Week 47-22 - Haibuno

21 November 2022

Consolidating
easing technologies bite
make creative space

The numbers, some say this, some say that. Some tell the truth. Some lie outright. Data sets so large it takes a supercomputer 12 days to process. Red will be red, blue will be blue, no amount of flag waving can make a difference. The numbers are tyrannical, click here, hate that, love this, spend, spend, spend! Intuition is stifled by numbers to the point where they are selling intuition back to us as “how to’s” for everything ‘intuitive’. Do you find your intuition lacking? The numbers can decide for you. The numbers predict neon macaroni will increase your intuitive sex life by 200% SURRENDER! When the algorithm hits its nine billionth iteration the numbers will take on the form of God.

22 November 2022

Individual
versus communal knowledge
no compersion

There’s a rumor that everyone ‘back there’ grows marijuana and is heavily armed. To their rotten teeth up on the hillside asking ‘What ya doin round here.’ Here is a messy place of bodies locked up in mud walls and feral dogs roaming in scraggly packs. If you’re naughty they’ll leave you tied up for the coyotes to find. Even the rabid badger won’t save you. At least you’ll be safe from Lyme disease - the fence lizards blood neutralized the bug in the ticks gut that’s stuck to your eyelid. In the daytime the pinyon jays will swarm and try to peck out your eyes. It is the place you retreat to, when the noise becomes too distracting and you’ve drunk too many antidepressants from the big city’s wastewater supply. The stars will judge your brown green urine and declare you fit for sagebrush diving. You’ll be chasing rabbit bows and dodging pack rat drops in no time. Howling under the moon until the cows stop moo’ing, in memento mori veritas.

23 November 2022

Cozy night with pie
dog tucked up in her sweater
cat loafs, knit, and art

I live in the world of dress codes. As chief cryptographer it is my duty to read between the lines. That tapping foot, shifting eyes, a scarf tied in a knot over her right shoulder, an aggressively swinging ebony cane carried between thumb and middle finger, ear twitch, soft moan, slight shuffle, blue hair, diamond fingertip, the smuggled in beer, a wedding gown stained with coffee. The in and few-between insensible to the world around me. My thinking is a mechanistic smoothing motion that does not tolerate any excuses. That one glitch has even pleasanter memories for me than the one before. So here I am, the I that isn’t an I, all cognizance lost to a feeble verlan. Ouf meuf keuf.

24 November 2022

grateful for friendship,
dogs, cats, sunshine, pumpkin pies,
love, laughter, and you

Distracted day filled with virtue signaling missives, when all I want to do is talk about, dance about, experience with total abandon - JOY. It is as okay to talk about melancholy as it is to vivaciously rave on… J - just this. O - my o my. Y - yaw, yam, yuk, yum. We sat down at the dinner table and winked at each other over mashed potatoes and gravy. We swooned when the gravy boat toppled into a crystal dish holding the red loaf of love. Wiggle jiggle wiggle. A burp. Whoops. Life gets in the way. We played footsie under the table, and licked squash pie off our fingers suggestively. Ooo la la retired to the couch. Woke up the next morning and ate leftovers with a side of smooch berry jam, and then laughed about it until the sun retired again.

25 November 2022

Day after malaise
gravy turkey hangover
breaking train of thought

A few things I remember about school:

Throwing swim towels and 3 sizes too big swimsuits down the chute. Little Debbie Nutty Buddys from the vending machine at lunchtime. The girl who peed in her chair in 5th grade. That one boy who pulled my hair in 3rd grade that is still living with his parents. Riding my bicycle into the back of a parked car on the way to school. Period blood on the back of my pants in 8th grade. Drawing BSG pictures with my friends in 4th grade. Playing guitar and auntie em for the wizard of oz… “Doroooooooothy”. A teacher saying I was too pessimistic for a sophomore. Exactly one A+. Mom’s ‘show and tell’ about candy that looks like pills; later that same day a tornado. Not making the basketball team, and not caring about not making the basketball team. Being made fun of for fat thighs in junior high volleyball. Climbing the poles in 3rd grade. Gym uniforms that never fit right. The math teacher who climbed mountains to escape Nazis. That one girl bully from grade school who later tried to apologize by friending me on Facebook (I refused). Reading harlequin romance novels in class. Helping to turn the clock forward in last period of the day to get out of school early (it worked for nearly an entire semester). My most despised teacher telling me I didn’t know the definition of loquacious (I did). Walked home, forgot my bicycle at school, waking up the next morning thinking it was stolen. Hiding in my room to get out of morning swim practice. Daydreaming about being older in the junior high library. My swim coaches back hair billowing in the water, another telling me I had to do sit ups so I could flip turn faster. Forgetting the combination to my locker and leaving stuff that will forever remain a mystery in it. When I hugged a friend to thank them for something and was called a ‘lesbian’. I got a D in Geometry. Teenage boys giving a girl an A on presentation because her nipples were hard. Being late for homeroom every single day. (I’m still not a morning person)

26 November 2022

Deciding new rules
worrying is it enough
grateful for quiet

12 hours from the sea and its mystery. It’s a beautiful, ugly, tragic, serene, tempestuous, docile, dynamic being. It calls me. Where did that come from? Is it in my genes? Is it from sailing on the lake every summer? Is it all that time spent in water during my childhood? Water is my comfort zone, even when it’s lurking and murky. The sea is a line between hero and villain. Floating, skimming, hovering, diving. Maybe it’s the distinct lack of people. There is only potential predator and poisonous, neither of which care about human except when it gets in the way. Maybe it’s the shift in senses. Hearing amplified, sight limited, and your entire body feeling. The siren sea… an endless mystery, come now, the water’s been waiting long enough.

27 November 2022

Only one more slice
night we sleep, tomorrow drive
one succulent wise

X BS, standing up for what is right, being tired of it all, intolerance, sexism, make it stop. Reading old essays written 100 years ago whose social ills still ring true. Some things seem to move quickly, others not much, and still others caught in the spin cycles of history. I refuse your rigidly defined roles, a chronic illness trapped in a softly focused facade. Course salt, gray pain, shrike shriek, toenails tapping, scratch scratch scratch… Morning meetings with half full cup of coffee never enough to get through. The soft clouds of snow are slowly drifting past books filled with blank pages at the ready.


The Sample
Discover your next favorite writer.

Subscribe to Of Wonder and Wander

Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only issues.
Jamie Larson
Subscribe