6,000 gallon Chevron oil spill in Puget Sound

local news in the NW I would like to point out that according to all other sources I've read the spill was 2,000 gal. None of those sources are locally based or seem to have talked to the Coast Guard. I feel like screaming expletives, but there is no energy and it wouldn't be the same typed anyway. ...it also snowed today.

The sweetest-sounding little old lady just called me with a wrong number. She was so stunningly kind-sounding and polite that I sort wish now that I knew her.

Last night I fell asleep in the middle of a sneeze, wishing I could have been awake enough to talk to you just a little bit longer. I wore your sweartshirt that nearly reaches my knees that I tucked up to my chest, cradling my stomach, waiting for the usual blood. In the night you came and asked me to move just an inch or two over, to uncurl, to make room for you. And I did, glad that you were not going to go try to make a bed on the balconey, that you would instead sleep by me. But I fell asleep before I felt you lay down, and sadly you were gone in the morning when I woke. I know you have been near me. I can feel it in my heart.

Today...

...Janus has not called back. ...I am sneezy. ...I listened to Fluffy's poem about angry boys. ...I finished binding two books for two mom-people. ...I watched Amelie. ...I made a pot of tea. ...I finished rereading The Handmaid's Tale. ...I will go to the groccery store because I'm tired of popcorn, oatmeal, and toast (even toast with pesto).

I hate the mall, and the mall hates me.

Some Christmas Eve I will refuse to accompany my parents to church and the evening will become less annoying, more pleasent. I am waiting until I am no longer going to college at their expense. In the meantime, that church scares me just a little more every time I visit. Luckily the children were bored and so amused themselves/ annoyed their parents/ amused me. If I'd had bubbles in my bag (the lack thereof was a serious oversight on my part) I'd have passed them to the children and had a truely enjoyable experience. As this stood I was amused when they lost track of their powerpoint & when the minister got visibly overzealous and salvated on his bible, otherwise I gripped the brass key in my coat pocket and tried to zone into the Christmas tree lights, spreading them appart in my minds eye until they looked like stars. Christmas as a practice annoys me. A time of year when people stress out about the right envirment, food, perfect gifts, to prove that love exists. If you mean it the year is enough. Why set aside a day to get so close you step on each others' toes with expectations that are only really a hundred percent fulfilled in fifties movies. Give me a break.

Literature is news that stays news. Ezra Pound Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. Ezra Pound When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder. Ezra Pound

I talked to Fluffy today. She knows thinks now that she did not know. She is sorry I did not tell her about X before. She cried, but I think maybe that she understands alot of things now that she did not understand before. I hadn't meant to tell her but I had to in the midst of explaining why I am learning to be brave and how I have not been and why I do not want to go to the Poulsbohemian right now, even though she says that people are asking after me and are hoping that my writing & art are going well and are so prooud of me for going to NY. I know they mean well but sometimes meaning well is not enough and I don't want to right now. I think though it maybe something to work up to because it used to be a good place to me and it should allowed to be again. I will be brave enough to growl. She, Fluffy, says she remembers how strong I was when she met me. That gives me hope I guess, I had thought I was just too silly to be afraid. *l*

I just thought I was doing so well...

keeping busy, not letting my self fall into the normal dark little trains of thought, keeping the music (not too dark) going in my room to stave off lonely night thoughts when I might havve worried about so much and instead let the music and the candlelight and the book or the project wash over me and fill my consciousness. On the way from the airport Fluffy told stories about the rapes at her campus and a man who has ben sneaking in girls' rooms at night to watch them, sometimes cut their cloths off them. That sort of thing makes me so aware that I sleep next to a big window. That's been going on far away though, north of Seattle. It's so quiet here at night, I need to keep the music going until after I pass out. I haven't slept more than six hours in a row yet. I wasn't self-depricating until you thought I was falling and that make me suspect that I am, somewhere in the back ground falling, even though I've been so carefully not doubting/blaming myself. I had thought I was being so good and brave. But you think I'm falling apart. So maybe I am. Maybe I'm fine. I shouldn't start doubting myself just because you do.

'Say Hello Wave Goodbye' to WA

"Take your hands off me, hey, I don’t belong to you, you see, And take a look in my face, for the last time, I never knew you, you never knew me, Say hello goodbye, Say hello and wave goodbye, We tried to make it work, you in a cocktail skirt and me in a suit but it just wasn’t me, You’re used to wearing less, and now your life’s a mess, so insecure you see, I put up with all the scenes, this is one scene that’s goin to be played my way Under the deep red light I can see the make-up slidin down, Well hey little girl you will always make up so take off that unbecoming frown, As for me, well I’ll find someone who’s not goin cheap in the sales, A nice little housewife who’ll give me a steady life and not keep going off the rails." I'm done with you, your scene, and your ways. I'm done lying so much, backing down so much to keep the peace with my enemies, though there are still things I'd rather not say it's not to save you from the embaressed silence after abrasive honesty. I've been carrying your filth on my feet but I'm washing them and sanding down the hard bits. I want to have baby-soft feet that can still feel the difference in the soil of each land. You will no longer be the veil between me and everything. And you will not claim me just because I'm back in bounds.

Observations from a holiday interspersed with notes to her lover (revised)

November 26, 2003 11:25 a.m. My mother met me at the airport. I wanted it to be you even though I left you this morning with sleep in your eyes three states away. It’s been eight hours since the last time I hugged you. I miss your shoulders and your smell and the way we talk in museums. 12:10 p.m. I am here to have Thanksgiving with my biological relatives Thanksgiving is a sham holiday you are my home, and as much family as I could want or need 3:40 p.m. my relations went their own way to pay respect to memorials to politicians and their acts of violence I feasted my soul on icons Bodhisattvas and Buddhas 10:15 p.m. I tried to call on beauty there was no answer I played on my drum tonight I had not touched it since summer it is smaller than I remembered fake fire in the fireplace black satin to my toes a not very convincing princess Yesterday was the first time in weeks you turned adjectives to pronouns. “Hey Beautiful. Hey, come here, Amazing.” The words resent you. And I in my angsty self-awareness imagine they resent me for being unworthy of them. You scold me for it. November 27, 2003 5:30pm the wine is very red everyone is watching football I’ve read all the books I brought I’m waiting for them to go to bed so I can go to bed or for a call to get through P.S. we sure fooled those Indians. 10:45 p.m. I want to drum for your anger I want to drum for love of you the rest of the house is sleeping send a prayer to the space and I long for the passionate, raging—sometimes peaceful— magic we weave between us November 28, 2003 4:40 p.m. Security did not blink at my drum or at my miniscule pocketknife next to my flight it says, “On Time” I want to go home but I’m going to Brooklyn it is home when you are in it soon soon 5:35 p.m. the man across the aisle is bald as an egg on top with dark brown fluff all around a taxi will be waiting for me in Queens in Brooklyn I will sleep as long as I can November 29, 2003 12:30 p.m. The man on the subway looks like Yosemite Sam. His voice takes over the car miming a conversation between himself and his mother, “YOU CAN’T SEE HER! Oh please, Momma. I WANT HER SO BAD. NO! Please, oh please, her ass smells SO GOOD, Momma.” I cower despite myself. He stares into my chest, wants to sit next to me and to call me Judy Garland, wants to tell me about how hard his life is. I am not Judy Garland. I care about suffering, but not his. He scares me, if he didn’t I’d give him some of my groceries, but as is I bolt off the G train a stop early. I wish I was carrying the knife you gave me.

'Ceramic Lunes' (revised)

The clay turns. It's beating against my hands imitating a heartbeat. Thumping, off center-- too tired of this year to center clay. Red, like wounds, but pulling away from edges-- another ruined bowl. Plain blue cup made exactly for my hand by my hand. On pants: glaze, clay, and pieces of quiet carried around daily. Gazing into revolution, metal-plastic turntable and slip-- there's my peace. Hard to believe the glaze--chalky and milky-- becomes glossy bright. I'm too cowardly to sleep, he said, when pots need throwing. Words drown me, clay conquers thought, then drowns under my hands.

having achieved cheeseballness I'll now return to work, or something

You are Form 3, Unicorn: The Innocent. "And The Unicorn knew she wasn't meant to
go into the Dark Wood. Disregarding the advice
given to her by the spirits, Unicorn went
inside and bled silver blood.. For her
misdeed, the world knew evil." Some examples of the Unicorn Form are Eve
(Christian) and Pandora (Greek). The Unicorn is associated with the concept of
innocence, the number 3, and the element of
water. Her sign is the twilight sun. As a member of Form 3, you are a curious
individual. You are drawn to new things and
become fascinated with ideas you've never come
in contact with before. Some people may say
you are too nosey, but it's only because you
like getting to the bottom of things and
solving them. Unicorns are the best friends to
have because they are inquisitive.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

which reminds me I should get back to the poetry revisions

You are naturally born with a gift, whether it be
poetry, writing or song. You love beauty and
creativity, and usually are highly intelligent.
Others view you as mysterious and dreamy, yet
also bold since you hold firm in your beliefs.

What Type of Soul Do You Have ?
brought to you by Quizilla

I suppose this sort of thing only happens because WA wasn't an option *sigh*

Oregon is a nice place, isn't it? Yes, it is. You
should live there. So should I. As of now
it's not crowded, but you never know. So
ummmm, ok...Oregon....yeah.

