Author: Jeff Popovich

2022 January 9

Hey, see subject line

My eyes are ok, I’ll have to get yearly laser zaps if necessary to not lose more vision from glaucoma, stay on meds, he thinks I can and should avoid cataract surgery until necessary and I’m very ok with that

Roddy is in a dump off Capital View Road, he saw physical and occupational therapists Thursday and Friday and supposedly sees a speech therapist (who apparently determined whether patients might choke on the all pureed diet this dump serves and Roddy’s on it cause he *was* a choke threat when he first went to hospital, it will take the OK of another speech therapist before the dump can serve him food they can legally let him chew) He’can’t be home by himself but this dump is p(o)r(i)ison and does no one any good, if we break him out on Monday then home care will be covered up to something by insurance.

The four of us will badger him go to daycare, he won’t Everything I remember about working at Asbury as a janitor in the Dear God Let Them Die Wing came back to me, Roddy now talking about God

2022 January 7

My first job was delivering the Washington Post every morning, I had the Oakton-Woodland-Rolling perimeter, included Tulip and Hutton north and east of Woodland
second job at Mario’s Pizza on Summit across from elementary school I went to first grade (and met Willy Dayne, who, out of courtesy to you, I don’t remind you of the running down the cat in his green dodge dart on Ten Mile Creek Road everytime we hike Ten Mile Creek Trail which we do at least once a month, it’s the best trail in Moco)
third job was Asbury Methodist Home, an old folks harvesting factory in Gaithersburg that since has grown twenty fold, four excellent and distinct eighteen-hole disc-golf courses could be built on the campus
I worked six weeks in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building as a janitor
Sarek is *not* in the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building but the building freaks the fuck out of me, reminds me why I quit, it paid better than any pizza joint or landscaper would pay me and offered hours that gave me evening and weekends free and the people I worked with were more often than not lovely and the boss was fair and funny and nice
Of course the physical distress of the patients horribly disturbing at times and yes what you imagine a janitor in a Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building often mops up this janitor mopped up but what was worse were the looks on the face of those aware enough to know what happened, the mortification, the humiliation, the despair they couldn’t will themselves to death
I quit to take a job at Arnolds Diner on Redland Road across from where now sits the big red Teachers Credit Union for hours Thursday and Friday nights and Saturdays until six for two dollars less an hour and am who I am typing this poem tonight because I did
The means exist to yoink Sarek out as soon as can be discovered, navigated, then implemented both at a get out of now but what about next level
SeatSix showed up tonight with dinner and the front desk refused entry and would and/or could not say why, though the place is three pestilential floors of contaminated human aerosol projectiles
I work at a mid-sized university and watch undergraduates flount masking rules and never felt worry, full-vaxxed and boosted and properly masked me
1/100th of the worry I get in that three-floored petrie dish
I have no idea if Sarek’s been swabbed, I assume he has but who knows
No one asked me for my vaxdox, my temp was 97.2 like it always is, I checked a box on the screen vouching for my vaxdox, I understand, help has enough with the dying without fighting the dyings’ un-vaxxed visits
I forget the order much less have a complete inventory in my head of jobs 4 through my current job, there were dozens, Roys Place of course on Diamond, we all worked there, a landscaping place that ran out of a room in the Holiday Hotel on Walnut Hill where now a storage facility squats, a place on Oakmont on the railroad tracks that made windows and door frames, that job in the short few weeks taught me enough about crackers to not been wrong about them since, Crown Books of course where I met Hamster and then Earthgirl, a photomat in a strip mall in Annapolis when Earthgirl and I lived in Deale
Willy Bayne got me a job at Highs, I made it to second key night manager, without that job I would not got the Crown job and Planet wouldn’t exist
Cookie Factory and Alpine Pantry in Lakeforest Mall
The only job I ever quit *not* because fuck this and fuck you the Sorry, you’re-soon-to-be-dead building job, I’ve felt guilty ever since

