Claustrophobia for Toddlers

"Claustrophobia for Toddlers", an experimental poem [Interweaving text and video, for one example, as a form of hypertext]

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ABC-DEF-GHI-JKL-MNO-PQR-STU-VWX-YZ

a-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p-q-r-s-t-u-v-w-x-y-z

A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z

a--b--c--d--e--f--g--h--i--j--k--l--m--n--o--p--q--r--s--t--u--v--w--x--y--z

A---B---C---D---E---F---G---H---I---J---K---L---M---N---O---P---Q---R---S---T---U---V---W---X---Y---Z

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December 8, 1995

I was working on the final edits of my first book of poems and short stories being published next year with my literary agent Emily. I was my agent's house for the night, making the finishing touches in her San Francisco apartment in Van Ness, which also had a nice view of the concrete buildings. It was a pretty swinging pad for a bachelorette, considering that she also lives with two other women, Lindsey and Keli, who seem to be lovers of their own dimension, despite having separate rooms.

I saw them kissing at one point when I walked in the kitchen to refill my glass with water when Lindsey finished straining the pasta before making a quick run towards Keli's red glossy lips and interlocking a kiss with lips puckered at the ready, showing the appreciation and mutual respect sharing cooking duties, creating an intimate environment of pleasure and calmness for tonight's dinner. They were cooking spaghetti and they asked Emily if I could be invited over for dinner, since she pays most of the rent.

Dinners were not like this before. Back then, the majority of the cooking was spent over fighting about which technique was best to cut the onions, for example. Keli would always cut her onions horziontally, but Lindsey preferred to cut it vertically because it was obviously a safer technique than Keli's.

Emily says yes and we both go back to her bedroom, where During the editing of the book, she made a comment on my poem that was posted on the world wide web. We always get into a conversation about my poem every time I'm with her.

A majority of my poems were published in literary magazines, local and major newspapers, and even on the World Wide Web, which was pretty sweet cause I got a ton of phone calls from old college professors, friends, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends I dated in high school and college, something I didn't think would come back to haunt me, and even an employee from a publishing company that caught his interests in my work and through that connection, Emily heard about my poem after some gossip about Notorious B.I.G. and his acceptance speech while the employees ate their alphabet soup, which reminded Emily to seek me out.

It was so trippy to see one of my own works on the world wide web, especially when nobody other than my close friends and a couple of my family members read my work, especially my cousin Joey, who was one of the first people who called me about the poem he saw on the internet. He's a total nerd about everything that's technology based related, from repairing a Super Nintendo, which he spruced up the A/V input on my at one point, setting up the internet in my house, and even fixing my father's 27" Magnavox television screen that he won on a game show sometime in the 80s that broke during game 6 of the World Series when the crowd started booing at David Justice. My dad was the cause for breaking the television set when he threw an unopened beer can at the television set, causing the T.V. to break, thus blacking out the screen for about an hour or so. The living room became dead silent for a couple of seconds, until Joey got the television working and was treated to the 9th inning.

My phone number was posted on the website that featured my poem, which I was okay with that after I got the call from the publisher at first, but became a bit unease when the ex's started calling, but became a more paranoid when I was left with some disturbing calls on my answering machine saying that he knew the meaning of life and would precede to hang up immediately. I answered the unknown caller a couple of times, but was treated to the sounds of my dial-up modem while I was starting up AOL. I don't understand why this happens every time I try to phone someone up. Maybe I should cut my phone line and stick with email so I get creepers calling me anymore. Not sure if the Do Not Call list is working for me though.

At one point, I heard him crying while he was trying to give me a sequence of random letters, which after three minutes of hearing this, I wrote all of the letters down on my notepad, which I've been taking notes for anything obscure. For some weird reason, I also heard this song in another phone call after a couple seconds of silence. I recall hearing it on the radio at one point, but I forget the title of the song. But still, it was pretty eerie getting unwanted phone calls from some wacko who thinks it's appropriate to make phone calls on a stranger.

At some point during the editing, Emily brings up my poem, "Claustrophobia for Toddlers". She always brings up that title and tells me I have some hilarious titles for my other works. I make a grimace face every time someone tells me the titles I make up sound ridiculous. Then again, Pootie Tang sounds a bit silly for a story about four kids going on an adventure to find a dead body of some young kid in the summer of 1959. I just thought there should have been an alternative version of Stand by Me where the kid doesn't brandish a gun, but rather he pulls out a banana that has become so blacken, yet it does not yield any rotten smell. It's just black and nothing else.

"Now come on," with a sarcastic, child-like voice, "I don't understand what's your obsession with the alphabet and Sesame Street. They're like, so elementary--so grade school--so--"

"--educational, innocent, and fun," I say in a serious, rushing tone,"now can we just get done with damn editing and I'll be on my way." He knew what her rhetorical spout was gonna be when the poem was ever gonna be mentioned.

Emily stops, stares at the pages, her face looking a bit down with a pen in her hand between her index and middle finger like a seesaw and hitting the pages as she looks at me and says, "Okay, I'm sorry about poking at your work, it's just that . . ."

"What?" with a curious, yet suspicious gesture of voice.

"I honestly think that poem seems--weird and honestly, a bit stupid, in a way."

I pause for a few seconds, having the urge to punch her in the face. I start to bite my lower lip and make a fist with the my right hand, ready to punch her at anytime. I seriously don't give a shit anymore about whether or not I hit a girl, she's just getting on my nerves and I can't tolerate stupidity like this from her mouth. I mean seriously, what the hell has been going in life life lately? I'm about to have my first book published, I've been getting phone calls endlessly, from ex's to some stalker who won't stop bothering me, and now this?

I try my best to calm down as my face starts to turn red, sweat coming from my forehead, pouring down like tears of a baby whose face becomes red, crying profusely because his mother stopped holding him in her arms, rocking him his narcissistic crying attention to comfort. In my case, it was myself not trying to get angry at Emily, which reminded that I was a guest at her place and that their roommates invited me to dinner.

Bibliography

Okay, who needs a bibliography when I'm doing a research paper on hypertext. It's already intertextualized into this research paper. Like so what?

Well here's a video of a kitty being surprised by its owner to confuse you even more: