Posted 7:43 AM by melanie

The Day before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, and The Day After Thanksgiving 1970 for my brother Alan

The last time I saw my favorite brother alive was 32 years ago today. He was 17 and it was the day before Thanksgiving 1970. I was playing in the front yard with my best friend, Renea. He came riding up on a borrowed motorcycle. He was wearing a blue jean jacket that afternoon and he had soft red brown hair that fell in loose curls around his shoulders. He was 5’9, with a slender build and he had lovely hazel eyes and they looked so blue to me that day as the leaves fell from the hickory nut and oak trees in my parents front yard.

We wanted him to take us for a ride, but he said, he was too busy, and he promised to return. I didn’t know if he would or not, I didn’t get to see him very often in those years. He’d spent the previous summer attending Rock Festivals in Atlanta and other places and was always headed out on the road for another adventure.

He didn’t show up on Thanksgiving morning and we went to my Aunt’s house and our Thanksgiving was like most other families, with a few drunks, many different kinds of pies, and lots of turkey and all of us children playing the instant games of cousin friends. We ate and played hide and seek until the sun set and our weary parents, firmly planted us in different cars to return to our homes with the food, covered in tin foil plates, and the smell of pumpkin spice, intermingled with the new plastic scent of our mother’s sedans.


My father put the meal away in the freezer and made sure that he fixed my brother and his friend’s each a plate of food for whenever they wanted to eat it. I hoped so badly to see him again, I was eager for a chance to be his special girlfriend and ride on the back of his bike clutching his waist as we breezed through the streets of Baton Rouge.

The next day my parents awoke early and my dad had the day off and he and my mother started painting a spare room and doing the things that people do over long holiday weekends in the suburbs. I played with my dolls and listened to Credence Clearwater on the AM radio in my bedroom. The phone rang and it was the hospital and everyone started running. I was left at my friend Renea's house and we wondered if he’d still take us for a ride once he got back from the hospital with stitches or a cast or if the motorcycle was still running. There was no thought of death in our Barbie doll lives with plastic babies and bubbles and playing beauty shop.

The phone call came and my parents picked me up from my friend Renea's and brought me to our house. I was sleeping in my bedroom and I heard my father crying and I walked into the kitchen and he was standing over one of those tin foil plates that he’d put away for my brother. His tears were falling on the frozen turkey and the stuffing was becoming damp. My father had a bewildered look on his face when he turned and saw me standing there.

He looked at me and he said in a quiet voice while shaking the tears from his eyes (it was the first time that I’d ever seen him cry) “he’ll never get to eat it now,” as he sobbed and dropped the plate on the floor and crumpled down besides the freezer and I walked over and he rocked me and held me in his arms, kissing me, and running his fingers through my long hair while hugging my head.

Posted 8:44 PM by melanie

A.P.B.




My baby and I were sleeping when he came in drunk looking for the car keys. His eyes were wild and he looked like he had been doing crank, crack or some other disgusting toxin. He came in and he pulled me out of bed to help him find his keys, but we couldn't locate them. He got angrier and angrier at me and he was yelling and calling me a "fucking cunt."

He picked up a shotgun that was sitting in the corner by the front door and he ran at me with it. He held it over his head and he backed me in to a corner with the blunt end. I was on my knees, and I was covering my head with my hands, and he acted like he was going to bludgeon me to death with it. I begged him not to kill me and I told him that I didn't hide the keys.

After awhile he let me get up and he kept demanding the keys. We looked for them as he carried the shotgun waist level and held it on me the entire time as we searched through the house. I was crying, and I was sober, I had just woke up, and it was 6am. I hadn’t even had my coffee, yet. He started getting madder and madder because he thought I was hiding the keys, but I wasn’t and I didn’t know where they were.

He aimed the shotgun, and he held it on me, and then all at once, he threw it off safety, and he cocked it, and he pointed it at me again. I thought, oh fuck, this is it, I'm dead. He was going to shoot me. The baby was still asleep in the next room. I wanted so badly to get the baby, but I was afraid that he would shoot both of us.

He started running across the room towards me and I had to think fast. I thought if I went out the front entrance and into our courtyard, someone would see him from the hotel next door, and then if he shot me in the back,he would have to keep on running and the baby would be safe. I really wanted to get my baby out of there, but I couldn't.

I ran out the door and he followed me and I could feel the butt of the rifle close to the small of my back. When I hit the bottom steps, he turned around and ran back into the house. He grabbed the baby out of his bed and held him up by his leg and pointed the gun at him and he told me to get the keys or he was going to “kill the kid” or “kill the little bastard” as he called him because "he wasn’t his son and he didn't care if the little motherfucker died."


He held the baby up high by his ankle, so that I could see the shotgun aimed at his head. The baby started crying and it was pissing him off. I was so scared and I didn’t know what to do. I ran and I grabbed my Mother who lived the down the street. We wanted to call the police but we were afraid that, that would only escalate things. We finally talked him into handing us the baby back.

I was still afraid to call the cops because we thought he would kill us all. I waited an hour and I snuck back over to the house and I peered into the window and I could see him passed out on the bed. He was snoring loudly and the shotgun was laying on the floor. I eased open the window and I climbed into the room and I retrieved the shotgun. ( I was determined that, if he was going to kill me, it wouldn't be with that gun) I noticed the keys on the floor under the bed and I got them too. I took his shotgun to the pawnshop and I pawned it and I used the money to buy gas for my car, so that my son and I could leave him forever. We sped out of town with out looking back.

Posted 7:54 AM by melanie

I hate the people that run my hometown, but not the people who live there. I miss my home, but you can't live there and be yourself or be poor or be happy because they will not allow certain kinds of folks in that area. If you try and stay and make it and you aren't wealthy then you go to jail, it is against the law to be poor in Baton Rouge. That's a shame because some of us are happy being ourselves, some of us don't share their views of life or money, some of us aren't as greedy as the people in power. Last one out turn out the lights.

Posted 8:48 AM by melanie

I have one more thing to say on this rainy Monday morning

Please, Please, PLEASE, don't let them bury me in Baton Rouge.

Posted 7:06 PM by melanie

When I was injured recently in Louisiana my head hit the steering wheel and I needed stitches, on the stretcher on the way to the hospital, my cousin Stacy who was at the scene and is an accountant at a leading home healthcare agency in the city, insisted that I request a plastic surgeon to stitch up my face. My aunt and my mother, who were also at the scene, agreed with Stacy.

When I arrived at Our Lady of the Lake hospital the attending physician who was not a plastic surgeon, Dr Morrilton (a very nice man) called in, I think every plastic surgeon in town, including the one on call and I was turned down by the whole list. One question sufficed to bring about the negative replies and that was who my carrier was for my insurance and when they found out that I was not covered each one said no.

He finally located one at Summit Hospital’s emergency room and when I arrived there by Taxi I was not treated or seen (triaged) when they found out that I didn‘t have health insurance. (I was escorted out by security) and had to return back to OLOL hospital, where after many hours, I was finally stitched up by a nurse practitioner (I‘d like to thank her, for coming through for me). I am still recovering from my many injuries including a concussion or I would have spoken of this sooner.

To every plastic surgeon in the city of Baton Rouge, and the staff at Summit Hospital, who refused to help me (all of you). I want to thank all you cold BASTARDS to the bottom of my heart.


(I still have ALL the original records, I had them make copies as I left the hospital [OLOL].)

Posted 9:00 AM by melanie

I guess one of my goals in writing is to be brutally honest and truthful even at my own expense. I want to expose every raw emotion and human frailty, mostly my own. If the reader laughs when perhaps they feel they shouldn’t then my answer would be an affirmative. Go for it. I’m smiling at the ignorance of living in the here and now and that’s the way it should be. If someone becomes offended then I think they should be. Hate me, revile me, whatever, but understand my primary concern is to push the First Amendment as hard as I can. To beat on it as though it were a large stone monument seemingly oblivious to the pounding of my furious tiny fist. Like a door meant only for the elite, but open to us all with an awareness that any of us can be knocked over with the flick of some twit's wrist as an obvious irritant, an inflamed pulsing vein on the ass of the Supreme Court, not even important enough to be considered, merely another screaming voice in the cacophony with all the joy and pleasure (I get off on this. I’m weird) and as rambunctious as I can still muster. A crowd scene, if you will, in the privacy of my own room, hitting on flies and stomping on roaches as I write. I do it because I can and because I am curious and want to see how far I can take it within my own set of strictures and morals, yet never backing away from what I see to be real even if its not a part of the cultural mores of the day. Even if you hate me then I’ve had some effect and achieved some measure of promoting our baser primal urges that take us finally back to what it is to be human.

