I know who I am, do you know who you are?

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Doreen Peri
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I know who I am, do you know who you are?

Post by Doreen Peri » September 5th, 2005, 3:24 am

Properly-formatted Lines - Or
I know who I am, do you know who you are?

I understand wanting to make sure lines are formatted correctly, etc. I remember having this problem before when I wanted to publish some work. But I get overwhelmed with trying to go from application to application and saving attached files so I can find them again. Screwed up spacing and scrambled letters are no good! That's for sure!

I'm here to tell you who I am. I wish I knew. I'll do the best I can to fill you in with a little bit about me but keep in mind that I'm iffy about all of it. My memory is probably fading right along with my sense of autonomy.

I was born in 1965 on one of the highways leading a suburb of New York City, not quite yet near upstate New York, but instead, much closer to Hoboken, New Jersey. No wait. That wasn't me. That was a friend of mine who I haven't seen in about 15 years. Lemme think.

Oh yeah. I was born in 1971 in the back seat of my mother's car. Her husband at the time was rushing her to the hospital because I wanted to come out so bad but her body wasn't able to handle the darn experience slowly enough. He wasn't my father. He was just trying to help. But they didn't make it. This was in the foothills of the Ozarks somewhere. They never told me the exact location but I know her husband owned a Porsche. A red one. 1968. He had rebuilt it starting from a Volkswagon engine but he didn't do the body work himself. He paid his cousin, Joel, to do it. The car had been involved in an accident prior to that and was somewhat of a collectors item, especially because some famous celebrity who had a reputation for floozing around with other famous celebreties used to own the vehicle but I can't remember her name, though she was well known for being a not-so-well-known disco singer at the time.

No wait! That's a lie. I'm sorry. I graduated from high school in 1971. That's the truth, really. I'm old. But not as old as my older sisters. They graduated several years earlier than I did but they weren't born in the back of a famous Porsche like that and their father wasn't my mother's husband either, so I'm one up on them. ;)

OK. So, now I'm on a roll. Let's start from the beginning, shall we? (Don't you hate it when people say "shall we" when they really mean, "shall I?" or "shan't I?" or "should I?" or something else entirely but they have no ability to articulate it? I do. But what I hate worse is when they say something which is quite articulate but means so little that they even admit they don't know what it means. Like now, for instance.) *whew*

So, it was 19 hundred and some year back when I was born and Mom, she was a fashion plate of sorts. Plus, she was really married to my father, not the other guy in the Porsche who was driving her to deliver a baby because I made that up. No, that's not what happened at all to my Mom. It might have happened to that other guy's wife or something but I wasn't there so I truly have no right to report it like this. But I am anyway, just to get to the point.

My Mom... well, she wore platform shoes and hats and worked at a movie theater selling tickets. Her stockings had seams up the back. She wanted to be a journalist, a photo-journalist, actually, but she didn't own a camera so she never made it in that field, though she tended to memorize the pictures she wanted to take but wasn't able to take and tell me about them.

No wait! That was my grandmother. Or yours. I never can get those two ladies straight. Did your grandmother wear stockings with seams up the back? Black ones? Maybe that was my sister-in-law's grandmother – the sister of my first husband who worked as an agent for the government. Not our government. I mean, not the government of the U S of A, but the some other governement somewhere in the world but I don't know which one because he didn't have the opportunity to tell me since it was considered Top Secret at the time.

Oh geez... I don't have this right yet. That wasn't the sister of my first husband, that was the sister of my second husband who swore to me over and over that he didn't have a sister to begin with because he was bound by laws which he refused to explain since they weren't the laws of this country but they were the laws, instead, of his parent's country where he was born. He called that country "the old country."

Hold on. I'm getting confused here. Let me think for a minute.

I tell you what. It's going to take more than a minute because it's already after 3AM and I haven't finished remembering about my ex-husband's family (neither of them) and which car I wasn't in when I wasn't born out of the loins of a lady who wasn't my mother after all.

The path and physics of telling a story like this is way beyond me. I need to do an analysis. I mean, I need an analyist. Or a computer programmer. Or an adminstrative assistant, at the very least. I was considering hiring an editor to help me sort through my stories so that I could create a memoir but I couldn't afford to pay someone who would work so cheap. Y'know? I'm sure you do.

This has been a helluva journey and I'm not so sure how I ended up here but I tell you what, – (mark my words on a chalk board somewhere so you can be sure to erase them later) ... this is no picnic! I mean, just IMAGINE it!

Imagine you were born, just like me, at some point in time to parents of no particular distinct characteristics, even though you remembered them quite well from the variety of photographs you had saved through the years and then you became ME, just like that, some 30 or 40 years later and bing bam boom, some dude asks you who you are and what you are and why you are and you have to try to explain it! I mean, just imagine that if you would, ok?