What State Is Perfect For You?
brought to you by Quizilla

'Home..., or something like it' revised

a house built into the side of the top of a hill outside the city limits of a fairly average town with a Norwegian name barking of a dog who fell asleep two summers ago with a needle in his vein and never woke up again a graveyard on a hill by the Pacific where the sun sets like a postcard picture and the stars looks like pin pricks where magic leaks into a world that needs more the town that curls around Liberty Bay and the coffeehouse that hangs over the boardwalk; the comfortable, maddening trap of town and coffeehouse soccer-mom mini-van breaking speed limits and blasting Brit-Indian techno entering the homes of my friends without knocking because to do otherwise would be unnecessary two girls with the same name, Sara(h), one the mother of hearts, one a reader of souls a girl who is my opposite, "Jazz," my negative reflection, Lilith to my Mary, of Janus because we are cannabis in the backyard with sweet peas, lilies, dahlias, and climbing roses, mosaic goddess dances motionless in the center, fresh eggs from nagging chickens crumpets from scratch, acid coffee, French onion soup by the light of saint candles (I cut all the onions without shedding a tear, she did everything else, and looked like the Madonna) clouds of brightly-colored paper cranes, a yellow submarine, huge finger-painting, and sunset, all floating overhead two bookshelves of fiction and poetry, alphabetized by author, or editor, if it's an anthology an easel, made of scrap wood by my father when he was an art student, too large and awkward to accompany my own scholastic voyage blanket of pin-pricked night sky beneath five bright Tibetan prayer flags when my roommate is silent, by which I mean, when she is absent the smell left in a clay-colored sweatshirt that I wore to sleep every night when I slept in my own bed for a change big hands, big enough for mine to disappear inside a bed that smells the way we do, not just as I do

'Cemetery & Beach' (revised)

night dancing didn’t end until the sun was rising didn’t rise until midday squirmed under the sheets until I woke you took subway lines I’d never taken before N R W names at either end of the lines chimed in my ears unfamiliar and off-tune Greenwood Cemetery seems like it should be closer to Coney Island the neighborhoods are of the same mold should have known the cemetery from all the trees in cities there aren’t room for trees among the living the catacombs will remain unopened despite plans they would have been opened for the first time in 165 years stay on the paved roads mostly avoiding the attention of security guards clearing overgrowth from low set stones when they aren’t looking watch you take pictures of stone shapes and carved records names cut in stone have outlasted the minds and hearts they signified will outlast you and me when you return to the earth and I to the ocean more graves to clear then I can manage feeling like a lost child I try to take your hand rebuked for offensive action: disrespecting the dead it isn’t hard to understand but I hope that when my body is cold I would not begrudge another some human warmth it takes so long to reach the gates my heart aches by the time we reach the street travel on to Coney Island trying to remember how to breathe without thinking about it you bought me ice cream walked barefoot to the water tried to convince me to touch dead undersea creatures it seems so much worse to me than holding hands in a graveyard ran into the waves until you stopped chasing me came back though let you take pictures of me until I was red and bashful walked on the boardwalk carrying our shoes could feel every board and nail but didn’t get splinters ate a large order of fries from Nathan’s I always forget how large a large serving is on this coast but half of a large is fine you tell me that Nathan’s is famous for hotdogs I’ve never heard of them both vegetarians anyway the only meats I missed were Polish hot dogs and pastrami smells of cooking meat make me nauseous now waiting in the train station you tickled me until I shrieked went home the way we had come

panel response

Stacy Wyatt December 2, 2003 Friday Forum Response “You really can put the cattle prod to the butt of the muse.” –David Groff The discussion panel, ‘Publishing Your First Book (and Staging a One-Person Show)’ primary point seemed to be to emphasize the value of having a community of fellow artist—particularly other writers—and the necessity of perseverance in order to succeed. These points were repeated many times and through various examples that were sometimes reassuring and sometimes somewhat gut-wrenching. One instance they spoke of that fulfilled both was of an author (I can’t recall her name) who sent out the same book for some seventeen years, while continuing to write. It is an instance that I think will stick with me for some time. It forced me as a writer to think about if I can develop enough confidence in a piece to continue to send it out after it has been rejected time and again, and also if I have enough confidence in myself to continue to produce work while a piece I believe in is being so constnatly rejected over a period of many years. The gravity of the situation is only escalated by my youth. I’m nineteen years old, seventeen years is more of my life than I can consciously remember. I only have one or two ideas that have stayed with me and that I still hold to be true to me over the last ten years, and none of those are personal creations of my own. To someone older, seventeen years, although still a long time, is not a lifetime. The idea of a writing community was an idea that seemed to have most of it’s support with the moderator, Elaine Sexton, with some back-up from David Groff. Sexton talked about her group of poet friends meeting together roughly monthly to read their poems to each other. Groff admitted to having friends read his work and the nessesity of getting honest, possibly harsh feedback. The latter seemed more to my taste, rather than having a large set of people as an audience. The audience-reader setting doesn’t appeal to me as a way to get feedback on an unfinished piece if I do not know the audience, all of it’s members, reasonably well, well enough that is to know what I think of their own writing, personality, and thought process. It comes down to this: it makes no sense to me to take advice from someone who you feel is unqualified to give it. I have a hard time accepting advice on my writing from people whose writing I don’t like, even more so if I dislike the writers they admire, while on the other hand I am always willing to listen to, and give thought to, critisism from persons who do not consider themselves to be writers if they have a literary taste that I agree with or at least have respect for. For the most part I found the panel interesting and informative. It was particularly intriguing to hear the different opinions of various author when faced with a given topic and also to see how those authors interacted with each other.

keep the stars in my ears so I can always wish if I feel like it

*cough*cough* that is all.

correction for Nov 29 entry

for "Elmer Fud" substitute "Yosemite Sam" (with full beard and bad teeth). *shrug* whatever. the point is the dude was serious creepy.

Talking to Janus online while we're both listening to KEXP. Talked to Fluffy this morning who was going to go see Em. In a few days Em will be in NYC. In Spring Fluffy will come here. In a month I'll be there and a little after that the best of here will be there. It just seems for a few minutes that the distance between where I am and where I've been might not be so mind-un-wrappable, heart-un-containable. It is a very sweet feeling.

subway

Elmer Fud called me Judy Garland. I bolted.

excellent

Everything I say feels wrong and I want to not be seen rather than feel seen and ridiculed, even if only feeling ridiculed. I'm a stupid there are plenty of things I don't know, Spanish for instance, and lots of important things about life. I want to cry for nothing at all besides the combination of feeling small and insignifigant while simeltaneously feeling clumbsy, bulky, like I take up too much space, like I need too much space to live outside of my head and I care too god-damned much to just go live there alone. I am trying to live as honestly as I can. Wondering if I'm keeping secrets I get suspicious of myself, search myself for anything I might have forgotten that might matter at all. The truth is though that nothing matters. And I have lived the best as I could as it seemed at any given moment and it hasn't come even close to good enough, pathetically lacking in substance actuallly. This isn't anything, I just need more sleep.

"take a stroll... streach the wings" I can't fly yet, that's kind of the point. I want to learn.

bluechit13: hi LockJawEternal: hey there suga bluechit13: :-) bluechit13: I really do think I'm just tired LockJawEternal: i'm talking to rizzle bluechit13: and all the natural things are dying for the year and thats bound to get one down bluechit13: cool bluechit13: I'll be here reading Passos bluechit13: say hello for me LockJawEternal: not gonna chat with ol' e? bluechit13: sorry, I forgot your multi-talented bluechit13: *you're LockJawEternal: both online, no stretch LockJawEternal: my fa crap is far from over.. bluechit13: I saw you walking away, lookign unpleased bluechit13: what's up there? LockJawEternal: just more and more to do LockJawEternal: less money needed this time around though, i don't know why bluechit13: well thats some blessing bluechit13: did you find your note this morning bluechit13: ? LockJawEternal: note? bluechit13: on your desk, picture side up bluechit13: *shrug* it wasn't anything LockJawEternal: read it now, ya shoulda kissed me bluechit13: would you have noticed? LockJawEternal: i saw the card, but i did not realize there was a note on reverze LockJawEternal: i would have noticed indeed bluechit13: ...Nark talked to me in the copy room and asked if either of us was leaving yet bluechit13: I said it was an ongoing discussion, I din't know what to say LockJawEternal: lol, did he really? LockJawEternal: what spurred that? bluechit13: I asked if he'd been better satisfied with our essays en masse than spread out across the semester bluechit13: we talked about that for a few then he asked if we were leaving LockJawEternal: just like that? bluechit13: well if either of us had reconsidered leaving bluechit13: there was a byway bluechit13: about if any teachers use blubooks bluechit13: I said history teachers and doloff bluechit13: talked about dolofff LockJawEternal: i still think that was the weirdest suggestion ever bluechit13: I said he was good because you knew what you were getting itnto and what would be expected of you bluechit13: to have us leave? LockJawEternal: aye bluechit13: if he hates it here and likes us it makes sense LockJawEternal: aye, i suppose it does bluechit13: I'll get out of the classes as much as I put into them and I don't want to have to get used to another school and system and place LockJawEternal: that first logic is flawed LockJawEternal: though the second bit is sound bluechit13: I'd get more out of maggie's class if I did the readings more LockJawEternal: *gasp, gasp* drumming to theese twins is hard bluechit13: I'm not getting good writing critique from anyone but you LockJawEternal: only what you get from the readings, naught to do with the class bluechit13: and for now thats bluechit13: alright bluechit13: there will be other classes next semester bluechit13: I have thad next semester bluechit13: and ceramics is cool bluechit13: and I've learned book binds bluechit13: so I've learned something LockJawEternal: lol, good looking at the bright side, beautiful LockJawEternal: we will gab later, maybe take a stroll or somethin' stretch the old wings bluechit13: a walk would be good maybe bluechit13: later LockJawEternal: later lovely, i'mma go be mute O:-) bluechit13: :-) bluechit13: :-* LockJawEternal signed off at 2:33:59 PM.

picture of my parents came in the mail with my thanksgiving plane ticket. I want to hybernate through thanksgiving in bed with a stack of non-school related books and a hot pot for tea. two pointed out all the ways my parents in our kitchen are like me or connected to me or whatever. I realize I miss our kitchen, the way even when there is nothing I want to eat there are the comfy counters and a cabinets full of teas and another of old cookbooks and a fridge covered in pictures and word magnets. I want enough room for my easel or any easel at all and enough room to spin with a paintbrush in hand. I want to skip school for a week to paint. I don't have an image burning a hole in my head or anything I just want paint, the naph. red and cobalt blue and yellow like egg yoke. they're in the drawer upstair the room isn't mine enough for painting it seems.

Talked to mom two days ago.