(REPOSTED)



MY Thoughts on War With Iraq


To question the ethics and morality of our leaders is not un-American, but American to the core. We have a right to do this. It is what our country is based on.
And just because you don't support military action does not mean that you don't support the individual soldiers and their families. I'd like to see them all safe at home.



(Direct Descendant of Matthew Davis, soldier in the American Revolution, Halifax, NC)


[ I want to explain what I meant by the flick of some twit's wrist. I am talking about Osama (or whoever ordered it) and the twin towers and I am talking about Al Gore and the election and I am talking about those of us on a street level, us little people who are knocked over daily, by other little people like ourselves. I have no delusions of grandeur, or omnipotence, and I don't think anyone who breathes, or has a beating heart, or who is human, should either, we are all of us ruled by the same universal constant. I follow only God and no one on this earth and that is what I believe and I don't care who doesn't share my faith. I have my belief system worked out by this age and that's who I am. Left wing loony liberal writers like me believe in God and our country, too, even if we don't support the war machine or those who finance it.]

Posted 5:38 PM by melanie

My Father’s Funeral in Baton Rouge December 1985 (True Story)


Brass handles
Pine, burnished, stained, shine, glowing
Your face looked like
One last peaceful spring day.


They saw your obituary
They had no respect for you
Jack booted feet crashing on green shag carpet
With eyes so much deader then yours
Yours are closed in sleep.


People were there to honor you
Family, friends, colleagues,
Sisters, Aunts, Cousins, Uncles
You were wearing your favorite tuxedo.
They were wearing uniforms
City, State, and Parish
Storm troopers
Shotguns cocked and ready
Holsters empty, guns drawn.


They came into the funeral home
They looked you at laying there.


They shouted at my mother
My mother fainted and fell on the floor
She hit her head
We got her up and gave her some water
They didn’t offer to call an ambulance for her
They yelled at her some more.


They threatened to arrest everybody
They didn't arrest anybody.
They left after hours
We all wept some more
The same expression was your face before and after.


We buried you the next day
The club showed up to see you off
I was so proud of them
Three 1955 T-Bird convertibles
(You bought yours brand new)
Red, yellow, and black with their tops down
Followed your hearse


Winding slowly down Florida Boulevard
To Greenoaks Memorial Graveyard
Traffic stopped in Baton Rouge on that day.
People smiled and waved at the procession as it passed.
It looked more like a Parade.


Mel



(It has taken me so long to write about this. You know the police raiding the funeral really happened, we filed reports with internal affairs with no results and my mother talked to the Sheriff who denied that it happened. To this day they have never said they were sorry. If you had known my father Eddie B. you would have known one of the nicest, funniest, sweetest, gentlest men that ever lived and they can't change that. He is, he was, and he always will be my favorite man on earth.It did happen and there were many, many witnesses, there were two other wakes going on at the same time so it wasn't only our family that witnessed this. They came in armed and ready for trouble, it was miracle that they left without harming anyone. I don't talk about this because as you can understand I am terrified of the police force. )






Just think reader (if there are any) if the establishment in Baton Rouge ever reads this Blog, they are going to kill me, Hahahahahahahahah walks off laughing like a lunatic into the night.



POOR ME, POOR ME, POUR ME ANOTHER.



Just a minute, reader as I collect my thoughts and pick up the stones cast at me by one of the very best law firms (that money can buy) in the capital city of that state.

Let us just for moment imagine the State Capital Building in Louisiana, built by Huey Long to be the tallest in the nation as one very large glass house. A very tall drink, if you will, half full of scoundrels and oil men, and half empty of good law abiding citizens of that state.


Notorious alcoholics and womanizers that they are, Louisiana politicians are not so different from those in other places, perhaps it’s the extremes and the mania of carnival that brings out the horniness in all the whore mongers and if you happened by T.D.'s lounge at the Hilton you could have sat next to any of them.

Posted 3:06 PM by melanie

My thoughts before Yet another Louisiana Election


I had said in an earlier blog that the problem with Louisiana politicians is that they depend on a segment of the population with criminal ties, (that being a large group of prostitutes, drug dealers, and con artist, gamblers, or what have you) that have for years made it their business to be in the right and left hand pockets of our esteemed elected officials at the state capital.