2022 January 5

He’s finally out of hospital because they finally found a rehab place for him. He’s slightly stronger, a bit sharper, Marc said he was able tonight to walk around his new room to the bathroom on his own, but not ready to take care of himself, he’s physically weak, and he’s now and then delusional, he keeps wondering to Claire why Steve won’t return his calls (which is sweet, they did love each other). He knows something’s not right

Current hope is he’ll be there two weeks, build up physical strength, maybe learning how to drink something besides Yuengling and Coca Cola, get used to a regimen of eating at certain times, etc, plus gain needed physical strength and balance.

He is at Autumn Lakes Healthcare 2700 Barker St, Silver Spring (Georgia Avenue just north of Plyers Mill on the left side heading towards Wheaton), visiting hours 10-8 daily, room 245C. 

2021 December 24

My Next Gen Clusterfuck Metaphor of the Day: Picard returns to the Enterprise to get his saddle discovers the crew routinely conducting a barium sweep up to no good, the barium sweep has started, any living cell barium swept be dead, Picard uses his saddle to capture the nogoodnik who’ll be a Bejoran terrorist in the penultimate Next Gen episode and a Vulcan cast member on Voyager. Picard threatens torture and death with a laser welder, the nogoodnik scoofs, says, you’re Starfleet, you won’t kill me. Picard zaps him with one of those across all franchises Star Trek neck needles that fart upon injection, I guess you’re right, says Picard, then leaves him unconscious to die in the barium sweep

2021 December 20

A year ago today I posted the first grid, I typed last night
Transitioning from ink and tablet journal keeping ended my ink and tablet self-portraiting because why? that’s right, fuck me
some of those early grids hoowee and quoting from links like chum, chum, like you’ll click or beg-me bait when you won’t at basic bait
I miss writing in journals and still do on hikes when Earthgirl paints, but deciphering my handwriting and editing before comprehending when translating and typing into digital, unfuck me there, I could tap into simplenote on my phone on hike when Earthgirl painting it just occurred to me laugh out loud, when have lots of days to hike the next two weeks
I started tapping at simplenote in Summer 2020 and its limitations freed me with an archiving option tablets don’t have – I can’t do anything in it *but* type and tag then cut and paste and – here’s the key – abandon knowing I reread it in a horrible sans serif font I can’t change but can control + the screen so I can read it without squinting. I build the link grids in sheets, the part that’s me typed in simplenote
The grid I realized an attempt to replace the ink and watercolor straight lines intersecting at deliberately just plus or minus 90 degree angles, once I discovered posting photos into grid cells didn’t crash my free shitlord blogging platform but did allow just one post to front page at a time and the asshole in charge of brand marketing in my head said no can do
That’s right, here’s where I talk about Tony Hecht who taught me structure liberates, freedom constricts, I think this true, and though the haikus have dried up and I seem to be following no rules now and am content with content
In any case, I had no idea a year since I started gridding and never stopped and though hooweed through iterations but I see grids remaining until they don’t, I can’t imagine me thinking the bullets before the grid should replace the grid, I can’t imagine my eyesight improving to when I desire a smaller font (push me)

2021 December 1

Of course I started Books of Jacob just to hold the book as object and book as book in hand and each because required reading and like almost every novel I start I caution myself I’m liking it too much and let’s see tomorrow but this one’s roots’ depth evident already I do not regret winning my bet against myself I would start it, I’d break the paperback spine except for that jinxing part when combined with this jinxing part jinxes exponentially

I picked another fight with borth nethesdans, this I confess a favorite obsession, much more powerful than recreational loathing of porth notomac which is half Rockville, two fifths Gaithersburg, one fifth Darnestown, they resent a new map that clusters them with Silver Springers and – here’s the outrage – Takoma Parkers