She wasn't okay. Bob died last tuesday. It's easier to not think about that sort of thing here where no one else knows him and nothing reminds me off him directly. Mom was sad about that and worried about money. She said that she wishes now she hadn't set up Thanksgiving in D.C. but she can't refund any of it either so it's goign to continue as planned. When she was planning it I remember asking a few times if she was sure we'd be able to afford it, etc. *shrug* I wish I could find another way to help with money. I was planning to try for an RA positison again, but as someone pointed out I'd hate it. There's no reason for them to chose me anyway. But if I got it it would help my parents alot. I have to try anyway.

It's Halloween!

I just sent Nark my midterm and it's crisp but not freezing outside and I have spiffy cool insect-ish wings to wear tonight and enough No-Doz to get me through the day and probably some time for a nap in the afternoon... I love Halloween! It's about the crazy-coolest holidays ever. I was going to make sugar skulls this year but haven't gotten around to it yet. I doubt I'll get so inspired as that this afternoon in the few hours between tech and Parade-going, maybe tomorrow though since Sunday is the Day of the Dead and they're technically a day of the dead treat anyway. I'm in such a ridiculously good mood this morning. Nark papers: done. Kamila Shamsie: read. Ceramics teacher: pacified. And I think maybe I do really really like the poem I took ot studio to workshop yesterday and that is just...well, cool. The roses around campus are still blooming and no one has yelled at me for picking them, I have been being stealth but honestly I'm not very good at it. If I wasn't at work I think I'd put on drummy music and spin around unitl I just fell over. Dang, it's going to be sad when this caffeine rush/ mental high passes, but until then I'l probably continue grinning like an idiot.

dream

Came back from the city to a blessedly empty room. fell asleep with the part of my mind that controls my ability to sleep placated by the smell of you off of your sweatshirt. I dreamed I was alone on a street corner, sitting on the curb, not sure what for, but waiting anyway for something. A man with some tint in his skin (ethnicity unguessable amoungst shadows) approaches me. He has the hood of his sweatshirt up and it throws all of his features but his chin and sometimes lips into dark. I think I might know him but I am not sure. He offers to give me "something to loosen your head and pass the time while we wait," or something like that. I shake my head. He shrugs then gestures to the other side of the street where the shadows are thicker, presumablely from whence he came. I shake my head, no. He looks at me for a second, shrugs again, says, "well, should you change your mind." I nod. He crosses the street and I loose sight of what is him and what is shadow, there is no doubt he is still there somewhere. I continue sitting on the curb, maybe for a very long time. You come in a sweatshirt, hoody pulled up. I do not have to see your face to know it is you, there is no question at all. You berrate me for not knowing your friend, I'm not sure if it is someone I have met before and should therefore have recognized or if there was some code phrase I did not catch. You are angry and you shake me by the shoulders hard so that my teeth ache from striking aginst each other. Waking I know it did not happen, I wonder what I missed. I am going over to the ceramery now I suppose then maybe I'll go grab some Chinese food. Maybe just Chinese food. *shrug

I didn't go to studio yesterday. I liked the poem I wrote in my notebook, but then I typed it up and cleaned it up for class and hated it. Trying to have integrity in my poem to not have all these unsaid things, but it is harder knowing I have to read them, having them be read is not as awful. I really want an editor more then I want general opinions. I want to know exactly where and why and how I'm not accomplishing whatever the poem is trying to accomplish. I get it sometimes with some people but I couldn't read this one. Maybe on another day I could have but not then and there. There are reasons now I'm glad I didn't but I'm not going to explain those. I never skip class unless I'm sick and then only if I physically can't, so I guess you're winning. I went to the ceramics lab instead and threw six things on the wheel. Maybe one will fit your goblet wish. The piece I like best I stretched it too far and it busted: Less then three inch diameter, about a foot high. I wouldn't have put any "harsh colored" glazes on it and then I have given it to Mom or Nana. Sooner or later I may start overhearing at family functions how the east--school & people (person)--are taming me. ...or something. Last night I dreamed I was sitting in the corner in the foyer making little metal things. Lots of them. they were in sets of three within sets of nine but some how the nines just never happened and it was always threes. The lamp light was too bright, it made my head hurt. There were so many to make and put in little zip-locs. You came and said I was hungry and took me down to the C-Store but it took up the whole basement and everything in it was strange. And the fancy chocolate cookies looked gross, but they had beautiful Alice in Wonderland cards inside. I didn't want you to spend money on me, but you knew I wanted them. That was all really.

The truth of the matter is simple: I want to be a bat, drinking hard lemonade, and swing dancing across the sky to Jabberwocky jazz. I want to wake up every morning smelling like the man that stayed, and myself, and—after a few minutes— tasting like freshly brewed coffee when I go to kiss him awake.

There are people who I have not spoken to today who I wish I had. I am wondering how you and you and you are. I am reading Stein who I will probably like as soon as I am finished with her for reasons that are not explainable. It is hot and I am waiting for my coffee to cool off enough to be drinkable. I slept until 2:30 this afternoon, and since then have gone out for more orange juice and have been trying to virtuously finish my studio homework while trying to mentally avoid the question of the writing assignment itself. I keep taking breaks to read Tam Lin and daydream of being an english major at Blackstock, but the truth of the matter is that Nick Tooley was amusing but not wonderful, Thomas Lane was not unlike that which is known, I'm not so good at essays and I get to read plenty here and if Blackstock were an art school it would not be very unlike Pratt even if we don't have a Medeous (we can make plenty of our own problems I suppose). So I will mentally christen myself Janet and pull the branches down some other evening and go back to pseudo-english-major-ousity.

Walking up Bowery last night could have been one of dozens of nights last year, nights I wandered looking for angels that would glow against the night and hopefully see something glowing in me. I would go out hopeful and ready to meet the world and embrace it, after a while all the people and streets would blend together and the high point of the evening was if I could loose myself enough to not know where or how far the nearest subway stop was. Last night I just wanted to get home, get my boot off my feet. Something about wanting to not be noticed made me noticable apparntly, probably the boots.

This afternoon at work I was checking my email and low and behold I had a note from crazy-fabulous coffeehouse owner lady who is visiting the city. So tonight we're meeting to go to a reading by the author of The Virgin Suicides. Definately hasn't sunk in yet or I wouldn't be able to sit still long enough to type this. *pirouettes around dorm room*

laying in his bed I was a mess, a dizzy-headed, snotty-nosed, limp-limbed, useless girl. and he was so good to me my heart went all teary and as runny as my nose as he fetched me my teddy bear from five flights up and gently wiped the fevered sweat from my skin with a damp cloth. no one has ever been so kind to me. no one has ever wanted to give me the world. no one has ever wished they could give me wings. I remember now what I have known since the day we met under the stars: he is too good for me. to spend a life time attempting to live up to his praise would be a life well and sweetly lived, spent pleasing him. may I be allowed to continue trying.

I am never truthful enough, been lying to myself so long I don't catch them anymore unless you do.

Hotspur walks among us, and he knows it. In hopes of being truthful I wound who I love. My speech is too blunt, I come from a place where we speak so starkly that what we say is harder than what we mean when we walk in china shops. Aye, I move like a bull. I think I'll just shut-up again. My walls are bare and my bed is strange to me, thorugh it's new softness is sweet. (Thanks for bringing my stuff, Tey.) My secrets made part of the discourse as you flip through pages I'd assumed I could trust to stay closed, though I do understand it. I am not claiming to be a saint. At work I make chains of paper cranes for the sake of wishes. I'm not sure what I'm wishing for anymore.

tool

Chill out, space-case mouse-child. Everything will work out, you are not alone, and you have your words, and colors, and rain too. The things that are wrong aren't in your hands and worrying will help nothing.

Anti-social. No point in denying it really. Funny, from the inside of your head it never really seems so clear cut as that. I suppose thats why labels happen. If you put a name on something it's in a box, it has defined edges, boundries. After that you know where it ends and where people (theoretically) fit, and then you don't have to think about it so much (theoretically). I don't mind. I don't care... except sometimes when I do... It's just the way I'm made, all of it, the caring and also the not caring. They're cutting my hours at the office, not right away it seems, but soon. As if this year wasn't already tight. If I'd kept my religion I wonder if I would have been made a RA last year, then this wouldn't be a problem... ...just spilt milk. right-right-right. It doesn't matter, very little does. Not tears, bruises, or even words. Maybe not anything, nothing at all.

...k, so I'm still packing, but only cause I know I still have 3.5 hours and I keep getting bored. I have however just done something very very responsible that I've been putting off since winter break: I restarted my hard drive after saving everything of any possible importance. (My dad passed me some bogus photo program to install last november that made it so my laptop wouldn't go into hibernation properly even after I uninstalled everything of it.) Bout time, I mean really who but me would put off something like that for most of a year... jeez-louise, pathetic... 'Course I am still packing so I must have some sort of monopoly on the word at this point. ...In other news I tripped over a stack of library books, slid on Neruda's 100 Sonnets across the carpet and banged my leg on the frame of my bed, the bruise that is now forming seems to be about half and inch wider than my hand and about two inches longer. Sad, just sad. ...yeah, serious lack of motivation over here. I think I'll go make some more coffee.

(practice)

Which one of Captain Jack Sparrow's bizarre sayings from Pirates of the Caribbean are you? I saw this, made me think of you. I'm hoping desperately that I linked it right.

Protector

The ULTIMATE personality test
brought to you by Quizilla

"I've changed my mind so much I can't even trust it My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself" -'talking shit about a pretty sunset,' Modest Mouse "i miss brooklyn i miss my crew let's start over i missed my cue guess i just forgot who i was talking to" -'god's country,' Ani Difranco I miss where I'm going, I miss where I've been, I even kinda miss where I am, but I still want to be gone. I just want to sleep and I can't sleep here like I did when I was more used to alone. I put CDs on loop all night so I won't miss heartbeats. I fill the bed with pillows and kick them all out in my sleep. I'm just gonna go displace blood with coffee and stay up until I fall on my own.