Consider the average member of the electorate in Louisiana as someone with poor education and job opportunities and couple that with our lawmakers for profit motive for imprisoning it’s own citizens in paying facilities (They used to call them the poor houses in Dickens days)

Then let us consider the average dead voters in a typical Louisiana election, those being people who have already died of some horrible cancer or disease caused by their exposure to the chemicals that are dumped, made, and processed in that state, yet they still vote for their favorite Louisiana politician, that being the one who (allowed the industries in) and probably caused their deaths, anyway.

Now, readers I am back again to the same proposition, as I consider my long ago ties to that group of men, whom I know haven’t changed one wit with time, whether they fly under this banner, or that one; always using the winds of change as a barometer to decide issues left or right. (We have all seen them do this by sticking their middle finger up their anal orifice and then holding it up to the wind (the populace) to see which side the feces dries on first)

It smells like there might be a right wind blowing in Louisiana this year!



This isn't me talking, it's those damn pesky little voices in my head, and damn them, they learned to type and spell, too.




{{{I will close this chapter for now as I intend to write more in private. If the gossips of Baton Rouge wish to speak then let them. I can no longer live there or even feel free in my associations in that town. I loved one man in my entire life and lost him due to similar circumstances in his background. If it is true that misery loves company, then my only company is my pen and my bitter memories of my time in Louisiana.}}}}

Posted 12:29 PM by melanie

Enough of this, reader and know that whatever kind of woman I have become, I do owe to it all to the auspices of the Louisiana Legislature. So ask those noble men of Baton Rouge what they think of me, raised as I was since being a very young lady at the knee of most of those great and esteemed gentlemen.

Smile for the camera, flash, clique.

Imagine me, an idealistic powder puff of a young, (a very young woman) thrown into the midst of the power brokers of the state. Now, coming from a good family and having a formidable parentage did not stop the invitations, but I have always known the difference between teasing and sleazy even if those good men of our state ship did not.

Posted 10:09 PM by melanie

I would be disingenuous by suggesting that I ever expected help or niceties from the men that rule Baton Rouge and the state of Louisiana.

It is true that we did many good things while working with our women’s groups (humble though we were) holding dinners, parties, or arranging yet another casino night to benefit the social cause of the moment, while our governor showed off his considerable skills at dealing cards.

How many times while attending some function, at the governor’s mansion, or the capital, did I personally witness some inopportune moment when the mayor, or one of our good representatives, was left with a lull conversation that would allow some poor per functionary to go with symbolic hat in hand to ask for a favor, maybe for a sick child, or a serviceman, or maybe for themselves.

The cornered politician would break in an all to familiar sweat, turning pale as his eyes darted wildly back and forth, trapped like animal with the worst kind of constituent, and that being one lacking the necessary social skills to know when a bribe is required for their humble request to be granted.

Oh how they would tremble and their bodies would jerk looking for any opening and at these times even I (being a petite teenager not lacking in looks) was seen as an agent of rescue for the noble gent waylaid by an opportunity seeker, and oh heavens, not even an important one. At these times my hand was clasped and I was even hugged with mumbled words in the ear, that meant nothing to me, as they brushed past hugging my shoulders in gratitude, while jumping a hedge or a coffee table to freedom.

Posted 1:24 PM by melanie

The best and absolutely the worst thing that my parents ever did to me was exposing me to that crowd (the politicians) at such a hopelessly young age. I was 14 or 15 when I started attending functions around the Governor's Mansion and the Capital. I was naïve, lacking in poise, maturity, and without ambition, or political aspirations. I told everyone that I was 19 and if I seemed dumb it is only because I was so young and I admired them and the power and influence of their words and the way they could work a crowd.

There were many good things. I liked the speeches, just to hear any of the surviving Long's speak or watch Edwin Edwards stir up a labor crowd was like listening to good gospel music.

Between, you and me, reader, I think that if I had never met any of them, or been exposed to their way of doing business, I would have been better off in life. Certainly they never helped me or hurt me, and after my father passed away, I was just another whore to them.

Posted 11:45 AM by melanie

If much of what I write appears to be fictional then perhaps you should go back to reading the official state press reports of the era, if however you are curious keep reading.

