Not a sonnet

I haven't really been doing the Poetry Month thing, but I was going back through some old posts and found this. I love this poem. The fact that it's April just gives me an excuse. :)

Certain Things
By Jan Beatty

We were looking for kicks between
Pittsburgh and L.A. – rolling down
Will Rogers Turnpike in my ‘73
metallic blue Chevy Malibu –
when we heard “Kansas City” on the radio
and knew it was a sign. Bobbie and me
shot back up 69 to Kansas City – Kansas,
not Missouri – so we could sing
Goin to Kansas City...and mean it.
It was the song we wanted, not some
crazy little women, just drinking
and dancing, a way to forget
how scared we were. We ended up
at the Pink Corral with wild cowboys
who two-stepped us, swung us around
until my lucky mother-of-pearl flew
right off my finger and I knew that meant
it was time to go. Three days later
we hit Utah’s saintly boulders and
salty hard ground where I learned
the true nature of Bobbie – she begged
the universe for a rest stop – no answer –
so we stopped by huge rocks and she said:
I can’t pee outside. I shot a look at her
to see if this was real, and she had no clue
about how to, where to – right then I knew
it was over – I instructed: Get up on a slant,
one foot forward, one foot back, and
let it rip – make sure you leave room
for the pee to cut a path between your feet –
how did you get this far not knowing this?
This explained the over-reliance on friends,
the long, tearful phone calls – this was a woman
who hadn’t yet felt her own soul
in the foothills of a desert – and liked it.
There’s certain things you’ve got to know:
how to use jumper cables, drive a stick,
never fight with a drunk; you’ve got to speak
from your heart, walk with an attitude, know
the words to “Gimme Shelter”; change a tire on
a dark, rainy highway, say when you’re wrong,
and slam down a shot; you’ve just got to know
how to look someone dead in the eye
and tell them to fuck off, stride across the room
and dance hard, want hard, thrown down,
wear your jeans low and tight, you’ve got to
send long hot kisses until further notice, in short –
you’ve got to deliver – and you’ve got to pee outside.

Name meme!

1. My username is ______ because ______.

"inmyriadbits" (which breaks down as "In Myriad Bits" for those of you confused by it) because it comes from my favorite quote. It's a line from the Kasidah: "All faith is false, all faith is true; truth is the shattered mirror strown in myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own." Not only is it lovely imagery, but I really believe in the idea that truth is largely subjective and experienced fragmentarily. It seemed very appropriate for LJ, with everyone bringing their own little bits of truth to the table here.

2. My name is _____ because ______.

Um. "inmyriadbits," because I don't know how to change it. :)

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.

"there will be a fish" because I randomly ran across an Ovid quote (I think it was while bored and fooling around with that band name meme with lordessrenegade in chat, actually) that I liked: "Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish." It's appropriate to my current attempts not to withdraw from the world and miss out on actually living my life, and boy, was it appropriate during SXSW. Also, I just like the whimsy of it. :D

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

"the film reel" because that's how I think of it, visually -- a bunch of little disparate squares scrolling by to tell the story that is my flist.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

Jimi Hendrix. JIMI HENDRIX, YOU GUYS. I love that dude. He's my impossible historical musical boyfriend, he rocks like nobody else ever has or ever will, and I could listen to his music forever. <3