Driving through downtown pseudo-hippy/bohemian-definately-aged-yuppy-town in the monolithic soccer-mom mobile vibrating with the base of Brit-Indian techno and pissed-&-yelling Ani Difranco, windows rolled down, thumbs up from the bakery workers (all the workers heavily pierced). Making-faces contests with the bored children of the aged-yuppies while their parents aren't watching. Drinking hard lemonade whilst reading Hans Christian Anderson and losing to yourself at pool.

would you think me cold hearted if I said leaving books behind breaks my heart? buena vista social club is good in the mornings when the caffeine just won't kick in and I'm falling off my feet. the sweet nothings (very not nothings) still hit me like a mac truck every time.

you get what you paid for, but consider keeping the reciept

my mother's coworkers are always surprised to meet me, especially at 9am when I am still in my pajamas: boy's boxers with fish & a violently worded tee shirt (I refrain from explaining that it is the title of a book). I am not preppy or perky. somehow going out to dinner my parents are still surprised when I pair converse and a skirt, though I do almost every time. I am still not the daughter they thought they were getting. time apparently teaches nothing.

I take a deep breath and let the sigh slide the stories, the memories back, back down, where ever they go, until I need to recount them to the ones who deserve to know or until it is night and I am alone, they come then too sometimes. Socks I'm putting at the back of a drawer. I'll find a way to consider later. I just want to let the peaceful memory of his low voice wash over me, let him lend me a little restfulness.

Bob has been diagnosed with cancer. He's my dad's best friend. Kendra, Bob's wife, is one of my mom's closest friends. I can only barely remember before we knew them. I can't imagine more than once ever seeing either of them not smiling. We'd known he might have it since the fifth. Now it's certain. Bob has been really sick the past few weeks. They're debating chemo and "quality of life." ...I can't think of this in terms of anything but facts.

so good

I found a matchbox car Thunderbird. I found very pink nail polish. Now I have a tiny pink Thunderbird. If you see it drive by remember to make a wish. I will take it with me tomorrow to see my child birthday-twin and her mom. I have an Invader Zim patch for them, been hoarding it for months.

Cancer. 8-17-03 "It may be scary for you to do anything risky for fear of conflict or failure, dear Cancer. Perhaps you have tried to become invisible in different situations so that you can slip through the cracks without being noticed. These defense mechanisms may serve you for a while, but acting from a basis of fear or guilt will never get you where you need to go in life. For you to achieve what you want, you need to act from a solid foundation of confidence, love, and faith."

I lay in the grass, heart pounding against the ground. I let the fear swallow me: wondering if now he will not hold me-- though somewhere in me a clear calm voice whispers, "that's not what he meant, that can't have been what he meant." I half know it is true, but also half whimper at the thought of even more nights alone, arms wrapped around; around only myself. Cold--outside & in-- as they said once, naming me Ice Queen, unwilling to give away my embrace, not even just a kiss. Somethings are never 'just.' I have always known this too well.

Janus is back. The air is easier to breathe. It is easier to smile. I can laugh at anything.

"I said what I said, but you know what I mean."

-Modest Mouse, 'Dramamine' ...just more white noise really...

stream-lining words [why not?]

16 days, give or take a few hours. I keep listening to Modest Mouse, to keep my head straight. (When I can't have Modest Mouse, then it's overly straight forward poetry or unclear fiction. It works.) I'm not sure what I'm keeping it straight from, but when it's off kilter it's less comfortable and as far as I can tell no closer to an answer at this point. I'll let it go later when I at least have some new material to chew on. For the record, possiblity or impossiblity, happiness or sadness, are all irrelevant. I just want to do my work/art/words/colors/stuff and have some good, chill folks about, after that I don't really give a damn. I like to taste my tears too, you know. I didn't expect to get this far, so lets just see where this little boat ride goes anyway. I mean I (may) only get one life, it's all anyone gets. So lets's play. "Play on." Lol & dear god below... "You go out like a riptide You know that ball has no sides You're an angel with an amber halo Black hair and the devil's pitchfork Wind-up anger with the endless view of The ground's colorful patchwork" ...a going nowhere, nowhere to go night... bowling alley? no thanks, Em. I'm tired of scenesters, scenes, how bout I go where I'm happy, but Jo is asleep and there aren't any breathing poetry readings here that I know of, and my plane isn't going anywhere for sixteen days and nine hours. Maybe should call Erin and see if I can hang with her and my child soul-twin, soon, before I go, before the child forgets me... How does everything keep coming up so simeltaneously sacred and grotesque? I want to put the world on a pedesal and it makes me want to vomit too. The duality is what I love and it is also what I hate most. "I haven't hung out with anyone 'Cause if I did, I'd have nothing to say I didn't feel angry or depressed I didn't feel anything at all I didn't want to go to bed And I didn't want to stay up late When youre living your life, well, that's the price you pay Whenever I breath out, you're breathing it in Whenever I speak out, you're speaking out" I keep thinking that if I could pin point when I stopped believing in some really beautiful stuff then I could figure out how to fix it. This is probably what they call growing up, but I just wanted to be taller was all. Sometimes it feels so forced and sometimes it just goes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

'...No one has ever seen..." "Stick around, chief. You ain't seen nothing yet."

"And I said you shouldn't make facts out of opinions He said that I was right You're right I knew that I was And I'd hate to see anybody thank you But I'd like to see you fail saying thank you though I'm not sure who I am I'm not sure who I am but I know who I've been And I said you can't make everybody happy He said you'd like to at least make yourself happy though I'm not sure who I am I'm not sure who I am but I know who I've been" Sure, try if you like, I will too, but at the very least, at the end of the day, try and make yourself happy. I'll try too; both. Happiness, really, may be an impossibility, but it makes a nice dream. "Impossibility is what they call things they haven't seen yet."

She reminded me it's the silence that gets dangerous. Keep something going, movies, music, something. And I said, "yeah, I know." I do. Daydreams in an afternoon when the batteries died: Lust, then--such torture deemed unhealthy--self annihilation. We both admit it is something in us, not just the town, but the town doesn't help. On the street I dig in my pocket for my school i.d. for reassurance.

breaking eggs/knocking heads

"How long are you boiling those for?" "Ma, the eastcoaster already harassed me for how I make my eggs. Leave it be." "Does he agree with me?" "No... I don't need to argue with you too, my eggs are just fine and I haven't gotten any non-cooked food diseases yet, and I'm the only one eating them." "Maybe you need some less feisty friends to keep your head cool." "I'm only 'feisty' with you." "Would your professors agree?" "Ma..." "I'm just saying." "Jesus." "Your language." "Ugh..." Watched 'Girl Fight' today. Almost makes you want to take up boxing.

purely theoretically...

It shouldn't have suprised her, it didn't really. He'd always said that he was a drifter. She said she was a troubadour. Since she was his "lover," "maybe soulmate," she'd figured that meant they could wander together, at least for a little while. He called at one o'clock on her day off. He knew it was her day off. Ten seconds: "Hello?" "Hey beautiful, gotta go. Love you. Bye." "Bye." At the time it seemed like just one of his odd, sweet, random phone calls, like the times he'd called just to say 'good morning' when she was working the early bird shift, or to remind her to tell her dad 'Happy Father's Day' from him. In retrospect however it was bigger. The thought didn't even occur to her for a day or two when she hadn't seen him online since the night before he called. Sometimes they missed nights when stuff came up or either of them fell asleep. By the third night she was considering being worried, even though their last online conversation had left her sated and worry-free. A week later she guessed he had either died on the streets or had finally gotten out of the dead-end town; hoped for the latter.

It had not rained since June.

It is raining. I am soaked. "i could do a lot of things and i do" I walked the waterfront paths through the trees and to the end of the docks. A heron & I walked carefully around each other on the end of a dock, each ready to take flight should there be any sudden moves. There were none. Maybe we were dancing. "and i've got no illusions about you and guess what? i never did and when i said when i said i'll take it i meant, i meant as is" I spun circles in the puddles in the parking lot between the old tavern and the boat launch and the old men in the bar looked away because my wet energy only made them more tired. The younger crowd did not see me go by as they glued their eyes to the television on their night out at the new sports bar where the biker bar used to be. At least the bikers used to be funny and sweet and loud. The girls closing the italian restaurant in rain slickers glared at me. The boys smoking under a corner of roof called out to me and I kept running. "i'm like a cat yeah the kind of cat that you just can't pick up and throw into your lap no, the kind that doesn't mind being held only when its her idea yeah, the kind that feels what she decides to feel when she is good and ready to feel it" I laughed and sang Ani Difranco lyrics into the wind and danced and spun and was alive.

Mom just called me. Bob has liver cancer. He has a 2% chance of survival. I can't imagine Kendra without Bob. I can barely remember Dad before Bob. I can't remember Bob not laughing or smiling; I can't imagine him not being around. I can't wrap my heart or head around this.

"But I fear I have nothing to give And have so much to lose Here in this lonely place Tangled up in our embrace There's nothing I'd like better than to fall But I fear I have nothing to give" -Sarah McLachlan

Optomitry

I sit calmly, missing essential parts. I had said that I'd like to be a bat, but I just wanted to fly, not to be blind as I am now, in a too-straight-back high chair, feet hanging off the floor by inches, without glasses, without contacts. Vision further impaired by clumps of still damp midnight as I clutch my fuzzy green rectangle with my soft-edged pink claws, tempted to open to white pages and words. Remembering I recoil from disappointment still fearing the change of the page, the smudgy gray and black horizontal lines I know they wait inside, words very absent. I remember the old days in classrooms, asked to read, demanded, hopelessly I blurred the world further with my tears, a long unanswered prayer to understand how to find letters and words in horizontal smudges. I will not open the book, not until they give me back my eyes.

topless inequality

As I shall be returning to a summer much warmer than the one I am currently suffering through I figured it was about time I check out the state's take on toplessness... "New York Law: 245.01 Section 245.01.09 - Exposure of a Person A person is guilty of exposure if he appears in a public place in such a manner that the private or intimate parts of his body are unclothed or exposed. For purposes of this section, the private or intimate parts of a female person shall include that portion of the breast which is below the top of the areola. This section shall not apply to the breastfeeding of infants or to any person entertaining or performing in a play, exhibition, show or entertainment." ...so in short I can only go topless if I have a child or am making a living by it. Thanks, but no thanks. In other news I can't figure out exactly what WA's nudity law entails, but presumably it's not usually as hot as this so the idea of going topless is seldom appealing anyway. *shrug* ...I'm not sure I'd have the guts for it anyway, but I'd like to think that if I wanted to I could. Some French feminist lawyers need to attack the NY nudity laws with a vengeance.

dream

pinned down to my bed in the night. doesn't seem like a dream. I can barely breathe under their weight. I know I can't move. I force my eyes open to look at them, to plead with my eyes since my voice doesn't seem to be work. My eyes open and I am awake. my own weight presses me into the waterbed. my own hands grip my shoulders arms crossed against my torso, gripping me down with only my own shape. I am my nightmare.