Alright. I give up. I'll tell you the truth. I'm a parapalegic 23-year-old graduate student at MIT studying physics and astronomy. I met a man on the internet and he promised me the world and decided to take me into his humble abode and so I traveled all the way across country only to find out he had ulterior motives. Thank goodness! And that's where I live now – along with my second ex-husband's first secretary's cat named Shelly and two totally indescript budgies, one with blue markings and one with green and black, and Wink, my cat who I've had for 14 years who disappeared last week and never came back.

I figure it's all cosmic material. I'm a physics major, remember? *sigh*

I haven't written that many words in months. As I was writing this, I cracked myself up and threw tomatoes and fruit and veggies at me all at the same time, though I am well aware that tomatoes are both fruit and vegetable, (though fruit is legal and vegetable is legal, too, no matter how you look at the history of the definitions or terms), but I didn't need to bombard myself like that just to get me off the stage.

Actually, I'm Doreen. My real last name is not Peri. It is much longer than that but I'm seriously considering legally changing it to Peri since I am around and about it. I am a deft explorer, a rabid questioner, a make-believe lover of earth and air, a cabaret dancer, a theatrical impersonator, a make-shift music-maker and a dolt, attempting to find my way from one dot to the next on a universal pad of paper, wondering why they couldn't get water to the people on day two instead of day 6 or if it got there at all....

And who are YOU? Tell me. I truly do want to know.

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mousey1
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Post by mousey1 » September 5th, 2005, 3:37 am

I am a dolt that was struck by a bolt

of lightning!

So long story short

What you wrote

Made perfect sense

To me!!!



Bravo Doreen....you Periwinkle you!!!!

Hilarious girl....just hilarious!!!

You crack me up too!!! :D
I used to walk with my head in the clouds but I kept getting struck by lightning!
Now my head twitches and I drool alot. Anonymouse

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/mousey1/shhhhhh.gif[/img]

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Post by stilltrucking » September 5th, 2005, 7:34 am

I am a two-fold continuous multiplicity in your field of visual sensation.. I am these photons bouncing off this screen onto your retina. I am the square root of negative one. I am a stranger to myself.. I am something that exists for a time in this best of all spatio-temporal worlds, and then will not exist. I am a compulsive scribbler. I am a wordkook.
I am still trucking. . I am smiling Jacky, a knight of the highway, and a sailor on a concrete sea. I am a guy in a story about adultery, acid, and abortion and I am running away from home to join the circus. I have found true love, and fled from it . I am a virgin. I am crazy. I am a truck.

Have you ever woke up in the worning and could not remember your name, your age, where you are? I keep a note posted to my refrigerator to remind me.

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Zlatko Waterman
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Post by Zlatko Waterman » September 5th, 2005, 11:31 am

Dear Doreen:

A delightful ramble, two parts Beckett and one part Daffy Duck. The wit and humor derive from the wonderful meandering. I am also pleasantly reminded of Oskar in "The Tin Drum" and his tortured attempts to put his life into an apologetic form.

This is peripatetic ( or is that "Peri-patetic"?)poetry at its best, masquerading as history-clothed narrative.

An entertainment and fine commentary on the art of the memoirist-- much more entertaining than a cabaret dance . . .



Bravo.


--Z

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Post by Bohemian » September 5th, 2005, 11:05 pm

We consume ourselves in so many rolls in one lifetime, imagine, trying to keep track of who's who, during several turns-I too enjoy your wit.

Bohemian

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Doreen Peri
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Post by Doreen Peri » September 5th, 2005, 11:18 pm

mousey!! - It did? It made perfect sense to you? I'm peri-fied! :shock: 'Splain it to me, lucy! ;) Glad to give you a laugh. I stole the idea. Not the writing but the idea. I don't think professionals tell that kinda thing but since I'm an amatuer, I can. Thank you, mr. or mrs blogger, whoever you are, for inspiring me!

'truckin! - Indeed you are! All that and more! That was a great reply! And no, I've never done that but I'm inspired by you and I think that's a great idea. I have plenty of magnets on my fridge. I can use one for each of me. :)

Zlatko- Thank you for reading me. I am always honored when you do. There's Beckett in here? my God! You're kidding! I'm not familiar with Oskar or "The Tin Drum" so I need to look it up. And I don't know what peripatetic means, so I'll look that up, too. ;) Are you sure you didn't mean peri-pathetic? 8) Seriously, though, I am pleased you were entertained by my whimsy. :) Thanks much!

Image
He was one of my favorites. I've been a loonytune for just about forever, but that's for another "bio". :) Hope you're doing well. Haven't heard from you much lately. We were hoping to meet you this summer. I owe an email to lescaret.

