I think because she has always been my closest-in-age Cool Older Girl Cousin, and because our voices share the same pitch and cadence, I always enviously appropriate things that Windsor says. I noticed in Portland that she was using "Stupid" as an adjective a lot. These shoes are "stupid pretty." House is "Stupid addictive." And I like her, and I like that earnest, emphatic usage so much, so I have been saying it too. But it also resonates with me and this weird confusing soup of angst and indecision that I (and most of my age-mates) find myself living in. I have not been saying it out loud, but I want to be saying "It's stupid hard to figure out what I'm feeling," and "This freezing rain is stupid disgusting," and "This morning I woke up stupid upset for no reason."

It is funny and comforting to think back on the things that I have done to keep winter malaise at bay. For example, sophomore year, Angie and I watched The Bridges of Madison County and milked it, manically, for at least a month. Clint Eastwood (who I curiously remember as Robert Redford, in visual terms), is always asking Meryl Streep if she would "care for a beer." We got such a kick out of this. We hid beers around our room in strange places - in drawers, under beds, under heaps of clothing in closets, and tried to ask our friends and visitors as frequently, calmly, and enigmatically as possible, if they would care for one, making sure that no matter where in the room we were sprawled, a beer was merely a rifling-through away. No one else knew what this was about, or thought it was funny, but we remained committed. Doldrums be damned.

I also wrote this poem, which is crass, and only funny, really, if you have recently watched The Bridges of Madison County:

Clint Eastwood's My Role Model

so I like my Iowan housewives barefoot and
in summer heat.
I ask would you care for a beer and she doesn't have to answer,
and would you care to take a walk.
Couples strolling take a tumble in the corn if things get heavy,
too late for the neighbors not to notice.
(I would have learned that in middle school,
but I'm Clint Eastwood so I learned in first grade).

We only walk to the end of the driveway.
The peace of an occasional pickup or a mean yellow dog is too small to hold
our shimmering atoms,
knocking together.
So there's even less space in her kitchen,
where else would you do it?
Clint does kitchens only when he might get laid.

Her neck-sweat bubbles over the caponata as she weighs choices:
Clint Eastwood, or a rug-beating?
Clint Eastwood, or obese rural husband,
clean-up after Madge and her mediocre brown betty?
Grandma's china smashes as I rest my elbows on the table and make up some shit about Africa.
My words are small and mean, and chiseled.
My woman distraught with memory, and picking up the shards.
RIP, RIP, bless your memory, but our bodies take primacy and
the safari bit seals it.

I've taken up residence in her heart and crotch as if it were my house to wake up in at 5 a.m.
and my pig to be desensitized to the stench of and
my frilly-ass doily pillowcases,
because I used to be in the service and now who cares if I'm whipped,
she should sweat a little,
break things,
because I'm fucking Clint Eastwood.
So's she.

-----------

I don't know what the point is. We were going to go out into the country today, and cut down a tree, but it is raining, and so I think that might not happen. I have been subsisting on Christmas cookies alone for the last several days and my head and stomach feel very crappy as a result.

There is nothing more to say, just now.