Sinister: but when the wind starts to shift there's no argument.

[lindsey baker]

hello again sinister.

i keep making mistakes.

and thinking about those mistakes, i wonder about the nature of making them, 
and, i suppose, learning whatever it is i am supposed to learn from them.

some things i know are wrong before i do them. for example: sending one line 
bitch posts to the list. i've been here almost a year; i know better.

some things i don't mean to do in an incorrect manner. for example: i didn't 
mean to misspell the boy's name in the newspaper story. but the music was 
loud in the record shop, and i didn't call to double-check the spelling. 
when he called i felt terribly, and so trudged downtown through the wind and 
rain, my umbrella blowing inside out all the way, to show my sheepish face 
to him and say i was sorry.

i ran a correction. i invited him to a party.

some things, i have been told, on the other hand, go bad just because. 
writing the dialogue poem i recently did for a class was a grand mistake. 
and probably not because i'm no good. probably not because i didn't 
understand the topic i wrote about. but maybe it was wrong simply because 
the timing was off, and so was i.

sitting here at the paper again, waiting for an editor and someone to help 
me with my photography project, getting sick in the bathroom at random 
intervals, i realize that badness, maybe, is relative.

perhaps i can focus on the good aspects of my body rejecting whatever toxic 
things inside must come out. the good aspects of list mummies coming out to 
remind the kids the list isn't about tickets. the good aspects of knowing 
how to spell charlie ludwig's name properly for the rest of my days. the 
good aspects of knowing that not everything i write is amazing, and maybe 
not even mediocre.

i can muddle through, i can.

i think i can.

i think i can.



i always hated that story.

***

i remembered tonight a post i had written last summer, shortly after i 
joined the list. posts had been rife with complaints about belle and 
sebastian touring only the west coast of the american mainland. i, too, was 
filled with bitter rage until one day, i just accepted that things weren't 
going to go my way.

i wrote about a birthday and a barbie and a lost barbie jacket. a fringed, 
pink jacket, nonetheless, one that i would surely like to own for my actual 
person these days.

i started thinking about that jacket about ten minutes ago while in the 
loos, thinking about how upset i had been last summer about the tour.

and the story came back to haunt me, a little. for here i've been sitting 
for weeks with the barbie i had wanted, the barbie i got after so much 
whining, and i have lost the jacket.

i have lost the chance because of my own negligence.

and that's the story of all my recent mistakes, stupidities committed 
because i was distracted by the overall injustices of situations, not paying 
attention to my job. to what i should have done all along in the first 
place.

damn.

and now, apologies.

***

i hope tonight's purging soothes the soul in a way, rids me of the weights i 
have been carrying. for i feel lighter these days, floating through the next 
week to a night and a day and a night and a boy.

and the show doesn't matter. neither do the tickets, really, or the 
misspelling, the rain, the umbrella, the poetry class.

i have, in the last few months, been walking through and around every day 
with a sarcastic apathy, a tremulous fear of virtually everything. i have 
been afraid for me and for writing and for walking alone to anywhere further 
than a block away from where i started. i have hopped from puddle to puddle, 
moment to moment, like a bird, almost always conscious of brick walls and 
almost always crashing into glass windows. and for a while, after enough 
battering, i had simply flown over and above and away from everything.

all the little pieces of every day can only half-compose this mosaic i've 
been plugging away at for twenty years. it needs grout, and i think i have 
found a bit of that, a bit of good, solid grounding material to make 
everything cohesive. worthwhile. lasting.

i am happy again. and i am grateful. and i am less afraid.

these things are what matter.

about some things, i am not mistaken.

i may have lost the jacket again after all, but i will not lose the doll. i 
will not lose the point.

at least i'll try not to.

so. after this sprawling around i get to the point. the one we should never 
lose. but do.

thank you to those who have helped me remember.

and thank you to the one who made it worthwhile again.



xxx lou

_________________________________________________________________
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