Ask me, then. Ask me anything. I will tell you how you were distant. I will tell you how few centimeters it would have taken for me to fall, how easily I can step to the edge of a cliff. I wonder if my fear of asking might come to visit you sooner of later: 'do I really want to know the answer?' You can call me pure, but you don't know how far I've fallen. (And yet anything I say feels small, puritanical, in the face of your life and trials) ...and that's fine. You'd only say it was more theortical purity anyway, cause I've traced all the lines and, yes, sooner of later it all falls back to beginnings, as if it wasn't true of everyone.

much sighing

There were tons of people at the lake today. None wanted to follow the rules, they aren't even very complicated rules. sigh. Our megaphone is broken. My chest hurts and voice is soft and horse from yelling across the swimming area. There are a least a few people in the county now that would like to see me in great discomfort. One father bawled me out when I told him we'd have to put his kid out of the lake if the kid didn't start following the rules. It was really kinda scary, for a second I was just waiting for him to loose it and hit me, not because I was at all confrontational or harsh, but just because he just seemed so innately angry. He and his dudes kept an eye on me while I was picking up garbage at the end of my shift. That was scary too. The head guard tried to talk religion with me starting with, "If you think this weather is hot, whew, think about hell..." As a guard he's one of the best there are, but I'm glad we usually work different lakes. I'm glad I'm not guarding for a few days and then not at that lake. sigh. And so after that it was good to listen to voiceless music from a friend, and like wise to type, again voicelessly, such a sweet thought after such a day.

"...And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfillment. ...You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid." -T.S. Eliot "Do not now seek the answers, which cannot now be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now." -Rainer Maria Rilke

If I can keep reading enough books fast enough I can force the dark thoughts to at least gather where I don't have to entertain them loudly, and if I let Eliot and Rilke recite loudly enough against the chamber walls I will not have to hear the banging at the doors. I t may not be a solution but at this point I'm willing to settle for a long-winded fix if it will keep me from tossing away all semblence of confidence on a passing thought. Why does every good thing become a height I might be inclined to jump from? I'm not gonna jump cause this once there's nothing to escape from just the fear of what may come. I've said it myself (I admit it so you can't turn it on me) you cannot live your life in fear, by which I of course meant you should not and it isn't good for you. But I've always lived that way, except the few days I can fill enough to block the doors and drown out the freezied knocking.

thoughts writtten on my arm after lifeguarding

The tears you can no longer shed well up in my eyes, threatening to crawl down my cheeks. An overflow of unasked questions. Afraid of getting some answers, hard edge words waiting to cut me open. [You'll ask for meaning, but when I go to look for the questions I can only find the stupid ones that mean nothing at all.]

first slice of day

I leave the window open to let air move into my cave of color room. In the morning the breeze catches my skin, the sharp edge of morning. Climb the stairs for a cup of heat having forgotten the ache that left me fetally curled around the dark center of a pain I know to be minimal if taken to the scales. It meets me in the morning half way up the stairs, a punch in the gut on a deserted street. I rest on the top step resting my forehead and mind against the hardwood floor, there was a time when walking on it seemed like walking on corpses. But hardly anyone can maintain ideals like that for long, though that was the summer they cut down all the trees and left a wasteland hill. I can hear dad rising from his own bed and raise myself before an attack of questions I do not want to bear. I'm tired of the mundane questioning, I savor the questions stemmed from honest human contact, even more so when they truly hear my answers. thank you. Today is the day of innocence, of Alexander, at least the morning is, then on to a lake. Whee! [just kidding]

"Innocence can't be lost, it just need to be maintained." -Jewel

...this is what I see and how I see it, and I'm not sure why it's hard to understand or how things got to be this way, but is just who I am, it is what I am too.

Fluffy took me with her to the fragrancy shop. I think maybe it would smell good if it did not smell so very much. She smelled flowery stuff and I poked through the clerance bin. I found a bar of clear soap with a little plastic taxi inside. I sat on the floor and made vroom noises. I miss NYC, it makes her sad because she misses me. I think I will have to call and read poetry to her answering machine while she is in class next year. It always made me happy when she did it. "so you're her jollier, less stoic half?" sometimes she's more, sometiems less. we wax and wane.

to X

How? How? How after all this time? I didn't speak to you & for once you knew better than to speak to me. But you were there, you just were. More than enough. I want to vomit with disgust... fear or self-loathing or whatever the hell it is you inspire. You make me hate that I have to keep living. You make me hate. Hate everything. Nothing seems good when I have to look directly at the fact that you exist. And it isn't you even. I don't hate you. The only person I've ever really hated is myself, and something about you makes my self-loathing the hugest thing in mmy whole world besides maybe how much I love E. But you taint that too. You make me feel unworth of everything even of you and if I am unworthy of you how much more am I unworthy of him?

(falling off my feet)

I keep falling asleep with crystals in my eyes, off to dream of poetry I haven't read yet & other poetry I'm still looking for the words to write. ...and today like the day before I went out into the world to prove to it & to me that it cannot make me love it less by being itself, just as I wait up for you & you for me, on nights when the request may or may not be unspoken. yes, as late as we can.

Janus! Whee!

I just talked to Janus, and she's okay, and with a decent sounding guy, and coming home for a bit in August! Whee!!!

lake lifeguards

the sun was so bright today that our heads ached. she told me her sins and I wondered if she'd been raised something like Catholic. he explained the practicality of suicide and I got it but my thoughts are moving either too slowly or too quickly to make my interesting any more than purely intellectual, besides he's only reciting anyway, he's never wanted sharp things against his skin. likewise his interest in the story of a girl selling her body for food is purely the study of a curiousity, rather than a serious considereation of tragedy or justice. how can she keep smiling like that? I have a hard time believe the truth of it for so long, it maybe only a social habit picked up in some circles I suppose. the one who returned thinks she is mad for him, but I know she is mad at him. she made him half drown her before she'd allow herself the indignity of be rescued by his pompus ass. the veggie-eater is curiousity unheard of. they ask, "are you? are you really?" and the southerners look at me saddly as if I had just explained that I have a large whole in my heart.

...well, if nothing else at least I have a ticket back East now. I kinda miss school, but there's so much to do & get done between here & there, so I guess I need the time. I want to be a Buddha without guidelines, an Ani Difranco song without tears or a Dar Williams song without the honkey tonk. I want to be a blue and silver fish and a bat like a fearless, flying mouse. I want to be a very thin glass cup that is absolutely unshatterable.

a mouse makes a very small stand on her own behalf

X has moved back. Fluffy told me two days ago. I saw him on the street and kept walking. He followed me to the bookstore. He said my name. I turned and looked at him unsurprised, "Yes?" "Oh...I didn't think you had recognized me." "No, I did." I walked into the bookstore. I am not afraid or sorry or weirded out. Whew.

the good stuff

shine on a soap bubble. butterfly wings, angel wings, bat wings. very small wrists. shoulders like the skulls of very small animals. sun-warmed apples. coffee with cream & sugar. sharp mustard on egg salad sandwiches. bright cobalt blue sweater. Fluffy playing Alice's Resterant into my voicemail. the way Banjo used to stay awake until he knew I was in the house, and woke up with me when I had to work the dead-of-morning shift, and how you could always hear him coming because his tags chimed together, and his shit-eat grin when we were chasing him when he lit his ear on fire while investigating the bottle rockets, the texture of his tongue on salty cheeks. big cocoa-powder-&-curry hands. the smell of Smack's hair on my hands after I brush it. Gale's laughter. Dad's I-am-so-proud-of-you smile. Mom's stern I-am-not-going-to-tell-you-again-but-I-don't-approve look. hand-written letters that look like the voice sounds. very-deep-red or sunset-colored roses. fuzzy white dandelions (& their wishes). robed monks (of preferablely eartern denominations) in airports who smile like good-natured children. very soft sweaters & old teddy bears. shards of mirror, or blue glass, or any glass found smoothed by it's enviorment (whether the street or the sea). yummy books. paper cranes. stars. art museums. open-air farmer/craft markets. hugs that are too ardent to worry about being polite. Indian techno mixes with heavy beats. bare feet in warm sand.

you made me think of this last night,

before things got ugly... your kisses couldn't decide between miso & vanilla how could I ever get enough your fingertips were rose petals they could not ever be too rough I want to come to you with the force of a hurricane and the passion of a thunderstorm but I come to you like the lightest rain only whispering you take my breath away I want to write you a book of songs -(6-9-03)

the ginger-soy-cucumber flavor of my rice rolls is the clever comeback I never thought I'd be brave enoughto say, with eyes sparkling like ice melting in hard lemonade on a too-hot night. I want to lick your lips and leaving you tasting lemon & ginger sweetness on your lips.