Posted 3:13 AM by melanie

To the rich and corrupt political bosses of that town let me state my rules of engagement and my reasons for doing so. I lay upon the table my humble sword in the form of a pen. I will not use any real names but will make fitting descriptions of all whom I have encountered and who have displeased me.

I wanted just one thing in life and from my former associates and it was not too much to ask. That was to be treated with respect and a chance to receive adequate healthcare following an injury. I wanted my child to be educated even in the substandard manner that Louisiana educates. Instead we were put out of hospitals and schools in that state. I was placed somewhere below human dignity and continue to be treated and talked to as an animal by the ‘good’ men of that town.

You don’t know what I saw all those years ago. You don’t know what I know. If you failed to detect the slightest bit of intelligence in my countenance hiding as it was behind the fluff, then I pity you and you are the one I intend to expose. I will not be so blatant as to talk of lucrative criminal enterprises (but be aware I do know of them) I only intend to return in kind the sort of treatment that my son and I received at your hands. If you were nice to me then you have no fear and by nice I do mean respectful.

Posted 5:01 PM by melanie

Let me soften this blow. In Louisiana it is very difficult to find a member of the electorate that is lucky enough to have been provided with an ample public education or has been able to avoid that state’s draconian criminal justice system. And lets just say that everyone knows that all the snakes generally gather together in certain spots on the river and if the river happens to be the Mississippi and their nest is the state capital in Louisiana then who can blame them since those kind generally seem to enjoy each others company.

{{{{{Mad, thinks I'm being, too rough and maybe I am, but stop building for profit prisons (you might end up in one) and never vote away money from handicapped children (I worked as a nurse in your state and I know first hand what your cut backs have done to children and their families) and please quit siding with the chemical companies (We've all attended too many funerals to thanks to them)}}}}}


[Also, let me add that I feel quite qualified in my own aspirations coming from a good family that traces it’s heritage back to the start of this country and the American Revolution. I do own quite few oil paintings with scenic views of Baton Rouge dating back to the 1940’s and 1950's painted by my Grandmother. (A collection of her oils of Swamp Scenes appeared briefly at the Smithsonian as part of a traveling exhibition of Louisiana primitive art.) My grandmother E A H B was a well known beauty of that era sporting auburn hair and she spent quite a bit of time painting and sculpting while living on Chimes Street just outside the gates LSU of during that period. She also worked in the administration of OK Allen.]

Posted 4:39 PM by melanie

When the leaders in a particular area surround themselves with nothing but prostitutes, drug dealers, and convicts, (and not even educated criminals, I mean we are talking, dumb as shit, illiterate, crooks) and then depend on said creatures for their ear to the ground and a knowledge of what is going on with the electorate then believe me they get a lot of misinformation. I do mean Democrat as well as Republicans.

I grew up around the Louisiana legislature, so I do know what they are like.



[I worked in most of the campaigns of the mid 1970’s through the 1980‘s. I started when I was around 14 years old. My parents were die hard Democrats. My father, Edward B. Sr., went to college in Ruston, LA and did his post Graduate work at LSU (he was boyhood friends with many of the establishment of the town including the Coroner of Baton Rouge for many years, Hypolite Landry) he was an engineer in Baton Rouge employed mostly as a planner, a scheduler, and saftey specialist at the plants, but he also worked as an Architect and designer. My mom, Mad Love, liked to organize benefits, fundraisers, and stuff like that, always for the Democratic Party or any prominent Feminist 0rganization. We lobbied at the state capital for things like Sex Education and Equal Rights. I worked in every Democratic campaign of that era and knew most the good Republicans, too.]

Posted 3:00 PM by melanie

Let me rephrase my intent from the start of this blog. (The very first entry) I see writing as an art form much like my grandmother's swamp scenes. I enjoy picaresque vignettes and appreciate the synecdoche of all things. This last screwing that I got courtesy of the Baton Rouge scene has given me something besides the rug burn (on the proverbial red carpets) and that is the freedom to express myself on subjects and people that I (being the loyal little liberal faithful that I once was) had formally considered taboo, always going after only the most onerous and obvious targets/subjects (translation right wing nuts). From now on no one and nothing is off limits in my work.

