sweetheart redux

in 2004 i had open heart surgery. in the long run it was a success, but in the immediate post-op aftermath, my cardiologist, Dr. Dumbfuck (which in English translates to Fatally Incompetent), didn't actually look at any of the echocardiograms he had me wait hours to take, 3 days in a row, and so nobody knew my heart sac was filling up with blood, until my heart almost stopped working one day, and this time when i went back into the hospital, i guess the insurance company weighed the risks of making me leave again asap, and this time they took care of me until my heart was healed. i lived. in 2005 i had a nervous breakdown, but i'm too sarcastic to ever go fully crazy, so while i was a bit incapable of taking care of myself, i wasn't fully incapable, and therefore i was a day-patient (I didn't have to live at the facility, i could go home at night, not that i wanted to) for 3 weeks at a rehab/mental health facility. the famous one wc fields went to. we had music thera...

despite all the neat clothes, books, jewelry etc i've sold, given away or just left behind, these are 4 postcards i've managed to hang on to for over 10 years. xo

I watch a lot of bad movies. that's been the case for awhile now. I used to just naturally only want to watch good movies, even/especially when I was a teenager -- it wasn't like I was forcing myself to do a Midnight Cowboy/Jules and Jim/The Sterile Cuckoo triple header, in the middle of a saturday, when I was a fifteen year old -- it was what I wanted to do with those hours. Let me clarify that I know it may sound unhealthy, spending a day of my youth, many saturdays in a row, watching movies all day. but i spent my weekends visiting my mom and she was really poor, and we both had our reasons for this near-addiction to escapism, so, we watched a lot of movies on a lot of weekend days. Anyway, I have long been unemployed and it's very anxious-making, and what makes me feel best is watching dvd's while crocheting, that's what keeps the anxiety at bay. uh, i have a little thing where i watch the Harry Potters at least once a week, but i'll save that for a bl...

writing to no one talking to self emily dickinson dead spider on shelf life can be simple and unemployment fun when talking to self and writing to no one.

well, it's 10:12 pm on a sunday night. i'm up to my usual restless tricks. geof is asleep in the bedroom, coughing his poor little lungs out. I have a movie on quietly (Aviator), and am online looking for jobs and yes, occasionally giving in to my recent obsession to Farmville. I have gotten out of the habit of reading, and don't seem able to complete anything lately. I was reading one of my favorite type of novels, something contemporary that nobody's heard of that mom bought at some yard sale in san pedro or something, but that wasn't doing it for me, i wanted something more epic, so I tried to start War and Peace, but it wasn't quite for me, and now I'm trying to make myself stick it out through what seems MAYBE able to hold my attention, graham greene's The Tenth Man, checked out from the North Hollywood Library, when I was there tutoring one of the couple tutoring clients I have left. I can't even finish a scarf lately, before crocheting a...

here are 4 poems i've written in the past few years that i sent to many literary journals, to no avail. actually, a literary journal called Poetry Motel told me they would publish "saints" but I could never reach them after that one letter from them, so, who knows. well, here goes.... a bit dark in places: 4 poems by Robin Crane Saints For you the saints of love appear They ask you what you’re doing here You say you’ve needed them so long You’ve since forgotten what was wrong. Female Traveler In Washington they’d probably Prefer to just remember me. In Michigan my ma and pa Left for me what as kids they saw. Savannah with its sexy grins Is where I threw up all my gin. New York New York the laundry hangs On lines that line the sky with veins. Los Angeles I made my home But panic freezes up my bones The only words that comfort me Are “Coast to Coast Cab Company.” All This Could Be Yours As in a farcical mystery novel Whose hapless hero falls unconscious in a den of murder...

Lately I've been wondering what the meaning of life is. doesn't that sound cliche? but it's true. I was a sort of christian for awhile when i was a child. i never believed in hell but i believed in heaven and God. I used to pray every night, it was such a bizarre prayer though because it was a litany of all my paranoias and fears, i remember a part of it went like this: "And please don't let mom die of AIDS and don't let there be an earthquake in the year 2000 that knocks the earth out of orbit" and I ended the prayer with "in your holy, sweet name i pray, amen." but one day when i was in 6th grade and i was at a restaurant with family, i was just seriously bummed that day, i was the #1 punching bag in my junior high that year and was actually suicidal, i realized there was no god, and i stopped praying that day. it's been part of my identity for a long time to be someone who "hates christians." i don't really hate th...