Tex's Pick-Ups

*wince* Tex is a lecherous old man who swims at the pool. He has become infamous for shamelessly hitting on sweet old women & the lifeguards, should they be distinguishably female. Tex's pick up line today; 'Let's go fishing!' When the weary female would question further, or try to ignore him, he'd add... 'at Fred Myer. It'll be fun!' He has also been known to leave large boxes of raw steak ("home made") around the pool, out of 'generousity.' Quite nauseating. Uggh.

dream:

(since I am not relishing the idea of going back to sleep) I am walking in a city, kinda resembles the area around the UN in NYC, but as it is on Sunday afternoons--empty, or very nearly so; like 5th Ave at two in the morning on a week night, but without beauty. It feels like the first couple days in Brooklyn--lost. (I rememeber I couldn't even get breakfast the first morning, the cafeteria didn't open until that afternoon cause I'd arrived the night before offical check-in. I kept getting lost on campus, so I figured I'd best not leave by myself yet, gave that up in 24 hours...) ...Any way wandering around this empty city area... I'm lost and I know it, I'm looking for something, a street name, a building number, a sign, something. I find this basement resterant. No one is really paying attention to me so I slide in even though I'm not a customer and have no intention of being one; though I'm hungery I'm also dead broke. In the back of the resterant theres a door way, if their weren't two other doorways marked as bathrooms you'd probably guess it was that. I go through the door way. Through the doorway is a bedroom, like a dorm room, very utilitarial, metal bed frames that sag in the middle, dingy white sheets, florescent lights, gray cement walls and floors, but it also has random personal effeminate touches: a red paper lantern hanging from the corner of a flourescent light fixture, a pink and red throw blanket at the foot of one bed, on the other a green and blue one. Two desks, one messier than the other, more personal items. Tammy is casually sitting on the bed with the pink & red throw. On the other bed is a girl I don't recognize. When I come in Tammy acts as if she's been expecting me and intoduces me to her roommate. At some point I turn my back on the roommate for a moment and when I look back to her she is a different girl entirely. I don't comment because I have the distinct impression that to do so would seem rude. I find myself back on the street. Time has passed, could be hours or days, but I'm still hungery, but I have a crumpled dollar, maybe two. I buy an egg from a dimmly lit groccery shop, the proprieter is distinctly elderly Russian. I carry the egg back to Tammy's. I don't have anywhere else to go. I'm holding the egg very carefully, but as I walk the egg starts to crack and the yolk starts leaking out in my fingers. I started walking faster, nearly running, I know I need this food. Going through the resterant, there is a boy eating with his parents. I can't figure out why he stands out for a moment, but I realize it is because he notices me while everyone else seem to not see me. He wants to ask who I am an where I'm going and what I'm carrying, I know this. I duck into the door in the back before he can excuse himself from his table. Through the doorway the room has changed, still cement walls and floors, but it's a bathroom not a bedroom. Six toilets, three on each wall on either side of the door way, no stalls, just open, no privacy. It hasn't been cleaned in a long time and you can smell it. Two or three of the toilets are plugged and backed up. The smell and view of the room makes me need to vomit. I try to vomit into one of the toilets but it sticks in my mouth as if to suffocate me. I'm still trying desperately to keep the rest of the egg yolk from leaking out on to the floor. I'm really afraid of someone coming in, if they do I know there will be real trouble. I know they will hurt me, badly, really badly. At this point the phone rang and woke me, and I was glad.

AHHHHH!!!

Stupid fucking parents: -if you do not watch your child they will wander and try to drown themselves between the boat dock and the football players. YES, you should be worried if you can't see your child, but then if you hadn't been 50yrds from the water you would have seem him wander. Consider giving a damn about your flesh and blood, I'm paid to but I'm watching forty other people too. -if your child swallows a lot of water, it will make them sick and they will vomit. YES, vomiting is a a bad thing you stupid bitch. Consider moving your child to an area where falling over does not put his head below water, since because you're technically supervising him I'm no longer authorized to restrict him from going in too deep. ...It would be great if I could learn to care only as much as is nessesary to do my work... FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was reading a book, almost finished. Now I can't find it. I think I last had it at the gas station. I think I may have put it on the the roof of the vehicle. I guess I don't get to finish it tonight. Damnedable. ...It was such a good plan too. ...And really Neruda is just not a reasonable substitute for decent existentialist/question-everything sci-fi. ...I lose. Damnedable.

My skin is warm with the echo of the sun. I wonder if breathing with the trees and tide is something I can teach, or if it happens when your born here or when you grow up here? And the thing is it isn't so different than moving and breathing with the heart beats of the city millions. My tan feels and looks like someone else's skin, but at least my soft fruit bruises are less obvious which is good for easing general commentary even if these slight grays on light brown are so unfamiliar after becoming familiar with my purplish-black bloom against white laced with pale blue. I reread old words I thought I understood to make sure I got it right; apparently maybe this time I may have just stumbled into doing something right. Perhaps there is a cache of words I could now address, October or two to be sure. Sleep wonders away as it has for hours. I wander after it, trying to court it nonchalantly instead of pleading. She would only laugh mockingly anyway.

note to self:

(because apparently I'm too stupid to remember on my own) 1) you hate this town 2) you hate most of the population of this town 3) there are a few random people & places which are acceptions, 4) but even they are surrounded or invaded by the rest on holidays 5) therefore avoid public holidays like the bloody plague, you silly, stupid, little girl. I'm going to bed, I'm taking all the nice & nasty words with me. At least they have the potential to make sense if nothing else.

dreams

I slept all day yesterday. two dreams: 1) I am sitting in a room with a guy I used to date, it isn't a specific one, but a composit of a couple. At first I am a silent and I watch but seem unable to do anything else. One of my male co-workers from the pool walks up to the table we are sitting at. All of my rings are on the table, the three silver ones that have been missing since e-burg, one with a lump of clearish quartz, the punk rock one I got in London. They are set as if on display. He picks up the three silver and quartz, debates with the ex about their worth, pays him and heads for the door. I've wanted to object through out the interaction, but could not until now. I run after him and barter for the quartz one back. He is unwilling to relinquish the three silver ones at all. He gives back the quartz one in exchange for an extravegant promise that I know I cannot fulfill. 2) I am a serving-wench in what appears to a meal house somewhere on the outreaches of society somewhere very cold, possibly northern Canada or Alaska. Three guys come in who have some sort of vendetta against the owner. They sit down as if they were just normal customers but I somehow know what's going on but say nothing. They end up holding the place up. I run away. I have the impression I'd been wanting to for a long time.

because you are not here there is too much space in my bed and it does not matter if there are too many pillows because you are not here my freckles can multiply a hundred fold without comment and it does not matter if I am too sunburnt to be embraced because you are not here there is more than enough silence for me to hide in and it does not matter if my eyes reply as my mouth never would dare because I am not there my eyes cannot entreat you to unlock heart and mind and for once it matters that there are things I can't find words to say because I am not there I cannot share half of a single breath and it matters so much that I cannot run my fingertips across your furrowed brow because I am not there I cannot catch your eye across a room just to be sure I didn't dream you and because there is it almost matters that there is a continent between us

Alexander (the innocent)

You are wrinkling your nose, wringing tears from your eyes; I am not your mother. You object (momentarily only) as I scoop you up as if it were my right. But my hip juts out, my arms can easily hold you, and in a breath or two you find your peace in the familiar slope of breasts. After that you do not care who I am, or that the orange crayon is broken.

It hardly seems worth bathing anymore. I go to the lake and sweat under the sun, at the pool I sweat and come home smelling of chlorine and not sweat at all, worse. I sleep and sweat as I fight with the sheets or if I take a pill because I am too out to even pull back the covers. I go to the coffeehouse and sweat out all but the caffeine. The sun turns me pink and red, my relief comes in blue goo aloe, without it I feel like my skin will all just flake away leaving my organs on the pavement, and revealing that my nose--cute with freckles--is really quite odd. And even all that aloe can't seem to heal the little places were the bugs got me and now blood seeps out because I forget in my sleep not to itch and there are so many more interesting things to do in the day than remember to cut my nails. My hair is getting longer, as if it was not already unruly. I want to go peach fuzz but I'm afraid of fretting little Alexander when I return one week without hair. I put all my paintings up in my room to mock me--with Picasso's eyes--into words. I've been writing again finally but I'm not sure if I love them or hate them. And I'm not sure if you would love or hate them, call them merely pretty, as if it that meant they were not other things as well. ....is coming and Fluffy is fretting over a gathering. But fretting as she loves to. She knows if I let her I will let the day slip by unmentioned and unmarked. She asks what kind of food, and what people, etc. and I shrug at her. If someone will play pool with me, and Smack & Fluffy will smile, and Gale will spin tunes... even that all seems so sweet. Others are coming she said and I used to hide from them, I still don't know why. Fluffy assuming I was just being stoic does not know I still forget how to speak. But what do I care of them now? They are good people, I have nothing to fear of them, no more than ever. How do you run away from fear? If I stop moving it swallows me whole. Not that I'm afraid right now, but only because I'm not letting myself be anything at all. It's really not so hard.

too late to wish I guess. I'm trying to stay busy enough to be fine, to not think. Everyone is running from their thoughts. She said, 'he's here, for a week.' I need a reason to not go Tuesday. I need to go Tuesday; I need to go unafraid. There's nothing left to hurt me in this town but ghosts and if I yell loud enough they will (should) scatter in the wind off the ocean and be washed away by the misting rain. His name is bile rising in my throat and it tastes like death on my tongue. tomorrow is my day with innocence. I'm afraid the silence will crack me open and I felt so strong four hours ago, I could even take life back from the water four hours ago. My body was stronger than the cold and my mind knew every step without flaw and there was never the falling feeling of impending failure. I watched a movie with Fluffy tonight. The husband fucked his wife as if she was just a void he was filling and the look on her face said that she knew it. It made me want to hurl more than all the blood, besides the end...