Problems With Punctuation or Remembrances of Former Nazi’s

I remember when I was a child of nine
In the mid 1970’s in southern Louisiana
Waiting for my mother outside the A&P grocery.
I leaned on the newspaper machines
As I watched a mustached man in a brown suit
Who was stalking back and forth in front of the store.
He was trying to get people to talk to him.
He looked miserable on this day
He kept nervously tugging on his collar
And he swallowed in between every word.
He was being politely ignored,
He was an embarrassment to us even back then
We in our new yet somewhat ill fitting suits of seventies southern liberalism
walked proudly past him….. No rebuff needed.
I guess because no else would talk to him
he approached me.
Perhaps hoping that a child would be more open minded.
He stood in front of me,
His shoulders hunched, his knees bent , and his chin thrust forward
So he could be at my level.
His body formed a question mark on my mind.
To me he was just another stranger,
So if he offered candy I was prepared to run away.
Instead he thrust some leaflets in my face.
(My mother warned me about perverts showing little girls
Pictures of people having intercourse)
I was curious so I leaned over just to get a peek.
But instead of pornography he handed my leaflets
About his white racist platform.
Now he had me backed up against the wall
in between the newspaper machines.
I was stuck and I couldn’t run away.
I had the New Orleans Times Picayune to the left of me
And the Baton Rouge State Times to the right
And David Duke hunched over me
Like a giant question mark.
Just then my mother approached and saw I was trapped.
I recognized the fierce look in my mother’s eyes.
I shrank back knowing the penalty for talking to strangers.
My mother’s eyes bore down on David Duke
Still not recognizing him.
Mr. Duke did not seem to see this feral look on my mothers face.
He stood no longer in a questionable position.
Shoulders back, chin up, back straight,
His body seemed to form an exclamation point.
His pale iridescent skin beamed brightly in the sun.
My mother thrust her hands in between the newspaper machines
Hoping to retrieve me from my hapless position.
But Mr. Duke misunderstood my mother’s intentions.
He thought she meant to shake his hand.
So he began pumping her hand vigorously.
He said he was David Duke of the white people’s party.
He said I was a perfect representative of all he wanted to protect.
I stood behind them shaking, my body curled up
Like a little comma in Mr. Duke’s agitated quotations.
As we walked away my mother crumpled Mr. Duke’s literature
And dropped it on the pavement
Where it lay like a period between him and me.
My mother was visibly shaken,
But as she held me close to her body I felt her begin to relax.
Our neighborhood was still safe,
Her baby wasn’t accosted by a pervert
Only by an over zealous neo-nazi.

by Mel ( among my many other aliases) 1991














Fallacies that I see are that men are chivalrous in the Southern US. Believe me they aren’t. Most of the men I have known including the white collar criminal types (translation: lawyers and business men) would just as soon have you killed or done in (however) as to look at you.

When my pussy became 35 years old it apparently had outlived its usefulness to that type (not that I would have fucked any of the old geezers, anyway, only in their dreams)

Unbeknownst to them I had found a lot of productive and useful things to do in life that had nothing to do with the color of my hair, how wide I could spread my thighs, or if I could bend all the way backwards and grab my ankles.

I have employers that valued me chiefly for honesty, work ethic, dependability, and intelligence, but man don’t tell that to the assholes in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Their books have no covers, even when they throw them at you.





It's that time of the year again. This is the time when I would be bottling gallons and gallons (up 50 fifths) of Kahlua for family and friends, but I quit drinking. This doesn't mean that you have to, so here is my most favorite recipe. If you want use flavored coffees (I ususally do) you can make hazel nut or french vanilla. (Hah and you thought I was a bitch when I was drinking, I am alot more to handle sober)

Kahlua

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Alcohol Beverages
Coffee

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 quart 100 proof vodka
5 cups Coffee
1 1/2 cups Brown sugar
1 1/2 cups White sugar
2 Vanilla beans

Bring to a simmer. Bottle and set for two weeks.





Ok, here is how we do it. I hate to throw this recipe out, without giving you my years of experience.
So here are some helpful hints.

One gallon of vodka will make four fifths.
Fill the bottles half full with your vodka.
I usually collect bottles from friendly bartenders in my area (god they’re going to miss me this year)
I boil the empty bottles to sterilize and remove the labels.
Then make your own labels (remember put Mel’s Kahlua on them)
anyways
Make your coffee at twice it’s usual strength
then boil the coffee, sugar, and vanilla (if you can’t find the beans at a specialty shop vanilla extract works just fine, about one cap per fifth.)
Boil for about 15 minutes stirring frequently and don’t scorch.
Then let it cool before adding it to your vodka in your fifths
(if you don’t let it cool, you will loose your alcohol and we don’t want that to happen, do we? Nooooooooooooooooo).