We entered east moco on Norbeck Road, MD 28, weeks ago, I wrote about MD 28 years ago, we walked the Underground Railroad Trail, trailhead where Layhill turns turns into Ednor crossing Norwood, saw *the* Sandy Spring, east moco *all* USPS-called Silver Spring, I can’t argue a moco neighborhood name east of Georgia Avenue

Books of Jonah may amaze me but I’ll not get 4/5ths of the religious allusions and references in a book that will be interrogating Torah and Koran and Bible and each’s adherents’relationships to the others, don’t get me wrong, this is a reason to read it, I hope the 5/5ths on helmetball teams and glee clubs teaches me something much smarter than dumb I am, I’ll get the part about zealotry

2021 October 17

Subaru hate and desperate I own a new Subaru
a base model 2022 Impreza sedan one of only two new cars available
plus Fitz did me right on the trade-in for fucked-up service on recall
Too, try walk into a car dealership and buy a new car, cash in hand
there will not be another new car in America until 2025
Bluetooth works there’s no CD-player
console not a casino slot machine
It made it to 70 on 270 today without shuddering

2021 October 7

Confirmed I don’t want to read Elkin now
Found a Bad Man on shelf on Tuesday
read with nostalgic tingling the opening chapters…
This has nothing to do with my least favorite cat
who will deliberately scratch out my left eye
before Lynn accidentally breaks my ankles
getting into bed is named after Stanley Elkin
Elkin is a garotte, I once loved in, now I’m out

2021 August 12

I am the plumber*
invited to committees
by professionals

to describe shit-tubes’
best practices re: shitty
deliberate choke

points (professionals
either acknowledge I know
of what I speak or

forever dismiss
me (death to the either/or)
as embittered staph)

What makes a good boss
sharpest interview question:
Me, nine of ten say

*I am the polite
Bajoran people invite
to symposiums

but have no real sway
among my people* today’s
lame metaphor, gag

2021 August 10

Our shitlord astronauts, who are not actually shitlords but for Bezos, actively fuckyouing you, I’m leaving this
shithole as soon as I can. Working in a university library slaps me daily re: attrition and decay as shitlord
Policy One. I no longer do the Slothrop allusion but I am a trajectory of motherfucking late boomers
No one has ever asked me and no one ever will why I didn’t type a period at the end of the third line.
Shitlords savant-mine amoral geniuses, their most gifted sociopathic actuaries tell them to tell peasants the shitlords rocketing to Mars
Betting on clusterfuck shitlord poker. Why do I daily shorthand and deliver shit you already know?

2021 July 17

How many times do you think you’ve pissed in your life?
I will be 62 in six weeks do the math that’s 22,630 days
4 into 62 add 15.5 days for leap years = 22,645.5 days
x how many times you pissed a day on average
factoring age, medical history, especially UTIs
plumbing and sump pump problems, weight fluctuations
everything you’ve forgot not just the last time you pissed

My problem acknowledging
Shitlords censoring crackers to incite crackers
yes to incite crackers but more incite me?
Works, visa versa of course, fractionally Shittier Chow when necessary!
The valence of -.06% less-shittiyism

For the oofed time tonight I remind myself not to explain, here’s
why How many times now? I don’t keep count

2021 July 13

gladyskravitzing
I tweeted and no one liked
13 stopped scrolling

immediately
scrolled on. Gladys the scold
saw Samantha this

Endora that, did
the original Gladys
survive black and white’s

death? Name gatekeeping
what made me think of Gladys
and not forgotten

interlibrary
loan coordinator Scold
reminded today

phew. Gladys Kravitz,
I forget her husband’s name
I could look it up

but that research, no.
Sc(r)ol(l)d. Sc(r)ol(l)ded. So yes it’s worked
out as designed to

