27 June 2004

after running an amazing pr and nearly winning an extremely difficult 10k, my college coach asked me what my secret was. this is also the secret to life:

1. eat candy bars (powerbars are also good but i prefer the real chocolate!)
2. eat half of a entire vegan cake (well, it has honey but we lied and said it was vegan)
3. stay up all night dancing
4. get no sleep
5. cold and pouring rain
6. leave late but speed up to catch up
7. be in a bad mood and say constantly how much you hate everything
8. stretch
9. eat 4 of mrs. schemerhorn’s cookies prior to race
10. go out slow
11. get boxed in at the beginning
12. run hard
i had already been involved with it for a while before i began to think about it. before i began to actually think about what i was doing. it’s like i knew it but i was in denial so that others wouldn’t realize. but then i was in love and it was time to think if this was for me and of course it wasn’t, nothing ever is for anyone unless it’s love.
mermaidia


through territories i navigate my way through the thickness of the air, as if water. pass schools of fish with ties, carrying briefcases, cell phones glued to ears, “yes sir,” corporations, capitalism, american way of life.

manhattan island, surrounded by water. connected by bridges, tunnels, ferries, trains both above and below water.

run along the east river. pass pollution, south street seaport smelling fish, seafood. see old asian men grinning with sunburned skin and fishing poles, squinting at sun. run over brooklyn bridge into magic, over water, what if the bridge collapsed.

or greenpoint, little polish girls staring at me as i show them yes you can show skin/be sexy/do anything as a woman as i run along the “beach” in williamsburg/seaside/what call it.
(where zodiac serial rapist and murderer preyed on his victims, all young women.)
scared, not enough cop cars, run over the williamsburg bridge.
(a woman was attacked on the bridge, raped and they/he pushed her body off the bridge into the water. that was late at night but still, sometimes you don’t see anyone but the occasional j/m/z train which can’t help you.)


we’re in kensington, 10 min train ride to brighton beach or coney island. eat cotton candy and nathan’s and june’s mermaid parade, ride oldest surviving rollercoaster, the cyclone, screaming from the top as you think the rickitiness is going to push you off the edge, a good view of the ocean. dirty.
(hospitals in the eighties were discovered to be dumping medical waste into the ocean. people started getting murdered at coney island. bad. people went to public pools, not risking the dangers of the beach. everyone was afraid of syringes with the aids virus stabbing them mid-swim, or gang members stabbing them as they might be trying to win a stuffed animal for their sweetie.)

here i survive. a mermaid on land. blow dry my legs daily after my bath to ensure that i will not reveal my true self. when the j train goes over water, i am sometimes tempted to stand in between cars and jump off. return.


garbled words, water fills their ears. their mouth can’t hear not sure what to say or do and nothing makes sense. skip shells and rocks along the beaches of far rockaway. nothing in the sky, not starfish or stars or fish, but lights, fake created with no imagination.

revere another way of life. i reject stability on land. i cannot help but feel this way in myself. it is time for a swim away from civilization.

(c) copyright 2002 c. yanek

26 June 2004

we're so cool, yeah yeah, yeah we're so coo-cool! (bratmobile...right???)

anyway im totally beat. dyke march was today--awesome and incredible!!!! lesbians dancing topless and wearing outrageous apparel and they LOVED our cheers. had SO much fun. lost my voice.

"you cheer? why?"

"we cheer! we lead! we know there is a need!"

okay b/c it's entertaining, b/c it has a political message, b/c it's fun, b/c it's exercise, b/c i love my squad!

also i saw michael moore's farenheit 9/11. everyone EVERYONE should see it. it links bush with how he pushed us into the iraq war, and his relations with the saudis. crazy.

so you need to check out these two sites:
our radical cheer site

and michael moore's site


i'll write more after i've slept

hugs and kisses!

11 June 2004

FICTION:

she arrived late to work that morning, but it didn't matter. on the rare occasion that her boss arrived on time, he was likely to be eating a fried egg and cheese (sometimes with ham, on one of those "un-heart healthy days" as he liked to call them), spilling his latte on his paperwork that he tried to ignore as much as possible, or participating in a loud conversation on his cellphone about matters that could never be mistaken to be work-related.

she took off her coat and put her soup she made and ate the night before in the fridge. she washed her hands to clean them from the subway grime, and turned on her computer. at the tea and coffee station, some overworked/underpaid administrative assistant had brought in a coffeecake, and she steeped a cup of earl grey tea in a styrofoam cup as she sliced herself a piece of the aforementioned cake, placing it on a napkin. after her tea was dark, she threw the tea bag in the garbage, added a packet of sugar (not sweet n low) to her tea, and poured in enough milk to make it "light." she returned to her desk with the tea and cake. she thought about getting a slice for jimmy, her boss, but she worried about him getting too fat. she stole the jetblue crunch airplane guide to yoga from a recent flight and got a book of "stay slim from your seat" exercises, including her personal favorite, squeezing a massive dictionary between one's thighs. she only had a pocket, which did not work as well. with these methods, and irregular attendance at the gym, she managed to avoid the infamous "secretary butt." she could even eat cake with tea, after an earlier bowl of granola with peach yogurt.
she logged into her email, typing in "freedom" as her password. she checked her voicemail, and wrote the detals on a yellow post-it pad. she opened up her personal email account, deleting the porn first, and listened for her boss. she sipped loudly at her tea and felt impatient for five o'clock already. it was 9:34 a.m.