Family you choose for yourself

I went with her back to the site of her first rebellions to practice our latest. We'd been so good lately. I pulled smoke into me: at 3000 miles I can't even touch him, let alone keep him inside my ribs. He, the green guardian gardener, up turned the earth sifting out weed roots. The soil took a breath before I gave the most I could ocean-flavored rain at the painful release of being loosened little by little and one day at a time. The loosening felt like the apocalypse, of me, of us. I pounded fists against walls of silence, fighting myself for the right to even whisper, let alone yell. She reminded me of myself, of us: we two cared for the rest, never minded rainy days. Our tears were part of our heartbeat even when silence was in demand We always met demands. There was comfort on the drops, falling against the windshield, playing our song; all of them. I save my small well-formed quiet truths for them. The moments of voice too sure of having me pegged implies foregone conclusion wholly separate from me. They are worth breaking through anew.

pleading with a machine

"fierce flawless" -Ani Difranco she was cuffed to the truth like the truth was a chair bright interrogation light in her eyes her conscience lit a cigarette and just stood there waiting for her to crack waiting for her to cry his face scampered through her mind like a roach across a wall it made her heart soar it made her skin crawl they said, we got this confession we just need for you to sign why don't you just cooperate and make this easier on us all there was light and then there was darkness but there was no line in between and asking her heart for guidance was like pleading with a machine cuz joy, it has its own justice and dreams are languid and lawless and everything bows to beauty when it is fierce and when it is flawless on the table were two ziploc baggies containing her eyes and her smile they said, we're keeping these as evidence 'til this thing goes to trial meanwhile anguish was fingering solace in another room down the hall both were love's accomplices but solace took the fall now look at her book of days it's the same on every page and she's got a little tin cup with her heart in it to bang along the bars of her rib cage bang along the bars of her rib cage ... a few nights ago I finally understood why the woman I'm pretending to be said she tends to leave the lights on all the time so she won't come home to a dark house and why she keeps a mentally challenged golden retriever, two cats, and half a dozen chickens, so she'll never be alone. I wake up alone in the morning to a dog that wants to go play outside and chickens that need feeding. Get up and take care of them because it's easier than listening to the silence and stretching across a bed thats empty except for me (and sometimes a hooligan kitten). Read through the morning and afternoon, not quite able to lose myself, making meals and even setting the table this once even though I'm not hungry and don't care, just to make note of the fact that time is passing as if paying this homage will make it continue to pass. The shadows start to lengthen and I make the dog's bowl of food: dry and wet food, pills, and then float the lot in water. The wet food is real meat and the smell and look of it nearly makes me gag. Someone at work says hello to me. I reply. It is the first time I've spoken all day. ... I went to my old highschool the other day. My twenty-something friend, Erin, is still there. Trying to make a bunch of stupid teenagers give a damn about words. It's the sort of thing that it breaks my heart to watch. It will break her in a few years if she sticks with it. She tells me she's looking into a job at an alternative highschool in Rhode Island. She sounds excited about it the way she used to talking about classes a year--maybe two years--ago. Her daughter will be nine on my nineteenth birthday and I promise to visit RI on her behalf when I go back east. I'd love to get her and her daughter (and sure her husband, why not, though I've only met him once) out of this town. Her daughter is what I was when I was nine, down to the crooked teeth, huge bifocals, and uneven pigtails. She'll come to hate this town just as much as I do if she stays, maybe more. My hatred grows as I read the papers. They're putting in a Walmart and sooner or later a strip mall. I'd like to see the highschool, at least, burn to the ground.

WHAT TYPE OF WILD CREATURE ARE YOU? (New Pictures!)
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"Anyday" -Ani Difranco

"i will lean into you and you can be the wind i will open up my mouth and you can come rushing in you can rush in so hard and make it so i can't breathe i breathe too much anyway i can do that anyday" [I don't mind at all. I tend to hold my breath any way.] "i just wish i knew who you were i wish you'd make yourself known probably you don't know i'm her the woman you want to call home i'll keep my ear to the wall i'll keep my eye on the door 'cause i've heard all my own jokes and they're just not funny anymore i laugh too much anyway i can do that anyday" [I'm trying to know and I think you do. I'm listening closely... But I'll tell them all again anyway to imagine you might crack a smile.] "have you ever been bent or pulled have you ever been played like strings if i could see you i could strum you i could break you make you sing but i guess you can't really see the wind it just comes in and fills the space and everytime something moves you think that you have seen its face and i've always got my guitar to play but i can do that anyday" [Nay, none moves you against your will. It would be unlike you. If I move you it is that you're seeking the meaning that I tend to leave between the lines, maybe you find things I never knew I was hiding, but it's only different to me.]

renouncing allegiance to the threats: I owe them nothing. "I can live your life and dream of wires or I can live my life among the angels and electricity" -Eddi Reader, "Prayer Wheel" not all roses are meant for me to tend and if not then I don't need to stand for their thorns. "but if you'd never come here you'd never have had to leave" -Eddi Reader, "Postcard" there is no reason I need to or should stay to bear their marks. so I won't.

Heart decrying distance, Words defying pen For lack of substance. Always appearing just before sleep ends As my mother to my younger self Came to wish sweet dreams in bed (Though I'm no far-seeing Celt) It comes then as no surprise, that voice, Though the pre-cursetory ring I never felt. Calls heralded by his body, in my mind cloistered, Though I know to well where his body lies Sleeping only-or would if it was my choice, And if my choice, then nearer too, fewer miles. Thus more chance to see, and, yes, to touch, That words might sooth and not bridle. They can, and have, done each much.

"when i said i'll take it...i meant as is." -Ani

The rush of the river seems it should block out the possibility of any other noise. It doesn't. Even against that continuous rumble she can hear the snap of a opening beer can, then the laugh of a man. That is the single word that sparks a thousand images against the inside of her head: Man. Then mushroom clouds, shotgun being fired, piles of corpses, yelling dictators, chanting mops, splashes of blood..., as if she were not also human. A boy once said she was awkward on land, like a duck or some other creature more used to swimming than walking. He was not wrong; she could swim before she could walk. He also never saw her on stones that roll or paths uneven by nature rather than by design, faulty or otherwise. She walked the woods long before her feet ever knew what it would be to become accustomed to the monotony of pavement. The man's white tee shirt--his defining physical feature at this distance--moves further out of the trees and as if connected to him by an invisible fulcrum she slowly steps back from the edge of the rapids into the shadow of the trees.

everything

Sasquatch: Minus the Bear, Death Cab for Cutie, Liz Phair, Modest Mouse. Minus the Bear was a perfect classic-style emo band, did Seattle proud. Death Cab was nearly a religious experience, you have to love a band that puts all their energy and guts and soul into a performance, they definately did. The lead looked like he was going to just fall over afterwards. Liz Phair I'd heard of before but never heard. Her lyrics were excellently honest. Modest Mouse was a spiritual frenzy. I was lucky enough to be near one of the only other Modest Mouse fans in the crowd who not only loved them to bit and also knew all the lyrics and was willing to dance like a mad thing to their crazy tempo-heart-attack beats. I'd been about three people away from her but once we both got going the people between sort of got out of the way and got on eith side of us until we were dancing next to each other. We started borrowing each other's moves and embelishing on them and pounding our feet on the cement and hands against the air like we were trying to leave the ground behind. It was absolutely excellent. Afterwards I shook her hand and took off before the energy could break. I left during the Flaming Lips, before Coldplay. I left a note on one of F's friend's car. I was tired of dealing with Ellensburg jabber and being someone F felt a need to look after. I slept in the back of the beast and started back toward Seattle as the first light hit the sky. Rest stop coffee is about the weakest stuff out there, but it is free, and the old dude working the booth was a sweetheart. Watching the plaines turn into green hills and the light sprinkle of rain I drove into were lovely. No one else was on the highway. I parked along the road and stood in the rain--it felt so good on my sunburned shoulders and back--then took a picture of the sign WEST I-90. ... I parked by the piers and walked up town to the Seattle Center. The streets were still empty at 7:30 on Sunday Morning. I took picture of all back alleys where vines grow out of brick walls or the light falls just so. More coffee in Pike Place market, watched the fishermen and and the asian flower women and the fruit people set up shop. Folklife was good, all the strangelings, musicians, hippies, belly-dancers, and just about everyone else show up to listen to music and eat food from all ove rhte world. Myself, I like to sit and watch little kids run around in the huge fountain and listen to the drumming circle. Had dinner with Fluffy and her sister. It always comes back to highschool. Fuffy loved it. I was just getting by. Then they reminesed about their childhood. I've heard it all before, I know to smile and nod.

I went East to be a new me, but I went to the East and I was still myself. I returned West to get back to the people who knew me, but I'm not her anymore. I'm not sure where she went or if I ever was her at all or if she was just one more more weak mask I wore. Am I afraid of everything or nothing? Fluffy keeps unintentionally talking over me and I'm not sure what it means but it seems like a detail that might be important. She always has some. I notice it more now. Reinforcing my silence seems very home-like to me. I remember the last time I was loud for an extended period she and Jade were quite sure that something was very wrong with me. Funny that.

in e-burg

drive was cool, open highway was good. Watched the mountains get closer and closer until they surrounded me an all sides. Then I went over a hill, passed a sign "10 miles to Ellensburg" and then the land got flat and dull, the houses got farther and farther apart with field in between. Maddening nothingness. Welcome to Central Washington, where everyone knows everyone and they all tell the same jokes ripped off from South Park & Sponge Bob.

QUIT BEING AFRAID YOU FUCKING MOUSE!

hmm so tomorrow to e-burg. be afraid. but day after that is Sasquatch at the Gorge. yum. and after that two days of Folklife fest at the Seattle Center. (you know you're jealous.) [No, I didn't make wings. No, I didn't even start.] ... thought: Is it really necessary to hate on people? I mean really, if someone wants to be barefoot, or wear black all the time, or be optimistic for once, or try to have dreads even if isn't really working out... jeez, can we just let them? What's with this bubble-popping and hating-on-ness. What the fuck?! [This space child sincerely wishes that the people could live together a little more acceptingly and peacefully, and in cases where people behave in a manner not so conductive to this puff-ball of a optimistic dream that maybe they are just tired and need a nap and maybe a snack.] ... So this weekend: Do I have directions to E-burg? Not yet. Do I have a WA map? No. Rents lost it when they sold Francis (the old beast). Do I know where my ticket to Sasquatch is? No. Mom says it came though. Do I know where I'm putting the soccer-mom beast while I'm at the fest? No. ...just no. Can my CD collection handle the drive-time required for this weekend's activities? Hopefully. Has this space child ever driven for three hours straight without human contact? Not yet. Is it starting to sound like my weekend might be more enjoyably spent sleeping/reading/painting/chatting as par for the last week? [No comment.]