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Post by stilltrucking » September 5th, 2005, 11:26 pm

Doreen I forgot to say how much I liked your post I been thinking about this bit from a Woman's Zen Center.
Good speech or bad speech, if either one touches you more than the other, you've got problems: clinging, grabbing, not believing in yourself.
If you need good words to feel good about yourself, then it's devastating when someone gives you bad words. Neither one needs to touch you
From the way of getting it by not getting it
thanks for the kind words
thanks for the unkind words
you are a poet
I need all your words to survive
good night.

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Post by Doreen Peri » September 5th, 2005, 11:43 pm

Bohemian - I didn't see your post when I replied to the others. You must have been posting as I was posting. I'm having a hard time keeping track of all the bohemians I know, especially those who are part of me. :) Thanks for reading!

'truckin - A Woman's Zen Center? Hmmm... sounds exotic! :) I know nothing of Zen other than here I am now and when I was here before or there before, wherever that was, I used to read Alan Watts. It was long ago but I'm always still here now. Clinging, grabbing, not believing in yourself. Those things aren't good things. I never gave you an unkind word. Thank you for your kind words and for calling me a poet. I am honored by the term. Goodnight! :)

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Post by stilltrucking » September 5th, 2005, 11:57 pm

He said, "No, women can't get enlightenment."
http://www.kwanumzen.com/primarypoint/v ... rself.html

I know nothing about it except what I have picked up from Cecil, SooZen, jimboloco, wireman, and judih. She is a Zen Jewdist I think.


The web site above is about the way of getting it by not getting it. Just perfect for dumb chicks like me that just don’t get it.
I don't know how many times i have seen SooZen sort of flamed because her "zenn is not pure enough" Took me a while to realize that there are Buddhist freaks as well as Jesus freaks. But I would rather deal with a B freak anyday... Jesus freaks are so dangerous.

I am not even a novice so don't listen to me. I feel like Cecil has been sort of dragging me kicking and screaming like a three year old towards enlightenment, which just means being kind to myself, accepting myself. sorry for the ramble
good night

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Post by gypsyjoker » September 6th, 2005, 7:38 am

Doreen what he is trying to say has nothing to do with you, in fact it really has nothing to do with any woman here.

It is a guy thing.

Somebody praises the writing oh boy, somebody criticize, up come the testosterone, yeah what do you know, or yeah punk well let me tell you blah blah blah.

I personally don't give sh*t what anybody says about my writing. That is how vain I am.

Peace

btw i don't think it was stilltrucking who was the inspiration, i think it was judih's post to humor that inspired it. But that is not exactly what you meant. The note on the refrigerator was inspired by a story about a man who had brain damage it wiped out his memory. Each day he awoke with amnesia He wrote a sophisticatd computer program to rebuild his identity each day.

What I wonder is who inspired this one by Seven?
Day glare

emotional sock puppet
and assortment of frailty
guilty by association
a mind on vacation
For me it is a question of what i am not so much who.
The Phenomenon of Man: Books by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
One of these days I may actually read that book.
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Medawa ... f-man.html
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'Blessed is he who was not born, Or he, who having been born, has died. But as for us who live, woe unto us, Because we see the afflictions of Zion, And what has befallen Jerusalem." Pseudepigrapha

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Zlatko Waterman
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Post by Zlatko Waterman » September 6th, 2005, 9:26 am

Dear Doreen:

"I have had a visit. Things were going too well. I had forgotten myself, lost myself. I exaggerate. Things were not going too badly. I was elsewhere. Another was suffering. Then I had the visit. To bring me back to dying. If that amuses them. The fact is they don't know, neither do I, but they think they know. An aeroplane passes, flying low, with a noise like thunder. It is a noise quite unlike thunder, one says thunder but one does not think of it, it is just a loud, fleeting noise, nothing more, unlike any other. It is certainly the first time I have heard it here, to my knowledge. But I have heard aeroplanes elsewhere and have even seen them in flight. I saw the very first in flight and then in the end the latest models, oh not the very latest, the very second-latest, the very antepenultimate."

"Malone Dies"

--Samuel Beckett

hester_prynne

Post by hester_prynne » September 7th, 2005, 12:27 pm

Heh, ah yes Doreen, this sums it up delightfully.

Only I was born in a borrowed edsel, halfway up the ess curve hill. I would have been on time at the hospital, if only daddy would have left the bar one beer sooner.....

Love this Doreen. Excellent, intensely hilariously poignant.
H 8)

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~K
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Post by ~K » September 8th, 2005, 6:50 am

Well, since you asked,and truly seem to want to know (as I must admit, do I) shall we, *smile* explore the issue of Who am I?

Yes! Let's!

I am...

Ah, but wait, I remember now, this path is to revealing. These steps can only lead to quicksand and I am...already sinking.

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