Flu

Impossible Things, by Lissy Elle

I don't know if I can blame everything on the flu, but I'm going to try. I've been sick for over a week, and though I went back to school Wednesday, I still feel like death warmed over. I came home today and slept for three hours, and didn't even make dinner for the kids. I am plum wore out.

My horoscope said yesterday that I was in for some very big life shifts, and I think I just lived through one. I'm giving up on this relationship, which was doomed from the beginning anyway. He's too irrational and self-centered, and I'm exhausted by the whole thing. It's still depressing though. I deleted my Facebook account. For one thing, I spend far too much time there, and for another, I just don't want the possibility of having to deal with David there. I think it will take some time to get used to but in the end, it's a good thing. I've worked on my short story for the writer's group tomorrow, and spent time talking to my kids, so already there's a big difference. That can't be bad.

The biggest shift for me, though, is that I am realizing I can't please everyone, and those I can't please I have to walk away from. This is happening on many levels, and it feels really awkward. For example, I have a student this semester who is a real beeyotch. She's bored, she snickers at things I say, she's over it all, and sits with her arms crossed, daring me. Today she rolled her eyes as I asked a question. So I looked straight at her and mimicked her stare. "Oui, Jessica?" "Hmmmm?" she said. "Tu voulais dire quelque chose?" "Ben...' and she proceeded to answer the question, very weakly, using the word "pièce" for "piece" and proving that she indeed, knows nothing more than anyone else in the class. She got to me, but later I realized I just don't give a shit anymore. I am going to teach to the rest of the students and ignore her and her pissy attitude

And this thing with David. Obviously I can't let it go. But I am trying to, as I see that there is no way to get him to see my point, regardless of what it is. He is either defending himself, attacking me, or apologizing. It's maddening and in the end, I don't have the time or the energy for it. I've never walked away from someone I genuinely like this much, but this will be a first. I just can't beat my head against all these walls anymore.

So tonight I sit here with nothing much to entertain me. I am writing a short piece on an event that happened years ago at the Biltmore Hotel, following a drunken night after an REM show. It's kind of a sad story, as the guy who is the other lead character (besides me) is dead now, and I never really knew him. It's sad, too, because I was so young, and am so old now. It's just a sad, weepy night, and I am wallowing.

Happy birthday, Eddie Poe!

I began a new class this semester, the roman policier, and our first day of class was today, and I taught Murders in the Rue Morgue. Did I remember it was Eddie's birthday??? NO! What kind of bad girlfriend am I?

So to make it up to you, darling man, I will read from my favorite of your poems, Ulalume.

Ahem.

The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Here once, through and alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.

Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere -
Our memories were treacherous and sere, -
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) -
We noted not the dim lake of Auber
(Though once we had journeyed down here) -
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

And now, as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn -
As the star-dials hinted of morn -
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn -
Astarte's bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.

And I said: "She is warmer than Dian;
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies -
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes -
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."

But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said: "Sadly this star I mistrust -
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:
Ah, hasten! -ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -let us fly! -for we must."
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust -
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust -
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

I replied: "This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendour is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty tonight! -
See! -it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright -
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom -
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb -
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said: "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied: "Ulalume -Ulalume -
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere -
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried: "It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed -I journeyed down here! -
That I brought a dread burden down here -
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon hath tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber -
This misty mid region of Weir -
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."

Happy day, wonderful one.