There is a point while cleaning your room, under paper cranes and dried roses, you realize you are not really cleaning at all. You are instead dancing around rather daftly to sitar and drum music, and not only are you very much not cleaning your room, but three cows are looking through your window. They look fairly amused, as much as cows can. Nope. Sorry, this is not your life. It's mine.

I had dinner at Jo's last night. I haven't seen her since probably last July, maybe June. I was supposed to have hung out with her and Fluffy in August right before Brooklyn, but my mom wasn't letting me leave the house for anything but work at that point. Jo is wonderful. You can't hide from Jo, she asks the questions that get under your skin that are uncomfortable, but that really you need to talk about. That woman is a spiritual/mental homing device. Maybe your world isn't necessarily brighter after talking to her, but it isn't any darker, and it probably seems more fixable. Oh, that woman... ... The pool a town over called. I get to start teaching swimming lessons tonight. Whee! I hate to say it but I miss the little kids. I like being in the water. I like the really little kids who don't even know how to float yet, and laugh at everything. Some are scared of everything and you get to convince them how excellent water is. The ones who aren't scared of anything who'll hop right off the table if you're not watching, they want to swim so much they're sure they can. They're scary to watch over sometimes but they're game for anything. And I like the upper level kids who know all their strokes but just need to work on form and endurance. If you can get their form down it's just laps and you can do those with them. So as if it wasn't obvious I'm really looking forward to this. [Hopefully more hours to come.] Game night tonight at the coffeehouse, first since I've been home. Maybe it'll just be Dawe, Em, and I playing cards or whatever, but maybe Lisa or some other's will show up. It would be nice to see some of the old faces. Even just Dawe and Em are a riot though, I won't even hope for more.

strange dream last night

It was like it was second semester. I’m not sure why but Tey had stayed in Brooklyn that weekend. It was dark out but not late. I went out to get Chinese on Myrtle. I walked past the place I normally went to and took some side streets. I didn’t feel lost. In my mind I was exactly sure of where I was. There was a building like a wherehouse, with lots of students around going in and out. I didn’t really know anyone, but I recognized faces from around campus. Some girl from the office recognized me and had me go in with them, just for a minute or two, to check it out. It was dimly lit. Loud music was playing, didn’t recognize and songs or voices, but the beat was good. Video montages were playing projected on the walls and ceiling: exotic flowers in colors that don’t look natural blooming and dying in fast forward, farm animals being slaughtered then the video reversed so it seemed like the blades were reassembling them then bringing them back to life, naked people and masked people reenacting Bosch’s paintings, Munch’s Madonna digitally becoming a live girl who suddenly opened her eyes and stared straight at the camera until she slowly became a mannequin, close up on a piece of flesh (so close you couldn’t see what it was) that was hit with something hard then the bruise blooming where the flesh had been struck, a hand holding a knife pressing the tip against the opposite forearm gradually harder until a dot of blood appeared a the knife tip, a boy trying to climb a tree then falling and becoming a girl when he/she hit the ground, a naked girl standing while a doctor moved around marking her with red pen for plastic surgery (bigger boobs, smaller waist, new nose, sculpted ass (she’d been fine before)), a lioness catching then eating an antelope, a clip from Kitao’s film where you’re watching the faces of the bully boys and trying to imagine where the boy they beat up is bleeding from to make their faces go all strange and afraid like that, opening scene from KIDS, a clip from the Nazi films of Jews dying in freezing water to find out how long their pilots would survive if they crashed in cold water,….. I just kept watching, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to see, but I did too. The videos and music stopped. The room was absolutely dark, for a minute, but maybe for a few. Everyone was quiet and no one moved. Everyone seemed to waiting. Dim red lights turned on in a corner, a voice started to speak going from deep to high pitched to deep quickly and often. I didn’t catch the words. I couldn’t see who or what the voice was coming from it was too crowded and I was too short. Then the voice stopped and some people were leaving. The lights had gotten a bit brighter. Some people were elaborately dresses, costumes, masks, strange complicated make-up, whatever, it was the ones like me in street clothes, nothing special who were rushing out. The office girls were telling me to go get my wings and to come back quickly. They kept saying it too: “Quickly! Quickly!” I went. [I’m not sure how they knew about the wings. In the dream they were finished, but I haven’t even started them yet.] I went back to the dorm. Tey was lying like she was asleep or trying to be. She wasn’t asleep though; she sat up as soon as I opened the door. She’d been worried about me. Had called around the other dorm looking for me. Had called my cell and not gotten an answer. I’d been gone for hours. I got the wings and put them on while she was talking. She asked me not to go, begged me, and then said if I went she’d call someone big enough to stop me. She was so worried. I finally agreed not to go back, but she was still afraid. To go to the other dorm she asked someone to come to our dorm and walk back with me. In the morning I got Big to walk back over there with me but there was no where house. There was just a fenced in parking lot.

Seeing as my crew are still out of town and conversations with my parents to be avoided in general, it seems my social interactions have reverted to the bare minimum reminiscent of the first few month in Brooklyn, which is to say regulated primarily to long distance.

[If I drove for two days without stopping I would still be an hour away, but an hour is really not so much.]

met a new dude @ the coffeehouse

Viking Fest this weekend. *groan* I braved it for Em who was working the coffeehouse during the parade and said she'd be bored. Ahh, but she was not, there was a line, very long. So I stashed myself and bookness by a window in the back. I was shortly joined by a man (roughly in his late fifties), we began to talk because for some reason that space just inspires talking with strangers (maybe it only does so with me). He told me about his metaphysical ideas and practices. Yes, he did. ...yes. He either needs to break into or out of the fifth dimension (I lost track of the dimension numbers a bit) and then he'll get his body from when he was twenty and he gets to keep it and it won't age or get sick or die (he said). Apparently he's been working toward this for many lives, but he feels that he is close, weeks, maybe even days. He will teach others. He kept on remarking that I didn't seem shocked, and didn't seem to be shutting him out. I said that I believe in the possibility of everything. He just looked me right in the eyes for a second or five, then said, "yes, you really do." He said when it happens he's going to Oprah cause he feels she'll be receptive to it, though she won't like having to give up on all the religious figureheads that we use to name off our subconscious. I said I'd keep my ears open. He let me take his picture and said afterward when we meet again (he is quite sure that we will) that he'd let me take another. Wow, space child, you sure do pick 'em. Ahh, yes. Indeed I do.

Switzerland - A neutral power for as long as most can remember,
it has avoided war for several centuries.
However, it is still considered highly advanced
and a global power.

Positives:
Judicial.
Neutrality.
World-Renouned.
Powerful without Force.
Makes Excellent Watches, Etc.

Negatives:
Target of Ridicule.
Constant Struggle to Avoid Conflict.
Target of Criminal Bank Accounts.


Which Country of the World are You?
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Letter to Janus

I cannot live for you, or save you from yourself and them and life. I cannot make everything alright. I used to think I could. My life is mine and it has it's problem too. If you envy it is because you chose and so did I, on different paths. And if I thought the things you put into yourself could make you happy do you think I would ever ask you to stop, if even just to think for a moment before you jump. Have they made you happy? Have they ever? I'm not always happy either, and yes I'm still afraid, but so are you, though I show it more. And at least when I'm happy it's mine and not part of an equation ('add this to me and I'll feel happy'). This isn't an accusation or a call for change. You've already done both in your head, I hear it echoing in the lines of questions where you try to get me to judge you so you can reject my opinion instead of trying to find a way around your own. You know me: I won't judge you. I'll beg and plead with you for the dreams I know you still believe in, all the potential you've never been able to hide, even for the boys you'd hurt if you could keep yourself from caring, but never judge. That's why we are us. Doorways facing opposite directions, you remember. I love you, but then you knew that too.

Home is weird, good weird, but still. It'll be less so once my job starts and I have some sort of commitment for my time. Now its, 'hmmm, well I could do anything, so what to do?' Pathetic. *grin* It's nice, but I keep getting these little moments of panic where I start childing myself for putting off homework before realizing I don't have any, though I should probably unpack soon. Even I cannot live out of suitcases forever, at least not in my own room. They take up too much floor space that I could be using for some very nice sprawling. My time has not been entirely wasted though: I reread Story of O yesterday. (If you can't handle the Marquis de Sade don't even look up Story of O.) Next up: Memoirs of Casanova, Vagina Monologues, Ruined By Reading, Manhattan Loverboy, Disgrace, or Wonders of the Invisible World. I am as of yet undecided. ... There weren't any stars out last night. The moon was full and he clouds were out reflecting it. I went out all in black and was darker than the night. ...but I can do a lot of things and I do.

F-ing jet-lag

I think I fell asleep around seven. I guess I still can barely sleep for more than six hours, too bad I'd planned on being awake during that time. Haven't fought with mom yet. Go me! Drove the minivan to the grocery store. It'll take a while to get used to that being the space child mobil. I miss the tin can just a little, but the beast drives easier and has a better stereo so I'm sure I'll get over it. I walked by the bay. The blue was still and uninterrupted. I haven't gone to the coffeehouse yet, maybe today. I want to go to go north where the ocean is more like itself, and to the city to see who has come/gone/remained and how the city has morphed in my absence, hopefully not too much. These things will have to wait until I get over this narcolepsy.

space child, get thee to a diner.

This is the beginning of the period where I can't let home be anything. If it's places they're too far apart, if it's people, still too much difference/distance. There should be less space between coasts, but if there had been less maybe I would have run further. England still speaks english, you know. I thought the hermit idea was a good one, if I could be that much of a minimalist, if only it weren't for all the books.

I'm desperately tired of packing. I'm tired of being reminded of gender and treated as if I were silly for thinking I could. I've been trying most of my life. I can't figure out how all this stuff got here. I want to walk in the rain and not think about here or there, or if I'm more of a comfort or an annoyance. I want to sleep more. I'm getting tired of waking up.