And yes, tasting as we prepare it is alright. Invite some friends over and you can blame me if you wake up two days later in a strange man’s bed, but don‘t blame me if you end up in jail.

Store bottles in a cool dry place. Give as Christmas gifts with instructions to open on New Years Day and make sure that you’re invited to every, (and I can’t stress this, enough) unscrewing.

Posted 11:40 AM by melanie

Before Ohio


The delusion is that we have any life at all
That any of us are different
That we really have any control
Over anything
We are just holding up bags of skin
For a short, short time, animated, real life
We don’t own ourselves or our lives
We don’t belong to ourselves
I was thinking about OHIO
No I was really thinking about life


I have come to one conclusion though
After being held down beaten twisted turned bruised and injured one more time
I DON’T LIKE MEN
I DON’T LIKE THEM
I don’t need a relationship or want one
I don’t want to fuck
I don’t want to touch
I don’t want to be touched
I don’t want men any where near me at all
Right now
To think of men as anything except brute force

at this point in my life I would be disingenuous to even

Go for a quickie
Hot sweaty sunny
Lunchtime
Romp
Between the thrust glancing at the clock on the wall to see
Between the sheets
Between paychecks



The timing is so important
Wasn’t it 12:45?
Hurry, hurry, hurry,
Living life by a Time Clock
Muscular men, big shoulders, rough hands,
Inked initials on a time card
Another woman’s name on your arm
Push it in

Sex in between
Another notch on your barrel
Mel





Pain (Life without pain medication)


It makes you draw further and further within
Hoping to disappear in soft flickering candle light
The purr of electric fans and the TV on just for the murmurs
If everyday could be
Like this
To the point of
No
No I am not home
No I’m not going anywhere
No
Leave me alone
Alone

Loud noises are not allowed
No bright lights
No anger
Everything boring moving slow
And
No
I’m not home
Go away
Please
\
Quiet static fills the air like happy voices
I do not want people around
I don’t trust
I don’t like

I am too old for this

I think about a cabin
Somewhere away from
Everybody
I could be a hermit

Complicated people fill my day
Litter my drive
I hate apartments
Arguments
Crack, crank, and god knows what else
I don’t want to know them
Why do they want to know me?

Posted 12:14 PM by melanie

Hitting on Buddha

I used to have a bong shaped like a buddha,
with a bowl in his belly,
& a hole in the back of his head,
that you could draw from
as long as you put your finger
over the carburater in his big toe.

In Buddha
I smoked red bud,
with tiny red hairs.
sensimillia,
with only two seeds per quarter pound.
skunky stuff,
thick and tightly packed,
just a pinch
in Buddha was all it took.

The thing, I liked the most,
about my Buddha bong,

other than hitting on his head,
was
you could fill him up with wine,
Strawberry Boones Farm
was preferred.
Then
when you ran out of weed,
you could drink of Buddha, too.
Like a spring
coming from a rock.

For twelve years,
I took Buddha,
where ever I went,

to the high desert in San Bernardino, California,
to the swamplands in Florida,
to urban centers like New York City,
Boston, Chicago, L.A.,
from one side of this country,
to the other.
I even took Buddha,
with me to Boulder, Colorado.

One day, Buddha
and I,
grew weary.
I got sick,
and developed a hacking cough.

I could no longer draw from god.

I lost the spirit,
I lost the faith,
I lost the numbers to my dealers,
when I lost my wallet,
back in Boulder, Colorado.

So I gave Buddha
away,
to my best friend Gary,
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
He still has Buddha.
He keeps him in the bottom drawer,
of his black, lacquered, night stand,
wrapped in tissue,
next to the a box of sex toys.
He and his wife,
still hit on Buddha,
in between visits,
to the methadone clinic,
in downtown New Orleans.

Mel

Written in 1996 at UALR in Dr Js' workshop in response to "I didn't inhale" (I sure as Hell did, every time I got a chance)
And I Never, Ever, Edited BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHBAHAHA (I've got swampland in Florida or would you prefer the Brooklyn Bridge?)