Haiku 6 (starting to come unglued) 5.21.2008

There is this Joyce Carol Oates story called “The Boyfriend.” Have you read it? Here’s the first few lines:

She hadn’t made any mistakes, at least any serious mistakes, in quite a while. So she’d become complacent.

Her name was Miriam, she was thirty-six years old, tall, long-legged, good-looking, with a pale smooth freckled skin and honey-brown eyes set sly and slanted in her face, as if in irony.

Eerie, huh? Sound like anyone you know? I believe that in six more years, I will be this woman. I lifted today’s haiku shamelessly from this story, figuring that if anyone recognizes the quote, if anyone responds to me and says, “Miriam?” that I will then have found my soulmate. Or something

Here it is, totally plagerized:

Haiku 6

Tall and long-legged
eyes set sly and slanted, as
if in irony.

I missed a day in the Haiku Project, which kind of throws my plan, a little bit, because the whole thing was based in building something consistently throughout the week. But, I find I’m divesting from it. I’m restless. I’ve grown bored of myself and my games and my projects. I think that I am coming a little bit unglued. It’s unsettling and familiar and sort of like comfort food, in that I know it’s not good for me to follow my dark knotted path into the depths of my crazy, but it sounds so lovely, like a vacation, to be there. Temporary fits of semi-psychotic instability are the macaroni and cheese of my emotional life.

There are other stories by creepy dark writers about women named Miriam. It’s a theme, you could say- the “Crazy Miriam” story that marks every reclusive and brilliant writer’s descent into madness. Joy Williams had a Crazy Miriam story about a woman (named Miriam) whose husband (who she hated) was paralyzed in a hunting accident, and so she fell in love with a taxidermy lamp made out of buck’s legs bound together. She took that damn lamp everywhere with her.

That just as easily could be me in a few years, except for the part about the husband, I think.

Anyway. There’s a long weekend coming up, which means that whatever structure and schedule is keeping me accountable to my remaining shreds of social acceptability will be soon abandoned. If you find me wandering naked and mumbling by the freeway with a taxidermy lamp sometime on Sunday night (HOW FUN!) don’t ever say I didn’t warn you…

I think that everyone should go back and read my Frankenstein blog again. It’s the only thing that makes me happy.

-M

Haiku 5 5.19.2008

The crowd is getting restless.

I’m starting to get kind of smarmy responses.  People are losing trust.  They’re feeling tricked, and vulnerable.  I know because they are sending me haikus about their frustrations.

Our Harper’s stats stand strong:

Number of responses: 29

Number of responses en haiku:  22

Number of people who want to know what the hell I’m up to:  at least 3

Number of new friends I think I’ve made through this project: at least 4

Number of pervy irrelevant responses:  Still just the 1

And, for today’s post:

Mouth’s corners upturned
Sharp elbows, sharp mind, warm soul
I am a giggler

Haiku 4 5.18.2007

Ah, it’s been a busy weekend! I’m glad to see that New Yorkers take some extra time on Friday night and Saturday to really tend to their Craigslist needs.

I have gotten SO MANY responses to my Dating in 17 Syllables Project in the past few days. Most are, excitingly, in haiku format. Some are terribly dirty (in the bad way), and some are terribly flirty (in the good way), and some seem to have nothing to do with me at all, but are simply a poignant and human 17 syllables about a total stranger. Form poetry is some kind of portal, apparently, which allows people to share deeply and genuinely about themselves, about their hopes and dreams, about their fears and secrets, and about their interest in wearing my underpants while being my sub.

Fascinating.

The other thing that’s happened is that someone else started posting haiku in the personals, too. This got a few of you all up in arms, which I appreciate; your fierce loyalty to my brand integrity invests me all the further in this particular exercise in self-indulgence. I prefer to think of myself as a trendsetter than to think of “Haiku 4- 35” as a threat, although I do wish that she had started her own numbering system instead of tagging onto mine.

So, I’ve just posted for today, and here it is:

Haiku 4

Political and
compassionate, I prefer
my bike over all.

I’ve been trying to think of what my big finale is going to be. I mean, I have all these haikus now; it seems like I should do something with them, right? Maybe I should invite everyone who’s responded to all meet at a certain place at a certain time and we can have some kind of big singles haiku party. With booze. Or, maybe I should start sending people’s haikus to each other, and act kind of like the online broker of 17-syllable dating…

Personally, I have zero interest in dating. I also have zero interest in working, cleaning my room, eating, going to the gym, taking a shower, or leaving my apartment, to be honest. I think I am deep in the throes of my post-relationship self-loathing. I am committing as of today, right now, that I will not be re-reading any more old emails. I will delete some, if not many, text messages. And I will stop comparing myself unfavorably to other women, movie stars, college professors, and Rockettes. It’s true, I’m not M’s ex-girlfriend, and i’m not Angelina Jolie, and I haven’t published any books, and I can’t kick that high (though I’m practicing- a lot). But there are other things that I offer the world, and I am going to start making a list of them VERY SOON.

Meanwhile, I did dig out the cocktail napkin listing the “New 7 Stages of Grief” that we crafted at my last caucus of heartbreak, and it looks like I’m right on track. If I’m currently slogging around in self-loathing (and oh, trust me, I am…) then that would mean that I’ve successfully earned my merit badges for step 1 (substance abuse), and step 2 (bitter diatribes). Indeed, I think I could find some substantiative data from the past few weeks to support both of those experiences. I’ll keep you posted on my progress there, too.

My Newest Social Experiment- Dating in 17 Syllables 5.15.2008

If you haven’t caught the news yet, I’ve recently had yet another relationship spiral out of the sky in a screaming streak of smoke and flames and crashland into the drought-addled brush field of my heart, which then burned sadly for days and days and days. Awesome. Clearly, the next reasonable course of action in this metaphor is that I should lose, or at least have suspended, my pilot’s license. I should stay out of the skies for a while. I should slow down.

I understand that slowing down, or “not dating,” might seem like a good idea. I can see why, after being in a nonstop serial of relationships for the last decade, it might seem reasonable- or even recommended- that I spend some time unattached and solitary. That I “get to know myself.” That I become comfortable with developing my own routine, unfettered by the needs of another, uncluttered by the dreams of someone else. That I recommit to all of you, loyal readers, and post “Top 10 reasons why I’m sexier than her exgirlfriend” blogs, and write, and think and take up yoga again.

And I promise you all that if this next series of craigslist postings doesn’t work out, that I am going to do just that. No joke. Scout’s honor.

But for right now, I’m going to take all of you, loyal readers, on a joyride of a social experiment. Here’s the plan: I’m building a miniseries of personal ads, each written as a haiku that reveals something of myself, and posted daily to craigslist. The goal is that I’ll get someone who follows along and reads them all; I’m really looking to build a fanbase for my bad poetry as much (more than?) I’m looking for a date.

I’ll copy and paste each day’s haiku here, so that you can follow along. And, if I get any responses, I’ll update you on those as well. I think that this is going to be a lot of fun for all of us. And, it merges craigslist and myspace, which makes me feel like I’ve hit a venn diagram of self-promotion.

The joy of this project has completely supplanted the sadness of my failed love life. I’m ebullient (again).

Here’s today’s Haiku:

Haiku 1:

Freckled, postmodern
My brain is like a racecar
And so is my heart.

Stay tuned for daily updates! We’re about to have some FUN.

xo.