i may just have been upstaged," she says,
and a little while later jill goes up to read a poem,
"lisa said i should read something of my own,"
and she has calder in a sling
and serafina at her leg,
reading through them
with them.

06.17.05
(written 06.19.05--3:41 a.m.)

my folks can't pick me up at the train
so i go to the oceanside station
walk to the cab stand
follow the driver to the first car
it's $4.50 fare
and all i have is a $20 and a $5.
i want to give him a dollar tip
but i don't have any change
so i hand him the $20
an ask for $14.50 back.
he gets my $14 in bills together
then looks for the 50 cents change,
muttering to himself so i'll hear,
"damn, where is the change, awww"
before saying he can't find the 50 cents
and pulling another single out to go with the $14 he just handed me,
and though i know he just played the where's the change game
to get another 50 cents from me,
i push the dollar back at him
because he earned that 33.33% tip for my seven-minute ride home.

06.18.05
(written 06.19.05--3:48 a.m.)

first dream i remember in awhile
of a former coworker who had perhaps the hottest body
of any former coworker ever,
in the dream,
i was told to talk to her and a friend she worked with
because they wore thongs and were very flirtatious and distracting to their coworkers
and i caught them out the front door,
walking left out of our building,
and i went up behind the former coworker
and began to dry hump her ass as we walked in step with another
as i eventually came,
feeling the cum vividly in my dream,
a while later waking up sticky.

06.19.05
(written 06.25.05--8:20 p.m.)

father's day
and my brother doesn't show
we have a barbecue
my brother-in-law goes through a tank of gas,
everything's burned
we saw that movie about the traveling pants
i'm now in love with a girl named blake lively

06.20.05
(written 06.25.05--8:30 p.m.)

(sing like yre in green day)

it was a long day
a very long one
i went to bed too late
and woke up too early at my folks
trained in from long island
and didn't work at work all day
then went to therapy
on a different day than normal
i hit the couch
and woke up 30 minutes later
a dollar a minute
it couldn't have been better.

06.21.05
(written 06.25.05--8:41 p.m.)

three days
everyone's at the conference my job puts on
so i break out shorts and my tevas
so nice.

06.22.05
(written 06.25.05--8:51 p.m.)

my brother never called my dad on his 75th birthday
he never calls me on mine either
so today he turned 46 and i didn't call him
it hurt me more than him
because he probably didn't even notice

06.23.05
(written 06.25.05--8:53 p.m.)

went to work three days
and i didn't work at all
wait, i answered the phones
so the others didn't have to.
went to work three days
and i barely worked at all,
barely worked at all.

06.24.05
(written 06.25.05--8:55 p.m.)

another night
another friend's band is playing
and this night three friends' bands are on the same bill
but i just wanna do nothing
because it's the weekend
and they're all local and i can see them again
so i stay in
(i like staying in)

06.25.05--9:05 p.m.

went to the kitchen
with my plastic 20 oz mets tumbler
to fill it full of light hawaiian punch
waited while my roommate was blocking the refrigerator
to make a protein shake for before he worked out.

06.26.05
(written 06.28.05--10:09 p.m.)

it was a gilmore girls marathon on abc family today
focusing on all of daughter rory's men
(the one in reruns)
so at 1:45 p.m. i made 384 oz of decaffeinated lipton diet iced tea
and at two i was back on my bed with 32 of them.

06.27.05
(written 06.28.05--10:12 p.m.)

is it wrong to have phone sex with someone you've never met
and ask them to pretend that they're someone you have
cause i'll tell you it's fun all the time that i do it
i'll tell you it's something i really enjoy

06.28.05--9:51 p.m.

brooke shields is my popular steady

did i ever tell you how much i love the actress moira kelly
or how for the past four days i've made 384 oz a day of decaffeinated lipton iced tea from the mix
(and that if i made it by seven p.m. it would be done by the time i went to sleep
or how i'm wearing my sleepy shorts and my balls itch a bit
or that i may not renew my mets tickets for next year
because after five games this season
i had one friend who thought i was treating him who still owes me money,
treated my dad to one game for his birthday,
had two games i couldn't find anyone to go,
and am taking my youngest niece this coming sunday,
in part because i want to
in larger part because i'm a poet
not a stockbroker
and barely any poets like baseball and want to pay $25 to go see a game
so that's $100 i don't have back
and i need it back
at i have my medicaid back,
but the listed the start date as august first,
so will they reimburse the hundreds of dollars i've been laying out for meds
i have a chemical imbalance,
tom cruise be damned,
they're put me back to my old hours at work,
a three-month tease ’til the conference season is over
but it's fun when my cordless phone's battery is low
and i have to time my words around the beeps.

06.29.05
(written 06.30.05--2:11 a.m.)

kept working all night
on the next two boog events
laptop on my bed
as i watched tv
first the gilmore girls
and then sports talk shows on espn
and then smallville
which makes me want to watch Superman,
the 1978 version with Christopher Reeves
and while i'm watching it
i wonder when lex luthor went bad
so i email ryan
and he'll tell me at work today
he'll tell me at work today.

06.30.05
(written 07.01.05--1:32 a.m.)

bend your spoon
pick me up
air conditioner rust
in the cup
turn it on
breaker blows
$85 bucks installation
($85 bucks installation!)
yeah.

The June Project 2005