the clusterfuck I tweeted
reflexively at a dope
who should know better

motherfucking scold
asserts. Scrolls past his life. Types
haikus in carrels

2021 July 3

Gulf of Mexico
on fire, ruptured pipeline
burning Triskelion

crude gallons of greed
Hurricane targeting Gulf
Arctic melting, Portland

Billionaire Space Race
Update as fucking often
as necessary

re: Washington Post
(disclosure: space racer owned)
Hey! don’t look at that

look the fuck at this!
How do you pronounce Barthelme
my latest savior

I give me until
Tuesday to fail him Shitlord
actuaries urge

shitlord divestment
from peasants, planet poisoned
should one shitlord care

2021 June 4

I caught me by surprise today and blurted
fartworkfresh in weekly me&boss
Presented as fact not me this time and HARD why
Boss agreed, at this moment I am not doghoused
I am old and my body is beginning to fail
Reminder Jeff, no one reads this except possibly but
probably not even me
Doghoused tomorrow, probably not, possibly

2021 May 27

My problem with line
I handcuff myself to fix
Nothing horrifies

me MOST than hear my
voicemail voice the fuck
Speech impediment

that’s Hungarian
my dad’s Serb father
called my English. I

abandoned paper
tablets I handcuff myself
I could not fill out

a blank alphabet
template but typed this haiku
in the dark the fuck

2021 May 19

Forgive me, I’ve no
academic scaffolding
certainly no chair

you’d sit your ass on
When psyops ups the cracker
to eleven bi

den Bidenism
righter than frank, o! the the
orists (add link the the)

object subjecting
subject objecting subject
human humans hum

aning Forgive me
academic scaffolding
can get you published

but academic
scaffolding gets you psyops
jobs, a farm system

to sieve game theorists
rookie ball to Triple A
Smarts the second

plus skill weighed. Men. Day.
Shush. The shittiest humans
hire shittiest

savants who process
photographic memories
of everything read

everything seen, fat
on data they compete to
harvest for bonus

and promotion first
Academic scaffolding
softball field needs moan

daily, the fucking ladder
match, tiers, “accidental” scarf
folding in woodchip

per provost’s rat
io an academic
not savant fucks you

2021 May 14

Interesting I thought for the first time in months yesterday the one thing I could be workdinged and today, interesting that many refuse to simultaneously hold that crackers are an existential threat emphasized and exaggerated by shitlords to slide motherfucking Democrats towards fascism *AND* are an existential threat because they fill garbage bags with gasoline and consider you trumped The first line about work but look at this I am not obsessing onlytwo offive lines in thispoem

2021 May 11

Every election is stolen even if only my vote counts I’ve lived in a democracy of three the one not the two I’ve never contested an election (while exercising my right to moan about results unto perpetuity unless concessions I have a point(s) are granted) much less fired bombed their holiest temple while forcibly evicting families from ancestral homes Who would I disappear if I had a Tantalus Field? Not you, elephant poachers, maybe, their white brown yellow any gendered shitlord patrons posing over the kill Rhinoceros Mutilator Facilitator Versus Trophy Hunting Sadist Shitlord: Would Jeff? If yes, which first? Your vote counts! How can I steal this election except by not voting?

2021 May 1

No, I’m nobody
wasn’t aimed at me, shrapnel
My lords and ladies

tell me they praise me
to my parole officer,
if they do parole

officer resents
Honeypots don’t invite me
where I’d like to go

The fuck would I go?
Official stimulus should
be seven syla

bbles Our rewiring
on schedule! Me, nobody
This shouldn’t take long

2021 April 27

ItmightbeadecadesinceIself-enforced
myrulethatonceIread1/10thof
anovelImustcompletethenovelno
matterwhat
Imeanttoenforceitduringarecent
attemptatrereadingthatfuckingwhalenoveland
intendedtoreadtherenderingoftorturedand
murderedwhalesbutfailed
Iamrereadingforthefirsttimebut
thatwouldberesearchyearsWilliamTVollmann’s
*FathersandCrows*BookTwooftheSeven
Dreamsinwhichmanyhumanswillbesavagely
torturedandmurdered
ThisIcanmakemyselfdo